Let's not add to list of past mistakes on Tuesday

From the Marietta Daily Journal on Sunday, November 5, 2006, by MDJ editorial page editor Joe Kirby.

Cobb County's leaders and people have made some really big blunders through the years that we're still paying the price for today, both economic and psychic. And we may be on the verge of making another this week that will be regretted for generations.

Sure, our past leaders also showed more foresight than most of their Georgia counterparts, doing things like paving the way on the eve of World War II for what is now the Dobbins/Lockheed/NAS complex; pushing for the construction of the Allatoona reservoir in the late 1940s, thus assuring us a reliable source of drinking water; embarking on an ambitious road-paving program in the early 1950s; constructing sewer lines into then-empty east Cobb in the late 1960s; and pouring plenty of money into the two local school systems all along.

But let's also look at some of the gaffs of the past, and think about how much different life here would be today - and at how much more cheaply we could have accomplished various goals. What if:

* The county years ago had bought enough cheap right of way along its major thoroughfares that when the time finally came to widen them, it wouldn't have cost taxpayers so much?

* The feds, state and county had done the same thing in the Interstate 75 corridor through Cobb, so that more lanes and interchanges could be added without having to buy and demolish businesses and houses that now are in the way? And what if they had bought enough land to save room to add a light rail line paralleling the highway, instead of having to shoehorn such a line over the road or in between the lanes - or not build it at all?

* The county had hooked up with MARTA in the 1960s, and that it had gotten popular enough to relieve the need for so much costly road building?

* The county or state had bought Sweat Mountain in east Cobb, Blackjack Mountain in east Marietta and/or Lost Mountain in west Cobb, and turned them into recreational parks, rather than letting them become studded with homes for the rich and richer?

* We had not torn down the beautiful old courthouse on Marietta Square and replaced it with one of the ugliest buildings in Georgia?

* Local leaders, needing no crystal ball to see Cobb's population on the verge of exploding in the 1960s, had planned and built another bridge or two or three across the Chattahoochee River? It's now unlikely another bridge will ever be built.

* After seeing how east Cobb's population boomed in the 1960s and '70s, we had assumed the same would eventually happen in west Cobb, and had decided to be proactive and build additional, wider and more direct roads around (and possibly even through) Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park?

* The federal government in the 1930s and '40s had been more aggressive in purchasing land for the battlefield park? As it was, most of what was purchased was old trench lines, not the land in between that was fought on.

* The feds, state or the county had been more visionary, even as late as the 1980s, in buying the miles and miles of remaining Civil War trenchworks and forts in west Cobb? The county could easily, easily, have wound up with a network of linear parks and trails along the high ground from Lost Mountain in west Cobb, eastward to the battlefield park and then on to Brushy Mountain, just south of Town Center mall. But unfortunately, most of those entrenchments are now history - if you get my drift.

* The county had bought plenty of land for use as future parkland, while it was still empty, plentiful and cheap?

All of the "mistakes" listed above - except the last one - are irreversible? There's no way to reverse those past oversights and failure to use our collective imagination. But there is a step we can take on Tuesday to ensure that we don't let down the next generation of county residents. I'm talking, of course, about the referendum on whether the county should spend $40 million to buy undeveloped land to be converted into county parks.

If you think Cobb needs more parks - and not just more ballfields, but more open land for passive recreational uses like walking and kite-flying - then it's now or never to get it. You've probably noticed that there isn't much empty land left in the county, and that it's going fast. If we drop the ball on Tuesday, another five or 10 years will probably roll around before enough momentum could be built up for another push for parks. And by then, there likely would be no undeveloped tracts left in Cobb large enough to serve as parks. So it's now or never.

Do we want to act now? Or do we want to go down in county history as the generation that ducked when it came our turn to do what's right?

I know how I'm going to vote.