With only months left in his term, Interim DeKalb CEO Lee May outlined several initiatives Thursday that he hopes will shape his legacy and leave the county with smoother roads, more job opportunities and better after-school care.
May, delivering his final State of the County address before he leaves office at the end of the year, said he’s laying the groundwork to improve quality of life and attract businesses to DeKalb.
Though DeKalb has taken some hits, including corruption investigations and a scuttled effort to build a soccer complex, May said he's focused on the future.
"We've built a strong foundation for our county during a tumultuous season," said May, who isn't running for election after leading the county for 2½ years. "I want it to be known that we were thinking forward, that in 20 years, we will have heavily invested in our infrastructure."
May emphasized to the roughly 400 people listening to his speech the need for DeKalb County’s government to repave its aging roads, which are riddled with potholes and in dire need of repair. The county has a 417-mile road resurfacing backlog, but current tax collections fund paving less than 30 miles a year.
Voters will decide on a 1 percent sales special purpose local option sales tax (SPLOST) in a November referendum that would raise money for to fix hundreds of miles of bumpy roads, as well as rebuild police and fire stations.
“We’ve really come to the point that if we don’t address our infrastructure needs now, we’re going to have a crumbling DeKalb County,” May said. “Economic development will follow when we address our capital infrastructure needs.”
Some of that development could happen near Memorial Drive, where May envisions creating a Downtown DeKalb on government-owned land alongside the county jail. That site was to be the site of Atlanta United's soccer headquarters, but the deal fell apart last year because of concerns about soil instability.
The area remains suitable for other construction, including a government center and private development, which would lead to more jobs, May said.
“It’s so important that he highlighted infrastructure because that’s going to be critical,” said DeKalb Chamber of Commerce President Katerina Taylor.
May’s proposal to launch an after-school program for middle school students would be funded by private donors in partnership with the county school system, churches and nonprofit organizations.
He hopes to start the initiative with a test-run in southeast DeKalb by the beginning of next school year. It could eventually expand to cover the entire county if it’s successful.
“Middle school is that age in our system and all school systems that is the most at-risk,” May said. “The kids can come from their schools, go to after-school for a few more hours to help them academically, to help them with mentoring, to help them be in a nurturing and positive environment, to really help them with better outcomes.”
DeKalb school officials said they weren’t familiar with the details of May’s proposal, but they were generally supportive of his idea.
“The community needs to be very involved in the education process,” said Melvin Johnson, the DeKalb school board’s chairman. “We need churches and community groups to work with us to support instruction.”
May also hopes to raise county employee salaries this year while making county government more efficient by outsourcing some services.
May has led DeKalb since July 2013, when Gov. Nathan Deal appointed him from the DeKalb Commission to serve as the county’s chief executive. May replaced suspended CEO Burrell Ellis, who was later found guilty of attempted extortion and perjury.
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