When reflecting back on this past year and what all has occurred, there’s no wonder I’m exhausted. Lol! We truly do have much to be thankful for and I’ll try to list a few of our blessings in D4 as well as countywide:
1. After almost a year of gathering input from our citizenry, we finally adopted a new comprehensive plan in the spring. This plan effects all zoning decisions and creates a long range vision for our county. It’s a a wonderful tool to guide us in making good decisions for our county.
2. After months and months of community meetings and input, we adopted the Coal Mountain Overlay that raised the standards for all commercial development and started the ground work on residential standards. We are already seeing the bounty of our labors with old zonings having to conform to these new and better standards, some of the best in the county.
3. There’s been a moratorium on the issuance of land disturbance permits for District 4 properties zoned residential between 2000 and 2012. That moratorium extends until November 2018. We have hired a consultant that will hopefully put higher standards on all residential zonings going forward and that will insure these old zonings will conform to today’s standards.
4. Created a Memorandum of Understanding with Advanced Disposal that will ensure that North Forsyth is cleaner, more beautiful and that the landfill operators are held accountable by experts that know this field of science. We have benchmarks and and standards now that never existed before and we also got an increase in HOST fees that gives us the ability to do more for the community. Every one can be held accountable now and that’s important to the environment and the taxpayers.
5. Held two more Drug Summits (7 and 8) and had national speakers at both. Also we had our first Mental Wellness Summit for Suicide Prevention and are starting a Mental Health Council.
6. I was asked to serve on the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia’s Board of Managers and continue to Chair the Government Policy Council as well. This position is a huge benefit to the county as I’m engaged on weekly calls that update me on all the bills under the Gold Dome that effect counties. It’s a way to give input prior to a bill passing.
7. With the assistance of our Chief Information Officer, we were able to do something that had never been done before in the county. We were able to overlay both the county and the BOE’s GIS systems to show how many zonings have been zoned and permits drawn in the that particular school’s district. This needs to be done county wide and the benefits are unlimited. Just to get the two systems to combine their data is a huge feat.
8. The completion of the 400 widening to 369 north and other transportation projects like Martin Road and others are making an impact for our community. We have many more improvements to go that are paid for in the $200 million transportation bond. I was very pleased that we got GDOT to approve two quick start projects for slip lanes at 9 and 306 at State Barn Road.
9. Working with our NF Rotary club we continued with our healthy living initiative with the purchasing of greenhouses for the rest of the schools in the north cluster. We also got our first senior living community that the amenity is a greenhouse and there’s a farmers market located in the commercial component. Having this in place will give the children a place to sell the fruits of their labor in this commercial environment and create a sense of community.
10. Walmart was opened and hopefully, in the near future, NFHS will be selling their organic certified lettuce there. They are now growing 150 heads a week and are providing lettuce to three schools.
11. I was humbled to be named an honorary member of the North Forsyth Future Farmers of America. I was also given the Humanitarian of the Year award by Family Haven. We have so much work that needs to be done for domestic violence. I was happy to work with a local business to help expand the reach of service for Family Haven and hope we can break the cycle of domestic violence.
We have so much more work to do with continuing to bring to fruition the town center at Coal Mountain with property zoned over a decade ago. We have huge transportation projects that need to be started with the interchange at 400 and 369 and the widening of 369. We have the ongoing battle against drugs with the great work our Drug Awareness Council does and expanding the Mental Health Council. I hope to learn more by serving on NACo’s Mental Health committee and attending their training conferences. I hope we can also bring to fruition a large industrial park in North Forsyth that will help in creating a more balanced tax base for Forsyth County in the future. We will need input from the community on what projects they would like to see in the next SPLOST vote occurring in November. The next phases of Lanierland Park and Matt Park are highly anticipated as are the recreational centers. We just can’t fit everything in on the next SPLOST and pay back the $100 million we promised for the transportation bond with SPLOST funds. We also have the subarea plan being created in D4 that will have an East/West trail system that we connect eventually with the South/North trail system that most call the Big Creek Greenway. I know this blog is an overload of info for you and I’m thankful for the blog itself as it was created this past year.
Thank you for caring about the future of Forsyth County and for giving me the opportunity to serve you. If I can ever be of assistance to you, please let me know and help me get good factual info out to our community by asking others to sign up.
Happy New Year!
Cindy Jones Mills
Forsyth County BOC/D4