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Black Politics

City Council 3rd District Platform for Sherman McDonald – South Fulton

Develop a sound financial budget that will provide for all essential services, such as safety and security, for all residents.  The financial budget is an important factor as to how the City will administer its financial income, so that they do not burden the next generation with debt.  This can only be achieved with open transparency of all the indebtedness of the city.

The City must be committed to the safety of its citizens, by supporting law enforcement and ensuring that adequate policies and procedures are enforced and all citizens are treated equally.  

The City of South Fulton’s court system must provide equal and just enforcement of the law as to all citizens, regardless of race, creed, gender or color.

The City of South Fulton must be willing to commit to innovative ideas, which will allow firms or businesses to thrive together by having live, work, play integrated communities, within small physical locales, reducing traffic and creating close knit communities.  Creating jobs and increasing the economy should be the City of South Fulton’s utmost priority.  The City must be willing to work with local universities, such as Georgia State University, which has the ability to provide input from real estate developers, investors and financial professionals.  Further, acquiring federal grants to lure new businesses to create jobs within the City of South Fulton.  

The City of South Fulton has a projected financial budget of approximately, $17,901,272.  (Based on the 2010 census, taken from the Fiscal Research Center’s Report on the City of South Fulton:  Potential Revenues and Expenditures, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, January 2014).

Public Safety should be considered a top priority as we transition from an unincorporated area to a city.  The community and the police department need to work together.  My research determined that residents and businesses are particularly concerned with gas station safety, shootings, car-jackings and B&E.

  • Propose doing a survey of District 3 to determine what crimes have been happening in the area; 
  • Propose hiring a liaison between the community and the police department to discern patterns of crime in District 3 so that underlining issues can be addressed effectively;
  • Since the police will have less of an area to patrol, propose having more of a police presence in the community to help deter crime; and/or
  • Propose incorporating a crime prevention program within the police department that would recruit residents to volunteer to be trained to patrol, report suspicious activity and provide a uniformed presence in areas where police presence is less pronounced. (do research for grants that allow for such training);
  • If you want to touch on what’s been going on with police shootings, the Anti-Defamation League has created the Anti-Bias Training for Law Enforcement Professionals program, that will help increase awareness of attitudes and behaviors to help police officers appreciate different cultures.

There is always a possibility that a need for increased revenue may arise in the future.  To simply state that the additional revenue must be derived from a tax increase, shows that there was no planning or budgeting for future needs.  We must first examine our spending to evaluate what may be eliminated or reduced to avoid the need to increase taxes.  The ultimate goal, should be increase revenue through growth, to that end, the taxes may remain the same

The greatest challenge of a new city is the ability to work with neighboring cities and/or communities.  While new policies and procedures are being developed for the City of South Fulton, there will be external pressures to follow the footsteps of other pre-existing cities.  The City of South Fulton should foster innovative ideas that create economic growth and cooperation that will benefit the City of South Fulton as well as neighboring cities.  The City of South Fulton must draw upon the input of the Mayor, City Council and other public officials as to addressing questions that concern the rise and fall of the economy and how to attract and retain residents of all ages and avoid becoming obsolete.

I believe that elected officials have the responsibility to cultivate and create a sense of unity on any major issue that has a divisive effect upon the community.  Even with transparency of the issues, there will always be some division among the constituents.  Corruption, dishonesty and greed must be eliminated to maintain transparency.  Honesty and truth are the best unifiers to cultivate a sense of unity.

I will propose that high schools within the City of South Fulton, form a youth council from their student body, electing one member from each of the seven districts to act as a representative before the City Council, once a quarter.  This youth council would meet with the city council once a quarter to discuss their concerns and issues.  It is my hope that encouraging students to interact with the city council will assist in establishing future leaders through activism and give them a better understand of community.

Initiatives:

Balanced Budget;

World Class Quality;

Transparency &

Crime Prevention

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