Forsyth YMCA wants to join case against Bethel Park plan

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fired back in the legal battle over who ultimately will have use of Bethel Park on Lake Lanier in Forsyth County.

The Corps has filed a lengthy brief asking federal Judge Richard Story to dismiss Forsyth County's request for a preliminary injunction to stop the Corps from leasing its 62-acre Bethel Park to the YMCA.

The Corps said the county is not entitled to any injunctive relief concerning the agreement, saying Forsyth's complaint had met none of the requirements under the law to receive such relief.

Meanwhile, the YMCA said it did not want to stand on the sidelines and asked Story for permission to intervene in the case as a co-defendant with the Corps. YMCA attorney Myles Eastwood said while the YMCA is in agreement with the Corps' response that it has acted properly in granting the Y its lease of the site for a $20 million summer camp, the Corps may not see the need to defend some of the county's accusations aimed at the YMCA as thoroughly as the YMCA might wish.

In its rebuttal of the county's claim, the Corps says:

1.) The county is wrong when it says the Corps under the Flood Control Act (FCA) must surrender the use of Bethel Park to the county. "The FCA requires only that the Corps award the property to the county when doing so is in the public interest, which the Corps determined - in proper exercise of discretion - it was not."

2.) The county is wrong when it claims the Corps must prepare an Environmental Impact Statement, wrote Corps attorneys in its motion. Corps experts made an adequate environmental impact study and disclosed those results which complies with all that federal regulations call for.

3.) The county's assertion that it is "suffering irreparable injury, requiring immediate intervention" because the county's "alleged statutory rights have been violated" do not hold water because there were no such "violations." The Corps points out two other parks have already been leased on Lake Lanier in Forsyth County.

4.) Finally, the Corps says Forsyth has not shown its injunction would serve the public interest, "especially when the Corps has already determined that the public interest is best served by granting the land to the YMCA."

Forsyth County has been in a bitter struggle over the right to develop Bethel Park. The county maintains it has the "right of first refusal," and should have been given that opportunity. Further, the county claims the RV campground it wants to put on the property is more environmentally sensitive than the summer camp proposed by the YMCA.

But the Corps has affidavits from former Forsyth commissioners and the Corps' Lake Resources manager between 2000 and 2004 saying the county was offered the use of the property but turned it down.

Supporters of the YMCA plan say that the County Commission is not pursuing this lawsuit out of any desire to see its park plan built. Indeed, they say the county likely would never build it at all.

They say this is simply an attempt by commissioners to placate a minority of voters who live near the area and don't want to see the park developed.
- www.northfulton.com

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