City Council Advisory Committees
September 2019
Someone asked a great question about the committee ordinance I wrote that passed last night: "Can there be committees other than an Art committee created?"
Yes, committees such as parks and rec, school advocacy, sidewalks and trails, or even the creation of temporary ones that could do things like help us revamp the tree ordinance etc. It's worded "generically" to allow for ongoing or temp committees of any size, to study and give recommendations to the full voting council on any subject.
The idea is to let council members set up a committee on something they are passionate about, and then come back to the full body with recommendations on this, after working with the community on something. My first goal is to develop a Doraville Arts Master Plan at a very low cost to us, with minimal impact on the city staff. We don't have to reinvent the wheel on this one, a lot will be just looking at what other cities have done.
Advisory committees are a great way to get more done without taxing our limited staff and resources, while also engaging citizens in the process. The problem with creating these in the past was: there was no structure in place on managing them, making sure the open meetings boundaries were explained in detail etc. So understandably, there was a lot of hesitancy on creating open ended committees, with nothing in place to manage them. This was the "grunt work" that needed to be done first.
I have personally found that watching the videos of the planning commission and their input so helpful, I can only imagine the great ideas that will come out of the community if we give them a more powerful voice on other things. And we hopefully can be grooming future leaders in our community at the same time!
Stephe Koontz, Doraville City Council District 3
678-373-7021 City Cell