Great final moments at the LINK trip:

The best is last for the exhausted participants on the LINK trip.

This Type-A crowd of elected officials, business leaders and other glad-handers survived three days of talks and conferences, three nights of hard agenda pushing, often over adult beverages. Even driven by the perfectionist planning of ARC leaders Tony Landers and Kellie Brownlow, the politeness just went so far.

And by the end of the last day, when the session finally turns to ‘what can we do about this at home?’ the gloves came off.

Roswell Mayor Jere Wood jumped to his feet first, asking to stop the general conversation and demanding that the group bear down on results to take home. He was shushed by Tony Landers. ARC chair and Cobb Commission Chair Sam Olens took the floor, asking reporter Maria Saporta to hold her questions. She did not.

Olens expressed an idea regularly overheard during coffee breaks, by veterans of several LINK trips. “I get the impression we spend all year whining about how we don’t do what we see on these trips. Then we get to the trip and realize some of the towns we see as unified are guilty of doing the same thing.”

Sam reminded the group metro Atlanta has grown by terrific migration, especially in its leadership. How many of the leaders on this very trip are from Atlanta? Not Shirley Franklin, he pointed out, not Buzz Ahrens of Cherokee County. DOT member Dana Lemon came closest, perhaps. She’s a Henry County native. Most of the room looked around without saying anything. It made a powerful point about the lack of homegrown leadership in Atlanta.

Finally, before the meeting returned to its uplifting tone, Olens had a last stinging word.

“ We say we have a unified business leadership in Atlanta, but we like to bitch at each other at every opportunity. Snipping at each other’s heels doesn’t solve a darn thing.”

It was the first ever LINK trip for Savannah’s Steve Green, chair of Georgia’s Ports Authority. His analysis? “More we can all get pulling on the rope in the same direction, especially in Washington, the better.”

Metro Chamber president Sam Williams gave a cheer for the Atlanta Regional Commission itself for leading MARTA’s temporary rescue. Then he pushed on transportation. “I’ll challenge ARC to put down on paper what you the local elected officials say you want done. And let us get behind it! I think ARC needs to take the initiative.”

Kay Pippin from Henry County’s Chamber of Commerce reminded the group of the millions in federal money waiting for a south side rail line. “Many of us think our state has taken a step backwards in the last few years.” She warned the dollars, and the chance for commuter rail, will go elsewhere if the region doesn’t push lawmakers to take it. She asked for support at a meeting on the 18th of May.

Mike Bodker, Mayor of Johns Creek said he is waiting for a strong leader to take on the state legislature. “Atlanta is lacking in many ways a leader to go do it. I came on this trip to get back to that final session of last year where we burned up the carpet.” And for good measure, he threw in a taunt to the voters. “We have to use fear. This is the best possible year, when they’re up for election. We need leadership and our community needs to have a single voice right now.”