Public Goods: Community Input
In Losing Georgia’s final series on public goods, understanding the needs of a community can be fundamentally more important than what a local government perceives is necessary. This is not always the case as government is needed to decide issues regarding public safety. Douglas County saw it fit to purchase six more pumper trucks, two ladder trucks, six ambulances and equipment for EMS personnel from the 2002 SPLOST referendum.
Yesterday the Douglas Neighbor printed a story about the first of two impact fee hearings for Dougalsville to be on December 11th, while the Douglas County Sentinel printed a similar story back on November 19th. The purpose of these hearings is to gather information from city residents about the needs of the community. Similar hearings will also be provided by the County as it is State law. Yet the City of Douglasville is holding a City Council meeting tonight in regards to canceling the mandatory hearing.
Community interaction with local government is one that can provide proactive measures to help sustain rapid growth. However Douglas County has not done so well in the past six years. There seems to be a lack or breakdown in communication that leaves many residents asking questions in the presence of political rhetoric.
Open communication between a community and local government(s) is vital. Understanding the needs of a community is about survivability and adaptability, not just presence of mind. Being proactive can lead to a better quality of life, however being retroactive can hamper infrastructures, leading to consequences in times of need.
It is fair to say that both local governments in Douglas County have acted retroactively. Instead of producing countermeasures to successfully deal with urbanization, more focus was put on development to raise the tax base, forcing many consequences to appear. The quality in the road system dropped, schools became overcrowded (and still are), water quantity was decreasing, and coverage of public safety was under stress.
The 2002 SPLOST referendum was the submitted answer to solve the majority of problems, but also introduced many new problematic situations. An over-budgeted aquatic center took the brunt of the blame forcing residents to ask “Do we really need an aquatic center?” Also paying for maintaining new and current public goods must come from taxpayers.
Douglas County residents do have ways to communicate to both governments. Either by letter, e-mail, phone conversation or at a public meeting like work sessions and Commissioner/City Council meetings. Since impact fees are closer to becoming a reality, mandatory hearings are conducted to gather feedback.
Although these choices seem satisfactory, one option has been left out: a traditional town hall meeting. According to the County, Board of Commissioners meetings are considered a town hall meeting because residents can voice issues. In a recent open records request by Losing Georgia, there was no documentation indicating that there has been a traditional town hall meeting within the last ten or more years.
Part of the problem is that the Board of Commissioners meetings are held in the morning, while the City Council meets in the evening. Also tensions between both local governments have been growing in the past year. With this in mind, community issues can sometimes be set aside to dwell in the course of politics.
Conducting a county-wide town hall meeting, with both local governments in place, could act as a stepping stone in reestablishing the distant communication between residents and elected officials. If the traditional means of communication have not been entirely successful, other options need be looked upon for more community support.
For most Douglas County residents, there has been a need for a better transportation system and alleviation in the student population since 2001. The creation of temporary infrastructure improvements has not solved the major problems that are still in place. Should new parks/recreation facilities come before a road system? Are more sidewalks more important than schools? Is new public safety equipment more pertinent than a senior center? Deciding which public good is needed should be by demand and priority and not by fiscal wants.
Douglas County will continue to grow rapidly with infrastructures and residents feeling the outcome, whether good or bad. The future of the county will have to rely on better community input in order to adapt at an equivalent pace. Will there be a time when questions began to transform into anger? Douglas County may be closer to that time than ever in this pivotal moment to grow smarter in the wake of Atlanta.
Dougla County officals are not interested in public input. They moved the bussiness sessions to 10am in an attempt to keep the public out of these meeting. Mr. Worthan told me publicly that the AM sessions were better attended than PM meeting. The last time I attended there were 3 citizens there. That was also the day Mr. Worthan refuse to allow myself and the public to speak about the SPLOST issue. He resorted to pushing the panic button and calling the police on me as I was at the lecturn. So much for public input. Also, by the time issues are brought before the commissioners the issues have generally be settled. They do the deals in the back rooms and on the phone out of the sunshine. They also like to hold work sessions to talk over the agenda only to find that by the business session new items have been added in an attenpt to keep the public, media and some commissioners off guard. Shame on you Tom! The Emperor Wears No Clothes
December 1st, 2006 at 9:41 amJames