Underhanded.
That’s how residents describe a recent decision to allow construction of a $400 million battery storage facility on Welcome All Road in College Park.
Back in 2021 and again last summer, the City Council rejected those plans after residents voiced concerns about the possibility of uncontrollable fires or explosions. This time around, on March 18, the City Council approved rezoning the 62-acre property for the battery plant without a public hearing.
We call that sneaky.
Even the city’s mayor, Bianca Motley Broom, is disturbed by the lack of transparency, and she said she believes that the City Council violated state and local zoning laws by approving the project without providing notice of a public hearing.
“Why would we ever want to be in a position of not giving the public an opportunity to comment on this pivotal decision?” she asked.
For now, we’ll set aside questions about the council approving $1.6 million in payments to the city from NextEra Energy Resources, the company that will build the facility. Instead, we’ll focus on why the issue was approved without public knowledge or input from concerned residents.
College Park Councilman Roderick Gay offered this explanation: Because the council did not technically vote to deny the rezoning at the August meeting, it was simply presented as a renewed motion at the March meeting and therefore did not require a public hearing.
Sorry, but that doesn’t sit well with us.
Nor does it sit well with the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that advocates for government transparency and access to public information, meetings and proceedings.
The open meetings law is designed to prevent officials from excluding the public from having a say in city decisions.
When asked about the way in which the city handled the rezoning request, Richard T. Griffiths, a First Amendment Foundation spokesman, put it this way: “The public deserves to know what’s being discussed in meetings in advance. And momentous decisions that will affect communities need to be laid out for the public to be able to consider.
“To make the argument that ‘Well, we already looked at it before, so it was still standing’ falls flat because it’s clearly a violation of the Open Meetings Act in relation to the agenda item,” Griffiths said.
We agree.
The state Attorney General’s Office is looking into the matter after it heard from two residents who raised concerns that the city violated the Open Meetings Act.
While we applaud the citizens who raised those concerns, we’re disappointed in the City Council for the way in which it apparently handled the matter.
The people’s right to know, after all, is the lifeblood of our democracy.
The College Park City Council should never forget that. Its constituents deserve better.
The Editorial Board
