Yesterday morning after church a few people who know that I am involved with the city movement here in Dunwoody stopped me to discuss the pros & cons of future cityhood. I answered many of the questions to their satisfaction but there was one question that I couldn't answer. Are the residents of Sandy Springs happy that they formed a city and if they had the chance to do it over again, would they?
Since I don't live in Sandy Springs, I only know from word of mouth that they have a solid police force and are in control of their own zoning & code enforcement. Besides these items I couldn't answer if the everyday resident was happy with the decision to form a city or not. Later in the day I read Jim Osterman's "Around Sandy Springs" column in the AJC and thought it was worth sharing since his feelings on Sandy Springs mirror mine regarding Dunwoody.
Has Sandy Springs cityhood been worth it? You betcha
By Jim Osterman, AJC, April 28, 2008
Unless something radical happens our neighbors in Dunwoody will vote this summer on becoming a city, the way we did here in Sandy Springs almost three years ago.
The whole thing reminds me of those days when I was a kid and couldn’t wait to grow up. I imagined life was perfect as an adult. I could come and go as I pleased, I could stay up late, I could eat at McDonald’s every day, I could watch all the TV I wanted to, etc. Of course I didn’t consider getting and keeping a job, paying bills, laundry, paying taxes and some the other things that come with being an adult.
Many people had the same wishful feelings before Sandy Springs became a city - once we were out from under Fulton County life would be great. But at a recent forum in Dunwoody someone floated the question - did the folks over there want another level of government?
And I started thinking if we were asked about whether being a city was worth it, what would we say? Are we better off now, than we were when we were part of Fulton County? Is being a city everything we thought it would be?
Or perhaps the question should be do we feel like we’re better off? Has it been worth the effort.
On the plus side of the ledger we’re no under the Fulton County Commission, a group many people felt (myself included) did not have our best interests in mind. It was okay to collect our taxes but the money seemed to have a strange way of ending up elsewhere.
Indeed, this week I got an e-mail from our neighborhood association about the non-emergency police contact number. Several people have said they used that number and got an indifferent response. Digging a little deeper it was discovered those calls were still being routed to Fulton County Police, not the local Sandy Springs officers.
On other fronts there might be some homebuilders who aren’t happy with us being a city. I’ve heard complaints that the permitting process is slow. Likewise the city stepped in to make sure a builder couldn’t buy a piece of land and bulldoze every tree of the property - something else that didn’t make a lot of builders giddy as schoolgirls.
Traffic on Roswell Road is still a pain in the buns.
If I was talking to the folks in Dunwoody and I had one minute to tell them how I felt about life after incorporation I guess I would say this:
If you think becoming a city is going to solve all your problems think again because what is a problem to me is a non-issue to my neighbor.
If you think electing your mayor and city council will make your lives better from Day 1, you’re mistaken because those folks can’t say yes to everything. And they shouldn’t.
If you think everything that bugs you will get better overnight, think again. Situations that bother us are usually years in the making and can’t be undone in the blink of an eye.
But is it worth it to have the opportunity to control our own destiny, not to mention our day-to-day lives? Absolutely.
No comments:
Post a Comment