What good is a $65 million

school bond referendum when the county and its municipalities continually

add to student overcrowding by way of rezoning? Please keep in mind that

rezonings produce new students that the school system has never before

anticipated because of the property's previous zoning.

Now the citizens of Fayette

County will be heading to the polls in November to vote on school bonds

knowing that the local governments are currently generating the need for

additional school facilities beyond what is included in the referendum.

Do they really expect us to keep rewarding such shameful behavior? At

this pace you can look for another bond or SPLOST vote in about two to

four years.

Dan Tennant, who listened to

the Planning Commission, was the only council member to vote no. In fact,

Tennant got City Attorney Rick Lindsey to admit that the council had a

great deal of control over the density of the Katz property rezoning and

Lenox, Brooks and McMenamin still voted for 350 homes. Both Brooks and

McMenamin cited that the donation of a school site by the developer was

important to them.

Do the math and see if the

school site works in conjunction with 350 additional homes. The 350 homes

would create around 700 school children and the donated elementary school

site can house around 800 students so that leaves 100 available slots.

Unfortunately, there will be at least 750 students in the new AMLI apartments,

425 students in the new Cedarcroft subdivision and all the students in

the established Wynnmeade subdivision for a total of over 1,475 students

(this is a low estimate).

What we have is a "neighborhood

school" that cannot handle the neighbors. What was the benefit of

the school again? Get ready for some school redistricting in Peachtree

City.

Even worse is the fact that

they want to build a school near the railroad tracks on a site that has

extremely limited evacuation routes in case of derailment. Councilman

Brooks used the indescribable logic of what does it matter since we already

have four schools just as close to the tracks? I asked a hazmat derailment

expert subcontracted by CSX railroad whether he would build a school on

that site and he said, "No way." What is even more amazing is

that the city council is so careless with the lives of our children that

they will not even ask the county's Local Emergency Planning Committee

(who handles hazmat disasters and evacuations) for a position paper on

the site.

The buffer measurement projection

used by the city planners was the absolute minimum (500 feet) that assumes

the smallest possible leak. If the hazardous chemical is in a pressurized

tanker and it ruptures, the city planners' 500 feet is worthless. This

is like saying that a fire hydrant is not necessary in your neighborhood

because we are assuming you will only have small fires that can be handled

with a fire extinguisher.

We recently had derailments

in Social Circle, Lawrenceville, and South Carolina. The most recent derailment

in Lawrenceville had a pressurized tanker roll approximately 60 feet.

claimed that it took CSX nearly two hours to notify the local emergency

authorities about the derailment.

It is saddening to note that

if one of the 20 trains per day derails it could seriously impact one

of five schools near the tracks. Even more saddening is that council members

Brooks, McMenamin and Mayor Lenox want to increase those chances by adding

a sixth school. How do we evacuate elementary school children from their

school with no buses and no drivers on site?

It is important to note that

the trains travel at 55 mph and CSX wants to raise the speed. There have

been recorded incidences where two trains have been clocked at a mere

15 minutes apart from one another in Peachtree City. In addition, neither

the county nor the city has any control over what is shipped on our rail

line. There is also very little effort to separate hazardous tankers on

each train, thus allowing chemicals to mix upon derailment, causing a

possible worse-case scenario.

For his next act of defiance,

Mayor Lenox stated that he is looking to rezone the Lexington Circle project

at Walt Banks Road so that it can accommodate another 300 or more homes.

Lenox used around $30,000 of taxpayer funds planning the project for the

developer and now he wants to rezone it because his big boxes on the west

side killed the commercial prospects for the development. He has found

yet another way to further ruin our school system through rezoning.

As parents and taxpayers, we

need to let our elected representatives know that we want the residential

rezonings to stop and that we want safe, non-crowded schools!

Steve Brown

[email protected]

Peachtree City