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Mayor Brown: Farr article misleading

A Citizen article entitled, "Friends of Tom Farr to support opposition to Mayor Brown," was a bit misleading with a few assumptions made by the reporter about the Development Authority of Peachtree City (DAPC).

Rick Schlosser and the rest of the DIRECT PAC leadership have taken their weakened organization that has consistently defended DAPC actions and converted it into the "Friends of Tom Farr" that is geared toward a more emotional and less factual position.

The reporter never mentions that DAPC members and DIRECT PAC leaders are visibly behind the new emotional Farr political strategy.

The reporter mentions that due to the DAPC not being able to have access to the hotel/motel tax that the authority has "been financially insolvent when it comes to paying those large notes [from Peachtree National Bank]."

The fact of the matter is that the DAPC was never able to pay anything but small interest payments on the loans even when they had the hotel/motel tax because they were constantly in the red and borrowing every year.

In essence, they were financially insolvent before the hotel/motel tax was taken away. Without the back-door loans, the tennis center and amphitheater would have been closed down a long time ago under the DAPC.

The reporter stated, "... the [DAPC] loans were approved." He continued, "Brown further alleged that Farr didn't take himself out of the discussion for seeking such loans, but he admitted that there is no evidence of that in the authority's minutes which Brown has researched."

First of all, the original loans were NEVER approved by the DAPC as set forth in state law.

Second, I did not allege that Farr did not take himself out of the discussion for seeking such loans. Instead, I stated that there was no public discussion at all on the loans as prescribed by the law.

You cannot take yourself out of something that never happened. By the way, Tom Farr's name does appear on the loan documents at Peachtree National Bank, so there is no doubt that he was involved.

Yes, a lot of the DIRECT PAC and "Friends" people are scrambling to save a sinking ship.

Attorney Doug Warner was in a position of responsibility when everything went down. DIRECT PAC leader Rex Green works for Group VI who is also suing the city for the DAPC misdeeds.

Former Mayor Bob Lenox was at the helm when millions of dollars poured into the DAPC with no accountability structure being implemented. Lenox was a DAPC member himself before becoming mayor.

Bob Brooks was on the City Council that passed the 1993 intergovernmental agreement with the DAPC and he later became a DAPC member and participated in acquirement of loans and change orders to city-owned facilities without a public discussion or vote.

I am proud of the way that our City Council has been one of the most open in Georgia. The elected officials and the citizens have had some meaningful discussions on a number of issues and the process has worked well.

Open government does work. Not everyone gets what they want, but the actions taken are legal and all know that the system is fair. Let us not go