Government Closest to the People

The mantra from the Peachtree Corners City proponents is “Government Closest to the People is Best”.  This sounds good on the surface, but the opposite is actually true.  The closer we are, the less we need government at all.  As Thomas Paine argues in “Common Sense”, government is only needed when the community is so large that we can no longer get together neighbor to neighbor and business to business to solve our problems.  Our world today is rich with technologies that help us communicate and thus shrink our community.  Common sense says why go to the expense and bureaucratic inefficiency of establishing a government close to home?  

The Peachtree Corners Ballot Committee believes that:

• The best government is one that does only what people cannot do for themselves and governs the least.
• Government is best when it is large enough to do the job with economies of scale and yet close enough to listen to the needs of the people.

Clearly, with today’s means of transportation and high-tech communications, access to those in government by the governed is real time.  Distance has no impact.  

Government needs to be large enough to provide economies of scale.  Otherwise its costs are higher than the benefit they can provide.  Government becomes a liability and a nuisance to the community, crowding out the private sector, the real engine driving prosperity.  Peachtree Corners City is too small and its focus to narrow to matter.  It only offers power to a few and more trouble than it’s worth to everyone else.  

In the immortal words of Thomas Paine, “Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil”  

Peachtree Corners is a blessing because we are free of excessive government.  Vote No on November 8^th and keep it that way.

Posted By: Jose

Self-Determination Zoning Gone Amuck

The AJC's Patrick Fox wrote an article titled "Zoning Change Rankles Johns Creek Neighborhood"  in the Friday edition of the AJC:

Close to 200 Johns Creek residents turned out recently in opposition to a zoning request to allow a 268-unit apartment complex in the city's Technology Park area.

J.C. Flex won unanimous approval to build the complex on a 24-acre site between Lakefield Drive and Technology Circle. That was after residents from two nearby subdivisions flooded City Council members with emails opposing the request. 

They left disappointed. Click to Read More

Self-Determination - What it Means in Peachtree Corners

Over the last few months the Peachtree Corners YES committee has held numerous town hall meetings in an attempt to sell the residents of PC on the idea of a city.  As the public became more informed on the topic, resistance to the idea increased and many of the ‘selling points’ were discredited. Even Mike Mason admitted at an UPCCA meeting Monday night (10/24) that we shouldn’t pay any attention to the feasibility study, he doesn’t know if we can save any money on trash or not and said that if you read the charter you will need a lawyer because it is hard to understand due to all the legalese. “Sorta” sounds like the Peachtree Corners version of ‘we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it’, doesn’t it? So, Mason said, they have now come down to one issue: self-determination. 

So what is self-determination and how does it apply to us here in Peachtree Corners? Webster’s defines self- determination as:

1. Free choice of one’s own acts or states without external compulsion, and 

2. Determination by the people of a territorial unit of their own future political status. 

Sounds like a great idea! Who can argue with that? After all, in the 1770’s the colonists wanted self-determination and to be out from under King George’s thumb. On TV the other night, Wayne Knox repeated the party line, saying that “the people who live in Peachtree Corners deserve the right to determine their own future and not have that future determined by politicians that we do not elect.”  I don’t know what part of Peachtree Corners Mr. Knox lives in, but in my part we get to vote for a county commissioner and a commission chairman, as well as judges, PSC commissioners, school board members, sheriff, a district attorney and others who have a direct and indirect influence over our lives every day. The essence of their argument is that we in PC only get to vote for one commissioner out of 4 serving a county of 800,000 people and thus are subject to the whims of the other three. By their logic, perhaps we should consider becoming our own state- after all we only get to elect one state representative out of 180 and one state senator out of 54 representing a population of almost 9.7 million Georgians.

The reality is that if the new city does only the three services the Charter and YES organizers promise (zoning, code enforcement and trash), then those are the only areas where PC would have anything resembling self-determination. A trash plan mandated by the city and charged on your property taxes is the same thing we already have. Code enforcement contracted out to a for-profit company that works on commissions is arguably worse than what we already have. That leaves zoning and most of the property in Peachtree Corners is already developed according to existing zoning. All the other services PC receives (fire, police, schools, parks, roads, libraries, etc.). will continue to be provided by the county,  and we will still only have that dreaded one voice of 4 for 800,000 people on those issues. 

Does all this sound like enough self-determination to warrant higher taxes and fees on you and your family and taking the other downside risks of another government body? 

Posted By: The Peachtree Corners Ballot Committee