Peachtree

City has commissioned an annexation task force to look at

what Mayor Bob Lenox has called "one of the most

important decisions this city is ever going to

make," whether to annex property west of Highway 74

to form a fifth village.

The purpose

of the Westside Task Force is to look at all facets of

the issue and present an overall recommendation to

council prior to an annexation vote. Mayor Lenox wants

the task force to arrive at a decision by consensus, much

like what was done with the recently approved development

at Walt Banks and Highway 54.

This is

where things seem a little unclear to me. Does Lenox want

a consensus on the question of whether to annex, or does

he want a consensus on the overall west village

development plan?

According

to the March 2 council meeting minutes, Mayor Lenox, in

recommending that council lift the moratorium on

annexation, requested that a "citizen committee of

12-15 members... selected by the City Council... meet...

to review every aspect of the proposed annexation and to

assist in developing a final integrated plan for

presentation to and consideration by the City

Council." So is this a "done" deal

already?

According

to a legal opinion provided by city attorney Stephen Ott

to Jim Basinger March 21, "there is no procedure to

allow the residents of a city seeking to annex property

to vote on whether or not to annex a particular

area." A referendum can be utilized in some

instances, when certain criteria are met, but those are

not met in this case.

Furthermore,

the referendum vote would only apply to those living in

the area to be annexed, not to the rest of us who have to

live with the annexation. Astounding, but true. So we

have a populace who cannot vote on this issue, many of

whom do not favor this annexation. We have a Westside

Task Force who is supposed to recommend whether to annex

this property, but in reality will be

"facilitated" into a consensus decision of

"how," not "if."

We have a

council who voted in January NOT to lift the moratorium,

then turned right around and lifted it in March. We have

a huge traffic problem at highways 54 and 74 already, and

we haven't even opened our big boxes yet. We have schools

that are at or beyond capacity now, and no funds in the

foreseeable future to finance new construction.

We have

land that would require rezoning to accommodate this

higher density, so this is not a case of being unable to

deny a land owner's legal right to maximize a return on

his already appropriately zoned investment. So what

possible reason could there be to proceed with this

development?

M-O-N-E-Y.

And there

is nothing we can do to stop it, period. So why the

consensus process? To create the appearance of citizen

input, and to be able to dilute blame when complaints

start rolling in in five years or so when our quaint

little town becomes a traffic-snarled urban land mass.

Consensus

decision making is a tried and true corporate management

tool to elicit decisions in the best interest of the

organization being served, and in some cases an effective

method of getting what you want despite the existence of

a differing, majority-held belief.

Barry

Mallis, a facilitator and manager of MARKEM Corp. in New

Hampshire, says that, "consensus is reached when all

members can say they either agree with the decision, or

can at least live with it, having "had their

say," and feeling they've been heard." Mallis

states that, "Consensus means no winners and losers,

only winners."

In

"Educating for the New World Order," author B.

Eakman states that consensus decision making helps to

perpetuate an illusion of "...lay, or community,

participation (in the decision-making process), while lay

citizens [are], in fact, being squeezed out." Eakman

goes on to outline the Delphi technique, a facilitator

method used to "squeeze citizens out of the

process," by alienating dissenting opinions from the

rest of the group by making them seem extreme or out of

touch.

To protect

yourself from a facilitator, or change agent, who is

trained in the Delphi technique, Lynn Stuter, a political

activist in Washington advises, "be persistent, stay

focused, always be charming, and never, under any

circumstances, become angry." (This probably only

works when you have at least a morsel of hope that the

consensus outcome may be influenced by your

participation.)

The

greatest threats to any consensus process are people with

rigidly held ideas about what the end result should be,

which is probably why Mayor Lenox preemptively admonished

committee members not to betray "their

responsibility to the community" by already having

an opinion.

Does that

also apply to Mayor Lenox? Hopefully we'll all feel that

we can "live with" the new village. At least we

will have had our "say," right?

Now don't

we all just feel like winners?

Your input

is appreciated. Please e-mail to [email protected] .