While cities across the country are cutting services, raising taxes and contemplating bankruptcy, something extraordinary is happening in a suburban community just north of Atlanta, Georgia.
Since incorporating in 2005, Sandy Springs has improved its services, invested tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure and kept taxes flat. And get this: Sandy Springs has no long-term liabilities.
Pinecrest cemetery maintenance was outsourced and look what happened there? Contractors fired....Now the city crews taking it back over. Much better...
ReplyDeleteStreets Dept was abolished, Outsourced by M&M Asphalt in the Wingfield section. POTHOLES Everwhere!....
Golf course seems ok tho - Outsourced
Who wins?
Still complaining?
Customer service utilities better? sure hope so.
ReplyDeletelook, anonymous--no one is complaining,...just pointing our facts. does that bother you?
As far as the golfcourse is concerned, the restaurant was outsourced. better?
Pinecrest cemetery better? You're not on drugs, are you? There are missing graves there. Families are buried and no one can find the markers. Overgrown with weeds. The city fixes the streets in my neighborhood and they are full of potholes. It is not outsourced. there is a standing joke in the alleyway behind my house. It is the biggest hole I have ever seen.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't view the video file, but I found a NYT article about this city. Very interesting model. Maybe they got it right from the beginning. We've had a century to screw things up.
ReplyDeleteAlso interesting: one of the primary complaints residents had about Fulton County was unpopular zoning changes and over-development forced upon them. Shocking.
AND: They insisted on maintaining control of their public safety agencies. I think that was smart. And they were able to start off with a more "contemporary" approach to employment and benefits, which is precisely what is killing local and regional governments across the country today.
Sandy Springs is three times our population and four times our size. That's a lot of taxable land. And the area is more affluent.
Lots of food for thought, Lynn. Not sure that it would translate well to LW, but certainly worth examining. Laurel Decker