12/19/2019
THANK YOU FOR 12 WONDERFUL YEARS
I want to thank the voters of Chamblee for giving me the opportunity to represent the third district on the Chamblee City Council for the past 12 years. It has been an amazing experience, and I leave my current service to the City Council knowing that I have played a large part in helping make Chamblee one of Metro Atlanta’s most recognized cities. The number of awards received may be difficult to sustain, but serves as a good measure for the performance of this Council, and its staff.
In addition to my contribution to the transformation of our City, I have a lot of pride for the many things I have done with the title of Councilmember that have helped build the brand of Chamblee. With all due respect to the armies of volunteers that helped bring them to life, I am grateful for starting/leading The Chamblee Business Association, The Chamblee Farmers Market, The Open Mic Night, The Main Stage Contest, The Taste of Chamblee, The Chamblee Fun Mud Run, The Dresden Elementary School Education Foundation, the Chamblee Pub Crawl, and the Chamblee Veterans Day Committee. My style of community service has not come without much personal sacrifice. While it is clear that I have a passion for service to our community, I would not have been able to do any of it without the support of my amazing family. To Zhenya, Grace, Livi, Alex, and Alli … I love you more than you know for giving me the opportunity to pursue my love affair of helping make Chamblee Awesome. And, to my friends and neighbors, you can bet that after taking a break to focus on the renovation of my home, spending time with my family, and pouring some much needed time and energy into my business, I plan to continue my work in the community. As you can imagine, I have several good ideas regarding the next chapter in my community service life. However, I do plan to take some time off before I decide on my path forward.
My parting advice to the Council moving forward is to be deliberate, be principled, be prudent, and to continue to move the City forward. We are entering a phase of the City’s growth where things are about to get much more complicated than they have been in the past. The traffic studies for our crowded streets and the impact studies on the overcrowded local schools, just to name a few, are about to become so very important. I implore the Council to be critical of all studies, and be willing to have the courage to have vision beyond them. With our density, growth, and the cost of everything, planning for the healthy growth of Chamblee is going to become harder than it ever has been in our great City’s 111-year history.
My parting wish to the Council is to stay focused on 3 issues:
1. Focus on our core services and make sure we are delivering the best services, with the highest quality, consistency, and with the highest level of efficiency.
2. Constantly be critical of the budgets for the projects where millions of dollars will be spent. Don’t simply accept the budgets that are presented by the consultants, but find new ways to conduct critical oversight.
3. I would ask Council to do something that is not very popular. Please consider actively growing the size of the City. I feel the city can withstand another significant annexation, without losing any of its character, and the increased economies of scale will continue to benefit the tax payers, while offering increased political relevance in the eyes of our regional partners.
So with that, I will just say “Thank you” to my family and the Chamblee Community for giving me the opportunity to serve, and … I’ll see y’all around the neighborhood.
404-591-2500
