Jim Wooten on trust, timing, and the importance of preserving Cobb's land for the future

Jim Wooten, associate editorial page editor of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, attended the most recent CPC meeting. Jim writes in Tuesday's AJC:

Saving parkland while restoring public trust a priority

Published on: 05/30/06
Sitting on the front porch of a guest house that was once Lillie Mae McCollum's sweet potato curing shed, two dozen Cobb County residents assembled in what has to be one of the prettiest spots left in metro Atlanta. Their goal is to save sights and feelings.

Certainly the sights—such as those from McCollum's porch — are vanishing from close-in Atlanta. And with the one goes the other, the opportunity to feel eternity on earth, the peace that comes when subsumed in nature's beauty.

McCollum's place is now owned by Paul and Betty Paulson, who purchased 27 of her original 40 acres on Casteel Road, first 10 acres and later more, starting in 1976. McCollum, who descended from an old Cobb family, moved to be near her son on the Tallapoosa River in Haralson County. She died two years ago at age 94.

It is a perfect, but coincidental, setting for the purpose of the the Paulsons' gathering: to organize an effort to persuade the Cobb County Commission and later voters to approve a $40 million bond referendum to purchase parkland. While Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens and perhaps a majority of the commissioners are favorably disposed, they're not likely to proceed without a public push.

There are many lessons here for citizens and politicians — and especially for the new Republican majority under the Gold Dome. They are these:

•Politicians, and the two dozen parks supporters, are wary. Why? Laptops. The Cobb school board broke trust with voters. Whether intentionally or just erroneously, the board opted to spend $74 million from a 2003 sales tax initiative for 7,000 teachers and 55,000 students, without fairly informing voters.

Clear from the discussions among park supporters, who nitpick words with the caution of lawyers drafting a prenuptial agreement, is that they sense something that's pervasive and real: Government has frittered away public trust. The troupe, therefore, looks painstakingly for language that will leave no room for betrayal — either next year or next century.

Message to the new Republican majority: These are your voters, people who are comfortable with government as an instrument of good (acquisition of parkland), but distrustful. They want open government, honest and accountable government and a government that writes laws and regulations carefully and precisely to check the possible arrogance, indifference and excess of future governing officials.

•This message is to those of us who occupy ground in rapidly developing areas: While fiscal conservatives are conscious of the dollar and are leery of debt, times and situations sometimes compel them to borrow and spend. We could have cured gridlock had we bought right-of-way for transportation corridors before people moved in. When people are coming , and unavoidably they are in the area up to 100 miles from downtown Atlanta, we should spend — and borrow — every nickel we judiciously can, on crucial infrastructure.

We should do it honestly and forthrightly. It's nothing they've done yet, but the new Republican majority shows a propensity to hide the cost of government in fees and indirect costs. That is absolutely the wrong approach, unless it's a legitimate users' fee levied only on a service's beneficiaries.

They, and their predecessors in power, have embraced financing gimmicks — like pretending, for example, that 50-year "leases" on courthouses are not long-term debt requiring voter approval.

Every clever deceit undermines public trust in politicians and in government.

What Cobb parks supporters are proposing is government the way it should be done: At a crucial time — when the county is developing so rapidly that the next generation will not affordably have the option of acquiring land —government informs, and asks permission to borrow money.

That's what stewardship and the state constitution obligate. Propose as can be justified. And get permission. The way they used to do it before elected officials got too clever -— and decided they had to trick us because they knew better how to pick and choose, and how to spend our money.

The Cobb of Lillie Mae McCollum, like her sweet potato curing shed, is passing the way of development. Buy and preserve now for the generations to come. But approach us honestly: propose, explain and ask permission. Voters will make the right decision.

•Jim Wooten is the associate editorial page editor. His column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

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http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/wooten/stories/0530wooten.html