This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Monies From SDS Settlement Would Pay for Dacula Police Department

Monies going to Gwinnett Police can be directed back to Dacula to fund a police department when the Gwinnett SDS lawsuit is settled.

As a candidate for the Dacula City Council, I have made it one of my platform points that the city needs to take a more active role in addressing the crime problem in our city. I suggested that a part of the solution might be for Dacula to form its own police department. Serious crime has escalated dramatically in Dacula, especially over the past six months it seems.

During the Candidates Forum on Oct. 20, . I responded that I thought it might be possible to hire one or two part time marshals to assist our current and

Find out what's happening in Daculawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Since I am also a proponent of going to that $2+ million cash reserves that is in the Dacula coffers occasionally for expenses, I also said I thought we might take their salaries from that for one year, as an experiment to see if having extra manpower would make a difference.

When Gwinnett PD responds to 911 in our city, our Marshals are usually there minutes ahead of the county units. County zones are just too big and cannot concentrate on our City because they have zones that go out of our City for miles.

Find out what's happening in Daculawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But I also suggested that maybe there was a way to opt out of Gwinnett County Police services. I am happy to report that I have learned there is a way for us to opt out of Gwinnett and afford to fund our own police department without having to go into the city’s cash reserves.

 

Currently, the City of Dacula residents pay a millage rate (ex. .25 mils) for police services from the county. Cities with their own police departments (such as Buford and Suwanee) also pay .25 mils on their county property taxes for county police. That is not fair for cities with their own police departments. If we started a police department in Dacula, we'd still have to pay .25 mils for county police at the current way the county taxes us.

This unfair system has resulted in Gwinnett County cities suing the County. Though I am familiar with the lawsuit against the County’s Service Delivery Strategy (SDS) I was not aware that when the lawsuit is settled, the .25 mils we currently spend for police services to the county, can be directed back to the City of Dacula so we can fund our own police department. So there would be no double taxing for police services like one of my opponents in the council race, Hubert “Hoppie” Wells said.

It is critical we settle the SDS dispute soon, not just for our ambition to have our own police with faster response times, but for all the other things the county double taxes certain services to all the 15 Gwinnett Cities.

Double taxing is unconstitutional and Gwinnett currently does it with all cities, and has done it for years/generations. Example, Why should Dacula pay for Gwinnett Planning department? we have our own planning commissioners/department. Why should Dacula residents pay for Gwinnett's code enforcement unit, we have our Marshals who handle that.

There is hope across the county that the SDS lawsuit will be settled satisfactorily very soon, If it is, we can get back those monies we currently pay to Gwinnett County for police services directed back to us and put it toward a separate police force for Dacula.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?