Here in Columbia County, the current chairman of our county board of commissioners is a developer by trade. Under his leadership, our county government - with the exception of Commissioner Lee Anderson - recently tried to bully the cities of Harlem and Grovetown into surrendering their city charters for the fantasy goal of establishing what would become the fifth-largest city in Georgia.

For now, Harlem and Grovetown have stood their ground successfully, but the foul air of consolidation still is breathing down on the county's unincorporated communities. Interestingly, those pushing for consolidation also are against impact fees for developers.

I've lived in and enjoyed rural Columbia County all my life. I don't appreciate seeing our Southern woods laid bare and our wildlife displaced because of greed.

On a regular basis, beautiful cooling trees are cut down and replaced by hot asphalt - forcing birds, rabbits, deer, raccoons and other animals onto ever-shrinking parcels of natural habitat. For damage control, we citizens are being slapped with a corrupt stormwater tax.

Although the rape of our county is bad enough, consolidation will make it even more pleasurable for those wishing to manipulate politics, destroy our natural surroundings and raise taxes from an even loftier centralized location. Is that what we want? No way.

Voting a developer out of office is fine, but something more must be done before Columbia County forever becomes a congested, overdeveloped mess. It's time to discuss the implementation of a temporary moratorium on development. Such a freeze would enable Columbia Countians to study how, and to what extent, this county can be developed and still remain a desirable place to live. Besides, doesn't God's green Earth deserve some consideration?

Either we do it now, or we regret it later.

P.K. Fitzgerald, Harlem