Four new heads of county government, all of them women, on Friday talked transit, affordable housing and the coronavirus pandemic.
Cobb County’s Lisa Cupid, Forsyth County’s Cindy Jones Mills, Gwinnett County’s Nicole Love Hendrickson and Henry County’s Carlotta Harrell met on stage for an hour at an Atlanta hotel as part of a forum organized by the Council for Quality Growth.
“It’s historic to have four women in these metro Atlanta leadership roles,” said moderator Doug Jenkins, the Metro North Regional Director for Georgia Power and chairman of the board of directors for the Council for Quality Growth.
Cupid, the first Black chair of the Cobb County commission, said she ran for office after two terms as a county commissioner because she wanted everyone in the county to feel like they had a voice.
Cupid was the only participant who remained masked on stage, and said the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine has stressed the county. She said she plans to create a call center to help people register for the vaccine, and to improve equity in access. In the meantime, she encouraged people to wear masks, wash their hands and stay socially distanced.
“Let’s do our part so we don’t continue to stretch the resources that we have,” she said.
Mills, in Forsyth, said residents are scared and angry. The health department — which serves 13 counties — doesn’t have the capacity to answer all the phone calls it’s received, she said.
“If we had sat down at the beginning, we could’ve done a much better job for the citizens and honestly, they deserve that,” she said.
Hendrickson said she had just signed an executive order requiring masks in Gwinnett County buildings and on county property, and said the pandemic had “exposed the inequities” many minority and immigrant residents face in Gwinnett. Getting a handle on the pandemic, she said, will allow for a robust economic recovery.
And Harrell, in Henry, said the coronavirus created a strain on public safety, health care, businesses and the community.
“We want to make sure we get the vaccine rolled out so the community is safe again,” she said.
Harrell advocated for heavy rail connecting Atlanta to Macon via Henry County and said it was important to change the stigma around affordable housing, which allows people who work in the community have shelter.
Hendrickson, in Gwinnett, said while she wished residents had passed a transit referendum in November — it failed narrowly — she still thinks transit is imperative to remaining competitive.
“We have to figure out how to get people around the county,” she said. “It’s at the top of my mind. We have to be a leader in the region, and we cannot do that without a comprehensive transit plan in place.”
Gwinnett is conducting a comprehensive housing study, Hendrickson said, to see what the county’s affordability needs are.
Cupid said she’s seeing a shift in how Cobb residents talk about transit, as a precursor to development, not crime. She said the county is learning from Gwinnett’s failure as it considers its own transit referendum.
“With the change in leadership we’ve had, there will be some more progressive interest in how we move this topic forward,” she said.
Cupid also said she’s wary of affordable housing being concentrated in one part of Cobb, and is concerned that some parts of the county with extensive affordable housing might not develop as robustly. She said the conversation brings up questions of what people make and what a livable wage should be.
In Forsyth, Mills said bringing in new commercial development is a priority.
Hendrickson, the first Black chair in Gwinnett, said both housing affordability and transit are regional issues that should be considered across jurisdictions. The forum was a start.
“It really is an honor to be here with these sister counties and these strong and powerful women,” Hendrickson said.
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