Dunwoody is five and growing
The city of Dunwoody celebrated its fifth birthday with the annual State of the City address on March 6, at the Crowne Plaza Ravinia, located off Ashford Dunwoody Road.
Mayor Michael Davis focused on goals and opportunities for 2014, smart growth, fiscal responsibility, education, economic development and the key milestones and projects expected to take shape in the coming year.
“We started in 2008 with a lot of hard work and dedicated citizens. We created this city and the effort was to keep our taxes low. The businesses we have in Dunwoody and the businesses we attracted are what keep our taxes lower and keep the services high,” Davis said.
At the ceremony, State Farm’s Insurance Co. operations vice president Julie Bolton talked about the national operations center the company is building in Dunwoody, on a nearly 4-acre site at Hammond Drive and Perimeter Center Parkway, across from the Dunwoody MARTA station.
“Why Dunwoody? Because this city offers many amenities and people want to live here and work here. That means we can hire the right people and we are talking about hiring 2,600 people over the next several years,” Bolton said.
Davis said of Dunwoody “it’s a place to be” and that’s why it’s attracting some big companies like Krystal, the fast-food company that had moved its headquarters from Chattanooga, and Computer Generated Solutions, among others.
About infrastructure, Davis said the city will repave the sidewalks and he will work on fixing the traffic issues the area has.
“Traffic is bad. The governor is working pretty hard with us to recreate the junction I- 285 and Georgia 400. We are working on making a better commute for people but the reality is that what used to be a half hour commute is now an hour and a half for a lot of people,” Davis said.
The mayor of Dunwoody talked about education and said that the system in Georgia is very “county centric.” According to Davis in a lot of ways “cities are second class citizens to the county” and that’s why he asked state representative Tom Taylor to get Dunwoody its own school system.
“This is going to be a hard task to get through but we will try every year. We know we deserve better and we can do better. The graduation rate for DeKalb county schools is 58 percent and, in any scale, that’s failure. We want to be better than has been given to us by the county school system. I say to my citizens that at least the Dunwoody schools bring DeKalb schools up to mediocre.”
Davis said that he will support and work with the nonprofit organizations in the city to help them reach their goals and congratulated Dunwoody police for their work keeping the city safe.
“This Dunwoody that we have been dreaming about and talking about for so long is becoming real before our eyes. This is happening. And we’re doing all of this. Just think about what we have accomplished together. Think of what we might do next,” concluded the mayor.
