A city police force isn't immediately a part of Peachtree Corners' plans, he said

Mason added that he has no idea where the city hall will be built, but confirmed that the idea of a $20 million city hall across from The Forum was a rumor.

1)Did you even read the article? He talked about a police force because he was asked a question about it. He did not say anything about creating one.
2)What's wrong with a city hall? With the creation of a new city comes a ton of administrative work. The new city leaders will need somewhere to work. I doubt renting out office space somewhere in Technology Park would be financially fiscal.
3)Are you planning to move to PTC?

PTC Citizen
1) No where in the article does it have any question about a police force just that Mr Mason said there was none "immediately planned" and if it was a question he should have told the crowd that we voted to have a city lite with 3 services which does not include Police...not imply that one would be down the road.
2) a City Hall would be a HUGE burden on tax payers and many believe that their is enough vacant office space to handle the administrative duties of the new city. We do not need a City HAll if we are to be given what we voted on...only 2 full time employees and 3 services.
3)The boundries of our new city include parts formally known as Duluth and many idenify with the name of the schools their children attend or attended so Duluth Mom is a PTC Citizen as well.

Mim

1)The article transitions from population and housing to a police force. Reading between the lines I would imagine a question was raised at the PDC meeting, I was not there so I couldn't say for certain. A police force is not in the immediate future, so I think this bit is a moot point to debate on. I do think that PTC will grow to a point in the future that a police force will be necessary.
2)I certainly don't think citizens of PTC should be taxed for a $20M City Hall but I do think that the city constructing a dedicated building would be fiscally more responsible then renting an office building. Building City Hall would be adding jobs. What would they need? Construction workers, clerks, janitors, landscapers, maintence staff, etc. Should the leadership be focused on buildings at this moment? No. Should the city be focused on services and setting the foundations to continue growing this area? Yes. Should there also be "long view" planning made in conjunction with setting up new services within the city? Most definitely.
3) My question was a curiosity of why her comment was so strong. I missed the "we haven't" and "our future" tenses in reading this late last night. I had not realized that parts of Duluth would be incorporated into PTC. I fully admit my lack of knowledge in that area.

An earlier post suggested we should build a city hall because it would create jobs. That is like saying crime is good because it gives jobs to policemen.

Jim, that's the broken window theory in a nutshell. Just imagine how many jobs we could create with a city hall and a police department. Heck, we'd create double if we built two city halls and two police departments :)

The trash Service is going to be something that is studied. The new city council is going to have about 18 to 24 months to make a decision. We as a city are still locked into the Contract that Gwinnett County signed a yr. ago. Unless the city lawyer can find a loop hole to get us out of the contract, It is not beneficial to the city to buy our way out of the contract, that will cost a lot of money.

R, Brent was pretty much dead on with his comments. I think we need to examine the trash deal and see what we can do. But there is a good chance we'd need to settle with the county and, possibly, the trash hauler to get out of it. Its not a question of if we can, its a question of if we do, would it eat up all our savings? Of course, the other alternative is to unilaterally break it and just deal with the subsequent lawsuits. I actually did an entire webinar on the issue, if you want to get all the details on the trash agreements and our options:
http://youtu.be/RWhR3q7SeDI

Brent,
As he mentioned above, with some people wanting to sue, we need to be careful what we say as candidates. Since I know how you work and you know how I work and we call it as we see it, politics be damned, this is one area we have to use discretion in since no matter whose side we take or what we say, it can be used by someone in a lawsuit that would cost the city (and by extension, the taxpayers). Just a head's up, because this, unlike pretty much anything else we have weighed in on, is almost certain to end up in a lawsuit by someone.

I think we all understand the idea that this avoided expensive litigation, but that begs the question- what was so wrong with the original deal that it would require such expensive litigation to rectify?
More importantly I think are the ramifications this has on our charter. Back in November, we didnt vote on becoming a city because we wanted to get away from Norcross or because we wanted to be able to use 'Peachtree Corners' on our return addresses. We voted on adopting the charter. The charter defined our boundaries in Appendix A. And it was sold to all of us as being like no other charter in that it offered us the protection of no changes without a referendum. As this deal changes our borders, it by definition changes our charter and we didnt vote on it. Does that nullify the charter? Or does it just set a precedent that the charter can be changed without a referendum after all?
Any lawyers out there care to chime in?

To S. Rausch comments. I agree that avoiding legal expenses should always be a consideration. Here is the real problem. Those businesses that were played like a political football had no say in the govt.'s actions regarding taxation or other. NO REPRESENTATION. They unknowingly were expecting one thing as agreed and received something else. This is highly unethical. NO transparency. No honesty.

Mark, you hit the nail on the head, in my opinion, and that is why I expressed my displeasure to Mayor Salter and Mayor-elect Mason about a legislative solution several weeks ago before I even had any idea what it was. Those businesses are being disproportionately affected by any annexation and I feel their interests should be paramount in this.

Bob, based on what I know is state law trumps local law and recently enacted laws trump previously enacted ones. I had a follow up statement to that but, again, because as a candidate, I don't want to say anything that can be construed as speaking for the city that can come back to bite us, I'll let you and others walk us down that road of logic.

Please see above comment in response to Mim. I again admit that I did not know about parts of Duluth being incorporated in PTC, lack of knowledge on my part. I don't know who's been telling you about the load of crock about the side of 141 you live on, but I'm proud of my new city and I want to see it flourish. That includes welcoming everyone that is included within it's borders.

Every area will have its corners.

Thanks for the kind words. Met with someone else that told me, in no uncertain terms (and ones I can't print), he wants me to push the trash issue. I told him I'll push it as far as I can but my goal is to lower your bills and my bills and, for the reasons I mentioned in my video, even a seemingly simple issue like who should do our trash can get mucked up once you get layers of government and lawyers involved.

Scott, you seem to have some of the best thought out responses of any of the candidates - you have refrained from cutting and pasting of corporate credo's and seem to be able to distance your thoughts from your uppca roots. But, what I have never understood is the so called trash issue. Maybe I'm simple minded, but I have a can and I have a recycling bin; I fill them up and once a week roll them to the curb. Magically when I return home, my trash is gone. Another thing I like is I dont have to remember to pay another bill - it happens without me thinking about it. Is freedom of trash just a right wing thing - I just dont get it. The only thing that makes any sense is the uppcas needed a third service and that seems like the path of least resistance.

Thanks Harry. And I hope all are well after the tornadoes.

Two quick points on trash for you. 1) You aren't that far off. To be a city, you need to do three services. From what I heard from people involved with the charter, they picked the three they thought would be cheapest and related to "quality of life". I think planning/zoning and code enforcement were considered essential and trash was, as I understand it, as you describe in your post

As far as what the big deal is, I personally am happy with my trash service. But I know some people have a lot of yard waste and had plans that had it included prior. I believe others had neighborhood deals that gave them similar service to what we had now but for less cost. In my eyes, I think the issue with trash for most people (those who don't consider it an important issue to pick your own hauler) is one of cost. We are basically subsidizing rural unincorporated Gwinnett County due to us being much higher density than they are. And, I think as fuel prices rise, we will be subsidizing them more and more.

And I have heard directly from a trash hauler that told me they could do ours for about $12-$13 per house per month (maybe a bit more now that gas has risen in price). But I want to be clear that this doesn't include billing (since that is done with property tax) or collections, so the true cost may be closer to $15-$16. If we can get that, let's do it but I don't want to pay legal fees to do so that eat up all the savings.

One other quick point I want to make on something else you mentioned, Harry. I am proud of what I did for the UPCCA and I owe Mike and Debbie Mason alot of thanks for getting me involved and allowing me to meet a great deal of interesting and experienced people that have taught me more about local issues than I ever wanted to know.

But, as I hope you have seen through my posts, I speak candidly and have no problem telling either of them (or anyone else) if I think they, or anyone else, is doing something I disagree with. And I'm sure they would tell you the same, from having worked with me for the better part of the year.

I'd also encourage everyone here to attend UPCCA meetings after this election. They are usually the last Monday of the month at the Lutheran Church and they are a great way to meet and question some of our elected officials (both within and outside the city). They are open to the public and whether or not you agree with their views, they do a great job of getting important people to speak in our city.

Someone else has taken over the email distribution but you can sign up to keep in the loop on what is going at upcca.org. No one is paying me to say it but, if you are interested in local issues, any time you have a chance to talk with or question the people in power, try to take advantage of it.

Thanks for the invite, but that is unlikely. In 2000 I moved to unincorporated gwinnett with a Norcross mailing address and having no hoa was an important point for me. I am a former hoa president and i have witnessed the stupidity that happens. I had all the local government i needed from lawrenceville. Too me this is just an extension of uppca and I dont appreciate the power grab, the deceipt of your current representative and the obvious agenda of expanding city lite once the uppcas can cite a few examples of "see this didnt hurt that bad" Cant wait for the hired gun code enforcers to come to town.

David, don't forget you are also currently a candidate and that can lead to legal issues if you are elected. Tread carefully in what you say and how you say it and please tone down the rhetoric, even if you believe it, as I don't think you want to have some lawyer trotting out a quote by "Councilman Leader" in a suit on this issue that ends up costing our residents.

I hear you; I was careful, and made it clear I speak as what I am now (a citizen). And what you can do as a citizen is write and demand representation. You can't spend your life paralyzed by legal threats into doing nothing.

That's the problem, Brent. You are thinking like someone with logic and common sense. Imagine how many issues we can get solved on the local, state, and federal levels if we just brought stakeholders together and had them work out an amicable solution. Of course, then how would the lawyers or politicians make any money or have any power?

That's the problem with this situation, is someone is going to lose, and it won't be the lawyers. Basically, as a city council member, its side with the businesses, and say that this bill is illegal, so then the cities can sue eachother over them and the residents end up paying legal fees for it. Or side with the cities, say this bill is the best possible solution to a bad situation in that avoids litigation between the cities, give up the revenue from these businesses, and basically say that whole "choosing your own destiny thing" doesn't matter if it costs us money. Also, we'd probably be sued by the business owners anyway. So what is worse, having the decision on what properties go where made by our legislature or a judge? That's like asking me which of my dogs I want to put down. Frankly, I think the whole situation stinks no matter what happens.

Is the swallow laden or unladen?