Gwinnett Buzz

It’s 2010 and that means I am hoping to get things back on track at the Gwinnett Buzz!  This year promises to have quite a bit happening in Gwinnett County, not the least of which is an election in which two Gwinnett County Commission seats are up for grabs.  Fittingly, my first post of the new year is an update on who is going to be running!

For the District 2 commission seat being vacated by Bert Nasuti, Gwinnett planning commissioner Lynette Howard has entered the race.  Howard is the former president of the United Peachtree Corners Civic Association.  She will run as a Republican and will face Jose Perez in the primary.

Howard will host a meet-and-greet from 2-4 PM on January 23 at the Norcross Depot.  Her campaign website can be found at www.electlynette.com.

Last week, the AJC published an article about the possible privatization of Gwinnett County Briscoe Field in Lawrenceville.  The proposal by Propeller Investments would include expanding the airport’s runway and beginning commercial airline service from ten gates in a new terminal.

On the surface, I love the idea.  I was encouraged by some of the initial indications of support from local leaders.  (I was pleasantly surprised to see Gwinnett Commissioner Mike Beaudreau speak favorably of the possibility!)  I favor getting government out of the airport business, especially if the proposal appears to be able to generate much needed revenue for the county government while allowing a private owner the opportunity to generate a profit while providing a very valuable service and economic boost to Gwinnett County.  However, the likely opposition of nearby residents, a response that most assuredly is in the offing, cannot be simply dismissed.

If you have read the Buzz for any period of time, you know I am a strong advocate for private property rights while being a fan of high quality development.  Thus, you might assume that I would be squarely on the side of Propeller Investments.  However, as college football commentator Lee Corso would say, “Not so fast, my friend!” As I have discussed extensively on the Buzz, I view property rights issues between neighboring landowners as boiling down to material impact.  In other words, does one owner’s use of his or her property pose a material negative impact to a neighboring landowner’s ability to use and enjoy his or her property.  It is really a simple perspective.  You can use your property as you see fit so long as it does not keep me from reasonably using and enjoying my property.  As to how we define “material” and “reasonably”, well, I will leave that up to the lawyers.  What you do not have to be a lawyer to see is that the commencement of commercial airline service from a previously general aviation only facility could very well pose a negative material impact to nearby residents.

Commercial aviation is going to generate noise.  That cannot be avoided.  Noise abatement procedures can be put in place to mitigate the impact of the noise, but there will be noise.  If a Boeing 737 is taking off over your house, you’re going to hear it.  What must be determined in the consideration of this proposal is how much more noise will be generated than that from the private jets that currently use Briscoe Field?  What total amount of time will neighboring property owners experience elevated noise levels?  What hours of the day will such elevated noise levels occur?  These and other questions will have to be carefully considered to determine if neighbors’ inevitable arguments about noise levels will have merit.  If they do, these concerns cannot be dismissed as mere NIMBYism.  Other potentially legitimate factors would include traffic, pollution levels and continued access to the airport by operators of general aviation aircraft.

This promises to be an interesting situation to watch.  I definitely like the idea of easier access to commercial flights for Gwinnett residents.  I am excited at the possibility for commercial development in the airport vicinity and along the GA 316 corridor.  However, we must ensure that the property rights of existing landowners who bought and developed property with the expectation of being near a general aviation airport rather than a commercial aviation airport are considered and protected.

As expected, Gwinnett District Attorney, Danny Porter, is moving forward with an investigation into several recent county land purchases.  Porter is seeking a “special purpose grand jury” to delve into “‘five or six’ purchases for parkland in the past five years.”  The request would have to be approved by a majority of Gwinnett’s Superior Court judges.

The deadline for Gwinnett County to sell naming rights to Gwinnett Taxpayers’ Stadium (aka Gwinnett Stadium) has come and gone.  As a result, the county will lose out on a greater share of the proceeds when naming rights are eventually sold.  Fortunately, for Gwinnett property owners, the car rental tax that went into effect last year has been generating higher than projected revenues, enough to allow the county make payments on the outstanding bonds.  Even still, as I outlined in a post here on the Buzz in April, 2008, the car rental tax comes out of the pockets of the Gwinnett taxpayer, meaning that Gwinnettians are still paying for the stadium.

To be honest, the Gwinnett County Commission is very lucky in that the car rental tax projections understated the true revenue.  If the board were in danger of defaulting on debt service payments, could commissioners really risk the ignominy of a major county government defaulting on its loan?  Given that the board has already cut the budget to the bone, would there be any choice but to move forward with the highly controversial property tax increase?  So long as the naming rights are eventually sold and other income sources hold up, Gwinnett property owners should be spared yet another demand to provide funding for yet another government undertaking.

The real question is should the commission be let off the hook because they have managed to take more tax dollars than expected from Gwinnett residents via the car rental tax?  They have still raised your taxes, just not property taxes.  They have dodged a bullet thusfar, but here we have more evidece of the poor management of taxpayer dollars by this commission.  They gambled with our money to build a stadium for a professional sports team that expects average Americans, during hard economic times, to underwrite a stadium while the team pays enormous sums of money to men to play a game.  I do not think they should be applauded for good fortune masking  poor management.  Do you?

That didn’t take long.

Former state legislator John Heard has become the first contender for next year’s District 4 commission race.  Current District 4 commissioner Kevin Kenerly announced his intention to not seek re-election earlier today.  Heard will run as a Republican.

District 4 commissioner Kevin Kenerly has announced that he will not seek re-election next year.  Kenerly has served on the commission since 1994, the longest tenure of any current board member.  Watching who emerges as contenders for this seat should be interesting over the coming months.  With the changing demographics in the Lilburn to Lawrenceville corridor, I would not be shocked to see a nontrivial Democrat challenge in the general election, though I think the bulk of the district is still strong Republican territory.

Last week, the Gwinnett County Commission voted down a deal for land involved with the McGinnis Ferry Road extension project.  Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter had threatened a grand jury investigation had the board approved the purchase.  Porter reportedly still intends to move forward with grand jury investigations of other recent county land buys.  Tim Eberly of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has written an in-depth article about these recent land buys and explored why they are attracting the attention of Porter and others.  (I want to thank Buzz reader Robert for alerting me to this story.)  The land acquired for Beaver Ruin Park, about which I blogged last year, appears to be one of the deals under scrutiny.  I do not want to regurgitate Eberly’s article in this post.  It is quite long and appears to be a very well-researched exposition of many of the facts and attendant questions surrounding the controversial deals.  However, I do want to comment on two takeaways I got from the article.

First, as critical as I have been of our commission, I urge readers not to convict them based on a newspaper article, no matter how well-researched.  Many things can look underhanded to outside observers, but when you really dig into the details, you soon see that actions are completely legitimate.  To be sure, there appears to be enough there to warrant Porter pushing for an investigation.  While I think most of the board should be run out of office at the next election, none of them should be falsely accused of criminal activity.

Second, I must link the need for Gwinnett County to purchase land involved in a lawsuit against the county with the general disregard for private property rights we sometimes see from the Commission.  I will say upfront that I do not know the details of all the land deals in question.  I am speaking in conceptual generalities that may not completely apply to each of these cases.  Settling a lawsuit is often smart from a financial standpoint in order to avoid legal expenses as well as the time commitment incurred.  Avoidance of these costs can justify a higher purchase price for the underlying asset, in this case, land, than would be the case under normal purchase conditions.  There is a larger point, however.

If a landowner feels there is cause for a lawsuit and the county feels there is sufficient merit in the case to settle, that implies to me that denial of the landowner’s zoning application was unjustified in the first place.  If a landowner’s suit was without merit, there would be much less incentive to settle because a legal assessment would identify a very high probability of victory in court.  Which brings me to my main question.  If a landowner has a reasonable claim to a zoning designation for his or her property, why is the Commission denying the request then using taxpayer dollars to defend that denial?  I have often felt that commissioners (I saw this specifically in a case in which I was involved in Coweta County), being the politicians they are, will vote in a way to appease voters even when there is little justification for that vote.  In some cases, they may even know that their denial would never stand in court!  Blaming a new real estate development on a court while making the case that he or she did all they could to “protect” the community from “rampant development” is politically beneficial.  The reality is (or should be), if a land use has merit, politicians should not be blocking such a use in order to pander to voters.  A property owner should absolutely have access to the full economic value of his or her property, but this access should be through a free market for the type of land use that generates such value.  The taxpayer should not have to guarantee this value in order to protect an elected official politically or to defend an official’s anti-property rights agenda.

This situation bears watching closely to ensure that no laws were broken.  However, even if a grand jury ultimately determines that all deals were legal, that does not change the fact that it is inappropriate for commissioners to use our tax dollars to defend zoning votes that were never justified in the first place.  That would simply be yet another example of poor stewardship of taxpayer funds on the part of the Gwinnett County Commission.

The final community forum on Gwinnett’s garbage service was held this past Saturday in Suwanee.  Continuing with a common theme that began late last year, county residents continue to demand freedom of choice in choosing their garbage service provider.  Just as Americans across the country are rising up and speaking loudly against Obamacare’s government control of healthcare, Gwinnettians continue to loudly say no to government dictating with whom we must do business at the local level as well.  Gwinnett’s commissioners are already on thin ice with voters after their poor stewardship of taxpayer dollars highlighted by the recent budget mess.  If they again try to cram socialized garbage down our throats after the overwhelming uproar against their solid waste ordinance, I would not be surprised if voters begin seriously exploring recall initiatives rather than waiting until the next election to bounce them from office.  To this point, the recall sentiment bubbling in Gwinnett has been fairly muted, but if commissioners continue to show callous disregard for citizens of this county, that bubbling could quickly rise to a boiling point.

The Gwinnett County Commission voted last week to approve over $225 million in budget cuts.  As I wrote earlier last week, some residents were unhappy with some of the cuts, especially those targeting the budgets for the police and fire departments.  While automatically opposing budget cuts for public safety is understandable, the key here is at what are these cuts targeted?

First, let’s be absolutely clear: deeps cuts were in order. Cuts are more palatable than a tax increase. Where I take issue is where these cuts were targeted.  Prior to the meeting, there was speculation that the Gwinnett “Quality of Life” unit could be on the chopping block.  Given this unit’s focus of fighting property rights more so than real crime, I was completely in favor of such a cut.  However, rather than ax the Quality of Life unit, the board opted to cut the DUI task force.  I do not understand this move! One fights property rights - the other fights criminals that could kill you on our highways! The Quality of Life unit should have be at the top of the cuts for the police department.  Of course, I am hardly surprised that retaining funding for the Quality of Life unit was proposed by Mike Beaudreau whose commission track record is hardly one of championing property rights.

Regarding police department funding in general, when I stop seeing police officers parked along the road running radar/laser equipment to catch speeders as opposed to fighting real crime, I might get a little more upset about budget cuts for the department. In the last couple of weeks, I have seen three cops parked along Ronald Reagan Parkway doing speed enforcement. I see others near the Park Place Bridge on US 78. Coupling this with funding Quality of Life to go out worrying about how how far nails protrude and other victimless crimes, I cannot get too upset at at the cuts. When all police department funds are used to fight real, serious crime and not harass property owners or man radar guns, I will get upset at the cuts.

I would like to note, however, that, as critical as I often am of Comissioner Beaudreau, I do find myself in total agreement with one of his proposals.  Beaudreau offered an excellent idea to charge non-county residents for using Gwinnett County parks.  In fact, as a daily user of my local park, I would support a user fee for all those who actually use the parks, whether resident or not. The community does benefit from the parks so a county-funded system is appropriate. However, because those of us who actually go to the park and use the amenities benefit more, we should pay more than someone who does not. A user fee could be a nominal amount, perhaps $25 per year, just to ensure that the cost burden of these facilities is born more by those who use the system. A user fee would also capture direct contribution from those who use the facilities but are not property owners and, as such, do pay not the property taxes that fund the bulk of county government.

One other suggestion for revenue that I have not seen discussed is ads on Gwinentt transit buses.  (I read this suggestion from a Buzz reader, I believe, but I cannot find the reference.  I apologize that I cannot properly credit you for bringing this idea to my attention.)  When the county is in need of every drop of revenue it can get, why has the transit system not exploring selling ads?  MARTA does this, why not Gwinnett?  I do not know how much money this would raise, but whatever it raises would be some decrease in the severity of the county budget cuts.

The fiscal situation that Gwinnett County faces is very serious.  No one said any of the paths that could be taken through the woods would be easy, but I must commend the commissioners for choosing the right path - reigning in the size and cost of government as opposed to siphoning even more dollars out of our pockets.  I would much rather be bickering over what to cut than a tax increase.

A pair of Gwinnett landmarks will soon be no more.  The “Gwinnett is Great” water tanks that overlook I-85 just north of the Jimmy Carter Boulevard interchange are being decommissioned by Gwinnett County.  While I understand the reason - these tanks are no longer needed and are expensive to maintain, a major problem given our current budget crunch - I hate to see them go.  I remember these tanks all the way back to when they were painted green and had just “Gwinnett is Great” on both tanks.  Another classic piece of Gwinnett fades into history.