DeKalb Failing

DeKalb County GA is failing to maintain its water distribution and sewer systems.  Most of the $1.2 billion DeKalb County costs taxpayers is spent on a jobs program.  Very little is spent on water and sewer system replacement unless it breaks. They are ignoring the need to upgrade this critical infrastructure.  If it breaks, they fix it.  If it leaks they monitor it until it creates a sink hole.

They have no sense of priorities. The DeKalb County budget is all about politics and not about infrastructure.  At a minimum, DeKalb needs to double, triple and quadruple its system replacement funding and reduce funding of everything else. The sewer system cannot handle the current load and needs to have its capacity expanded. The ancient leaky water system needs to be replaced. 

Spending DeKalb County taxpayer funds should require a clear list of priorities with critical infrastructure at the top. For DeKalb that would include the highest priority for the water distribution and treatment systems and the sanitary sewer and storm drain sewer systems.  Next would be the road and highway systems. If all of these are proved to be fully maintained with preventive maintenance, monitoring and replacement programs, then the County can spend the rest on what’s left. 

The principle the county needs to follow is utilization.  Everybody utilizes the water, sewers and roads. As utilization falls in non-priority areas, so should funding.

There are services government provides that are better served by private companies and groups to operate without any taxpayer subsidies. Government needs to reduce its footprint and use their tax dollars on things the private sector cannot provide.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader