DoraBlog

I have mostly been silent about Tom Hart since he won the city council race back in December. I figured that he won fair and square and was entitled to some time to prove that he has a real vision for Doraville. So far, though, I have been unimpressed. Hart and his supporters are vehemently opposed to mixed-use development in the downtown portion of the city. They seem to want to make everything office or retail space, believing that mixed-use is just code for jam-packed condos and apartments which would floodour city with undesireables.

The e-mail below was written by local activist, Susan Crawford about an Oakcliff Neighbors meeting she saw Tom Hart at. I know Susan, and I believe that she is generally a consensus builder, who really wants to see some positive change in this city. Her description of the encounter with Hart, however, does not fill me with much hope that his incumbancy will be anything more than an obstructionist return of the Doraville good ol’ boy network:

After our ONA meeting last night, I walked outside with Steve and Tom Hart (who came in to the civic center during the last five minutes for some reason). I asked him a couple of questions about his ideas for the downtown area: Does your vision include anything at all??? as I was (and still am) unclear about why any city would not want shops and restaurants and mixed use in general in its downtown area.

At any rate, when I suggested people might be more excited about having a sit-down restaurant instead of Baldino’s in a soon-to-be-vacated existing downtown building, Mr Hart got quite upset, ranting and blustering. He then began imitating me (I can only assume and hope) by pirouetting and talking in a shrill high-pitched voice, making silly foo foo gestures, wrapping up the performance by yelling in my face about DUI schools.

Now, seriously, I never at any time felt at all threatened by any of this and I instigated the conversation (or whatever it was) Still, I left there demeaned, angry, betrayed (Thank you, Steve!) and with the distinct unhappy feeling that the misogyny of Doraville’s “good old boy” past has merely morphed into another form. From what was said in the parking lot, the rantings about individual women, it seems to me that any woman in the city who doesn’t follow directions well is not welcome. A decent leader advocates for the citizens, not the other way around.

I am always one to give a LOT of leeway, and the status quo has never really been my cup of tea, but public figures and representatives must, at the very least, not be out of control and should, on the high end, actually represent their constituents.

Unfortunately for Susan (and the rest of us), all we got in Tom Hart was a nutty, misogynistic, homophobicc advocate for his own pet issues and pet peeves. The rest of the citizenry is tough-out-of-luck.