Answers to community questions from Mayoral candidate Council Member Mary Norwood
(Published on Nov 23, 2009)
[ELNCA] Norwood Response: : Questions from Atlanta East Side Community Leaders
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Sat, November 21, 2009 4:53:06 PM
website: www.marynorwoodformayor.com
Q1: As a group we want more police in our communities, and we want to see our department keep good officers, rather than training them and having them leave to surrounding counties for better pay and benefits. What will you do specifically to fully staff the police department, (sworn officers and support staff,) how will you retain officers, and how will you pay for it?
A1: I have said repeatedly that just as important as hiring new officers is retaining the ones we already have. While we do need to hire new officers, we need to stop our best officers from leaving. To do that, we must make sure the “step program” is never frozen again. We will pay for these officers by finding savings in other areas like the IT department which has grown tremendously over recent years, and by doing a thorough independent audit of every department in the city in order to identify waste and eliminate it.
Q2: What are your thoughts regarding the addition of a third beat to NPU-O, given the impacts of a high volume commercial district, three high volume through routes (College, Memorial, I-20), and growing juvenile issues? This is a concern given the difficulty in patrol coverage with only two beats and an absurdly long Zone?
A2: I have said that one of the most important things we can do with our police department is to provide citywide community policing and deploy them in an efficient manner. That means making sure that staffing levels are where they need to be and that the zones are manageable. We also need to look at the command structure to see where we can move officers from desk jobs to street patrols.
Q3: Are you willing to continue and expedite APD's re-evaluation of Zone 6 boundaries with a goal of creating a more compact, central, and easily patrolled Zone 6. If not, why?
A3: Yes.
Q4: 911 response times are unacceptable, and in particular the border areas of unincorporated DeKalb and Atlanta in DeKalb are horrific. How will you fix this department, and improve its performance? How will you pay for it?
A4: The first step is leadership. Making public safety a priority is making sure that we have enough 911 operators to do take all calls as they come. Putting any 911 call on hold in an emergency is unacceptable. The cost can be covered by the savings that result from audits and funds shifted from other departments. WSB just did a very long piece on the failures of our 911, especially people being put on hold for minutes at a time That is totally unacceptable. As Mayor I will immediately go to work to fix what is a broken department. I have talked with our fire fighters and I know I can count on their cooperation because the inefficiencies in the 911 system make their jobs that much harder, especially when they are responsible for responding to emergency 911 calls.
Q5: Code enforcement is an essential part of our efforts to fight crime in our communities, and is a critical element in public safety. How do you propose to address the historical ineffectiveness of Code Enforcement and its inadequate funding, staffing, and equipment (has yet to be computerized to contemporary IT standards). What plan and strategies do you have to improve the performance of this department? How will you pay for this?
A5: I have long believed that the first step to making a safer city is to make sure that we clean it up and make sure that abandoned properties are not attracting crime. In addition to moving code enforcement into the police department, we must also prioritize code enforcement violations committed by absentee landlords that draw crime, rather than that of homeowners living in their homes. I believe we need a law that would register the owners of empty homes. If we do code enforcement right, the efficiencies that can be found by auditing city departments and the additional fines collected from code enforcement which will allow us to fund this initiative.
Q6: Two out of three community centers in Atlanta are currently closed. These centers are essential to the health of our communities, and the programs offered help keep our kids out of trouble. If we do not provide something for kids to do, drugs, gangs and other trouble will provide options. What will you do to reopen the centers, and to ensure that programs are provided during the danger hours after school, and before parents get home? How will you pay for it? Do you support the privatization of these centers, and how would you see that happening?
A6: Protecting our citizens from crime and protecting our neighborhoods from blight are things that we must view as being part of the same larger challenge facing our city. We must do more than arrest someone caught in the act. On the one hand, we need to put the repeat offenders away, and that means as mayor I will need to work closely with the state legislature to reform the criminal justice system. On the other hand, we need to turn at-risk youth away from the downward spiral. In part that means re-opening community centers, and to me that must also be a part of our public safety budget. But the real work must be done within the community. In my job is also the job of being a community organizer. As a city councilperson, I worked with District Attorney Paul Howard and City Councilman C.T. Martin to set up Court Watch and the Restorative Board to make it possible for communities to pay an active role in protecting their neighborhoods. The costs of involving communities in this way is not zero, but neither is it large and budget-busting. This is the model I will follow as your next mayor.
Q7: NPU-O pushed through a transparency measure this summer that was sponsored by councilwoman Archibong, unanimously supported by council, and signed into law by Mayor Franklin. This law requires quarterly reporting by all departments on how they spend and change their budget, and for those reports to be posted to the city website for public review. Do you promise to comply with this law, and what specific measures will you implement to further increase transparency in your administration?
A7: I have committed to posting a monthly report that tracks all city spending and revenues on the city’s website. This website would also post all transactions and contracts worth over $1,000.
Q8: In general, the city has not had a good track record of listening to neighborhoods, and using the involvement of the NPU’s and APAB to its best capacity. What will you do specifically to improve the responsiveness of the city to its communities, and how will you implement that?
A8: I have spent the last 20 years working with neighborhoods all over the city. While plenty of politicians give lip service to neighborhood concerns while they serve the developers downtown, I am the only candidate in this race with a history of working consistently with neighborhoods year-in and year-out to improve our quality of life. When I am Mayor I will maintain an open door policy that will welcome the input of our NPU’s and provide adequate staff support at city hall.
Q9: The residents of Atlanta in DeKalb pay the HOST tax, but we are not getting the benefits from it because of past problems with the City of Atlanta not fully disclosing to DeKalb county how it has spent its share of funds. This is money that is supposed to go towards sidewalks and other infrastructure. What will you do to resolve this issue with DeKalb, and how do you propose to resolve the incomplete distribution of HOST funds to Atlanta in DeKalb? How do you propose that past payments owed would be treated in a settlement? By what date can we expect to see our tax dollars for HOST going towards sidewalks in Atlanta?
A9: I will make this issue a high priority in my administration with an emphasis on recovering all the dollars we are owed. Whether the solution is arbitration or simply the ability to work together with Dekalb county to solve this problem, it is only fair that HOST dollars collected in Atlanta in DeKalb be spent in Atlanta in DeKalb. My goal would be to resolve this issue in my first year in office.
Q10: Atlanta in DeKalb residents often feel that we are second class citizens in Atlanta. We have the HOST tax issue, 911 problems along the border areas, we constantly have city staff forward us Fulton county information, and many leaders do not seem to know the difference between East Lake and East Atlanta. How do you propose to ensure that Atlanta in DeKalb has an equal place at the table as the balance of Atlanta?
A10: The solution is to have a city government that works for all of us and doesn’t make distinctions between the various sections of the city. As a community activist who has worked to bring change to all arts of the city, I am uniquely qualified to bring our city together and make sure that our entire city prospers.
Q11: The Beltline Project, and its Tax Allocation District (TAD) benefits to areas surrounding it, do not directly benefit the community of East Lake, and many other Atlanta communities. As such, these communities struggle to attract new investment to our re-developing business districts such as the intersection of Second Ave. and Hosea Williams Drive. What can be done to level the playing field for Atlanta communities that are not in the beltline TAD
A11: When I first ran for city council in 2001, my slogan was "Norwood for Neighborhoods." I have long worked to channel development into areas that are underserved. In part we do this now with TADs, but the fact is that the Administration has not taken the kind of active role it should to encourage development where it is truly needed instead of where developers want it to go. The mayor use their "bully pulpit" to get big things done, like the AIrport, like Peachtree Center. It's time that we had a mayor who focuses on the basics, like neighborhoods like yours. If it takes my personal involvement to help put together the financing packages for needed local redevelopment, that's what I, as your mayor, will do. It's part of the job.
Q12: Do you feel that the beltline development is placing a proper priority for light rail in its plans? Do you think that more effort should be put into getting the light rail in sooner than currently scheduled? Please explain why.
A12: I support building out the beltline and I support light rail plans. Unfortunately, it is not likely that there will be any federal or state money available in the near future for any light rail projects..
Q13: What will you do as Mayor to improve inter-agency cooperation and build support for transit throughout the metropolitan Atlanta area?
A13: As mayor, I will be uniquely positioned to work with people from all sides of the aisle to improve cooperation between Atlanta and the suburbs. I will make it a goal to work with the suburban counties in a productive way by building alliances around common needs such as getting traffic congestion under control and meeting our region’s common water needs.
Q14: Top quality organizations in the business world use quantitative performance measures to track progress on issues. If everyone in a department knows what is being tracked, then that is what staff will pay attention to. What measures will you use for charting the city departments of Police, Code Enforcement, and 911? Will you commit to sharing those measures and posting your results for each department on the city website?
A14: Frankly, we don't know what the appropriate management metrics for Atlanta are because the outgoing Administration has failed so badly at its management tasks. I am committed to turning this around. I am committed to developing the appropriate metrics as part of a whole managerial reform of City Hall. I will engage professionals (both from within the relevant departments and outside city government) as well as private citizens from the community. I will make the process of developing the metrics an open one, totally transparent, and I am committed to posting the results on the web for all to see. The more eyes we have on the prize, the better managed our city services will be.