DeKalb commissioners to look at changing government
- 10/20/11
- Categorized in: DeKalb News
DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis said an idea to change the current balance of power in the county government is “silly.”
The issue is “really silly when [we’ve] got issues like jobs creation, and transportation improvements, and getting people back in their homes,” said Ellis, in his third year as DeKalb’s CEO.
“We have much more pressing issues,” Ellis said. “The real issues that we’ve got to resolve are issues regarding how we can get our citizens back to work, helping them protect their homes and to continue to deliver the services to them.”
The county’s Board of Commissioners is considering a resolution that would ask the legislature to create a charter commission to re-examine the county’s CEO-commission form of government.
The “delineation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of DeKalb County government has been an ongoing source of conflict that has impeded the efficiency and effectiveness of the county government,” the resolution states.
Commissioner Lee May said DeKalb’s government is not a balanced form.
“It’s a heavy, heavy CEO form of government,” May said. “If the CEO wants to do something that is completely against what the [commissioners] wants to do, he can.
“We’ve seen so many instances where the CEO—and not just this CEO, but previous CEOs—have completely gone against the will and desires and legislations of the board and done what they wanted to do.
May said an example is the recent process for choosing projects for a proposed one-cent, regional sales tax.
“A super-majority of commissioners signed a letter asking for the CEO to take all of our transit dollars, split it in half and subdivide them between Clifton corridor and I-20 [proposed projects],” May said. But Ellis did not present that idea to the transportation roundtable that determined the funding allocation for the projects.
Among the options for changing the form of government are continuing to tweak the CEO-commission form of government and setting up a commission-county manager government similar to those in the rest of the counties in Georgia, May said.
“It’s not about getting more power,” May said. “It’s about having a more balanced approach to government. It’s about removing some of the politics.”
Commissioner Kathie Gannon, who said she believes the county has good checks and balances, said the form-of-government issue “distracts us from our job.”
“It’s difficult to get our work done,” said Gannon, adding that several of her fellow commissioners have been posturing for a change in the form of government for the past three years. “It seems like it is something that needs to be looked at because the commissioners that want to be in charge keep bringing [up the issue].
“I think we have entirely enough power,” she said about the commissioners.
Gannon said she is concerned about putting a Republican-controlled state legislature in charge of the task of studying the county’s form of government.
“This is not the time to do it,” Gannon said. “We’ve got a Republican legislature and the [county] delegation is in turmoil.”
Ellis said the form-of-government issue is not a legitimate, resident-driven idea.
“This is not an issue that the citizens of DeKalb County have cared about,” Ellis said.
“You haven’t heard [people say], ‘We don’t like our form of government. We don’t like having a CEO that gets invited to the White House and gets invited to shape national policy with the president and vice president of the United States.’”
Instead, Ellis said the resolution, which he did not see until it appeared on the board’s Oct. 11 agenda, is “a waste of time by certain commissioners.”
“This is an issue that, about every six months or so, certain members of the commission raise just so they can have access to more power,” said Ellis, who served for eight years on the Board of Commissioners, including five as the board’s presiding officer.
Ellis said DeKalb County’s form of government makes it a progressive county.
“Those large, urban counties that are known to be progressive, forward-thinking, successful, efficient, bringing jobs and opportunity to their people….have a county executive form of government,” Ellis said.
Concern Citizen & Employeer
As far as the transportation project list goes, my understanding is that the CEO did propose a split in funding between the I-20 and Clifton Corridor projects, but no other member of the Roundtable would second the amendment, so it was dead in the water.
But the CEO-Commission structure makes it easier to bring federal and other economic dollars to DeKalb. And trying to change that is detrimental to DeKalb and most likely a power ploy by certain Commissioners who, if they had the chance, would gladly be elected CEO, and maintain the CEO's position of power if they had it.
3 or 4,000 more County employees. His own "staff" of 30 cannot even accomplish what other counties do with 8 or 9 people.
As to the Commissioners, led by Rader and Gannon, they have turned DeKalb into a wealth redistribution microcosm of what the socialists want the rest of the United States to become.
Read this report !
Call your friends and neighbors and tell them to read the report !
Once a Model County, DeKalb County now places other neighboring Counties in great peril with crime and unchecked criminal activity !
Some on the DeKalb BOC don't have enough sense to balance a check book much less run a county ! And all the Commissioners and their staff's had expensive catered meals brought in and charged to the Tax Paying Citizens of this County without our knowledge until Atlanta Reporter Richard Belcher exposed it and none of the Commissioners have repaid this 60 Thousand Plus dollars back !
The water in DeKalb County will not run clear until we get the Hogs out of it !
Our Board of Commissioners is a Board of Crooks !
Abolish the Entire Office of DeKalb CEO and get rid of Burrell Ellis ASAP ! That's a big start to ending a big expensive problem !
And the DeKalb BOC = Vote'em All Out ASAP !
be prepared to face greater public scrutiny and responsibility. You will no longer be
able to hide behind the "it's the CEO's fault" excuse. Already, I can see
that some current Commissioners will not pass the accountability test.
ago. Therefore he continues to hire whomever he sees fit at whatever he sees fit even if it is considerably higher than the last person in the position.
The latest is an Economic Development Director for over $160,000.The AJC highlighted his education, not his achievements in Economic Development or what he plans or would like to pursue.
Perhaps a new form of government will address the pressing issues Ellis talks about and has not. In reality he does what ever he wants ignoring the
public and the BOC.
Ellis does not come to the Public BOC meetings unless he's giving a plaque
or geting one.
I agree with Commissioner May. I would like to suggest to Commissioner
Gannon that if you can't get things done then you don't have enough power.