JAN. 19, 2021 | A big” Hurrah!” for Gwinnett County. Two of GwinnettForum’s Continuing Objectives for Gwinnett County were achieved during 2020.
Gwinnett County took action in 2020 to ban all tobacco and vaping products from Gwinnett Parks. The outright ban will not only clean up our multi-layered park system, but it makes them healthier at the same time. It’s good to see the government take action when a situation demands it. Soon signs will be erected in the parks to tell users that tobacco products are not allowed. The actions have further ramifications, since the Gwinnett cities usually follow the county lead on such items.
Another Objective also saw successful completion. We were in general pleased at the high quality level of candidates who presented themselves to the voters in the election this year. The list included a lot of diverse ethnicities, which we are proud to see. Our hope is that in all instances, those elected to office will succeed in office and become even better public officials.
We happily remove the banning of tobacco and seeking high quality candidates officially from our list.
Our List of Continuing Objectives for 2021 now looks like this, which we have arranged in priority:
- 21st century salary for the Gwinnett County Commission members.
- Require establishments that serve alcoholic beverages to halt sales of such products at 2 a.m., and close by 3 a.m.
- More diverse candidates for appointment to local boards.
- Creative efforts to support the arts in Gwinnett.
- MARTA rail for Gwinnett from Doraville station to Gwinnett Arena
- Advancement and expansion of city and Gwinnett historical societies.
- Move statewide non-partisan judge election runoffs to the General Election.
- Rewrite the rules to require the Georgia Legislature to meet only once every two years.
Note that our new first objective is to pay members of the Gwinnett County Commission a reasonable salary. We include both the full-time chairman and the part time district commissioners in this quest. We respectfully ask that the Commission appoint a board of Gwinnett citizens to recommend this increase in salary before the third quarter of 2021. That way the full county commission can approve their work and submit it to the Gwinnett delegation to the General Assembly for action in early 2022. Then, this action can take place for those elected to office in 2023.
For those of you unaware of the current salaries, the chairman is paid $74,749, while district commissioners make $45,000.
The second Objective we emphasize today is the need of lowering the hours of operation for bars and restaurants in the county. We say again, nothing good happens at these drinking institutions after 2 a.m. Some stay open to 5 a.m.! We have no problem with them serving alcohol. We have a big problem with them staying open until the late hours of the morning. We call on the County Commission to make this move to lower the hours allowed to open until 3 a.m. and we’ll see a safer and healthier Gwinnett County.
In the 2020 elections, Gwinnett saw more action and participation from people with diverse backgrounds. Now is the time for this divergent population to become members of the various governmental boards and commissions of the county. In addition, it’s time for the many other non-governmental agencies and nonprofits to include people “not from around here” among its members and directors. We urge all these agencies to move forward on this Objective.
We make no further comment on the other objectives, which we have commented about before.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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