"What Made You Want to Do This?"

"What Made You Want to Do This?"

I grew up in Flowery Branch, just north of Sugar Hill. I've always lived in and loved this area of Georgia, and all my family is here. In 2015, I moved to a home inside the Sugar Hill city limits. 

Not long after moving in, I started developing concerns. Specifically, I was concerned about the dense development plans I saw for the City that would cause a huge change in character. I was also concerned about the City going into debt to build a shopping plaza and gym, projects better suited to the private sector, not the government.    

Most importantly, however, I was concerned by how people were treated when they publicly expressed those concerns and others on social media. The bullying and belittling started almost immediately, generally by someone who had a connection to the government or an elected official that could be revealed with a little research. And with that bullying, the concerned individual inevitably backed down. Elected officials were present and active on the platforms. But somehow, they never seemed to see what their followers were doing, much less try to do the reasonable thing, which would be to get in and diffuse the tension, or tell their friends to stand down while they handled the topic professionally. 

Their unprofessional and often childish approaches dealing with people who had issues with government or simply different opinions struck me. Was it just amateurish, or was there more to it than that?

Finally, I personally criticized the local government on social media and deliberately refused to back down, just to see how far they would push things. Never threatening, never actually accusing, but asking questions that clearly didn't have an answer they were interested in sharing. 

Finally, I guess I pushed some buttons over an issue. I ended up getting a private message from Marc Cohen, saying something about how it was important people only said accurate things, or something to that effect. 

There are some issues with that. 

I had not made assertions, and at that time, very rarely did. I only asked questions and pointed out things they were saying that didn't make logical sense. That's still mostly what I do. 

The only people who know everything about the government are IN the government. If the public has the wrong ideas, the government should share the correct information along with supporting documentation. A responsible, ethical government would be more than happy to do that, because that is mutually beneficial for everyone involved. He didn't point out specifically what I was saying that was incorrect. Nor did he supply me with any new information. If my statements were inaccurate, that should have been an easy and logical thing to do. 

It is the responsibility of citizens to ask questions of the government that serves them. It is not their responsibility to ask questions privately so as not to embarrass elected officials. On the contrary, it's better to ask questions publicly so that all citizens can get the same answer at the same time. 

It is NEVER the responsibility of citizens to back down and remain silent because they don't know the secrets the government won't tell them. It is no one's responsibility to allow the government to operate in the dark, and a responsible, ethical government would not want to. Hence, I took his private comment through a channel untracked by Open Records Laws as a threat by a public official to defame me, a private citizen, by publicly branding me a liar. That's a violation of my First Amendment rights under the US Constitution, and I don't take that lightly. 

Had anything I said been untrue, either at that time or in the two or so years since then, the City could have very easily opened up, shared some records, and revealed themselves as truthful. 

While Marc Cohen has been friendly to me since, the City as a whole remains as closed off and opaque as ever. And overall, in the two and a half years I've been dealing with them, they still haven't learned how to skillfully and professionally deal with questions and differences of opinion from the public.

I initially thought that I might have to go in once or twice a month to keep things a little more honest around here. Sadly, the first red flags I saw were not the only red flags I saw. It was, and still is, obvious to me as a citizen that this City requires a much higher level of transparency and accountability, which can only be achieved through better citizen engagement. 