Dear Editor:
I am a tenant on The North Georgia Regional Airport. I run The Flight School Of Barrow County, and we pay more rent to the county than any other tenant on the airport.
LETTER: Airport tenant says county treated business unfairly
Several years ago, the Airport Authority made a decision to increase our rent by nearly double (from what we were paying). We of course could not absorb such an increase, so we have been paying the increase under protest with reservation of right.
Our attorney has corresponded with John Stell, the county attorney, many times to no avail. In November of 2007, I requested and attended a meeting with Commissioner Doug Garrison along with six other airport business patrons to discuss several issues on how poorly the airport authority had been treating us. Commissioner Garrison asked for some lease changes with in 90 days, which would have been February of 2008 -- still nothing has been accomplished to date.
We have been absolutely ignored on lease issues. When we have pleaded to the Airport Authority that we need our leases in order to protect, or negotiate business dealings, we were told "it is not in our best interest to give anyone a long term lease on this airport."
The Commissioners and the Airport Authority seem only to be concerned with themselves and not with the people who actually support them. We need a positive change in administration, and we need it now.
Sincerely,
Paula Cash
Winder
Our attorney has corresponded with John Stell, the county attorney, many times to no avail. In November of 2007, I requested and attended a meeting with Commissioner Doug Garrison along with six other airport business patrons to discuss several issues on how poorly the airport authority had been treating us. Commissioner Garrison asked for some lease changes with in 90 days, which would have been February of 2008 -- still nothing has been accomplished to date.
We have been absolutely ignored on lease issues. When we have pleaded to the Airport Authority that we need our leases in order to protect, or negotiate business dealings, we were told "it is not in our best interest to give anyone a long term lease on this airport."
The Commissioners and the Airport Authority seem only to be concerned with themselves and not with the people who actually support them. We need a positive change in administration, and we need it now.
Sincerely,
Paula Cash
Winder
I hope you will submit this letter to all available local media outlets!!
This info must get out to the voters.
Thanks again!
If this airport is supposed to be attracting industrial and commercial growth, how can it not be in their interest to have a long-term lease?
You have too much knowledge of the airport political system to be anonymous...
or you have too much time on your hands.
But why don't you just answer the lady's question? Why won't the airport give this business a long-term lease?
Do you think that they would tell me, only a TAXPAYER, with no plans of forking over any money OR LAND to their airport? She has a right to know!
You, on the other hand, sound like you COULD answer the question, if you wanted to, which you obviously don't.
I am only asking legitimate questions. Why would that matter if I am anonymous or not? I have posted often with my name, when it mattered.
You, conversely, are the ANSWER MAN, which is exactly why you should state your name! Your info is without merit if you are not willing to back it up with your name.
But none of the AA members seem willing to provide a response...although there is NO DOUBT they all are following this blog. They will be busy formulating their carefully crafted response, to be released just before the runoff.
GOODBYE.
I'm with another anonymous - it's easy for you to pass judgement just by reading a letter to the editor and getting one side of the story. The people on the AA have been there for a number of years, maybe due to feeling they have power, but also maybe because they really do have Barrow County citizens best interest at heart.
Have you bothered to look at the real makeup of the Authority? Have you bothered to ask why the Deli owner might feel she has been treated "unfairly," have you bothered to find out if other airports want these personalities at their airports? No I didn't think so!
Please have some guts and put your name on your future messages. I'm Chris Smith, son and Jimmy and Elaine Smith and Yes the AA as you chose to call them have destroyed my Dads life and plans for his retirement years. The AA did not PURCHASE at fair market value they CONDEMED my dads land at a price they determined to be fair. I have boxes of documents that show how our family has been threated and mislead by various members of the AA and its employees over the years starting back in the early 1960's, Everyone wants to place a $$$ amount on everything in life and what we need to remember is when the end comes it's not gonna matter how much we have accumulated during our lifes, all that is going to matter is how we lived our lives and treated our fellow man. I'm very proud of my Dad for taking a stand against the AA and all the commissioners who voted to condemn and take his land. Fair market value means nothing to someone who has no intention of selling his property. Whats done is done and those that did it will have to answer for their actions, just as I will for mine someday and when that judgement day comes you won't be Anonymous any longer.
an extended conversation with your parents a few weeks
back at a local restaurant and it made me sick to my
stomach to hear how they had been lied to, cheated,
and taken advantage of by those elected in
"good faith" to serve the citizens of this county.
Maybe this "Clean the Slate in 2008" campaign
got the message across that elected officials are put
into office to serve the best interest of the masses,
not themselves or a select few "special interest groups".
If they choose not to do that, then "we the people"
will take them out the same way we put them in.
If you'll come out of hiding I'll be glad to debate the airport issues and whats gone on over the years. Please come out come out where ever you are. Chris Smith
You have said it all, and there is nothing left to be said.
Take heart!! Three of the AA members will soon be waving "bye-bye", as Eva and Larry Joe will be making their own appointments to the AA board. And after November, a new AA member from D3.
Not soon enough for the Smith family, I know...but this is the end of eminent domain at the airport.