Elected Officials

The grant from the Fulton County Office of Economic Development got the attention of our Fulton County Commissioner, Bill Edwards.   Bill called me.  When I answered, his first words were “Steve, what kind of trouble are you stirring up down in South Fulton?”

I responded, “Bill, this is going to be a great effort for something new.  I think you will like it.” 

“It sounds like something those folks in North Fulton proposed about six months ago” he replied. He went on with an agitated voice, “Do you know what happened?  The Commission chamber was full of people upset about ideas like this. The proposal from North Fulton generated about 200 people with tee shirts supporting those ideas and another 200 with ball caps opposing the same ideas.  Steve, don’t you dare stir up something that will push me into a corner to vote against half of my constituents no matter how I vote”

I asked for a meeting. I proposed that if we anticipated more than 30% opposition to the efforts at the time we were ready to propose something to the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, we would pull the proposal.  I explained the formation of the Chattahoochee Hill Country Alliance and the effort to bring both pro development and pro preservation groups together.  The preservation tag does not correctly define most of the group - a better tag would be Just Don’t Change Anything Group.  In any case, I suggested membership into this organization would be a guide to gage the support we would have.

To move forward with this agreement, I asked for his full public support and for him to request the Fulton County Department of Planning to work with us during the public meeting process and any legislation that might result from this effort.  We shook hands and Bill moved from a pessimist to a true supporter over the months ahead.