A Government Watchdog Project
A Government Watchdog Project
Core Issues in Sugar Hill
You're Only as Good as the Foundation You're Built On.
Every person living in Sugar Hill currently deals with 4 levels of government - all of which make laws, ordinances, and regulations, and tax you.
To best serve the overall public interest, every government entity should be transparent and accountable to the people who own and pay for it. Every government entity should also be mindful about spending the money it demands from the public.
As the "lowest" level, your Sugar Hill city government should be the easiest to monitor and ideally control, and the most responsive to people's needs. It should also serve to advocate for its people to higher-up government entities. Instead, it is increasing in size, scope, and expense, and tuning out the broader community to focus on a core group of friends and sycophants, and their own egos.
Currently, the Sugar Hill government (like most other governments) is falling short in 4 core areas: transparency, accountability, common-sense growth, and fiscal responsibility.
Transparency
TRUST IS EARNED. Everything the government does should be crystal clear. Common questions about the actual business of the City should be answered before they even have to be asked. It is the government's responsibility to make it as easy as possible for residents to get information about our business. They work for us, and they owe us that.
Most of the City's public communication is just marketing. More practical matters are barely discussed, even in the public meetings. No one should have to file endless Open Records Requests or necessarily spend time at City Hall to know what's going on.
More information should be included on the City's website. Meetings should be recorded and placed online, or preferably, streamed so residents can at least view them remotely. Information about public meetings and hearings should be announced via the website and official social media channels. Documents for the meetings should be placed online with the agenda, well in advance of the meetings so the public can review them beforehand.
As a regular attendee at the public meetings and a routine visitor to City Hall, I see as much as any resident can. I've made it my mission to inform the broader community. Your City government should have that same attitude and commitment.
Accountability
The City should be accountable to all current residents. Not the Atlanta Regional Commission, not the people government officials prefer to live here, not exclusively to business owners, and not to whoever they're trying to impress for the next step in their political careers. Certainly not to their vanity and egos.
Communication isn't just about talking. It's about listening. Residents need more chances to offer meaningful feedback in a public setting. Public discourse isn't dismissed as readily as individual emails, letters, and phone calls. While elected officials are allowed to speak as long as they want, each citizen only gets 3 minutes a month to bring up matters before the Mayor and Council in a public setting, and citizen feedback is not addressed during meetings.
City officials express pride in the "civil discourse" in this community. Sugar Hill has no discourse. There's a huge difference.
I want to work with the City government to actively encourage the public to attend more public meetings. The City should publicize these meetings the way it promotes events and shows. The apparatus is already there. The City should also host regular Town Hall events and/or meet-and-greet events with the Mayor and Council.Common-Sense Growth
The obvious and overwhelming interest of the City seems to be using public funds and resources for real estate development.
From these efforts and expenditures, residents got an e-center that has yet to be fully occupied and serves significantly as private office space. We got temporary housing such as an apartment complex, condos, and senior apartments, with plans for more.
This accelerated, municipally-micromanaged growth is not in the best interest of current residents, which is probably why they are not asked about it and why the City has a growing frustration with residents voicing their generally unfavorable opinions about it.
The City contends that the growth is needed to grow the tax base, and that the tax base growth is needed to benefit residents. That benefit is being touted, but not proven. It appears that it primarily serves to create more money for the government to spend on more projects for which the residents have not asked.
An analysis of the benefits should include ALL of the financial costs to taxpayers. There are monetary costs to "encourage" the developers to come to Sugar Hill. There are also the costs on the back end that the City tends to ignore, such as the City's ongoing time and money to promote private business, and the increased demand on transportation, law enforcement, fire/EMS services, and the school system. There's also the cost of reduced livability as residents who intended to live in a more quiet suburban community quickly find themselves in the middle of an urban area with increased crime, traffic, and cost of living.
I've lived here all my life. My parents and grandparents lived here all of theirs. Nothing looks the same as it did when any of us were younger. Change happens. Some of that change has been positive. But, the private sector should, and will, drive that change over time.
The government needs to stay in its rightful place instead of taking an active and aggressive role in accelerating and micromanaging that change.
Financial Restraint
Residents pay taxes whether they choose to attend meetings, answer surveys, or speak with their elected officials. They ALWAYS deserve to have their money spent wisely.
Elected and appointed officials in this government consistently fail to consider the impact of their whims on the taxpayers who work hard to fund this enterprise through City taxes, SPLOST, or grants from other government entities.
The best way for the City to maintain financial responsibility is to stop forcing taxpayers to invest in projects that should not involve the government, such as apartments, shopping plazas, and office spaces. There's a complete lack of accountability when poor decisions are made. And through these projects, the government has forced the taxpayers to elevate some private businesses above others. Corporate welfare is wrong for any level of government.
For anything that is indeed the government's domain, the City should always spend the least amount required to do its job effectively. City officials should be judicious about what is absolutely needed by the public versus what they want as individuals. Since Gwinnett County already successfully provides the most expensive and essential needs for the community, the amount of money the City of Sugar Hill takes in and spends should be much lower.
