State of the County

We had a town-hall meeting for our county district tonight, hosted by the church I go to. I’m sure it was far more interesting than any collection of talking points the pretendersent might deliver. I’ve found in general, when you miss TV, you don’t miss much.

The hot topic (and I do mean hot) was the county commissioners having a study... well, commissioned... to see if we would benefit from a “general aviation” airport. You could build a gays-only wedding chapel in this arterial-blood-red part of the planet and not get people stirred up as quickly as just talking about an airport. The problem is, Atlanta’s aviation authority owns a large tract of land in the county, and (after bulldozing it level and cleaning up a highly radioactive spot, which I may talk about in another post) could put a commercial airport on it. The FAA tells us that building a smallish airport (i.e. a place where individuals and businesses could hanger their planes) would overrule any larger airport in the area, so it seems like a case of the Lesser of the Two Evils. But you can’t tell these people that....

Other interesting topics included road building. This part of the county is still mostly (51%) dirt roads. I asked about bicycle routes, which have been talked about in conjunction with other highway building projects before. Cyclists have marked out a couple of routes already and (even at this time of year) are out & about on weekends; I get nervous for those guys on our narrow roads with drivers who don’t always pay attention. The road guy is going to get back to me about the status of the bike routes. He did say they (with the DoT) are working with some cycling clubs, so maybe something will happen. I hope so; the way things are going, the bike paths will get used pretty heavily before too long just for transportation.

The really interesting part is that they have a zoning plan for 2025 (20 years from now) — our area is expected to be “exurban residential,” and it’s primarily agricultural right now. I don’t envy the first developer who starts building out here.

My father-in-law told someone he wants me to run for the county commission. I said I’d do it on the Green Party ticket. Actually, I think Greens could actually do well in this area if they describe their platform in the right words. People like to fish & hunt; you need clean water & healthy forests for that. They prefer the government keep its nose out of their business. And above all, they don’t want a lot of (or more than a little) development out this way. All Green positions. I’d do it, but it would be such a hassle if I actually won....