"Note to Peachtree City

Council: Take care of your basic responsibilities first.

Do you hear the sounds of fiddling

coming from Peachtree City City Hall? The lead music maker is Mayor "Nero"

Lenox, fiddling while the city chokes on traffic.

The City Council was scheduled

last night to consider spending more than $16 million in borrowed money,

about two-thirds of it contingent on voter approval, on several Lenox-driven

"nice" projects.

Our "nice" council

also was to consider (1) raising our property tax millage rate (whether

the bond referendum passes or not), (2) more than doubling the hotel-motel

tax, (3) upping recreation fees and charges to the general public, (4)

hiking and ultimately changing the occupational tax on local businesses,

(5) skyrocketing the building department permit fees on home building

and remodeling, and (6) bumping up city court fines and fees.

Tax and spend. Increase taxes

and spend more. And on what? "Nice" stuff: Buildings, buildings,

buildings. Basketball courts, new pool covers, arts center, community

center, yada yada yada. Sounds like Democrats who lost in Florida have

moved into Peachtree City and taken over our city government.

While we drivers do the slow

burn in multiple traffic stalls inside Peachtree City, our blinkered mayor

and council spend hours chattering about how to spend $2.5 million to

expand the Planterra Ridge tennis center. That's the tennis center just

yards away from the most traffic-choked artery in Peachtree City Ga. Highway

54 West.

How much is our attentive

city council planning to spend on easing our traffic woes at Grand

Central junction (Ga. highways 54 and 74 intersection) and along the 1.2

miles to Line Creek?

Zero. Nada. Nothing.

That's what the city budget

and public improvement priority list on the city's website says.

the council may already have voted to put the bond issues on the ballot.

But there's no plan even being considered to improve traffic flow through

Peachtree City's busiest arteries.

The new "bypass"

from TDK Boulevard into Coweta County? Dream on. They're planning

from day one a two-lane road to divert traffic farther south onto two-lane

Hwy. 74. The theory is that up to 20 percent of Hwy. 54 traffic will opt

for the more southerly route into Peachtree City's industrial park. Dream

on.

Just this past Tuesday, the

Coweta County Commission under court order rezoned 26 acres at Fisher

Road and Ga. Highway 34 for an anchor supermarket and retail shopping

center. That is about a half-mile inside Coweta from the Fayette County

line, a little less than two miles from Grand Central junction. What do

you suppose will happen to traffic along Hwy. 54 inside Peachtree City

and Fayette County when the new stores open up in about a year?

According to their own

budget plans, when is the Peachtree City Council scheduled to do ANY serious

road-building?

Not for at least six years.

And that project the "Northeast Collector" will be focused on

a cut from Sumner Road to (two-lane!) Peachtree Parkway North.

Why isn't the council even

whispering about widening the road always planned for four lanes: Peachtree

Parkway North? They even built a bridge across Flat Creek with room for

an additional two lanes on the North Parkway. But not a whisper about

it for years from the council.

Here's how much the council

plans to spend on Hwy. 54 West traffic relief over the next several years:

Fiscal Year 2002: Nothing.

FY 2003: $543,000 on bridge

culverts and utility relocation.

FY 2004: Nothing.

FY 2005: Nothing.

FY 2006: Nothing.

Fy 2007: Nothing.

Do you see the trend?

The council is waiting on somebody else to do their jobs for them: developers,

the state, somebody else, but not the Peachtree City Council.

Meanwhile, fiddling Lenox and

council will have set in motion the following "nice" public

projects, using public tax money:

A "nice" Hwy. 54

West cart path bridge: $450,000.

A "nice" tennis center

expansion: $2.5 million.

A "nice" gymnastics

gymnasium: $490,200.

A "nice" Kedron indoor

basketball court: $708,000.

A "nice" smoke and

burn training center (duplicating one already built by the county): $85,000.

A "nice" swimming

pool cover for Kedron: $200,000.

A "nice" library

expansion: $125,000.

A "nice" community

center: $5.5 million.

A "nice" purchase

and improvement of Drake Field, next to City Hall: $650,000.

On and on and on with "nice"

projects.

Will the enviro-nuts and the

state have come to a settlement over the lawsuit halting all state money

for road-building in Fayette by then? Your guess is as good as mine.

There is no guesswork in these

statements, however:

(1) Traffic, already horrible

on hwys. 54 and 74, will only get much heavier and much worse.

(2) The Peachtree City Council

is currently doing next to nothing to help the tens of thousands of drivers

on those two roads.

So my question is this: When

will Lenox and Council stop fiddling away our patience and our tax money

on "nice" stuff and get started on meeting their most basic,

"necessary" governmental responsibilities?

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