Category: Blog

In the city council’s last work session, we received a few presentations about projects that the city has rolled out, or is rolling out soon. I am sharing them here for any residents who are interested:

Text to 911 – this is a new feature that allows you to use your mobile phone to text “911” if you are in a situation where you cannot make a voice call. This feature is active now, and is text-only (does not support pictures/video). If you use this feature outside Doraville, in a jurisdiction that does not offer text-to-911, you will receive an error message. Police will not be able to track you via text, so you will need to tell them your location.

Adopt-A-Spot – this is a program that the city is rolling out in May. It will offer residents an official way to beautify city owned property and get support. For example, someone planting tulips in the right-of-way would be able to get the city to purchase bulbs, or provide soil or mulch. Contact city hall at 770-451-8745 to get more information

This week, I also received a copy of Dekalb County’s most recent update on the sewer consent decree. This decree has been stalled for a number of years, but the county says it is back on track. They list factors that have stood in the way of carrying out this decree in the past, and what they’ve done to address them. They also ask that residents help the county’s efforts by not pouring Fats, Oils or Greases down their drain. Contact information for the department of Watershed Management is: 770-270-6243 or  Dekalbwaterops@dekalbcountyga.gov

I recently received an email from a Doraville resident who had a number of concerns related to transparency and accountability in city government. I had not planned on publicly posting my response to that resident, but because I believe that a modified version of the note may have been forwarded to some folks, I want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to read the entire thing if they are interested.

My response gives you an idea of what -in my judgment – are the most important things the city needs to be focusing on. I am always open to feedback. You can email me at joseph.geierman@doravillega.us or call me at 678-373-9137.

Here’s the unedited note:

I appreciate the email.

First off, since most of these questions were originally written for the candidate forum, I encourage you to view the video from the event (the one Tim put online is here: https://youtu.be/iXG-i_N2b0k). I already answered some of the questions you sent at that time – none of my answers have changed.

I ran on being someone who could work with any of the other council members – I said that consistently during the campaign. I’m still working on building bridges with everyone on the council. As one of 7 people on the dais, I can’t “demand” or “require” that my peers do anything. In fact, that’s the fastest way to not get my agenda accomplished.

If Georgia and Federal law allows a member of council to vote on an issue, then I definitely can’t demand that they not vote. From my discussions with the city attorney and the attorneys at Georgia Municipal Association, a campaign contribution does not constitute a conflict of interest.

On irresponsible landlords – I have been working many angles to try to focus on this problem. We’re limited in what we can do by state law – the state prohibits us from creating a rental registry or requiring business licenses for people who rent homes out. The city is working with the county to conduct an audit of homestead exemption to ensure that no one is improperly claiming an exemption. If we find anyone who is, we can target them for further examination. I think now that we have a fully staffed code enforcement team, we also should see some better results on that end as well.

Regarding the city manager – this is the most critical position in the city. We did not have anyone permanently in this role when I was elected, and it was obvious that the city was suffering because of it. We quickly hired Regina Gates, whose experience as city manager of San Jose, California and Norfolk, Virginia we are lucky to benefit from. The council set a regular review process to evaluate her performance at the time we negotiated her contract. I also have bi-weekly meetings with her where I get updated on what is staff is working on and am able to ask questions and make suggestions about our operations.

On transparency, I agree with you. A lot of the ideas you have listed are good ones. I want to see a lot more transparency from the city on a number of issues. I want to have more commissions/committees made up of members of the public. I want to see our website and electronic communications get better. That said, I think we need to focus on first things first: the city was handed to this council without a city manager, without a city clerk, without a parks director, public works director or a finance director. We also did not have a contract for code enforcement. These positions are critical for the operation of the city’s basic functions – let alone improving processes or helping enable citizen committees. In the first three months I’ve been on council, we have hired a city manager and agreed to a contract for code enforcement. We’re close on a city clerk. All the other positions are still open. I think we probably need to create some new positions that are specifically in charge of marketing and our website, but there will be some challenges in finding the money to pay for them in our budget. This is going to be a longer process than if the city had been running on all cylinders when I was elected. In this competitive job market, we do not have the luxury of demanding that key staff live in Doraville – particularly if we want to get the best people possible.

You and I may not agree on what issues are most important to focus on first, or what the best tactics for moving the city forward are – but I think we do agree that we want to see Doraville be a better run city that is more accessible to its residents. The voters elected me to use my judgement on the best ways to move us in that direction, and I assure you that I am working hard to do that.

In 2015, Doraville published its Parks and Recreation Master Plan,  laying out a framework of improvements needed for every park in the city. Here are the improvements that were called for in the Northwoods neighborhood’s parks:

Brook Park

• Renovate tennis courts
• Add perimeter walking loop with paved access to park amenities
• Consolidate playground area, make ADA
• General maintenance is needed on pavilion
• Provide a restroom facility

Autumn Park:

• Provide perimeter walking loop with paved connections to park amenities
• Address ADA
• Clear invasive species from stream corridor
• Provide a restroom facility

Unfortunately, the city never developed a strategy for implementing the plan, and thus improvements for the Northwoods parks have remained in limbo since 2015. This is despite the fact that, at the time the plan was published, Brook Park was the 4th most used asset within our city’s Parks system (behind the Civic Center, Forest Fleming Fields, and Forest Fleming Arena). It was also listed as one of the most underdeveloped parks in the system.

On Saturday, the city’s staff emailed Doraville council members with a finalized capital budget for the rest of this fiscal year (through June 30, 2018). A lot of the items in this budget are repairs or maintenance that must be done for safety or legal compliance. There are also a few items listed that we have received ear-marked grants for, so we’re limited in how we can spend that money.

I was happy to see that there was some money devoted to a park in Northwoods, but it was $30,000 for a walking path in Autumn park (the line item also mentions stream improvements, but these will cost a lot more than $30,000 and are unlikely to happen this year). The city also is proposing to spend $10,000 on playground equipment in Autumn Park and English Oak Park – even though the playground equipment in both these parks is fairly new.

The city council has to vote on this budget on Monday night. I think that residents in Northwoods might prefer to see some improvements in Brook Park rather than in Autumn Park. I’m open to making an amendment to this capital budget to reallocate the money if it looks like there is lot of support in that direction.

Here are some of my ideas:

• Focus on improvements to the pavilion at Brook Park – including updating the tables, adding tables and benches around the pavilion area and renovating the grill.
• Focus on accessibility to the pavilion. You currently have to walk down a steep slope covered with pine needles to get to it. This is difficult and even dangerous for people who are mobility challenged.
• Spend some of the money on a conceptual design that engages the Northwoods neighborhood on conceptual designs for both parks.
• Go ahead with the plan to build the path around Autumn Park

Some of the other recommendations in the 2015 Parks Plan (fixing the tennis courts and removing ivy from the stream in Autumn park, in particular) are good – we just aren’t going to realistically accomplish them for $30-40,000.

I’m interested in hearing thoughts from Northwoods residents about what kind of improvements they’d like to see with the parks. Please feel free to email me at joseph.geierman@doravillega.us. I know that my fellow District 2 Council Member, MD Naser, would also like to hear from you.

I’ve received emails from some people who complain that there is no quality development at the site of the former GM Plant – now known as “Assembly” or “Assembly Yards.” While things have moved more slowly at Assembly than I would have liked, it’s not fair to say that there is no quality development happening.

In fact, the world headquarters of Serta Simmons Bedding (also known as “SSB,” the largest mattress manufacturer in the world!) is currently under construction at Assembly, and slated to open in 2019.  I ride MARTA to work, and can see this development happening on a day-to-day basis from the platform of the Doraville station. It’s been very exciting. There are already 2 stories built, with more to come – the final facility will be 210,000 square feet and will house 500 employees on a 5-acre campus. This is a big company that believes in the city’s vision for that site – having them on board makes it more likely that other companies will decide to move here.

I was recently at a BisNow forum where Andy Barfield, a Vice President at Holder Properties (which is developing the SSB campus) spoke about the site selection process.  They wanted to consolidate along the I-85 corridor, and liked Assembly because of its vision, its proximity to MARTA — and because it was one of the only sites in the area with that much contiguous space:

Barfield did refer to some challenges to an evolving master plan like the one at Assembly. Since the site is still under construction and there aren’t other large tenants, you are sometimes figuring out where roads and utilities are as you go:

Real Estate development projects are extremely expensive, and take a long time to get off the ground. Assembly is going to be “under construction” for some time. With that said, I think that Serta Simmons Bedding deciding to settle in Doraville is extremely good news, and a sign of momentum picking up for the project.

Doraville has a City Manager form of government. This means that the city council sets policy, passes ordinances, approves the budget, and develops the overall vision of the city. Rather than having the mayor or council manage day-to-day staff and operations, the council hires a city manager who oversees all administrative operations and implements the policies of the council. The City Manager is arguably the single most important job in the city.

When the council met on January 16th, Doraville had been without a permanent city manager since May.  We did have an extremely qualified interim city manager – Regina Williams-Gates – whose resume included long-term stints at San Jose, California and Norfolk, Virginia. The “interim” status, however meant that she wasn’t fully empowered to make some important hiring decisions or to do much more than stabilize day-to-day city operations. I had identified this as a problem during my campaign for office, and it continued to concern me after being sworn in.

I heard from some residents who thought the city should conduct a new job search to get candidates we could interview. I can only speak for myself, but I was against this approach because I felt like it would take too long and potentially add more instability for the people who work at city hall, The time for an extensive search was in the Summer, shortly after this position opened up. At this point, I felt that we already had a capable interim city manager who was interested in coming on as the permanent city manager. We need someone in the city manager position now so that person can start filling several other open positions immediately (Finance Director, Public Works Director, Parks Director, and Clerk among them).

For these reasons, I voted along with the rest of the council to extend an offer to Ms Gates to be our permanent City Manager – an offer I’m pleased to say she accepted. There is a lot of work to be done, but I think we have made one step forward toward making it all happen.