Impossible that I should miss

the Rotary Candidates Forum. Impossible!

I think I missed one some years

ago with a good reason, but last week's? I simply forgot.

That says something about how

apathetic people have been about this election. I'm not even going

to be a poll manager this go-around, because I'm not sure I can force

myself to keep an absolutely neutral expression on my face all day.

Maybe I won't even vote.

No, that's not an option. Not ever.

There is a good argument that

voting should be the privilege of an educated population, and that those

who don't learn everything about the issues and candidates don't

belong in the voting booth.

That's me, this time.

I don't know a lot about the candidates, but I do know a little about

their connections. Just enough to reject most of them.

Lee Poolman is not only an

employee in the same Fulton County office as Peachtree City Councilman

Steve Rapson, but is also his subordinate. How can he be objective if

- or inevitably when - the two men have different views on a

city issue?

Another candidate, Judi-Ann

Rutherford, is employed by the Development Authority of Peachtree City,

around which swirls enough controversy without now having, potentially,

two council members who must abstain from voting on DAPC issues.

What kind of government is

that?

Peachtree City government used

to have a certain nobility to it. Mayor and council were people of honor,

who meant what they said and could be trusted.

Use the Letters to the Editor

space in the newspaper to disparage fellow council members or mayor? Lord

help us, never.

Members of the planning commission

or the development authority or the library board held their meetings

with equal decorum. Courtesy was the norm.

This I know because I was there,

at one time or another, as a member of council or as a reporter covering

most of the city's boards and commissions.

All of us, those who participated

and those who were writing the first draft of Peachtree City's history,

were keenly aware that we were building a new community, and we wanted

to do it right. We must have done something right for so many people to

come, see, and sign.

I began seeing a change in

Peachtree City during the 1999 council election, when I wrote about what

I called the politics of exclusion, suggested by elitism, racism and anti-Semitism

in Dan Tennant's campaign statements.

He said, "This community

should have one of their own serving on City Council, namely a married,

average-income professional who is raising children in a Christian environment

... and who share the same values." Then he listed among those values

a commitment to family, church, and living right.

That lit my fire, largely because

one of his challengers was Jewish. I responded, "When you say one

of our own, I hear code words. I hear white. I hear male. I hear conservative

Christian. I hear middle-aged.

"I hear exclusion."

I'll spare you the rest

of my tirade, but I did want to share something funny. Dan has a brother,

Don, an editor of ComputerWorld e-magazine, based in Hong Kong at that

time. My column inspired a spirited exchange of comments between the brothers,

and Don used it as a column himself.

He wrote: "I told Dan

I thought the piece was extremely well-presented, which to me has nothing

to do with concurrence. Still, he was surprised by that response, so I

elaborated on the part with which I did agree: I am repulsed by the phrase

'one of our own' because it's necessarily exclusionary.

and offensive to anyone who falls outside of your definition of yourself.

"Dan fired back an e-mail

and really let me have it: 'Well, from a liberal-thinking journalist,

I should have expected that reaction. It is remarkable how people like

you have a knee-jerk reaction to assume exclusion is implied."

Don continued: "There

should only be one Us: human beings who live or work in Peachtree City.

The same of course is true for human beings who live or work in Hong Kong.

The difference is that here, it doesn't seem to be an issue. It just

seems to be a given that there's only one Us, despite the fact that

it's difficult to conceive of a more culturally, ethnically, professionally

or economically diverse community. As a liberal-thinking journalist who

has covered the information technology beat here for nine years, I've

seen how much Hong Kong, and the rest of the world, for that matter, has

benefited from the remarkable flow of technology that has come out from

the U.S. It occurs to me that Hong Kong's one Us-ness would be a

valuable commodity to send back in return. We revel in the oneness of

our diversity."

I wonder if Don Tennant might

want to move here and run for City Council.

In fairness, I have not heard

or read that Dan Tennant is making the same claims this time, but his

abysmal record otherwise, even of council meeting attendance, takes him

off my radar screen.

If I knew nothing more about

Stuart Kourajian, I'd vote for him for not being Dan Tennant.

So. When you go to your polling

place next Tuesday, you can just about close your eyes, poke at the screen

and vote for whichever candidate your finger lands on. But don't

stop there.

I am passionate about the question

on the ballot: approval of a bond of nearly $5 million to expand the library.

Plans include more space, more books and computers, and a children's

section partitioned off from the adult stacks. Library users complain

about the lack of scientific publications. Materials like those require

a lot of room. By all means, YES on the library question.

Otherwise, ho hum.