Comfortably South of Atlanta

The Chamber of Commerce spent a lot of money for a marketing firm to give us a perfectly false slogan. The truth would suite better, “Profit Before Planning!”

Henry County offers the best in trailer park living. The new Timber Ridge trailer campuses even have double-wide bathroom trailers. What more could we ask of our elected representatives? Surely allowing anything for buck developers to set growth policy is not the answer.

The Board of Commissioners is at fault. They see our land use plan as a guide. A very expensive compilation provided by outside consultants and county staff – not to mention many meetings for public input. Yet is it worthless because the Board will violate it at the first meeting after it is adopted.

Time after time the request for high density residential development is approved. Sometimes against the recommendations of the Planning & Zoning Commission. The “smart growth” crowd insists that that their profit-motivated economies of scale provide the best growth policy. And they finance political campaigns! After $5,000 in contributions from one developer, Chairman Harper insured that Kelly Plantation would proceed on McDonough’s Willow Lane. Plus, a $1 million kickback was paid by the county because the developer graciously offered to build a road through the 1200 dwelling units.

The School Board is at fault because of poorly managing construction of the real Timber Ridge Elementary school. The first builder was fired. A second was hired, and he immediately advised of poor construction that should be re-done. But no, the BoE continued on top of shoddy work already completed. Now that second builder has been fired. He tells of foundation problems and faulty load-bearing walls. But the construction continues. In the meantime we have nearly 500 kids packed into trailers at two existing elementary schools: East Lake and Pleasant Grove. Folks this overload does even count the 49 trailers at East Lake Middle and the fact that Union Grove High is now surrounded by trailers.

Recently Superintendent Jack Parish led a charge of twenty-two like-minded administrators challenging Gov. Perdue’s requirement to lower class size. The schools already vanquished the Para-Pro positions, so each teacher is left to their own devices to handle the exploding classroom populations. The change was to lower the number of students from 30+ to 23. Somehow we must understand Jack’s thinking. How many kids can we stuff into a trailer? Perhaps the method was learned by watching a mound of ants!

We are not getting responsible government from either elected body. And this is an election year.