Game Changers: The Conscious Culture Volume 1 Issue 6 | Page 7

FROM THE DESK OF
Craig M. Elrod
A Recap
of 2017
by Craig M. Elrod, McDonough City Council
District III
2017 has already been a
busy year for the City of
McDonough's Mayor and
City Council. During this
busy first quarter of the year
the City has opened up the
new City of McDonough
Courthouse, opened the
new all inclusive Hope Park
playground inside of Big
Spring Park, approved the
expansion of additional
walking trails and com-
munity lawn to be located
inside Alexander Park,
approved the building of a
City museum (to be located
inside the Polk Building),
approved the expansion of
Avalon Park, made signifi-
cant progress on complet-
ing the Phillips Drive road
improvement project, wel-
comed man new businesses,
and installed free wifi that
services the downtown
square along with Rufus
Stewart Park, Big Spring
Park, Richard Craig Park,
and Alexander Park. Steps
were also taken to start
the construction of a new
park on Jonesboro Road,
however, the final concept
plan has yet to be approved.
As mentioned previously,
the two newest additions
to downtown McDonough
or the new City Court-
house and the Hope Park
playground at Big Spring
Park. The Courthouse is a
brand new, state of the art
building which began hav-
ing court in March and is
located on Lawrenceville St.
The Hope Park playground
located at Big Spring Park
is the first all inclusive
playground in McDonough
and is located on Veterans
Drive. The Phillips Drive
road improvement project
is bringing side walks, new
street lights, a storm water
collection system, and wid-
er lanes to Phillips Drive
in order to make it a safer
road to dri ve on, live on,
and walk along. In January,
Mayor and Council spent
several days in Atlanta
during the Georgia Munic-
ipality Association's annual
Mayor's Day Conference
and two days in Peachtree
City for the annual Council
retreat. This year the Mc-
Donough Youth Advisory
Council also attended the
Mayor's Day Conference,
and represented Mc-
Donough proudly as they
spoke to leaders from other
cities across the state. Also
in this first quarter of the
year, Mayor and Council
received the official audit
for fiscal year 2016. The au-
dit found that McDonough
is in very good financial
shape, with 57% of the total
budget in savings. General
fund revenues were approx-
imately $13.44 million, with
expected expenses budget-
ed at about $14.1 million
during the approval of the
2016 budget. Actual ex-
penses totaled about $12.66
million, showing a savings
of about $1.5 million from
2016. City staff members
are currently building the
fiscal year 2017 budget,
which Mayor and Council
will be reviewing and vot-
ing on in June. With that
quick summary of the first
few months of 2017 you can
see that our City has a lot of
ongoing projects, exciting
plans for the future, and
had a great fiscal year 2016
financially. Fiscal year 2017
looks to be another great
year for McDonough, and I
look forward to giving you
another recap in the future.
As always I would like to
invite everyone to attend
one of our City Council
meetings. All meetings are
always open to the public,
and the public is encour-
aged to attend and partic-
ipate. All meeting dates
and times can be found
on the City website (www.
McDonoughga.org), along
with videos of previous
meetings. It's truly an hon-
or to serve a City and it's
people that I genuinely love,
thank you for allowing me
to do so. I'm positive that
McDonough's future is as
bright as ever, and I'm ex-
cited to see what the future
holds for our great City.
Please contact me anytime
at celrod@mcdonoughga.
org if you ever have any
questions and/or concerns
I can help with. Take care,
and God bless.
Game Changers Magazine May/Jun 2017 - 6