DeKalb CEO: 'We've Got a Good Story to Tell"

DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis held a town hall meeting Thursday night before about 150 people at St. Timothy United Methodist Church in Stone Mountain.

During the 90-minute meeting, Ellis mentioned a number of initiatives and goals: transportation, streetscape improvements on Memorial Drive, the potential for the GM plant in Doraville, and fielded questions ranging from library funding to erosion issues to privitization.

Here are a few of topics he covered in his remarks and answers:

The county:

• Spending has been cut by $130 million
• 2011 ended in the black.
• "We're beginning to build a healthier reserve," Ellis said. "We've got a good story to tell in terms of fiscal management in this county."
• Created 7,000 new jobs as the economy tanked in 2009.
• Water and sewer upgrades will create 4,700 jobs between now and 2015 
• Decline in violent crime by 37 percent over last three years.

Soapbox derby (on land adjacent to the Bransby YMCA).

• Design work and land use has been approved
• "We need the board of commissioners to vote on it."
• "DeKalb County Georgia used to be a hotbed of soapbox derby racing."

The proposal to fund employees' holidays:

• "I'm not talking about Groundhog Day," Ellis said. 'We need to treat people with value and dignity."

Proposed new cities:

• "We embrace all cities. I'm not anti-cityhood. We need fair laws. We need laws that don't pit cities against the county."
• To that end, he objects to efforts to "cherry-pick" certain areas when incorporating cities which "harm the rest of the county."