The City Council approved

the appeal Dec. 16 and as of Jan. 17, RAM Development and

Home Depot have not yet signed the statement of

conditions for the approval. The lies prevailed. The

appeal could have easily been tabled because RAM

Development had no intentions of signing the conditions

in the immediate future.

Doug McMurrain of RAM

Development told a reporter of The Citizen that he would

submit a Wal-Mart Supercenter site plan in March or April

of 2000. Another lie. McMurrain submitted the plan in

early January.

There is a good chance that

RAM will try to sue the city and link the Home Depot site

plan (that the mayor wanted to rush through) with the

Wal-Mart Supercenter site plan. We are about to see what

the council members and Mayor Lenox's lack of wanting to

act on the big-box dilemma years ago is going to cost us

in taxpayer-funded legal fees.

Mr. McMurrain never fairs

well with our citizen representatives. In 1995, Mr.

McMurrain's Fayetteville Wal-Mart site plan was

"tabled indefinitely" by unanimous vote (July

25, 1995, minutes, Fayetteville Planning and Zoning

Commission). The Peachtree City Planning Commission on

Nov. 21, 1999, rejected McMurrain's Home Depot site plan

4-to-1. Why was Mayor Lenox in such a rush to move the

appeal through?

The AJC (Jan. 5, Local

Section) reported that the citizens of Athens are

beginning a fight against Wal-Mart. Listen to the

parallels of our Home Depot arguments in the words of an

Athens homeowners association president, "We're not

against Wal-Mart. We just don't think this is the best

place for such a large store to go."

The reporter went on to say

that "many residents say they fear the store will

exacerbate traffic problems, pollute the Oconee River

with parking lot runoff and threaten neighboring

businesses."

Do you remember several

months ago when the Peachtree City Council reaffirmed the

moratorium on annexation (in particular in the

traffic-ridden west)? You guessed it; annexation to the

west is back on the city council's agenda.

I am afraid that Councilman

Robert Brooks and Mayor Bob Lenox are determined to annex

that property to the benefit of a few developers, no

matter what the costs to the citizens, before their terms

expire. These particular developers know that Brooks and

Lenox are their only chance and that public sentiment is

growing against the perpetual ballooning of the build-out

population figure and infrastructure expenses.

Steve Brown

Peachtree City