Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Today the City of Dunwoody celebrates its first year.



And they said it couldn't be done?

On July 15th, 2008 a referendum took place asking if the citizens wanted to create the City of Dunwoody.  10,506 registered voters cast 8,534 ballots (81%) voting to create the city but 1,972 people voted against the creation of the city.  As soon as the Council was elected in September we started to lay the groundwork for the city.   On December 1, 2008 the city was officially created and as the video shows after a few minutes of reflection we were back at work. 

I hope the city government has served all of the residents of Dunwoody well in the last year but I especially hope that myself, the other members of City Council and wonderful members of the City staff has convinced those who voted NO that a government closer to the people is more responsive to the needs of the citizens.

As a council we had a number of tough decisions early on but if I had to pick my proudest personal accomplishment in the last year, it would have to be my commitment to transparency and open government.  Early on I posted every electronic document that I had to this blog and my personal servers; then I stressed that full agenda packets be placed by the City to the web.  I have recorded and posted to the web almost every word of every official meeting that I attended so that you can listen at your leisure.  Recently I have started posting live web broadcasts of City Council meetings so that you can participate in the process from the comfort of your own home.  I anticipate that in the coming year that the City of Dunwoody will take over and improve on these public information items and only when fully implemented will I be able to fully step back to reflect on those accomplishments.  Until that happens I will continue to do my best to keep you well informed by engaging all forms of communication and media.

Thank you for allowing me to have the privilege to serve all 40,000 residents of the City of Dunwoody as it has truely been my honor.

John

3 comments:

Paula Caldarella said...

Thank you John for all of your hard work on the Council and for keeping us informed. I wish all of your fellow council men and woman had the same desire as you do to keep your constituents informed. Here is hoping we have more people with John's dedication to run for City Council next election period.

Kim Gokce said...

Congratulations on a job well-done! I like to say I'm a capitalist when it comes to economics and a "communist" when it comes to public information - in this day and age, citizens should have ubiquitous access to the machinations of our governments. Here's hoping Dunwoody fully adopts your information sharing standards and, dare I hope, DeKalb learns from your success.

Bob Fiscella said...

John,
Thanks for all of your hard work - really appreciate it! I don't agree with everything that the council has done (most but not all), but I applaud the hard work and effort that's gone into starting up the city.
Great Job!
Bob
www.dunwoodyusa.org