Happy New Year! For one who

still hasn't fully embraced the 1990s, it seems strange to be living in

'aught-one,' as our grandchildren might refer to our olden times at the

beginning of the new millennium.

As a diehard anachronism of

Peachtree City 22 years voting from the same subdivision, living on the

same street, paying taxes on the same house I hear some of the old bells

reverberating into the new year.

Yep, my warning bells are alarming

again, and again it's the good old Peachtree City Council. We hear that

Mayor Bob Lenox and cohorts have assigned City Attorney Rick Lindsey to

a search of the city's charter to see what things need to be changed or

"updated."

Slap the submarine klaxon

aah-ooga, aah-ooga, aah-ooga, DIVE, DIVE, DIVE! King Bob, he of the

mayoral anointing, wants to tinker with the city's basic document of governance.

A creature of the state legislature,

a city any city must have a charter that begins as a legislative bill,

proposed by the legislators who represent the district encompassing the

proposed city. It is the charter that defines a city's initial geographic

boundaries and sets up the city's form of government and outlines its

powers and limitations. It is the charter that determines whether and

how a city is governed by a mayor and council or a commission and chairman

or a board of aldermen, etc. A charter is, in effect, the city's constitution.

It is from the legislative

charter that a city derives its authority to govern and to tax the people

within its limits. It can be changed or amended only by an act of the

state legislature.

And now the same guy who

gave us a mid-1990s' secret-from-the-public million-dollar study about

buying a private sewer system without any public council vote; the same

guy whose lack of attention gave us 399 apartments in an area zoned for

commercial uses; the same guy who pushed for an almost unanimously unwanted

West Village annexation; the same guy who brokered a last-minute "compromise"

with developers that will give us unimagined traffic congestion on Ga.

Highway 54 West this same guy now has initiated a study to tinker with

the guts of the city charter.

Is anybody else nervous?

story that a 4-to-1 council vote last week stripped city clerk duties

from Nancy Faulkner, who had just won a statewide award for clerk performance.

The new city clerk is longtime City Manager Jim Basinger, who now has

undisputed control of all city functions, a royal viceroy subject only

to King Bob's executive command. Don't you feel better now?

Tennant voted in favor of consolidating King Bob's and Viceroy Basinger's

power. We have to wonder, what was the self-proclaimed champion of the

average citizen thinking? Or was that vote taken on a non-thinking night?

To his credit, Tennant was

on the right side of a 1-to-4 vote to televise council proceedings on

the AT&T local channel, at AT&T's expense.

Four other council members

must have worried about their camera appeal, because they voted against

letting cable viewers watch some of the goings-on during city council

meetings. Their lame excuse: City cable viewers would be bored by the

proceedings. Tell that to C-Span addicts.

Noted in the taxpayer-supported

city newsletter out this month: King Bob makes a defense of council's

unpopular vote to open wide the development spigot on the city's west

side.

It's not the first time the

King Bob-Viceroy Basinger duo has used taxpayer money to publish excuses

for their actions. The last time, about four years ago, they used the

city newsletter as a personal vehicle to criticize The Citizen and one

of its reporters.

If they want to defend their

unpopular actions, let them do it on their dime, not the taxpayers'.

Silly us, we voters and taxpayers

of Peachtree City we thought the candidates we voted into office would

listen to us on things that really matter to us.

I wonder Will we do any better

with the candidates who will offer for three posts later this year?

And, just imagine, with nearly

a full year before King Bob and his cohorts are forced into retirement,

how much more can they squeeze into our fair city? How much after they

tinker with the city charter?

Contact your local legislators.

Tell them to be wary of any local legislation to change any city charter

unless it has gone through rigorous public review, including local public

hearings before council. We will be watching. Legislators Lynn Westmoreland,

Kathy Cox, Mitch Seabaugh, Greg Hecht please take note.