Article Misses the Point
[In the recent Beacon article “Tolleson Wants In”] Mr. Fredericks misses the legitimate policy concerns I expressed. I want Beacon readers to understand those concerns and that my intention was never to take pot shots at a fellow councilmember.

First, I didn’t say Mr. Tolleson would "want to raise taxes in this coming budget cycle". I don’t think anyone would consider raising taxes in today's economic situation.

I did say we have seen several times in the past when Mr. Tolleson's actions impacted taxes. He has used higher tax rates in surrounding jurisdictions to justify either raising tax rates in Roswell or in not cutting existing rates as much as has been proposed. I can understand keeping up with the Joneses, but I'll never understand keeping up with their higher tax payments.

I also did not say that Mr. Tolleson had “incessant opposition” to my proposed budget reductions last year, it was only once, and that was enough to increase spending that was otherwise going to be cut. He did support the final smaller reduction in spending.

Next, Mr. Fredericks writes that I believe Mr. Tolleson supports a storm water fee as if this was a bad thing. I also support a storm water fee, as we cannot allow our infrastructure to degrade over time to the point where it causes future problems.

However, I do not support adding a new fee of $30-70 a year to Roswell residents and $7-8,000 a year to businesses and churches given our economic situation. It's just not the right thing to do right now and to make people pay more to government (it doesn't matter whether you call it a fee or a tax) just doesn't make sense to me. Mr. Tolleson has pushed to begin this fee on July 1, 2009. I think we should wait until July 1, 2010. So, it‘s the timing that is the issue. If the fee does begin this July, obviously the amount you pay to Roswell will increase very soon.

Finally, Mr. Tolleson didn't enable the Charlie Brown project simply by having an advisory group, as [the article] implies. The residents involved with that committee worked hard and gave legitimate input.

Mr. Tolleson set the parameters that the group worked within. He insisted that density levels initially asked for by Centennial Walk were required to get developer involvement. Developers seek the highest level of entitlements possible and in reality more than even they hope to receive in a rezoning. Yet, Mr. Tolleson pushed for their opening request of higher densities as the floor for all future mixed-use rezonings.

He refused to seriously discuss lower density levels as the process continued. When it became clear that these much higher densities were going to meet a 3-3 tie vote with Mayor Wood breaking that tie, the rest of us went to work creating a mixed-use ordinance that wouldn't do as much damage as what was coming forward.

With Mr. Tolleson as Community Development chair, Mayor Wood saw the split that could allow higher densities, and the opening he needed to push the Charlie Brown project. If not for Mr. Tolleson's insistence on higher densities, I believe the Charlie Brown project would have never moved forward.
 
            Councilman Kent Igleheart, Roswell

Devil in the Details of City Center
My “Rooms to Go” analogy in last week’s Beacon cover story [on the proposed Alpharetta City Center’s $24.5 million bond] really refers to the fact that Alpharetta cannot afford any repayments on the City Center until 2013. The schedule shows the City borrowing the $24.5M in Jan 2010, and then only paying interest from their existing reserve funds for 3 years. So, we would pay for the City Hall in Jan 2010 but not start payments until 2013.

This is very bad management to buy something that big when the City cannot afford to make any payments yet. In three years, who knows how much assessments and sales taxes may drop, and the City may have to raise taxes? Anyone who supports the City Center proposal has not read the details. It is ironic that the none of the biggest proponents of the City Center live in Alpharetta: the developer, the Community Development Director, the Finance Director, the City Administrator and the Assistant City Administrator. The developer lives in Milton where taxes are about half of Alpharetta's rates and they have no bond debt at all. Why don't these folks sell this idea to the City of Milton?
       
        Tom Miller, President,
        Winward Homeowners Association, Alpharetta

Newspaper Bias Only One Reason For Failure
Regarding your recent op-ed piece “Death in the City Room”, you seem to take some delight in the demise of old-line newspapers, attributing their decline to a loss of credibility and liberal bias, and downplaying the impact of new media. I respectfully disagree with your assumptions and your conclusions.

A quick glance at Atlanta’s flagship paper can show why it is shrinking: no more daily business section; page after page of stock market listings have gone online; Multiple sections of classified ads have gone to Craig’s List, Monster.com and Ebay; The TV listings have disappeared in favor of on-screen guides, Tivo, and other sources; sports standings and college scores are increasingly found online; Missing a favorite comic strip locally? No problem, just go to comics.com; Even local athletes seeking their moment of fame now look online when page after page of fastest Peachtree finishers was cut to the top 1000 last year, and may soon disappear entirely. With these examples of traditional print media ceding their readers to other sources, is it any wonder their readership has dropped? Even before the Internet made such inroads, I’d frequently find national news printed one to three days earlier in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times before it appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Is credibility an issue? I have found print media, in general, to be better stewards of fact than broadcasters, perhaps due to greater reliance on editors, fact checkers, and a bit less deadline pressure. A recent poll showed that The Daily Show on Comedy Central was a primary news source among teens and young adults. That, along with the rise of peer-edited (or un-edited) Internet Wikis seems to indicate that credibility isn’t even a consideration in evaluating a news source!

Though I did not make it my career, I was born a skeptic and trained as a journalist. I learned the lingo, the structure of journalistic writing, the need for objectivity, to seek out all sides of a story, and to corroborate any assertion with secondary sources and the “sniff test” of personal experience. Detecting bias of any sort became second nature. I’ve long believed that the editorial slant of any publication (and as human establishments, all publications have one) should be apparent only in its opinion pieces. That bias alarm sounds more frequently with The Beacon than it should, and seems to be a perverse source of pride for your staff. The mantra “Fair and Balanced” as adopted by The Beacon and Fox News has me cringing every time I encounter it, much as I snicker when I see a used car dealership that includes “Honest” in their name, or check that my wallet is still there when a tradesman (or televangelist) touts their Christian principles! I don’t hew to your notion that news should be incendiary, that every story a call to action. As a subscription paper The Beacon must find its own paying audience, and that that audience, by self-selection, will mirror your editorial persuasion. I’m not so certain that audience will be well served by the relationship, and a paper more sycophant than challenging. General George Patton once said “If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn't thinking,” though I hope to give The Beacon, and my neighbors, more credit than that.

            Brian Peabody, Alpharetta