The year 2003 will be remembered

in Fairburn as the year the city got its park back.

Duncan Park finally reopened

last year after legal wrangling between the city and Fulton County. The

two sides finally agreed the city would lease the park from the county

for five years at $1 a year. The park closed in 2002 after Fulton County

and Fairburn officials could not agree over who should pay for the park's

operations.

Other actions that occurred

in the city last year included:

Passing a watershed protection

ordinance. The ordinance requires that all streams, bodies of water,

detention and retention areas, 100-year flood plains, wetlands or other

state waters, and their required watershed protection buffers, which

are included on a tract of a proposed development project or adjacent

to such tract, shall be platted and dedicated to the city as permanent

open space.

Participation in a traffic

summit concerning Ga. Highway 74. Peachtree City Mayor Steve Brown called

the meeting in the summer and� representatives of five local governments

sat down together to try and find a solution to the increasing traffic

problem on the highway. The road runs from south Fayette County to Interstate

85, and is becoming more and more clogged. During the meeting, Fairburn

city administrator Jim Williams offered his view of Fairburn's portion

of the road.

"We've always looked

at this corridor as commercial, but well-done and well-planned commercial,"

he said. Some of the other leaders said Fairburn had definitely cornered

the market on gas stations.

Increasing the salaries

for the mayor and council. The mayor's salary was increased to

$3,000 per year, while council members salaries were raised to $1,500

a year.