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Funding group forms ahead of fall election for City Council seats By AMBER PERRY amber@appenmedia.com
AMBER PERRY/APPEN MEDIA
Residents off Hopewell Road, wary about a proposed active park in their area, posted signs along the street warning drivers of future traffic problems. While there has been no official decision on what will be developed on the city’s new 40-acre lot, plans for an active park date back to 2021.
Petition sounds alarm for proposed active park By AMBER PERRY amber@appenmedia.com MILTON, Ga. — Kyle and Cindy Hester found their dream farm on Hopewell Road in 2018, where they now train horses to compete. But in recent months, they discovered that Seven Porches Farm is under threat from a proposed, neighboring active park. One park design, drafted by Milton city staff, shows three multipurpose fields just a few
yards from where the Hesters’ horses graze. The design also includes four baseball fields. “The whole plan was we move to Milton because we’re protected,” Kyle said. “We could have gone anywhere when we retired. We could have gone back to Perry where we grew up. We chose this place…” Two concerned residents who live nearby, attorney Ben Leonard and Don McGuffey, sat around a table in the Hesters’ barn house. The Hesters,
Leonard, McGuffey and Christy Hayes, a horse owner who lives across the street from the Hesters, were responsible for creating a petition in early June opposing the development. It has nearly 780 signatures as of Aug. 3 and references plans for an indoor athletic facility on Bethany Bend. “These farms are disappearing. As someone who came from Alpharetta, that has
See PETITION, Page 6
MILTON, Ga. — Adam Hollingsworth, Milton resident and former chief of staff for Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott, calls his independent expenditure committee Milton Families First a “grassroots movement” he hopes will last for “years and years and years.” Different from political action committees (PAC), an independent committee is a group that does not coordinate with individual candidates, according to the State Ethics Commission. It expends funds to affect the outcome of an election. An independent expenditure committee can spend as much as it likes so long as it is completely divorced from any one candidate. Milton Families First is the only active, independent committee registered in Milton and one of just a few in North Fulton. Hollingsworth, president of Milton Families First, said he formed the group because some of the city’s leaders “have put their self-interests above those who they were elected to serve.” The committee boasts three founding principles — government transparency and accountability, public safety and responsible growth. “We hope to build Milton Families First as a place to give the citizenry a seat at a really important table,” he said. When asked how his background in politics informs Milton Families First, Hollingsworth said his background as
See GROUP, Page 18
NEWS
Milton opens new fire station ► PAGE 4