Game Changers: The Conscious Culture Volume 2 Issue 8 | Page 13

City of McDonough 4th Quarter Recap by Craig Elrod The last few months have been busy for the City of McDonough. In July Mayor and Council voted on and approved a budget for fiscal year 2017-2018, which runs from July 1, 2017 until June 30, 2018. The total budget for the City that includes all funds for FY 2017-2018 is currently set at $28,881,751, which represents an increase of 6.6% over the previous FY 16-17 amended bud- get of $27,091,368. The General Fund is the largest component of this total with expenditures of $16,167,305, an increase of 10% over the previous adopted amount of $14,645,750. Even with the budget increase, a mill- age rollback was approved by Mayor and Council which lowers the property tax in the City of McDonough. New businesses continue to come to McDonough with Tru by Hilton, Taco Mac, Miyako Japanese Steak House, and Culver’s all opening in the South Point area recently. Jim ‘N Nick’s, Great American Cookie, Marble Slap, and Buffalo Wild Wings have also broken ground in South Point and will be opening soon. In our downtown we have two new businesses that are currently under construc- tion and set to open during the first part of 2018. Story on the Square, which will be a book- store and wine bar, is set to open at 19 Griffin Street. Joe’s Tex Mex will be opening inside the old Chaffin building at 15 Griffin Street. Construc- tion is also taking place at 32 Jonesboro Street. This build- ing will become the new home for Veter- ans Support Group, which is dedicated to provid- ing free as- sistance to Veterans of all branch- es of service. Parks new and old continued to be addressed over the past few months by the City. Big Spring Park once again benefited from private donations. Earlier in the year an all-inclu- sive playground equipment was donated to the park by Our World at Hope Park. In August Leader- ship Henry donated bathrooms to the park, which feature changing tables for adult special needs vis- itors. Avalon Park celebrated a ground breaking in September on the recently approved expansion which will include additional parking, green space, and a new splash pad. The new Jonesboro Road Park had its concept plan voted on and approved by Mayor and Council in September as well. A budget of $500k has been approved for this new park, with construction set to begin soon. In terms of new homes, the City has seen a major increase in building with new homes being built in existing developments and even a few all new develop- ments being permitted inside the City limits. These new homes prove that McDonough continues to attract new residents. These new residents will soon be driv- ing on new roads as well. GDOT recently started construction on the “one way pairs” project that will transform how traffic moves through our downtown. This 30 month project includes a new roundabout on Jones- boro Road which will have a new entrance into Alex- ander Park West, and includes two lanes of one way traffic on both Jones- boro Street and Hamp- ton Street. Thirteen new sidewalks inside the City limits have also recent- ly been approved. This new sidewalk connectivity project is a SPLOST IV project and will be completed in phases, with the first phase set to start construction in late October. Looking forward the City will hold an election on November 7, 2017 for the Mayor position, District 1, District 2, and one of the At-Large council seats. The deadline to register is October 10, 2017 for the City election. Early voting starts October 16, 2017, and all voters will vote at 40 Atlanta St in downtown McDonough. As always I would like to invite everyone to attend one of our City Council meet- ings. All meetings are always open to the public, and the public is encouraged to attend and participate. All meeting dates and times can be found on the City website (www.McDonough- ga.org), along with videos of previous meetings. It’s truly an honor to serve a City and its people that I genuinely love, thank you for allowing me to do so. Please contact me anytime at [email protected] if you ever have any questions and/or concerns I can help with. Take care, and God bless. Game Changers Magazine Sep/Oct 2017 - 12