Dacula City Council Needs Fresh Perspectives

I wanted to take this opportunity to share the basic points of my city council campaign. They involve four issues: 1) Getting the community more involved in city council and their local government, and this includes the youth; 2) Taking a stand for more fiscally conservative spending habits on the part of the council; 3) encouraging those factors that will attract businesses and help them grow;and 4) addressing the crime that has escalated dramatically in the past six months.

As far as getting the public more involved in city government, there is such an obvious disconnect between Dacula residents and what goes on in that brick building up on the hill on Harbins Rd. I would like to see more of the public turn out at the two monthly council meetings. Except for more prominent issues like the building of the new Kroger last year or the Eminent Domain case this year, attendance is slim. I want to see the council put more emphasis on increasing attendance by considering some creative ways to get people excited about coming over to City Hall for their govt meetings. As for engaging our young people, I have an idea of the three area schools within the city limits choosing one student per month to represent their school at the council meetings so they can get a first hand glimpse of their government at work.

As part of a more fiscally conservative approach to city council spending, I would advocate for making use of the city's reserves occasionally to give the budget a break and perhaps cut down a bit on the taxes on residents.

As for business growth, I am happy to see the liquor by the drink and Sunday sales issues on the ballot for a referendum in November. I believe that by giving people the choice of whether they want to buy or partake of alcoholic beverages on Sunday is not only a question of freedom and options, but also would mean a big boon to the many restaurants that now dot our little city. Other restaurants have signaled they would come too if such a referendum passed. 

I supported the referendum and I am hopeful that the residents of Dacula will consider that passing these laws could have a very positive impact on business. As it stands now, our restaurants businesses lose money to restaurants in neighboring towns that do serve alcoholic beverages. I want it understood that I am a "card-carrying" Christian, have been since the age of eleven. But I am also an American who believes that I don't have the right to limit someone's choices because of what I chose. No one will be forced to buy beer at the convenience store or a mixed drink at Friend's on Sunday. But it is an economically viable way of increasing revenue for some of our Dacula businesses.

We in Dacula are new to the party with the question of crime. For many years, we practically had none. So, the very idea that we now have burglaries, assaults, car smash and grabs, and drugs rampant in our community is a hard pill to swallow. What we need is a decided effort on the part of community and city council to join forces and find ways to curtail this new threat.

I think the idea  of increasing the City Marshall's staff to a few more personnel is a good one to start with. It would mean that residents would have more law enforcement to call upon and response times would be greater. Gwinnett County Police do their best but they are swamped at any given moment. An expansion of the City Marshall's office would mean a matter of minutes for any emergency call as opposed to at least twice that much for a call to the County. Also, if this test program of an increased Marshall's office proved successful for a certain time period, maybe the idea of establishing a separate Dacula Police Dept could be considered. Of course, adding a couple of new personnel to the Marshall's office would be an added expense but if we follow more stringent spending rules as I previously suggested here, we would have the extra money to pay them. There is no reason not to allocate from time to time from the considerably large cash reserves the city has on hand.

These are the basic points with which I concern myself in my run for the City Council of Dacula. Feel free to let me know your thoughts on any of these issues.