Developments:
Gov. Nathan Deal said his office received the indictment on Thursday morning. He must appoint a panel in two weeks to consider whether to suspend the CEO. The commission has another 14 days to make a recommendation to the governor. Only if the panel recommends suspension can the governor remove him.
Ellis maintained several scheduled meetings on Thursday. However, he kept a low profile again around the media and did not show up to a meeting at the county’s sanitation headquarters with several dozen workers who have raised concerns about pay and working conditions in their bid to form a union.
Key government positions
County executive - Called the county manager in Cobb, county administrator in Gwinnett and chief assistant or chief operating officer in DeKalb, this person handles most of the daily business of government. Only DeKalb, with its CEO, has a single person atop this job.
Cobb Manager David Hankerson has served since February, 1993 and is the state’s longest serving manager.
DeKalb Chief Operating Officer Zachary Williams has served since December, after four years working as Fulton County Manager.
Gwinnett Administrator has served since September 2009, after previously working as the county’s planning director and in the Gwinnett law department.
Fulton County appointed R. David Ware as interim manager in January, after Williams left for DeKalb.
Police Chief
Cobb Chief John Houser was named chief in August 2010.
DeKalb Police Chief Cedric Alexander in April. His predecessor served three years as chief, including one as interim.
Gwinnett Police Chief Charlie Walters has served since September 2003.
Fulton Police Chief Cassandra Jones was named chief in 2007.
Planning director
Cobb appointed Rob Hosack as Community Development Director, its version of planning director, in March 1999 after four months as the interim director.
DeKalb appointed Andrew Baker, the associate director of the county’s planning and sustainability office, to director in May. He served as interim director for more than a year before an acting director was named for about 14 months.
Gwinnett appointed Planning and Development Director Bryan Lackey in March 2012, after he served as a deputy director and manager in the department.
Fulton does not have a “cabinet level” planning director.
Residents and business owners have long complained about service problems that range from a lack of police officers on the street to lengthy delays in securing permits to basic upkeep at county parks. Experts say that changeover among the 20 different cabinet-level directors who have worked under CEO Burrell Ellis in the past five years have contributed to, and are a product of, such struggles. Those challenges remain even if Gov. Nathan Deal decides to remove Ellis.
Resident complaints that the state’s third largest-county has been limping along for years aren’t likely to calm despite a growing sense that indicted DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis is on his way out.
Thursday, Gov. Nathan Deal confirmed his office received the 15-count indictment filed this week against Ellis. The governor will take about two weeks to appoint a panel to recommend whether he should remove Ellis over the charges of theft, extortion and conspiracy.
That alone would do little, if anything, to stop the carousel of leadership under Ellis that an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis shows has produced three chief operating officers, three planning directors and three police chiefs, along with one public safety director, since Ellis took office in 2009.
In fact, an interim CEO will inherit the enormous powers given the elected top job, which functions as a strong city mayor. Key among them is hiring for most every top-level department – which could yield even more new faces.
“You can’t have musical chairs in those roles because they’re too important for people not to stay long enough to learn how to do it best,” said Barbara Neuby, a public administration professor at Kennesaw State University. “You see that and I think the residents there have a lot to be concerned about.”
Residents and business owners have been venting concerns about public services for years.
In 2011, Della Mitchell told county commissioners that officers took up to an hour to respond to her central DeKalb neighborhood suffering through a rash of car break-ins. At the time, William O’Brien had been police chief or less than a year, though with more than 20 years on the force.
Residents in south and north DeKalb have since made similar gripes about police presence. Police protection was second only to park upkeep in the reasons Brookhaven voters cited for incorporating last year.
Thursday, Mitchell said she still never sees officers driving on her street – something she thinks would be different if the county had a strong, long-standing police chief who could push to hire more officers. Cedric Alexander took over the top cop job in April, four months after O’Brien’s abrupt retirement.
By comparison, Charlie Walters has served as Gwinnett’s police chief since 2003.
“We do not get the services we are paying for,” said Mitchell, a nanny. “When people like a police chief are coming and going, it’s not good for our neighborhood and our community.”
The ongoing loss of institutional knowledge has made tackling some of the county’s other more entrenched problems all the more difficult to fix, despite demands for more responsive government.
Delays and confusion in getting permits and licenses have drawn the ire of business leaders for at least five years, when DeKalb slashed its planning staff in the down economy.
Last year, the county took an average of 42 days to issue a permit for a single-family home, the simplest type of construction. A permit for a new office took 99 days, or more than three months, according to county records.
By comparison, home permits were issued within four days in Cobb and Gwinnett counties. Both issued all commercial permits within a month.
At the same time, Cobb’s planning head, Community Development Director Rob Hosack, has served since 1998, including a year as interim director. Bryan Lackey became Gwinnett’s planning director last year.
DeKalb appointed deputy director Andrew Baker as its planning chief in May, following more than a year under an interim director who never had enough Commission support to take the job permanently.
Baker will be a key player, under new development officer Luz Borrero, in developing a $2 million overhaul designed to improve DeKalb’s permitting system. Borrero began in November.
“What has been lacking in someone in that department who could advocate for an upgrade,” said Emory Morsberger, president of the Stone Mountain Community Improvement District. “We are anxious to help any way we can and hope transition at the top does not shake support at (the lower) level.”
Despite the uncertainty, Ellis has worked hard since being indicted Tuesday to maintain his regular schedule to reassure voters that he is doing the public’s work.
Thursday, though, he missed a meeting with county sanitation workers to discuss the raise they will see in their next paycheck. Ellis supported the “living wage” increase as a way to boost employee morale and retain county workers.
Neuby said the county should have been focusing on retaining higher-level workers, lest it send the signal that workers were options were fleeing.
“Sometimes you want the turnover, lest cronyism take root,” Neuby said. “But you also don’t want to give the impression that good people are leaving the Titanic and those staying are either struggling to keep good work going or have become part of the problem.”
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