DICK YARBROUGH: Citizens face wrath of commissioner’s hector lecture

Well, as my sweet Momma would say, “Bless her heart.” I am talking about Cobb County Commissioner Monique Sheffield. She is not happy with some of you who believe you have a right to speak your piece at the Board of Commissioner meetings. I mean what do you think we are dealing with here — a democracy?

I will need to go back and check my notes, but I seem to recall that Commissioner Sheffield asked for this job, as in running for the District 4 seat in 2020 and getting herself elected. Nobody made her do it. And nobody seems to have told her that a part of the job is having to put up with Cobb citizens expressing their opinions about a government entity that has a major impact on their pocketbook and their quality of life.

As reported in Around Town a couple of weeks ago, Commissioner Sheffield had “a few choice words” for public speakers who spoke out at a recent Board of Commissioners meeting on the county’s controversial comprehensive plan. According to AT, a number of speakers directed their criticism at the plan alleging it was put together to “cater to the whims of consultants and developers, threatening to destroy the single-family home lifestyle.” That caused Sheffield to mount her high horse and thunder down the path of righteous indignation.

“For those that expressed concerns without a plausible solution, those are nothing more than complaints,” she said. Let me pause here to submit that maybe if constituents are not providing the commissioners “plausible solutions” it is because they have a feeling they won’t be listened to anyway.

Don’t forget that this is a commission that saw nothing wrong with approving rezoning for the construction of condominiums in the Dobbins Air Reserve Base “Accident Potential Zone,” where crashes during takeoff and landing are most likely to occur. This, despite a unanimous recommendation for denial by the county’s Planning Commission and over the objections of Dobbins officials. Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed and extricated the commission from that mess but not before another tiresome hector-lecture from Chairwoman Lisa Cupid.

Speaking of hector-lectures, Sheffield wasn’t through. “I’m very appreciative, again, of those community advocates and the civic associations that not just not agreed with the plan, but have proposed solutions, whether we agree with them or not. They’re coming to the table, providing some level of brain power.”

I take that to mean that if you are not a community advocate or a member of a civic association, you need to keep your nose out of the commission’s business. You don’t have the requisite brain power to be involved in this kind of stuff. Just pay your taxes and watch reruns of “Gunsmoke.”

“Each time we have these type of meetings,” Sheffield harrumphed, “there’s this feeling of chastisement of this board, which I do not appreciate, I don’t think it’s warranted. It’s very immature to act in that fashion and expect us to sit here and listen to it time and time again.” Oh, please. To quote my favorite president, Harry Truman, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” And don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Like it or not, the public has a right to like it or not. It is the commission’s job to convince constituents that what they fear in the proposed comprehensive plan is unfounded. That requires good, effective, consistent communications on the commission’s part. That is not likely to happen thanks to an overpaid and over-compliant communications director who simply does what he is told.

Besides, if you will do something cockamamie like trying to put condominiums in an area where airplanes can fall on them despite objections from everyone but the developer, how can the public trust you not to replace single-family dwellings with a laundromat on every corner?

And what would any commission meeting be without a little Jesus thrown in? Sheffield closed her I’m-not-turning-the-other-cheek remarks by referring to the Gospel of Matthew. (Jesus is probably watching all of this and wondering how he got pulled into the dispute over Cobb County’s comprehensive plan.)

“The last comment I’ll make about this come-to-Jesus meeting,” Sheffield said, “it appears that some will see the speck in our eye, while ignoring the plank in theirs.” That is from Matthew 7:3, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

She may have missed that in Matthew 7:2, the verse just prior to that one, Jesus also said, “Do not judge or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use. It will be measured to you.”

Jesus had better be careful. Saying stuff like that could get him a hector-lecture. This is, after all, the Cobb County Commission. They don’t like that kind of talk. Bless their hearts.