Early voting got off to a strong start with voters lining up and braving 40-degree temperatures in the morning. This election is a battle for the sanctity of our system at the local, state, and federal levels.
Some people wanted me to go beyond what I covered in my last column and go even deeper into local candidates and explain state constitutional amendments and referendums on voting.
As a sign of the times, I was recently approached by a quirky and irrational woman at my local publics. political beliefs. Dear Citizen, if you don’t believe public political intimidation will continue in Fayette County, think again. The rules have changed and you should vote accordingly.
Leftist groups such as We Push Progress and Black Hammer are headquartered in Fayette County. They are firmly attached to socialist philosophy, and we have already seen violence from socialist philosophy. Be careful of the candidates these groups endorse. Unfortunately, they work behind the scenes and most of the time you can’t tell who they’re helping.
In state and federal elections, there are distinctly different options on the ballot. The local Peachtree City Council election has had no exposure and is not well known by name. Likewise, he was the only two city council member to list political affiliation on his candidate dossier. Both Clint Holland and Phil Crane are listed as Republicans.
In case you missed it, The Citizen asked every congressional candidate a series of questions. You can find the answer on this website by clicking here.
Similarly, click here for links to previous columns evaluating candidates.
Candidate Kevin Madden has a real City Council voting record, which is so bad, he’s part of the thugs of the Fleisch administration who constantly disrespected voters.
Annex has results
Let’s start with a candidate question about annexation. Annexation is the process by which local governments extend their boundaries to adjacent areas that have not been annexed. This is a very important issue as it has serious consequences to consider.
Expanding city boundaries means extending all city services to a wider area. Public works have more square footage to maintain and more roads and trails to pave. Police and firefighters have to cover more locations, farther away. Who do you think pays for the expansion of local government services?
For example, city taxpayers will have to fund a new fire station in the south of the city for annexation, which will cost millions of dollars in multiple shifts of buildings, equipment, and personnel. , millions of dollars that cannot be used to maintain and upgrade the current city facilities we use today.
It makes little sense to annex land to build more housing units because the costs outweigh the benefits, but the city recently did it. pointed out the point. His candidate, Mark Gelhardt, Sr., gave a vague answer.
Hamner said he supported past annexations, but he had to admit that the annexation of the Governor’s Square neighborhood in eastern Peachtree “had added another 94 houses to the pile, with heavy traffic and a congested school system.” …and placed high-density housing in areas specifically designated as low-density.”
So local taxpayers were laid off with significant losses. This was due to something that prompted the Fleisch administration, which included current City Council members Mike King and Phil Plever, to make a heinous decision in Governors Square.
Do not inherit real estate without specifying the specific use or use as a condition of inheritance. King, Preball, and our former Council mates fooled us.
A clever magic trick with a comprehensive plan
The city government has been playing cheetah poker with its citizens for the past few years. The members of the council, with the exception of Frank Destadio, overcame their vehement opposition to any type of double crossing, double We have withdrawn the trading scheme.
The city council eventually blocked the way for more apartment complexes in a vote that changed the city’s comprehensive plan. Candidates Hamner and Gerhard support a dastardly change of plans. Crane gave a half-hearted, unpromising reply.
Hamner and Crane actually defended the government’s process of allowing more multifamily housing. Observers wondered who and how saw the deception (see link above) and concluded that the city council and planning director were acting above the board.
Holland was the only candidate who pledged to vote to revert the changes, including the apartment complexes in the plan, stating that the changes were “This is the area I most disagreed with and this topic made me run.” So it was a very painful point for me. City Council.”
Holland knew the process was deceptive and, as a member of the city’s General Planning Commission, called the city’s planning director over the commission’s misleading findings. he said: I witnessed a poorly designed and executed survey of PTC citizens. Because there was no real input from the revision committee in setting up the survey, only 581 responses were received from 38,000 people. “
Holland continued, “From its flawed data, the Commission made a hasty decision that I completely disagree with. When I questioned the survey and looked at data from 581 responses, I was told that the committee had enough responses to get an answer.”
Candidates cannot have it both ways
Holland, Crane, Hamner, and Gerhard all said or speculated that they wanted to keep the concept of the village, but Crane and Hamner both endorsed a radical change in the built environment, and they would wants a multi-story mixed-use apartment rather than shopping for. Gerhardt has refused to reverse recent changes in official plans to allow more apartments.
Mixed-use development is prevalent in suburban areas, generally cities that want to create a more urban environment. While property developers have made a lot of profit from mixed-use developments, most have been “converted” to real estate investment trusts (REITs), with local ownership gone, maintenance and management declining, and in later years urban incurs a large debt.
Many of these mixed-use structures are built cheaply with wooden frames, so they are not aging. In addition, these developments are subject to diversified market forces in multifamily rental units and retail leases. In other words, depending on the market, one or the other could put development in financial trouble.
Unless there are strict restrictions in the form of ordinances on the retail uses that can enter these spaces, problems for residential tenants can arise. Pet grooming, nail his salons, dry cleaning, restaurants, and other uses can produce volatile odors. The restaurants and bars in the space create a lot of noise, odors and food-related trash in the rear bins and cooking oil bins that are unacceptable by residential tenants. Please try to imagine.
Conversely, developers will say that restrictions on retail use often undermine the marketability of leasing space.
In mixed-use buildings between residential and retail, parking battles often occur and affect business. Our city abandons traditional green buffers and setbacks to accommodate additional traffic and parking requirements, as the City Council was willing to do during the Livable Centers Initiative (LCI) planning Most likely you will need to
Holland was the only candidate to vote against multifamily housing over commercial facilities and said he would vote to overturn the overarching plan change. I made a clear statement to In my opinion, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it!”
Is it your money or theirs?
Both Holland and Gerhardt clearly said that in a bad economy with high inflation, we shouldn’t raise taxes. Hamner said he would consider options. Crane was fine with the tax increase.
Interestingly, there is a need to dig deep into government budgets, eliminate unnecessary processes and duplication, ask department heads to find waste, reorganize systems, fire underperforming employees, and meet public expectations. Not a single candidate suggested focusing the laser.
Yearly tax increases now seem to be the norm. Elected officials must remember that it is their bad decisions that create the need to withdraw more and more cash from taxpayers’ wallets.
now it’s up to you
Early voting is underway (9:00 – 5:00) downstairs at the Peachtree City Library on Saturday, October 29th (9:00 – 5:00). Election Day precinct voting is November 8 (7:00 – 7:00).
The City of Peachtree has two ballots. If you didn’t vote on the city ballot because of the previous line, you can go back and vote on the city ballot.
Clint Holland easily got the highest ratings on my scale and he would receive my vote for City Council, Post 3.
To speed you up at the voting terminal, there are two ballot state amendments and two state referendum skinnies.
Amendment 1 stems from past bad behavior of statewide elected officials who were indicted but received full pay until a court convicted them. Rather than suspending salaries, I would prefer that civil servants return salaries from the time of indictment to the time of conviction. That way, innocent public servants can’t pay lawyers and other personal bills and be unfairly punished.
The Second Amendment allows local governments to grant temporary tax relief for certain property damaged or destroyed by a disaster. At first glance, the proposed amendment has merit. However, the potential for abuse is considerable.
Referendum A creates an ad valorem tax exemption for the timber industry. Why do legislators authorize selective tax exemptions for certain existing industries? These efforts usually reflect self-interest and political sponsorship. This is not an incentive to attract new industries to the state.
Referendum B expands ad valorem tax exemption for merged family farms to include dairy and eggs. I do not support blanket statewide tax exemptions for select existing industries. Self-interest and political patronage are concerns.
[Brown is a former mayor of Peachtree City and served two terms on the Fayette County Board of Commissioners]
