Published on:
04/13/2004 Bartow
County residents asked a legitimate question of their public officials: Why were
county fathers plopping a factory in the middle of a rural residential stretch
when Bartow had industrial property available elsewhere? In response, they
earned only intimidation and threats.
Residents' questions about the
rezoning of 300 acres from rural to industrial to accommodate a tire factory
sparked a lawsuit threat from the county's development authority. This abuse of
power by the Joint Cartersville-Bartow County Regional Industrial Development
Authority ought to outrage every resident of Bartow.
The Toyo Tire &
Rubber Co. wants to build a $125 million tire factory northeast of Cartersville.
In its single-minded pursuit of the factory, the authority trampled the rights
of residents and violated the principles of open and participatory government.
First, the county rezoned the site to industrial even though Bartow's
land-use plan calls for the property, which sits amid fields, forests and
multi-acre home sites, to remain agricultural and residential. Then, when
factory opponents sued to appeal the rezoning, the authority threatened a
countersuit for abusive litigation.
Spooked by the threats, the residents
dropped their suit. "It's one thing for the residents to file a suit, but then
to take a chance and lose and get slapped for having appealed the zoning was too
much for them," says the group's lawyer, Richard Calhoun.
The six-member
authority launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to woo the factory by utilizing
an exemption in the state's open meetings law that permits closed-door sessions
to discuss land transactions. Among the project's cheerleaders was the county's
sole commissioner Clarence Brown, who appoints three members of the authority.
The city of Cartersville appoints the other three.
To make matters worse,
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Christopher Quinn found that two members
of the authority own large tracts of property near the factory site, raising
obvious questions about conflicts of interest and casting the deal in an even
more unfavorable light.
Bartow is a classic example of a once-little
county where residents felt comfortable with a handful of power brokers making
all the decisions. And its one-man rule probably worked pretty well when the
chief decisions were which roads to pave.
But the county has grown, and
the decisions are far more complex and consequential. Commissioner Brown tried
to put himself out of a job a few years ago by urging the county to expand to a
five-member board, but voters were content back then to stay with a sole
commissioner. At the time, Brown said, "You've got to understand, it is the
government of the people. It's not my government."
In their dealings over
the tire factory, he and the authority appear to have forgotten
that.
