Articles

Bartow Treads On Peoples' Rights

Opinion
April 13, 2004

Bartow County residents asked a legitimate question of their public officials: Why were county fathers plopping a factory in the middle of a rural residential stretch when Bartow had industrial property available elsewhere? In response, they earned only intimidation and threats.

Residents' questions about the rezoning of 300 acres from rural to industrial to accommodate a tire factory sparked a lawsuit threat from the county's development authority. This abuse of power by the Joint Cartersville-Bartow County Regional Industrial Development Authority ought to outrage every resident of Bartow.

The Toyo Tire & Rubber Co. wants to build a $125 million tire factory northeast of Cartersville. In its single-minded pursuit of the factory, the authority trampled the rights of residents and violated the principles of open and participatory government.

First, the county rezoned the site to industrial even though Bartow's land-use plan calls for the property, which sits amid fields, forests and multi-acre home sites, to remain agricultural and residential. Then, when factory opponents sued to appeal the rezoning, the authority threatened a countersuit for abusive litigation.

Spooked by the threats, the residents dropped their suit. "It's one thing for the residents to file a suit, but then to take a chance and lose and get slapped for having appealed the zoning was too much for them," says the group's lawyer, Richard Calhoun.

The six-member authority launched a behind-the-scenes campaign to woo the factory by utilizing an exemption in the state's open meetings law that permits closed-door sessions to discuss land transactions. Among the project's cheerleaders was the county's sole commissioner Clarence Brown, who appoints three members of the authority. The city of Cartersville appoints the other three.

To make matters worse, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Christopher Quinn found that two members of the authority own large tracts of property near the factory site, raising obvious questions about conflicts of interest and casting the deal in an even more unfavorable light.

Bartow is a classic example of a once-little county where residents felt comfortable with a handful of power brokers making all the decisions. And its one-man rule probably worked pretty well when the chief decisions were which roads to pave.

But the county has grown, and the decisions are far more complex and consequential. Commissioner Brown tried to put himself out of a job a few years ago by urging the county to expand to a five-member board, but voters were content back then to stay with a sole commissioner. At the time, Brown said, "You've got to understand, it is the government of the people. It's not my government."

In their dealings over the tire factory, he and the authority appear to have forgotten that.

Reprinted with permission from The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution. Further reproduction, retransmission or distribution of these materials without the prior written consent of The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution, and any copyright holder identified in the material's copyright notice, is prohibited.