So far, I haven’t said much about the Sugar Hill election, other than to tell you who’s running.
My primary purpose here is to increase community involvement and ownership of government by providing you with research and documentation so you can see what’s going on in the City of Sugar Hill.
I want to keep the focus on that, so I don’t often talk exclusively about my impressions. But, it’s my Constitutional right to talk about them, and I think I’ve put in a level of work here that enables me to speak knowledgeably.
I’m at City Hall FREQUENTLY, watching these people in action. The only person who goes to as many meetings as I do is the City’s attorney. And I am often the only person in the room who isn’t being paid by the City, affiliated with a City-funded group, or seeking favors from someone. It’s a unique experience that gives me a unique perspective that has some relevance in its own right.
On this Election Day Eve, I want to share some of what I’ve seen lately.
First of all, I want to tell you about Former Mayor Gary Pirkle.
Gary called me on Election Day in 2021, the last time I ran for office. He hadn’t known about me before, because my public profile was not anywhere near the size that it is now. He was very concerned about the current state of Sugar Hill, but had been hesitant to step back in because he didn’t realize other people felt the same way.
Not too long after that, he started coming back to meetings after his retirement from elected office.
In the past few years, I have recorded and published a LOT of Sugar Hill meeting footage. Most of the videos received poor views because most people found them boring. That’s why I don’t publish much meeting footage anymore. People just didn’t care. It seems there’s not a lot of public interest in hearing the current elected officials constantly congratulating themselves and talking about everything except their true responsibilities in office.
Gary finally spoke at a City Council meeting in July 2022. His words to the Mayor and Council were brief, and direct. He said they were overdeveloping Sugar Hill and that they needed to protect and utilize the remaining business areas along Peachtree Industrial and Buford Highway instead of building them up with high-density residential. That video with his clear message is the most viewed and well-received video on my Substack and Facebook pages and continues to get new views now, a year and a half later.
It seems a lot of people feel exactly like Former Mayor Gary Pirkle.
Since then, Gary has been a fixture at meetings, speaking often. Always clear, always direct. His presence has been met with outright hostility from elected officials who are now trying to tell you that they listen to the community. With their attitude toward the Former Mayor, they’ve made it clear that the listening stops when you aren’t praising them.
I’ve spoken with Gary often since that first phone call. In the two years I’ve known him, I’ve seen him speaking with different people. Sometimes, I can’t tell at first if it’s someone he’s known for a long time, or someone he’s just met. He’s courteous and professional to everyone just the same, and listens to everyone when he speaks with them. I have always known him to be unfailingly and unflinchingly honest. But the thing I like most about Gary Pirkle is that he is always the same person to everybody. That’s an exceedingly rare characteristic in elected office, especially in the City of Sugar Hill.
Gary has known Meg Avery much longer than I have, but she is a long-time follower of my page and we had met during a City meeting well before her campaign. Meg is a soft-spoken person and does way more listening than talking, which is also a rare characteristic in elected office (again, especially in the City of Sugar Hill). After she declared her candidacy, she contacted me to ask some questions and we met in person outside of a City meeting. I remember she hauled out this big binder where she had been taking copious notes on everything. Since then, she’s steadily added to those notes and when you see Meg, you see those notes.
Gary has also known Josh Page much longer than I have. But, I have been VERY encouraged by Josh’s focus on government transparency and making decisions based on long-term, resident-focused objectives. And since I have known him, I’ve enjoyed his bright and sunny personality. That’s not especially rare in elected office, but his sincerity and consistency probably are. I’ve seen ALL those other sunny personalities turn VERY dark at the drop of a hat when you ask about public business they’d rather not talk about.
All of these candidates stand in very strong contrast to the people I’ve seen in Sugar Hill elected office. I’ve been watching the City now since April 2019 - about four and a half years. I have observed ten different elected officials here - four of whom chose to move away from a City they claimed to be improving.
The core job of local government is pretty standard from city to city. Manage the community checkbook responsibly. Make sure the streets in your jurisdiction are well-maintained and that trash isn’t building up on the streets. While those jobs are pretty basic, it seems local officials also find them pretty boring.
When finances come up, they endlessly praise themselves and the staff. They don’t ask questions at the hearings. They always claim they already asked everything before the hearings (behind closed doors). Why they can’t ask questions in public view at legally mandated public hearings and our City meetings is still a mystery. I’ve also heard various elected officials here say, as recently as last week, that they “trust staff.” So basically, they’re not very involved in finances and have no desire to get involved. I guess it’s just too tedious, and too “mathy” for them.
Last week, Marc Cohen, Mason Roszel, and Jenn Thatcher were asked about budget priorities. All mentioned streets. None of them mentioned why they hadn’t been a priority until now. Gary rode around and photographed the roads in different neighborhoods in Sugar Hill and documented the cracks and crabgrass growing up through pavement for which the City is responsible.
It seems like the current elected officials only pay attention to these boring old streets in an election year when another candidate brings it up and strikes a chord in the community.
Every time trash gets brought up in the community, part of the elected officials laugh at having to talk so much about trash, as though it was all supposed to be magically picking itself up and flying to the landfill. Marc Cohen paints himself as Sugar Hill’s Patron Saint of Trash, while in reality, he mostly grandstands on the issue. The newer Council Members act like it’s all old business that took place before they got there. The contract was discussed and approved recently, in May 2022, and all of the current elected officials were involved.
They all spoke as recently as last week about putting the contract up for bid. They didn’t say why they didn’t put it up for bid last year, and what’s so different now, other than the obvious fact that it’s an election year and residents are angry. When they had the chance to do something, they simply negotiated with the company with whom they’ve always contracted, a company that coincidentally(?) employs Former Sugar Hill Mayor Steve Edwards. When it was being discussed, they all tried to pretend they were experts on the trash business and talked about how hard it is for those businesses nowadays. It sounded like they were representing the trash company, not the residents of the City of Sugar Hill.
At the time, I wrote a piece commending the City, because even I fell for the act and thought they’d done their best. But, I also very specifically said I’d address it if they ever made me regret it. And I do regret it. I guess I could have removed the piece from my page, the way the City removed the meeting minutes for the Special Called Meeting on May 2 where it voted for the contract. But, I left it. However, it’s very clear to me now that the City is trying to manage resident criticism of the trash handling more than it is trying to manage the contractor’s actual handling of the trash.
And that approach is pretty much par for the course with the current elected officials in the City of Sugar Hill on EACH and EVERY issue. Sadly, it probably shows up most of all on the issue of greatest concern to residents - GROWTH and DEVELOPMENT.
They’ve spent a lot of time trying to explain to you why the high-density disapproval of many residents is off-base and you should be GLAD and GRATEFUL to them for putting apartments in “Downtown” instead of your backyard. If they had put that same energy into listening to residents and managing growth accordingly, this place would look a lot different. They claim they’re “building community,” but mostly, they’re just building. A lot of the people who fund this government are being forgotten in this focus on “Downtown.”
I have reported extensively on the deal that the City of Sugar Hill made with the developer of the Solis apartments next door to City Hall - a deal that gave the City almost 300 more apartments in “Downtown” and a 15+ year tax break to the developer. The reason I wrote so many articles about it is because it encapsulates almost every problem I’ve seen in the years I’ve observed these elected officials. They didn’t say any more about this in public than they legally had to. They didn’t answer my questions about it. They failed to help the City Clerk provide all of the legally requested records and made me drag them out of them over an extended period of time (stonewalling). When I shared the information with the public, they tried to get my page blocked. When they failed at that, they got shrill and aggressive and accused me of lying and not providing “context.”
Council Members Mason Roszel and Jenn Thatcher, as recently as last week, have tried to distance themselves from the growth overall. However, Roszel was on the DDA for the year and a half that this deal was in the public eye before it was finally approved unanimously by the City Council. And both Roszel and Thatcher voted for the bond on which the Solis deal depends.
ALL of these elected officials reached some new lows here, which sends a message about how they will handle their future controversies if re-elected.
They’re happy to hang out with lovable schoolchildren for a photo op, brandish golden shovels at groundbreakings and golden scissors at ribbon-cuttings, and tell you about the Summer concerts (which cost the City almost twice what they take in). You know, all the fun and fuzzy stuff.
They actively and consistently avoid the more boring work that involves your money and the livability of the entire community. If YOU want to talk about it, you’re being so very negative, you negative Nancies. If you continue to talk about it, some of them drop their masks to reveal their true, aggressive and defensive selves. The ones who wish to maintain a friendly image just send their friends to bully you into submission.
None of it is right, and it reveals not only a disturbing selfishness and dishonesty, but a complete inability to learn, grow, and improve at this very real job that handles very real money that they’re taking out of YOUR pocket.
The new candidates come to this job with a passion for all aspects of the job - not just the fun stuff that gets attention - because the PEOPLE of Sugar Hill don’t need more marketing. They NEED some hard workers who will roll up their sleeves to tackle and fix the issues.
I plan to continue watching this government regardless of the election outcome, but in the end, I am but one of the MANY PEOPLE of this COMMUNITY to whom this government belongs, and for whom these elected officials are supposed to be working.
I have said it before, and I’m going to say it again. YOU ARE THEIR BOSS.
And it’s time for some performance reviews.