Sunday, March 23, 2008

Get Those Phones Ringing and Those Emails Written March 24, 2008!

Here are the telephone listings and email addresses for all the commissioners. Be sure you, your family and friends call and/or write to voice support for an across the board raise for all DeKalb County police officers. Be sure to show your support in uniform Tuesday March 25, 2008 at the Maloof Building beginning at 9:00 AM.

You can still show your support if you do not live in Dekalb County. Don't feel alone, only 2 people within the "Executive Command Staff" live inside DeKalb County. Even the Chief of Police lives in Dallas Texas!

• Elaine Boyer District 1: 404-371-2844 or njmcbrid@co.dekalb.ga.us
• Jeff Rader District 2: 404- 371-2863 or jrrader@co.dekalb.ga.us
• Larry Johnson District 3: 404- 371-2425 or larryjohnson@co.dekalb.ga.us
• Burrell Ellis District 4: 404-371-4749 or Burrell@BurrellEllis.com
• Lee May: District 5: 404-371-4745 or lmay@co.dekalb.ga.us
• Kathie Gannon Super District 6: 404-371-4909 or kgannon@co.dekalb.ga.us
• Connie Stokes Super District 7: 404-371-3053 or conniestokes@co.dekalb.ga.us

2 comments:

DKPD ANON said...

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS HEARING

Commissioner Johnson's pay increase proposal is on the agenda for Tuesday's (3/25) BOC Hearing. It is listed as the first item on the "H" group of items which will be heard beginning at 1000.

There is a good possibility the Commissioners will have the option/opportunity to vote to override Mr. CEO's veto of Commissioner Ellis' proposal earlier in the Hearing than that.

It is imperative that we e-mail and call the three Commissioners who voted against the Ellis proposal and ask them to support it ... TODAY! Scroll down for an earlier post of mine that lists the contact information for them.

Folks - the Johnson proposal WILL NOT FLY! The only chance to get the proposed pay increases is with the Ellis proposal.

DKPD ANON said...

REPOST OF MIKE JACOBS' E-MAIL

The following is a verbatim copy of an e-mail State Representative Mike Jacobs sent to his e-list this morning:

It's All About Priorities

DeKalb County's police force is woefully understaffed and underpaid. Currently, DeKalb has 1.4 officers per 1,000 residents. The national average is 2.7 officers per 1,000 residents.

As a result of DeKalb's comparatively low police staffing, wait times for an officer to arrive at the scene of an incident that is not a dire emergency often can exceed 30 minutes.

Commissioners Burrell Ellis, Elaine Boyer, Jeff Rader, and Kathie Gannon recently sponsored a sensible proposal to increase pay for sworn officers by 8% and add 127 new officers to the DeKalb County Police Department. Their proposal would be funded by trimming non-public safety functions of the county government by 1.25%.

Commissioners Larry Johnson, Lee May, and Connie Stokes voted against that proposal, saying they favored a property tax increase by way of hiking the millage rate in order to fund the police positions and pay raises.

The Ellis-Boyer-Rader-Gannon proposal prevailed on a 4-3 vote. However, CEO Vernon Jones vetoed it, saying that he was carrying out "the will of the people" in supporting the Johnson-May-Stokes proposal for a property tax increase.

The will of the people??? On what planet?

As Commissioner Boyer points out: "Since Jones became CEO, the county's budget has grown more than 54 percent while the county's population has grown about 29 percent." Moreover, a recent audit of county contracting practices uncovered a troubling pattern of creatively structuring no-bid contracts in amounts just below the competitive bidding threshold to the same vendors for the same services over and over and over again. As a result, our county government has paid millions of dollars to vendors in violation of competitive bidding safeguards.

An attempt to override the CEO's veto could occur as early as this Tuesday's county commission meeting. In order to override the CEO's veto, five votes are required. To reach five votes, one additional vote is needed from among Commissioners Johnson, May, and Stokes.

Please call or e-mail these commissioners today. Their contact information is as follows:

Commissioner Larry Johnson, District 3
larryjohnson@co.dekalb.ga.us, 404-371-2425

Commissioner Lee May, District 5
lmay@co.dekalb.ga.us, 404-371-4745

Commissioner Connie Stokes, District 7
conniestokes@co.dekalb.ga.us, 404-371-3053

County spending has grown in excess of the rate of inflation and population growth. Meanwhile, important areas such as public safety have not kept pace. The Ellis-Boyer-Rader-Gannon plan would rein in the county budget while setting the right priorities for our community.