Georgia County Government - September 2008 - (Page 17)

county for 30 years and clerk since 1990, is also recognized as a leader among her peers, and was named 2008 Georgia County Clerk of the Year by her colleagues within the Association County Clerks of Georgia. She holds every certification clerks can earn through joint education programs for county clerks, among the nation’s best, offered through the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government. Hankerson espouses the importance of hiring the best the county can get and is proud of the level of excellence exemplified by Cobb County’s staff. “We’ve assembled a team which is diverse in terms of age, ethnicity, gender and capabilities, but they all have one thing in common: they are very highly qualified. We have one heck of a team.” County services include fire protection throughout the unincorporated area and in three cities; county police; the Cobb County Water System, which serves the unincorporated area as well as the cities of Kennesaw and Acworth; the library system; Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs; an airport; the Cobb County Civic Center; senior centers; landfi ll operations; a public recycling program; planning, zoning and subdivision regulations, permitting, code enforcement, sign ordinance, and animal control and shelter. Private waste collectors and a transfer station serve waste pick-up needs. in the metro Atlanta region, at 9.6, and is one of only two counties in the state to enjoy a AAA bond rating from all major bond rating agencies. Cobb, too, was the state’s first county jurisdiction to retrofit all county buildings with low-flow, water-saving plumbing devices, to help the state’s ongoing struggle with prolonged drought; and is promoting conservation efforts throughout all its facilities and operations. The $200,000 cost to retrofit county buildings with low-flow fi xtures will be recovered within 30 months, from water savings, according to Hankerson. Olens is enthusiastic, too, that the arts have come to the fore in Cobb County, in a very exciting way. A great supporter of arts in the community, he believes Cobb County’s $145 million Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre was a pivotal cultural addition to the Cobb community – now home to the Atlanta Opera and the Atlanta Ballet. The performing arts center presents at least four Broadway plays per year. “Most of these community improvements are community-driven,” he points out. “We have citizens and groups that come forward with ideas, and are very active in promoting the quality of life everybody wants.” A County of ‘Firsts’ Olens is proud of many “firsts” in Cobb County. Among the most recent is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s accreditation of the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce as a Five-Star Chamber, making it one of only 44 out of almost 7,000 chambers nationally and the only Five-Star Chamber in the urban metro Atlanta region, in recognition of sound policies, effective organizational procedures and positive community impact. He is also proud of the county’s recent $40 million parks bond, approved by 71 percent of Cobb voters last November. The success of that bond prompted the inclusion of a second $40 million parks bond this year. Cobb County also remains the county jurisdiction with the lowest millage rate County-City Alliances Vitally important to county government in Cobb is the county’s ongoing partnership with the Cobb County Municipal Association, meetings of which county officials attend, says Olens, at the cities’ behest. “We realize it’s somewhat rare, but we are a government running on all cylinders,” Olens points out. “It’s not easy, but all involved make the necessary effort. Effort directed toward getting along requires less effort than fighting.” “Chairman Olens is a true consensus builder,” offers Hankerson. “All our commissioners are active in the Cobb Municipal Association, and the county is very involved through this organization with the mayors, the Chamber of Commerce, the City Council and their goals. It’s voluntary, but a very high priority with Chairman Olens.” Hankerson adds, “This is because the cities are, in fact, our growth centers.” Great effort is expended to keep municipal officials informed about county projects and planning initiatives, as well as Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) plans and spending. Hankerson holds monthly meetings with all city managers to keep everyone up on the latest developments; and also holds monthly public safety meetings. Another monthly meeting with the county takes place with superintendents of the two school systems, the Marietta School System and the Cobb County School System (which is the second largest in the state, and acknowledged as one of the best in the metro region). The county has also gone “above and beyond” what the state mandates in terms of eliminating service delivery duplication with its cities, beginning with the requirements of H.B. 489 of 1998, the Service Delivery Strategy Act. Comments Olens, “We signed a 10-year agreement with cities pursuant to the bill’s requirements, which was not mandatory. We remain actively involved as partners with all our municipalities, and our communities work, truly, as team players to build alliances and form partnerships that will benefit everyone in the county.” Consolidation of many services in Cobb County is based on coalitions formed following customer service needs, and in fact government here is continually re-evaluated, in terms of its “customer service” value – not, as in many jurisdictions, based on economics, Hankerson says. “Customer service is really our driving force,” he emphasizes. “During the H.B. 489 negotiations (10 years ago), which we feel we handled very professionally, we took a hard look at service delivery across the board. Though it was not an easy process, the county and cities worked together well to streamline services. All jurisdictions in Cobb County had input, and we arrived at workable coalitions and eliminated what was being unnecessarily duplicated.” Yet another innovation is a Continuity of Operations Partnership (COOP), an emergency preparedness partnership that will keep all public safety concerns fully operational in emergency events, offering a soft ware-driven “plan book” COBB COUNTY continued on page 18 SEPTEMBER 2008 www.accg.org 17 http://www.accg.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Georgia County Government - September 2008

Georgia County Government - September 2008 Contents President’s Message County Matters Cobb County: Quality of Life is Job No. 1 Innovative Transportation Financing in Georgia Drive Your Fleet into the Next Generation of Efficiency, Profits Spotlight: Georgia Technology Authority Media Productions GEMA News: Hurricane Season Could Cause Natural Gas Spike GDEcD News: Communities Receive Funds to Develop Tourism Assets Georgia’s Grand Old Courthouses: Upson County Extension News: Radon: Georgia’s Silent Danger Research Corner: Conserving Fuel Costs in Your County Staff News County Parade Index of Advertisers

Georgia County Government - September 2008

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