Pro-parks vote got needed attention

From the Marietta Daily Journal on Wednesday, November 15, 2006, by MDJ columnist Don McKee

The leadership of the Cobb Parks Coalition represents a formidable force in local politics and is a factor to be reckoned with in future elections.

Thanks to the hard work of the coalition, the ballot proposal for a $40 million bond issue to buy parklands won an overwhelming 72 percent of the vote in last week's referendum.

Credit coalition leaders Paul Paulson, John Cissell and their colleagues. They made it happen with unrelenting efforts, enlisting volunteers to contact and inform voters in various ways from yard signs to telephone calls and drumming up solid support from conservation organizations to the chamber of commerce.

The core issue, Paulson pointed out in answer to my question, was the rapid, wholesale development of the county.

"I think we had such a significant showing because people are sick and tired of seeing the trees, the fields, the farms, the beauty of Cobb County being consumed by unimaginative development," he said.

"This bond referendum was as much anti-development as it was pro-parks," he said, citing comments by many of the more than 1,000 people who signed the coalition's online petition in support of the bonds.

"It is a wake-up call," he added. "There was an undercurrent of frustration out there" over what in the past was a "develop-at-all-costs mentality." Now, he said, "We are living with the results of that shortsightedness."

The political support of the pro-bond issue group can prove decisive for candidates to political offices, and the current members of the Cobb Board of Commissioners helped their standing by getting behind the parkland bond proposal.

Now that the people have spoken, the commissioners will have to deliver as promised.

They have agreed that citizens will have a leading part in selecting properties to be purchased by the bond money. You can be sure they will honor the commitment.

The BOC's first order of business is to appoint a citizens committee that will find potential parkland and work with commissioners in acquiring suitable, available tracts.

Each commissioner will appoint three members of the committee to serve for about 18 months. This will be volunteer, unpaid duty by people willing to invest in preserving a little more of the natural resources of Cobb County.

The Cobb Parks Coalition is calling for candidates for the committee to contact their commissioners.

Answers to questions about what's involved will be provided by Commission Chairman Sam Olens at a coalition meeting, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. next Sunday, Nov. 19, at the Georgia Dance Conservatory, 49 West Park Square (upstairs) on the Square downtown.

It is expected that the citizens committee members will be appointed by Nov. 28. They will search out the best available, affordable parkland to help preserve more of Cobb's natural beauty.

"There is still much beauty," Paul Paulson said, "much of the character that drew all of us who call Cobb home here in the first place."

Now it's a question of how much can be preserved.

dmckee9613@aol.com