Imagine waking up a small business owner and going to bed as the head of a municipal corporation with a $35 million budget and 200 employees. That’s exactly what happed to Troy Brumbalow, the mayor-elect of the city of Cumming.
Brumbalow, who runs both a construction company and a tanning salon in the city, won the mayoralty with 60 percent of the vote even though he was considered by many a long-shot at best.
I had a chance to sit down with his honor to talk about the win over an incumbent who has been in office since the time of the Nixon Administration and to hear his plans for improving the city of Cumming. The political novice said he owes his victory to hard work and dedicated volunteers.
“I knocked on every door at least twice, and some of them five or six times. I did it for a solid year,” said Brumbalow. When people did open the door, he had a simple message: revitalize the downtown area and promise a transparent administration. Also helping him to victory was a record voter turnout which was twice that of any previous city election. According to Brumbalow, big turnouts favor challengers and his win seems to support that theory.
When he takes office on Jan. 2, the new mayor plans to tackle a few issues he sees as low hanging-fruit: First, work to enact a noise ordinance. Right now, he says, police are powerless to effectively respond to noise complaints such as loud parties. Second, the mayor-elect is confident that with proper negotiations with trash haulers, he can add curbside recycling to trash pick-up without additional cost to residents.
There is one more short-term goal he has an eye on. Reverse the 2013 creation of the Cumming Fair Authority. The authority now owns and operates the Cumming Fair and Brumbalow says with the approval of city council, reverting back to city control of the fair operation makes it more accountable.
His long-term goal is a major one, to create a city center and make downtown Cumming a destination.
“All our neighboring cities like Gainesville, Suwanee, Roswell and Alpharetta have such areas,” he said. Mayor-Elect Brumbalow wants to create an environment where people can go to shop, dine and socialize. The affable newcomer asks why people need to drive from Cumming to other places to spend their time and money.
The soon-to-be mayor also said the city-owned Mary Alice Park on Lake Lanier has huge potential as a water park, conference center or some other attraction to benefit residents and visitors alike.
The Cumming native closed the interview by reassuring city workers that “no one is getting fired” and he will protect the city’s financial position so citizens continue living in a city without a property tax.
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