Home > Gwinnett > Rick Badie / My Opinion > Archives > 2007 > June > 24
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Should Lorraine Green run for the county chairman’s post or not?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The last time I saw Lorraine Green in an official capacity was at the County Commissioners’ retreat five months ago.
I say “official” because we talk now and again on the phone. It’s when I’m trying to contact her son, Austin. He’s in my book club, and I must tell you, his rich vocabulary puts some adults to shame.
Last week, Green contacted me and said she wanted to chat over coffee. My antennae went up. She’s in, I thought. The District 1 commissioner wants to announce her campaign for the county chairman’s post, and she wants me to break the news.
Boy, was I wrong.
Green wanted to talk about what she’d talked about passionately at that three-day retreat — at least the session I sat in on.
Quality of life issues. Property management. Preserving neighborhoods.
Apparently, the Quality of Life unit that enforces property maintenance issues is being inundated with complaints that appear nit-picky, spiteful even. Neighbors want to put neighbors in the gulag who leave their garbage cans sitting near the curb for days, still have Christmas lights up, or go too long twixt mowings.
Not exactly the kind of issues the Quality of Life officers need to concern themselves with. And when they make them part of the beat, more egregious infractions — overcrowding, for one —get short shrift.
And that’s a problem.
“Half the time, when the cops go out [to investigate], the grass has been cut,” Green told me.
Three months ago in this space, I jokingly referred to Green as the Cleanup Woman. She’d just launched www.cleanupgwinnett.com, a Web site that, among other features, allows residents to file complaints anonymously.
Some apparently abuse it. The site receives an average of 10 complaints a day. Of that number, a third are legit, Green told me.
“We have to get the focus back,” she said.
And that’s where you come in. Solve your own problems.
Politely ask that homeowner to retrieve his or her trash can on the curb. Suggest they lose the lights. Fear confrontation? Attach a kind, explanatory note to the mailbox. I do. And if that trash can bothers you that much, move it yourself!
“If we don’t get the community involved in solving some of their own problems, this isn’t going to work and we are not going to make long-term changes,” Green said.
Speaking of change, I asked Green about any plans to try and make a political one, say for the county chairman’s post in 2008. To me, her non-answer was more of an answer.
“I know it sounds corny, but all I want to do is do what’s best for the county, and I will do that whether I am a commissioner, chairman or constituent,” she said.
I expect the Cleanup Woman to announce her candidacy this fall.
What do you think? Should Lorraine Green run for the county chairman’s post or not?
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
Permalink | Comments (28) | Post your comment | Categories: Rick Badie
