Superior Court Judge English

has ruled the moratorium "invalid." The mayor's reaction was

to appeal the judge's decision. Appeal against the advice of the city

attorney (who is reported to have refused to appeal the case) and against

the advice of the staff. The mayor wanted to go to the city's insurance

company, to have them appeal for us, though the appeal process would take

longer than the time remaining on the moratorium. (All this would cost

the taxpayers more in legal fees.)

Eventually, the remainder of

the council understood the facts and abandoned the mayor, who succumbed

to the pressure and abandoned the appeal.

Our community and we, the taxpayers,

are left to pay the bills for this misguided folly. Our Development Authority

and the business community are left to try and restore our reputation.

Before you say, don't be negative,

offer a better solution, here are my views on how this should have been

handled, without a moratorium while retaining our integrity.

Before council would have organized

any committee, we would have met with local businesses, the Development

Authority and the Chamber of Commerce to get their input.

Then, and only then, would

we have organized committees to review those items that needed to be addressed.

We would have set a realistic time frame for completion. Following review

and assuming adoption by the council, we would have established an effective

date for the new ordinances giving sufficient time for review and implementation.

This would have preserved our

reputation while allowing business to continue. It would have accomplished

all it was intended to accomplish in the spirit of cooperation and fairness.

Additionally, it would give fair notice for upcoming changes for those

businesses choosing to become part of our community. Finally, it would

not have placed unreasonable time pressures on volunteer committee members

and staff to try and rewrite four decades of Peachtree City progress in

90 days or less.

Gary Rower

Peachtree City

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