Johns Creek Mayor On Municipalization: City And County Government Must Cooperate
Johns Creek Mayor Mike Bodker says as more cities municipalize in the metro Atlanta area, county government is best suited to provide more broad-based services, like libraries and animal control, outside of the constitutionally mandated county services, like jails and courts.The broadcast version of this story.
Bodker says it’s up to county and city governments to work together to provide those services that fall in the middle, like law enforcement.
“So it’s not that the citizens are going to lose their ability to do these things, it’s that they might get enacted slightly differently than they did when the county controlled most of the property that the cities now took over,” Bodker says.
The vast majority of Fulton County is municipalized since Sandy Springs first incorporated in 2005.
DeKalb County Commissioner Jeff Rader says as cities provide their own services, it cripples some county programs.
But Bodker, a Republican, says Fulton County, run mostly by democrats, didn’t right-size after new cities began offering their own services.
“That’s not our fault,” Bodker says. “The bottom line is that’s a choice they made as a county.”
Fulton County faces a budget deficit that could reach up to 114 million dollars.
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