September 29, 2025 • 40 mins
Should Peachtree Corners Form Its Own Police Department?
Join host Rico Figliolini and City Manager Brian Johnson as they discuss the community’s big debate: whether Peachtree Corners should establish its own police force. From budget breakdowns and crime data to resident concerns and next steps, this is a conversation every local should hear. Watch, comment, and share your thoughts. This live simulcast stream was previously recorded.
Five Podcast Takeaways (Revised)
(00:00:00) Introductions and context on the recent public meeting.
(00:01:18) Community reaction and the range of opinions voiced.
(00:09:35) Understanding the millage rate and how city funding would work.
(00:15:15) Recent crime incidents and concerns about safety.
(00:17:56) Community feedback and key takeaways from the meeting.
(00:21:32) Access to specialized units like SWAT and how those services would continue.(00:24:33) Population growth and hiring strategies for a city police force.
(00:28:12) Technology and modern policing tools proposed for the city.
(00:32:10) Next steps: professional survey, targeted community meetings, and timeline for decision-making.
(00:37:54) Final thoughts and upcoming election context.
Join host Rico Figliolini and City Manager Brian Johnson as they discuss the community’s big debate: whether Peachtree Corners should establish its own police force. From budget breakdowns and crime data to resident concerns and next steps, this is a conversation every local should hear. Watch, comment, and share your thoughts. This live simulcast stream was previously recorded.
Five Podcast Takeaways (Revised)
- Local control & service levels: Brian explains that a city-run department could keep officers dedicated inside Peachtree Corners—improving presence, familiarity, and response times—because they wouldn’t be pulled to countywide calls.
- Budget reality, not a shock: Peachtree Corners currently generates about $11M toward policing via the county; a right-sized city department is estimated at ~$12.2M, leaving roughly a $1.2M gap that could mean about $70/year for a median ~$400k home—if the city covered it purely via millage (other offsets could reduce that).
- Specialized units won’t vanish: Critical teams like SWAT/bomb disposal would still respond through interagency frameworks; other needs (e.g., ballistics) could be handled via GBI or paid partnerships. The emphasis is on matching resources to how often the city actually needs them.
- Modern policing toolbox: The conversation highlights tech-forward tactics—crime center in the cloud, LPRs/cameras, and drones—as force multipliers to investigate efficiently, deter repeat offenders, and avoid risky pursuits.
- People strategy matters: A smaller agency (projected ~52 officers vs. Gwinnett’s ~936 authorized) can compete for talent with targeted incentives—take-home vehicles, advanced training, slightly higher pay, and even housing set-asides marketed to first responders. Next steps include a professionally administered survey and neighborhood-level meetings; only if warranted would the topic be brought before city council for consideration.
(00:00:00) Introductions and context on the recent public meeting.
(00:01:18) Community reaction and the range of opinions voiced.
(00:09:35) Understanding the millage rate and how city funding would work.
(00:15:15) Recent crime incidents and concerns about safety.
(00:17:56) Community feedback and key takeaways from the meeting.
(00:21:32) Access to specialized units like SWAT and how those services would continue.(00:24:33) Population growth and hiring strategies for a city police force.
(00:28:12) Technology and modern policing tools proposed for the city.
(00:32:10) Next steps: professional survey, targeted community meetings, and timeline for decision-making.
(00:37:54) Final thoughts and upcoming election context.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
You're listening to Peachtree Corner's Life, a podcast sharing ideas, opinions,
and news about the city of Peachtree Corners, the community
we live in and the people that are your neighbors.
Now your host, Rico Figliolini.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hi everyone, This is Rico Figlioli, hosts of Peachtree Coinner's
Life here in the city of Peatree Corners, just north
of Atlanta, little smart city just north of Atlanta. Appreciate
you joining us. We have a normal guest, although we
haven't done it in a few weeks, Brian Johnson, City Manager. Hey, Brian,
here we go. Hey. The last time I saw you
(00:54):
felt like you were almost in the torture chamber of
a meeting. That's that was my pro little opinion. It
was a very long, very long meeting, I think almost
four hours, and it was about standing up the police,
if you will, in city piece recorders, the possibilities of
what that would look like, the facts that you needed
(01:16):
to put out there. This was the second community meeting
held at in the city council chambers, and by my
count I think there was about one hundred and fifty
or so people I count died all all the seats
in there, and I think they're all filled. Practically all
the city council members, I think were pretty much all
of them. So think whenet police was there and it
(01:39):
was just a big, big, good, good old meeting for
four hours, how'd you feel about that meeting?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Well, I mean, you know, community meetings are always interesting.
You usually only have them when you have a topic
or an issue that is significant enough to get people
to leave their house and come to a location. So
you know, these kind of things, you know, your typical.
(02:08):
You know, council members will sometimes have town hall meetings
that just they don't they're just some updates but you know, nothing,
and they're varying levels of attendance, sometimes as little as
ten you know. I mean so, but when you have
a community meeting amount an issue that's significant to the community,
you always know going in that you're gonna get everything.
(02:31):
You're gonna get all extremes, You're gonna get ones who
are adamantly opposed, adamantly in favor. A lion's share of
the people won't get up, it won't want to talk
or ask questions or just there to listen, and then
they'll leave. But you know, generally the ones who are
against whatever is being considered are more fired up and
(02:56):
emotional than ones who are maybe in favor, and so
you just go into them knowing that in our community
meeting was no different than you know.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Well, and I'll be transparent too, I mean, obviously as
publisher of Peace Recordners magazine and several other magazines and
a few podcasts, and I've lived here since ninety five,
so before the city was voted city Lights, if you will,
which again I'll tell people as I've always said, I
never thought City Light was actually a city, but I
didn't mind it. I wanted it to be a city
(03:32):
here because eventually I knew that when a county is
as fast as it was growing wouldn't be able to
attend to the city the same way its own people
would be able to do, right, because there's diverse agendas
on there as well. So even though we had a
county commissioner at the time that lived in Peace Recordners,
who knows where the next county commissioner would have been
(03:53):
from the in the district and may have been, you know,
looking at their own city, maybe that they lived in
versus our city. So and I say that because the
no city vote, which was a big, you know, big thing,
but people didn't want the city. They thought city light,
they didn't think we needed a city and all that,
and I think we did and it's proved out to
(04:15):
me over the last decade plus that has been a
good thing. Curiosity Lab Town Center, which wouldn't have happened
unless the city bought it or helped buy it and
do what they needed to do there. That would have
been way more apartments than what's Solace Petree Corners is
right now. Way because that was okayed I think at
(04:37):
the time for four hundred and eighty units or more.
I think at that point, Simpson we Park would not
exist because of our ability to get the county to
purchase that land. That would have been probably our sixty
home similar to what's in north manor now.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
And the city contributed about of the purchase price itself.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, I'm city coll Yes, which was eventually paid back
over a year or two. I think was just paid back.
So you know, there were things that the city's done,
good things. So that's that's what I think went well.
In the forum. There's another one. I used to drive
through the seventeen empty stores. It's all almost all full
(05:20):
at this point, and people wanted it to remain the same.
They were afraid there would be more density, more people coming.
They wanted They didn't care that there was seventeen empty stores.
They wanted to be up to park in front of
the store that they needed to go shop back. So,
just to me listening in that meeting, I felt like
almost every no, hell, no, no never type of discussions
(05:45):
was basically and I know people will be upset by this,
but basically people that did not ever want a city formed.
At least that was the majority for what I can
account because I kept it tally. Who was almost quite
a few of the people that went up there was
for that reason grew out of that, and so they
had a mindset because of that versus looking at it differently.
(06:07):
I mean, you're not wrong.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I knew three quarters of the people who were adamantly opposed,
who were pretty fired up about it, And I know
the three quarters of them because I've had an official
dealing with them in some regard, some about city light,
(06:32):
some because you know, they weren't happy with a sidewalk
project that the city did by their house. Some weren't
happy that the city doesn't allow backyard chickens some I
mean I can as they stood up and I know
many of their names, before they even said it, I
was like I already knew because they had had an
(06:54):
interaction with the city that had resulted in something that
they were not happy with and had nothing to do
with police, and it's they just made them mad, and
you know, and and and this is an issue they're
fired up about as well, and so they melded together.
So yes, there there are certainly sometimes pre conceived notions
(07:21):
and and you know, an attitude about anything the city
is involved in that makes people mad. Even one was
anti pedestrian bridge. And you know, even moving aside from
whether or not the bridge is used, you know, used
(07:41):
as much as it should be, just the land that
just the landmark that it serves, you know it it's
a known optical.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
You know, it's a symbol of.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Where Peachtree Corners is for those who might be passing
through and don't even realize where the city. You know,
that's not our city limits, but just don't even know
that what city they're driving through. You know, cities have
those things, and that's our downtown and so you know
it hasn't hurt anybody. We didn't ask for anybody to
(08:20):
contribute more taxpayer dollars to it, you know. But yet
they were mad that the city did that, and they
have taken that and they have just kept it bottled up,
and this was an opportunity for them to let some
of it.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Totally agree and listen, I I was not necessary for
the bridge either, although I came to the side of
wanting the bridge because it is iconic, that was just
against the original designs that would cost twelve million dollars
versus what it ended up being. So having good discourse,
discourse on these things, yep, good you know, back and
(09:00):
forth on it actually made it a way better product
project and a way cheaper project than it was.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Well and Rico that that's a good segue back to
just the police discussion in general. Is the more of
these things opportunities we have to hear from the community
to either learn from the community or help educate the
(09:26):
community or combination thereof. It's it's the back and forth
or educated the city and its elected officials are when
it's time to make the decision. So there have been
aspects of this. You've attended both of the community meetings,
and we've had discussions about, you know, things that earned
(09:49):
are not as important to the community or areas we
need to make sure that we're looking into, you know,
don't forget to consider this. And so it's a little bit.
It's an evolving thing, just like the bridge was.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, now for sure, and I think the city has
learned quite a bit also because coming back to that
second meeting, I think part of one of the main arguments,
if you will, is that you've heard at these meetings, right,
is that sure the we if we take over the military,
So for people to understand if it's eleven million dollars
(10:24):
of militarrate court fees and such that the county collects
that that eleven million were parts of that I guess
ten minute, right, nine point eight minutes.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
No, it would be about the same generate, about the
same court.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Revenue, so that all comes over to the city, right,
So for people to understand that this money is moving
from here to here. Okay, now, will it cost us
a little bit more for sartain things? Sure? I think
you all discussed how it would be maybe whatever the
number was one point nine to one point admit and
(11:01):
one time cost, or at least you know it's set
up cost, police uniforms, building, you know, all this all
the one time, if you will ongoing. Some of it's
ongoing obviously, but that would be handled by city coffers,
city revenue, some maybe some splosh money would be in
there somewhere, and and moneys that you wall realized, you
(11:21):
know what we can We could do a few things
from different places. We can make this work. Because you've
heard that argument about spending money, so you've actually fine
tuned how you would do that. So which is slow?
Was that the okay, so you've gotten that feedback, so
now you're going to do that. The militarrate is coming over.
It would come over if there's where to happen, and
(11:42):
if it's a little bit more. I think the argument
was that depending on the medium household income household value
it was maybe seventy dollars a year, yep, that would
come over to the millage side.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Well if so, just know that you know the eleven
million that get generated out of Peachtree Corners last year,
that would come over to the city if we created
our own department. The cost of us having a department,
that is the recommended size of department that the outside
(12:19):
firm that we use to evaluate what size would be
the ideal based on the calls for service when it
had was such that we were about one point two
million dollars short. Ours would cost twelve point two and
we would get eleven.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Okay, So it was seventy dollars more on the bill, okay.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Right, So if we didn't make any changes, and we
just said, all right, we need to find one point
two million, and we're not looking at any other revenue source,
We're not going to do any thing. We're just going
to raise the millage, right match, it would result in
an average increase based on the median home value of
(13:02):
about seventy dollars per year. Right now, if you own
a two million dollar home, it'll be more than that.
You own a two hundred thousand dollars home, it will
be less than that. I think the median home value
in the city right now is around.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Four I think it's about four hundred, right.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, yeah, four hundred. So for that value would be
about seventy dollars more if that was the only way
we did it versus again, and then maybe we don't
close the gap completely. But maybe it's not one point too.
Maybe it's only five hundred thousand and so, you know,
or six hundred and so it's only thirty five dollars
instead of seventy more. But yeah, that's four right.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And I had my tax bill here somewhere, my property
tax bill, and I'm looking at it and I'm like, okay, well,
you know number one, a police force wouldn't stand up
for four years, right, So who knows where that's ed
will be? I know that. They say, well, you know,
the county doesn't raise them, hasn't raised property taxes or something.
They don't have to. The property assessment keeps going up.
(14:06):
They don't ever have to raise the quote tax on
you because that's how they raise it, by the property assessment.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Right, Well, they do now that's generally how they've done
county wide. But just remember just five years ago, Yes,
Gwenett County raised the special police millage from one point
six to two.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
So they have raised the amount we as p Street
corners residents pay Gwinett County by one point three mills.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
That's not insignificant, yes, and that's for the police side.
So so four years from now or five years from now,
depending when this is done, if it's done at all,
you know, seventy dollars, thirty five dollars, one hundred and
twenty dollars. We don't know where we're going to be
four years from now. The heat map that you all
(14:59):
show was the best visual that I saw, although the
line of barbarians at the gate, honestly, I think that
was the law ad a little over the edge. But
there is crime at the border, and there's crime even
in select areas of Peace three Corners, you know what
people call the south Side retail crime because it's happened
(15:21):
at the Forum, and it's happened at Town Center. Break
Ins are in p Stree Corners Station. Also, just recently
there was a mass run of car breakings over there
and things stole in and stuff. So I know that's
being currently investigated. But that was quite a few cars
and homes being like you know, checked out by criminals.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
That at least fifteen because that's how many have actually
filled out a police report, but at least fifteen different
houses at cars and in some cases garages also look
to while they were in their house.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah, because they were able to get the car clicker
open the garage store so partially in their home, you know.
So it can be scary because I leave micro rotstore
partially open, you know, most of the day, as long
as there's at least two cars in the driveway. But
apparently it doesn't matter how many cars are in the driveway.
Oh yeah, well, yeah, go for a bit. I would
(16:21):
never do that, but you know, maybe from my personal
experience coming from New York, coming from Brooklyn, living there,
you know, we had cops on the beat. I knew
one guy on a regular basis because of where I worked,
and he would not that they will walk the street
or anything. Brooklyn's kind of big, they wouldn't do that.
But you know, if they were driving around sometimes they
(16:42):
would stop in at a diner I might have been
at or something. And you know, there's something to be
said when there's it's community driven police. Now I'm not
saying Gwenette County doesn't do that. I see them at
a lot of different places, events and stuff. But like
we've discussed before, you want to be able to make
(17:03):
sure that if you have police covering this area, that
they're going to be in this area. Yeah, and if
you want them to cover Peachtree Station a little bit more,
give it a little bit more attention because things have
gone on there. You want that to happen. If you
want them to cover a particular apartment complex because they've
had a rash of break ins, you want to be
(17:25):
able to say, yes, you know, we're going to commit
these forces there and they're not going to go anywhere,
you know, unless something else happens in our city, a
whole different thing right minutes away versus eight, nine, ten
minutes away, or maybe not even be able to come right.
So you've learned a lot from this last minute. What
(17:46):
was the takeaway for you from because there were quite
a few this is why it was four hours. There
were quite a few people that went up to the mic,
and I've got to say the majority of them were
we're no, hell no, and you know, for all different reasons.
And half of it was probably because of hell no,
because we don't trust your city limits. Although you you
(18:08):
weren't here when the city was formed, so some of
that is not even on you really. So but what
what from that meeting did you take away that you
think is a good thing that you need to address.
Make sure there's maybe more transparency, maybe more answers for
some of the citizen ry.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah. I mean what I always learn from these is
different areas that are ones that people are there are
themes to it, you know, like if I hear one
person bring up something and it still could be legit,
but that's not as strong as if I hear four
(18:45):
other people bring up the same thing, and then I'm like, Okay.
That means that we either didn't do a good job
of answering that question because too many people are bringing
it up, or we need to drill down even farther
because the community wants to drill even farther. So an
example of that would be the specialized units that's being coming.
(19:07):
You know, it's been brought up a lot about if
we had our own we would lose access to Gwinnette's
internal specialized units, and enough people brought it up that
told me I need to drill down on exactly how
many times has Gwinnett actually deployed a specialized unit? Have
(19:31):
we ever even had SWAT deployed in Pea Street corners
or the game unit, or have we ever needed to
use Gwinnette's ballistic laboratory, you know, to do an investigation.
I'm not sure the number, but you know, if the
(19:52):
numbers high enough, it could be to where you're like, wow,
that's a big thing you're giving up, or it's hard
to replicate. If it's really low, it may be such
that you're like, are we really giving up something if
we never or or almost never use it? You know,
(20:12):
are you really giving it up? If the game unit
has never been deployed here because and now we're going
to lose access to the gang unit, Well, the gain
unit was never here to begin with, so we're not
really I don't know the answer, but that's just an
example where you know, I learned what's important to the
residents when multiple people say, hey, what about this? What
(20:36):
about this? Yes, and it allows me to go back
and drill down and then the next community meeting because
this is a process. On the next community meeting, that well,
I'll have more of that information. And you know, by
the way, it looks like your cat wants to attend
the next community too.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah that third time has been up here.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Yeah, I mean he's kind of like, look, I want
to be a part of this, and if we stopped
putting me on.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
The floor, he's adamant the you know, we were talking
part about this when I did some searches about the
SWAT teams for a city of Nocross, and I think
I found that in this way, you know, this is
based on news stories versus stats, because it was difficult
to find any heart stats, but only the SWAT team
(21:24):
was only used in the city of Norcross, for example,
three times in the last four years, based on news stories.
So just and there they if I can say, this
probably a higher crime area in some parts of this
city than we have in ours. So you know, I
mean I agree with you. I mean there's some some
of these specialized units is not going to drag us
(21:48):
down if we don't have them right, And it's not
like we're not going to have them correct. I mean,
it would be like when I count to police or
a service partnered with other cities would provide that.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Well oftentimes, what I say, without you know, forcing somebody
to listen to all the details of all these units,
is there are a few like swat, bomb disposal, emergency
management that get federal dollars that restrict Gennette from prohibiting
(22:22):
the use of those in extra territorial jurisdictions, so we
actually Gwinnett would Gwinnett's SWAT would still have to respond
to us even if we we're out our own. But
there are some other units that's not the case, you
know again, like Gwenette has an internal ballistic ballistics lab
(22:46):
that if we needed one, he could potentially pay Gwinette
to do it. Or there are others like Georgia Bureau
of Investigation that provides it for to muni bouties free
of charge. It's part of the states offering. It takes
a little bit longer sometimes because you know they're using more.
(23:09):
But that's where you start weighing in on, well, how
often have we needed ballistics run on you know, a weapon.
I don't know the answer to that right this second. Yeah,
and you know, if it's not a lot, then using
GBI might be a good one. Some of these specialized
skills are merely you training an officer to do, you know,
(23:34):
having expertise in two different areas. You can have a
trained detective who has homicide you know, additional homicide investigation training,
and but yet most of their investigations thankfully would not
based on our crime. You know, data wouldn't be investigating
(23:56):
a homicide, but if we did have one, that person
might have been you know, trained a little bit beyond
the other investigators on that. So, and I'll close on
this by saying, all these other police departments, even in Gwenett,
not even outside of Gwinette, Lawrenceville, Swanny Dluth, long time
(24:19):
departments that are city departments that also do not have
access to Gwinett's specialized units. You know what nobody is
saying about those departments that oh, they're so inadequate because
they don't have access to Gwinett specialized units. They're doing fine.
There's a reason why eighty percent of the cities in
(24:40):
Georgia have city police departments is because when you can
take something, when you can take an area that you're
responsible for and you can shrink it down and now
you're only responsible for this, you can improve the level
of service because you've decreased your area of response.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Ability, right, And we've discussed that how that might look,
and we've discussed like over four years also where the
county may be I think it was within five years
we may be looking at population of a million, or
within ten years I think it was. So this is
going to be more people in Gwinnett County. They also
have issues hiring police. You know, we've discussed that too.
(25:23):
You know where the city of Pieceree Corners can offer
higher salary, continuing education, if you will, or certifications and programs.
We talked about housing a little bit. How if the
city gets developers coming in, they can apportion a percentage
of those units, especially marketed to EMT safety, personnel, education
(25:46):
and stuff to incentivize people to live in the city,
even to make it easy to do.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
You have the service sector occupations to live here, correct,
I mean those vehicles, access to technology, you know again,
enhance training opportunities, little things that we can do to
separate us from other departments. So that if you know,
(26:11):
newly minted officer Figliolini is looking at the North Metro
area as where he wants to become a police officer.
We just want to be one of maybe even the
but but you know that department that holistically, you're like,
you know what, I like P Street Corners instead of
(26:33):
going to Gwynedd or you know, Sandy Springs or whatever,
because and it could be a lot of different things.
They're going to incentivize me living in the city something
I couldn't afford without help. They're going to send me
to extra training. I make a little bit more than
I would at another department. We do have a little
bit more control of trying to make our open positions
(26:56):
a little bit more enticing than the next department. Or remember,
how do you not how do you prevent you and
your buddy from, you know, or you getting eaten by
a bear when you're out in the woods with your buddy.
Is you still got to be a little bit faster.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Than your buddy, right, you know?
Speaker 3 (27:12):
I mean, we just have to be a little bit
better than the other departments, and then we can end
up getting the officers that want to come here first.
And that's that would be our goal as to how
we could.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, and I think the argument that I heard was like,
you know, how would Pie Street corners do it any
better than that? Well, we we only need a certain
amount of officers here versus hundreds, let's say on a
county level.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
And I know, what is it? Nine and thirty six
is their authorized strength and ours would be fifty two.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
There you go, So all we need is, like I
say to my kids, all you need is one job,
you know, when the job market's bad, you just need
one job. That's all you need, right, So, I mean,
if we could control that aspect of it, and plus
the things that I know that's already being done, the
crime center and the cloud. You know, people talk about, well,
you know it's technology. You know, you keep pointing that
(28:06):
stuff out. It's like, yes, it makes a difference on
how you police, how you can break cases, how you
can follow with the criminals without doing high high speed
car chases, you know, and if you get one or
two of them, maybe the rest of them will get turned.
I mean, it's just like you know, it's just the drones,
the way of doing the policing that the modern day
(28:31):
police force can do can be done on a faster,
one nimble basis that they can a smaller unit if
you will then in a larger place.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
That's correct. I mean, it's just it's simple. It's also
simple math when you have officers. Even with gwennet if
if we if a city police department started with the
exact same amount of officers to patrol priestreet corners as
Gwen does, even if we had the same starting point
(29:03):
at the beginning of a shift, the fact that Gwennette officers,
because of the calls for service and the types of
calls for service, end up getting pulled out from p
Street corners to respond outside of our city limits. Even
if we had the same amount as the city police Department,
(29:24):
our guys and gals would never respond to calls for
service outside the city limits. So now their response times
or less because they're not having to come from say
West Precincts headquarters at Jimmy Carter and I eighty five
or even on the other side of eighty five. Our
guys and gals would be always right here, so the
response would be quicker. We would have more presence because
(29:47):
they're not leaving the city, and we would get our
officers would get more intimately familiar with the community, like
the beat cop thing that you grew up with. Even
if we start with the exact same amount, and you know,
we're proposing a higher amount, but even with the exact
same amount, we're at an advantage that Gwinnett unfortunately will
(30:11):
never have because they have such a large area to patrol.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, and all that makes sense, you know. The argument,
I guess really is that if you take away the
special units, which we discussed may or may not be
a matter of importance for our city, and we'll have
them covered anyway in a variety of ways. If you
take that away and you take away the what else
could take away. But it really comes down to a budget,
(30:39):
and budget is as we've discussed, I mean more or
less than four years time, the paying a little bit more.
We're versus seventy dollars on the average. Let's say, you know,
I think that's worth it. I'm paying a certain amount
of money for my home insurance, for my car insurance,
(31:00):
so paying a little bit more for my life insurance,
paying a little bit more for insurance if you will.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
It really is. That's a good analogy. It's insurance against
future crime, you know, and how to deal with it.
It's an insurance policy to make sure you get to control,
you know, Mayor and council here in a smaller you
get to control how we address it, versus hoping that
that bigger policy you know, you can tweak. So it
(31:28):
is an insurance policy.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
In a way. And I understand people may say, well,
that doesn't stop crime. Yes, you're right, it doesn't in
the sense of being able to be at that moment
when a crime happens, but it is to a degree
a deterrent when they are around, and it is to
a degree the ability to use the force multiplier of
(31:51):
the cameras, of the other things that will come through
over the next few years to be able to do
the policing way better to capture the criminal, to make
sure that people understand then at some point that if
you're going to commit a crime in city piece three corners,
you're eventually going to be caught. Technology is such that
you're going to be caught at some point, you know,
(32:12):
if not now not this crime, if you come back in,
you know, at some point you will be caught. Then
you'll be put to gene you know. I think I
think we've you know, reached a certain point where do
you did you want to talk about what maybe I
know one of the things that what may be coming
(32:32):
up over the next few months as far as as
far as this agenda, if you will.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, so, you know, I said at the beginning of
the meeting, it's a process. That was just yet another
step in the process. We learned some things, we're getting
more into, you know, some more data and certain things.
As I said in there, we're having a professional company
help us write survey questions that are you know, clearer
(33:02):
and more comprehensive than what we created internally without outside help,
which again was my error of not realizing that when
sixty percent of the people haven't done any education for
you know, personal education on the issue and the first
(33:22):
time they're responding to it is the survey itself, you
can oversimplify the questions and potentially create a problem. So
we're doing that. That'll be out, I hope in the
next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
But it's also going to be administered in a way
that you're getting a broad section of people that's correct,
not just the motivated people that go online to go
take it because they want to say no, which is
you know, to be fair majority I guess of that survey,
but that survey was not representative of the city as
a whole.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
So three hundreds of three hundred and sixty eight people
and of those, seventy percent were against. But that was
three hundred and sixty eight of forty five thousand plus people.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Right, So it's going to be administered more professional.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
It will. And to that point, one of the other
things we're going to do is we're going to have
some more geographically focused community meetings, specifically getting to areas
that generally are not civically active and come to the
big meetings that we've had so far, and at those
(34:29):
we may be having the survey with us and say here,
phill it, we've got your attention for this brief period
of time. Fill it out now. So it's a way
to ensure that we're getting to as many people as
we can. So that's going to be done.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Plus you'll probably find out more things, I think, as
you did with this meeting. You'll you'll find out more
what their concerns are, yes.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
What's important to them correct, And we are going to
bundle a kind of ORGANI eyes compile kind of our
concerns about the current level of service from Gwenet into
one you know, holistic request of Gwinnett. That's going to happen,
(35:14):
and so something.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
That should also take care of the people that suggest
that we should that the city should work with the
Bunette County Police to see if they can address the
issues that we want them to address right.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Right, And you know we have done some of that already.
But I will say that the resistance we've got has
been at the county administrative level, not necessarily within Gwenet
Police department itself. That's why I keep saying that this
isn't you know, a testament to Gwinnett police departments, you know, professionalism.
(35:54):
It's more of a strategic perspective that Gwenett County government
has on you know, this the communication between both law
enforcement entities. But those things are being done, and so
I envision the next large community meeting will be some
(36:14):
time at the beginning of twenty twenty six, because we
have some work to do. Sure, we want the survey
to have time to you know, get people to do
what we need, time to have some smaller targeted meetings
with maybe large apartment complex residents or things like that.
(36:38):
So and then when you factor in the holidays, you know,
people are not I think it's fair to say it
will be the beginning of twenty twenty six we'll have
the next community meeting in which you know we will
we will no longer We're done needing to start at
the very beginning. I think we've done enough of that.
You know, We're going to just present the new information
(36:59):
that even or updated crime maps, which takes some time
to build. And so yeah, we've learned a lot. We've
learned where we need to zero in on. We learned
that we've we've got to get more active in seeking
out input for this and not just sitting back and
hoping that a cross section of the city comes out
(37:20):
to community meetings.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
They don't, No, they don't.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
You know, we have to go to them to some
degree to get their inputs. So council still in you know,
they're in listening mode, and my job is to get
them to a point where they feel like they have
that the community has been informed enough, or at least
those who are interested in getting informed, and those in
those people have provided council their thoughts, and then each
(37:44):
council member is like, you know, well at a certain
point be like, yeah, I think I'm ready to I'm
ready to make my decision.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, yes, because it informs them too, obviously them as well,
because they're the ones I can have to vote on it.
That was I think that was what someone had asked.
They said, how how can we get on this board?
I was just being voted. It's like, no, it's not
a board, it's a city council that you all elected,
you know, and people are funny that way. They're like,
(38:13):
we didn't elect them. Well, you know the elections are
coming up. Well, the next set of elections that are
that would be contested probably would be twenty seven.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Actually, yes, November seven is the next time any seats
are open.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah, because this election this year, all the seats are uncontested.
So apparently city council is doing a good enough job.
No one decided to run to run for a seat.
But anyway, so appreciate Brian you giving me time to
discuss this. I mean, when I was at that meeting
four hours. I think I stayed almost until the last
(38:47):
fifteen minutes of that meeting. It was just can't take
it anymore, had to leave.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
I wanted to leave with u Rico, but you didn't.
You didn't invite me.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Yes, that's your job to stay there. Sorry, the bull
aarans are at the gate. But thank you for sharing
stuff with us. As anyone knows from this conversation, at
least I don't have a problem having the city stand up.
It's on police force. I mean, that's just my own opinion. Obviously,
there's tons of other opinions. So if you disagree with me.
(39:18):
You should leave comments, and I'm sure some people will,
but be gentle. Don't. Don't make them, you know, personal comments.
Give me factual stuff. Put what you want in the comments.
Whether this is on Facebook, it'll be on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter,
and the normal channel you see the podcast at, so
put your comments there, share it with your friends if
(39:38):
you'd like. Hope to see you soon. I'm sure we'll
be seeing a lot of people in January. Brian, thank you,
Thank you, Rico reported and again stay with me. I'm
just gonna thank you everyone. Appreciate you all being with me.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Thanks thanks for listening to Peachtree Corner's Life with Rico Figliolini.
You can listen to the show wherever podcasts are found,
like iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Apple Podcast. Leave us a review too,
it helps others find the show as well. Don't forget
(40:15):
to like our Facebook page and YouTube channel for notifications
of our live simulcast video streams of the show. Catch
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In fact, you can listen to our other popular show,
The Capitalist Sage, a twice a month podcast about and
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(40:36):
and subject matter experts find what you need to meet
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show at the Capitalistsage dot com.
You're listening to Peachtree Corner's Life, a podcast sharing ideas, opinions,
and news about the city of Peachtree Corners, the community
we live in and the people that are your neighbors.
Now your host, Rico Figliolini.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hi everyone, This is Rico Figlioli, hosts of Peachtree Coinner's
Life here in the city of Peatree Corners, just north
of Atlanta, little smart city just north of Atlanta. Appreciate
you joining us. We have a normal guest, although we
haven't done it in a few weeks, Brian Johnson, City Manager. Hey, Brian,
here we go. Hey. The last time I saw you
(00:54):
felt like you were almost in the torture chamber of
a meeting. That's that was my pro little opinion. It
was a very long, very long meeting, I think almost
four hours, and it was about standing up the police,
if you will, in city piece recorders, the possibilities of
what that would look like, the facts that you needed
(01:16):
to put out there. This was the second community meeting
held at in the city council chambers, and by my
count I think there was about one hundred and fifty
or so people I count died all all the seats
in there, and I think they're all filled. Practically all
the city council members, I think were pretty much all
of them. So think whenet police was there and it
(01:39):
was just a big, big, good, good old meeting for
four hours, how'd you feel about that meeting?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Well, I mean, you know, community meetings are always interesting.
You usually only have them when you have a topic
or an issue that is significant enough to get people
to leave their house and come to a location. So
you know, these kind of things, you know, your typical.
(02:08):
You know, council members will sometimes have town hall meetings
that just they don't they're just some updates but you know, nothing,
and they're varying levels of attendance, sometimes as little as
ten you know. I mean so, but when you have
a community meeting amount an issue that's significant to the community,
you always know going in that you're gonna get everything.
(02:31):
You're gonna get all extremes, You're gonna get ones who
are adamantly opposed, adamantly in favor. A lion's share of
the people won't get up, it won't want to talk
or ask questions or just there to listen, and then
they'll leave. But you know, generally the ones who are
against whatever is being considered are more fired up and
(02:56):
emotional than ones who are maybe in favor, and so
you just go into them knowing that in our community
meeting was no different than you know.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Well, and I'll be transparent too, I mean, obviously as
publisher of Peace Recordners magazine and several other magazines and
a few podcasts, and I've lived here since ninety five,
so before the city was voted city Lights, if you will,
which again I'll tell people as I've always said, I
never thought City Light was actually a city, but I
didn't mind it. I wanted it to be a city
(03:32):
here because eventually I knew that when a county is
as fast as it was growing wouldn't be able to
attend to the city the same way its own people
would be able to do, right, because there's diverse agendas
on there as well. So even though we had a
county commissioner at the time that lived in Peace Recordners,
who knows where the next county commissioner would have been
(03:53):
from the in the district and may have been, you know,
looking at their own city, maybe that they lived in
versus our city. So and I say that because the
no city vote, which was a big, you know, big thing,
but people didn't want the city. They thought city light,
they didn't think we needed a city and all that,
and I think we did and it's proved out to
(04:15):
me over the last decade plus that has been a
good thing. Curiosity Lab Town Center, which wouldn't have happened
unless the city bought it or helped buy it and
do what they needed to do there. That would have
been way more apartments than what's Solace Petree Corners is
right now. Way because that was okayed I think at
(04:37):
the time for four hundred and eighty units or more.
I think at that point, Simpson we Park would not
exist because of our ability to get the county to
purchase that land. That would have been probably our sixty
home similar to what's in north manor now.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
And the city contributed about of the purchase price itself.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
Yeah, I'm city coll Yes, which was eventually paid back
over a year or two. I think was just paid back.
So you know, there were things that the city's done,
good things. So that's that's what I think went well.
In the forum. There's another one. I used to drive
through the seventeen empty stores. It's all almost all full
(05:20):
at this point, and people wanted it to remain the same.
They were afraid there would be more density, more people coming.
They wanted They didn't care that there was seventeen empty stores.
They wanted to be up to park in front of
the store that they needed to go shop back. So,
just to me listening in that meeting, I felt like
almost every no, hell, no, no never type of discussions
(05:45):
was basically and I know people will be upset by this,
but basically people that did not ever want a city formed.
At least that was the majority for what I can
account because I kept it tally. Who was almost quite
a few of the people that went up there was
for that reason grew out of that, and so they
had a mindset because of that versus looking at it differently.
(06:07):
I mean, you're not wrong.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I knew three quarters of the people who were adamantly opposed,
who were pretty fired up about it, And I know
the three quarters of them because I've had an official
dealing with them in some regard, some about city light,
(06:32):
some because you know, they weren't happy with a sidewalk
project that the city did by their house. Some weren't
happy that the city doesn't allow backyard chickens some I
mean I can as they stood up and I know
many of their names, before they even said it, I
was like I already knew because they had had an
(06:54):
interaction with the city that had resulted in something that
they were not happy with and had nothing to do
with police, and it's they just made them mad, and
you know, and and and this is an issue they're
fired up about as well, and so they melded together.
So yes, there there are certainly sometimes pre conceived notions
(07:21):
and and you know, an attitude about anything the city
is involved in that makes people mad. Even one was
anti pedestrian bridge. And you know, even moving aside from
whether or not the bridge is used, you know, used
(07:41):
as much as it should be, just the land that
just the landmark that it serves, you know it it's
a known optical.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
You know, it's a symbol of.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Where Peachtree Corners is for those who might be passing
through and don't even realize where the city. You know,
that's not our city limits, but just don't even know
that what city they're driving through. You know, cities have
those things, and that's our downtown and so you know
it hasn't hurt anybody. We didn't ask for anybody to
(08:20):
contribute more taxpayer dollars to it, you know. But yet
they were mad that the city did that, and they
have taken that and they have just kept it bottled up,
and this was an opportunity for them to let some
of it.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Totally agree and listen, I I was not necessary for
the bridge either, although I came to the side of
wanting the bridge because it is iconic, that was just
against the original designs that would cost twelve million dollars
versus what it ended up being. So having good discourse,
discourse on these things, yep, good you know, back and
(09:00):
forth on it actually made it a way better product
project and a way cheaper project than it was.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Well and Rico that that's a good segue back to
just the police discussion in general. Is the more of
these things opportunities we have to hear from the community
to either learn from the community or help educate the
(09:26):
community or combination thereof. It's it's the back and forth
or educated the city and its elected officials are when
it's time to make the decision. So there have been
aspects of this. You've attended both of the community meetings,
and we've had discussions about, you know, things that earned
(09:49):
are not as important to the community or areas we
need to make sure that we're looking into, you know,
don't forget to consider this. And so it's a little bit.
It's an evolving thing, just like the bridge was.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, now for sure, and I think the city has
learned quite a bit also because coming back to that
second meeting, I think part of one of the main arguments,
if you will, is that you've heard at these meetings, right,
is that sure the we if we take over the military,
So for people to understand if it's eleven million dollars
(10:24):
of militarrate court fees and such that the county collects
that that eleven million were parts of that I guess
ten minute, right, nine point eight minutes.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
No, it would be about the same generate, about the
same court.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Revenue, so that all comes over to the city, right,
So for people to understand that this money is moving
from here to here. Okay, now, will it cost us
a little bit more for sartain things? Sure? I think
you all discussed how it would be maybe whatever the
number was one point nine to one point admit and
(11:01):
one time cost, or at least you know it's set
up cost, police uniforms, building, you know, all this all
the one time, if you will ongoing. Some of it's
ongoing obviously, but that would be handled by city coffers,
city revenue, some maybe some splosh money would be in
there somewhere, and and moneys that you wall realized, you
(11:21):
know what we can We could do a few things
from different places. We can make this work. Because you've
heard that argument about spending money, so you've actually fine
tuned how you would do that. So which is slow?
Was that the okay, so you've gotten that feedback, so
now you're going to do that. The militarrate is coming over.
It would come over if there's where to happen, and
(11:42):
if it's a little bit more. I think the argument
was that depending on the medium household income household value
it was maybe seventy dollars a year, yep, that would
come over to the millage side.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Well if so, just know that you know the eleven
million that get generated out of Peachtree Corners last year,
that would come over to the city if we created
our own department. The cost of us having a department,
that is the recommended size of department that the outside
(12:19):
firm that we use to evaluate what size would be
the ideal based on the calls for service when it
had was such that we were about one point two
million dollars short. Ours would cost twelve point two and
we would get eleven.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Okay, So it was seventy dollars more on the bill, okay.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Right, So if we didn't make any changes, and we
just said, all right, we need to find one point
two million, and we're not looking at any other revenue source,
We're not going to do any thing. We're just going
to raise the millage, right match, it would result in
an average increase based on the median home value of
(13:02):
about seventy dollars per year. Right now, if you own
a two million dollar home, it'll be more than that.
You own a two hundred thousand dollars home, it will
be less than that. I think the median home value
in the city right now is around.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Four I think it's about four hundred, right.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, yeah, four hundred. So for that value would be
about seventy dollars more if that was the only way
we did it versus again, and then maybe we don't
close the gap completely. But maybe it's not one point too.
Maybe it's only five hundred thousand and so, you know,
or six hundred and so it's only thirty five dollars
instead of seventy more. But yeah, that's four right.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And I had my tax bill here somewhere, my property
tax bill, and I'm looking at it and I'm like, okay, well,
you know number one, a police force wouldn't stand up
for four years, right, So who knows where that's ed
will be? I know that. They say, well, you know,
the county doesn't raise them, hasn't raised property taxes or something.
They don't have to. The property assessment keeps going up.
(14:06):
They don't ever have to raise the quote tax on
you because that's how they raise it, by the property assessment.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Right, Well, they do now that's generally how they've done
county wide. But just remember just five years ago, Yes,
Gwenett County raised the special police millage from one point
six to two.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
So they have raised the amount we as p Street
corners residents pay Gwinett County by one point three mills.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
That's not insignificant, yes, and that's for the police side.
So so four years from now or five years from now,
depending when this is done, if it's done at all,
you know, seventy dollars, thirty five dollars, one hundred and
twenty dollars. We don't know where we're going to be
four years from now. The heat map that you all
(14:59):
show was the best visual that I saw, although the
line of barbarians at the gate, honestly, I think that
was the law ad a little over the edge. But
there is crime at the border, and there's crime even
in select areas of Peace three Corners, you know what
people call the south Side retail crime because it's happened
(15:21):
at the Forum, and it's happened at Town Center. Break
Ins are in p Stree Corners Station. Also, just recently
there was a mass run of car breakings over there
and things stole in and stuff. So I know that's
being currently investigated. But that was quite a few cars
and homes being like you know, checked out by criminals.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
That at least fifteen because that's how many have actually
filled out a police report, but at least fifteen different
houses at cars and in some cases garages also look
to while they were in their house.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah, because they were able to get the car clicker
open the garage store so partially in their home, you know.
So it can be scary because I leave micro rotstore
partially open, you know, most of the day, as long
as there's at least two cars in the driveway. But
apparently it doesn't matter how many cars are in the driveway.
Oh yeah, well, yeah, go for a bit. I would
(16:21):
never do that, but you know, maybe from my personal
experience coming from New York, coming from Brooklyn, living there,
you know, we had cops on the beat. I knew
one guy on a regular basis because of where I worked,
and he would not that they will walk the street
or anything. Brooklyn's kind of big, they wouldn't do that.
But you know, if they were driving around sometimes they
(16:42):
would stop in at a diner I might have been
at or something. And you know, there's something to be
said when there's it's community driven police. Now I'm not
saying Gwenette County doesn't do that. I see them at
a lot of different places, events and stuff. But like
we've discussed before, you want to be able to make
(17:03):
sure that if you have police covering this area, that
they're going to be in this area. Yeah, and if
you want them to cover Peachtree Station a little bit more,
give it a little bit more attention because things have
gone on there. You want that to happen. If you
want them to cover a particular apartment complex because they've
had a rash of break ins, you want to be
(17:25):
able to say, yes, you know, we're going to commit
these forces there and they're not going to go anywhere,
you know, unless something else happens in our city, a
whole different thing right minutes away versus eight, nine, ten
minutes away, or maybe not even be able to come right.
So you've learned a lot from this last minute. What
(17:46):
was the takeaway for you from because there were quite
a few this is why it was four hours. There
were quite a few people that went up to the mic,
and I've got to say the majority of them were
we're no, hell no, and you know, for all different reasons.
And half of it was probably because of hell no,
because we don't trust your city limits. Although you you
(18:08):
weren't here when the city was formed, so some of
that is not even on you really. So but what
what from that meeting did you take away that you
think is a good thing that you need to address.
Make sure there's maybe more transparency, maybe more answers for
some of the citizen ry.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah. I mean what I always learn from these is
different areas that are ones that people are there are
themes to it, you know, like if I hear one
person bring up something and it still could be legit,
but that's not as strong as if I hear four
(18:45):
other people bring up the same thing, and then I'm like, Okay.
That means that we either didn't do a good job
of answering that question because too many people are bringing
it up, or we need to drill down even farther
because the community wants to drill even farther. So an
example of that would be the specialized units that's being coming.
(19:07):
You know, it's been brought up a lot about if
we had our own we would lose access to Gwinnette's
internal specialized units, and enough people brought it up that
told me I need to drill down on exactly how
many times has Gwinnett actually deployed a specialized unit? Have
(19:31):
we ever even had SWAT deployed in Pea Street corners
or the game unit, or have we ever needed to
use Gwinnette's ballistic laboratory, you know, to do an investigation.
I'm not sure the number, but you know, if the
(19:52):
numbers high enough, it could be to where you're like, wow,
that's a big thing you're giving up, or it's hard
to replicate. If it's really low, it may be such
that you're like, are we really giving up something if
we never or or almost never use it? You know,
(20:12):
are you really giving it up? If the game unit
has never been deployed here because and now we're going
to lose access to the gang unit, Well, the gain
unit was never here to begin with, so we're not
really I don't know the answer, but that's just an
example where you know, I learned what's important to the
residents when multiple people say, hey, what about this? What
(20:36):
about this? Yes, and it allows me to go back
and drill down and then the next community meeting because
this is a process. On the next community meeting, that well,
I'll have more of that information. And you know, by
the way, it looks like your cat wants to attend
the next community too.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah that third time has been up here.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Yeah, I mean he's kind of like, look, I want
to be a part of this, and if we stopped
putting me on.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
The floor, he's adamant the you know, we were talking
part about this when I did some searches about the
SWAT teams for a city of Nocross, and I think
I found that in this way, you know, this is
based on news stories versus stats, because it was difficult
to find any heart stats, but only the SWAT team
(21:24):
was only used in the city of Norcross, for example,
three times in the last four years, based on news stories.
So just and there they if I can say, this
probably a higher crime area in some parts of this
city than we have in ours. So you know, I
mean I agree with you. I mean there's some some
of these specialized units is not going to drag us
(21:48):
down if we don't have them right, And it's not
like we're not going to have them correct. I mean,
it would be like when I count to police or
a service partnered with other cities would provide that.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Well oftentimes, what I say, without you know, forcing somebody
to listen to all the details of all these units,
is there are a few like swat, bomb disposal, emergency
management that get federal dollars that restrict Gennette from prohibiting
(22:22):
the use of those in extra territorial jurisdictions, so we
actually Gwinnett would Gwinnett's SWAT would still have to respond
to us even if we we're out our own. But
there are some other units that's not the case, you
know again, like Gwenette has an internal ballistic ballistics lab
(22:46):
that if we needed one, he could potentially pay Gwinette
to do it. Or there are others like Georgia Bureau
of Investigation that provides it for to muni bouties free
of charge. It's part of the states offering. It takes
a little bit longer sometimes because you know they're using more.
(23:09):
But that's where you start weighing in on, well, how
often have we needed ballistics run on you know, a weapon.
I don't know the answer to that right this second. Yeah,
and you know, if it's not a lot, then using
GBI might be a good one. Some of these specialized
skills are merely you training an officer to do, you know,
(23:34):
having expertise in two different areas. You can have a
trained detective who has homicide you know, additional homicide investigation training,
and but yet most of their investigations thankfully would not
based on our crime. You know, data wouldn't be investigating
(23:56):
a homicide, but if we did have one, that person
might have been you know, trained a little bit beyond
the other investigators on that. So, and I'll close on
this by saying, all these other police departments, even in Gwenett,
not even outside of Gwinette, Lawrenceville, Swanny Dluth, long time
(24:19):
departments that are city departments that also do not have
access to Gwinett's specialized units. You know what nobody is
saying about those departments that oh, they're so inadequate because
they don't have access to Gwinett specialized units. They're doing fine.
There's a reason why eighty percent of the cities in
(24:40):
Georgia have city police departments is because when you can
take something, when you can take an area that you're
responsible for and you can shrink it down and now
you're only responsible for this, you can improve the level
of service because you've decreased your area of response.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Ability, right, And we've discussed that how that might look,
and we've discussed like over four years also where the
county may be I think it was within five years
we may be looking at population of a million, or
within ten years I think it was. So this is
going to be more people in Gwinnett County. They also
have issues hiring police. You know, we've discussed that too.
(25:23):
You know where the city of Pieceree Corners can offer
higher salary, continuing education, if you will, or certifications and programs.
We talked about housing a little bit. How if the
city gets developers coming in, they can apportion a percentage
of those units, especially marketed to EMT safety, personnel, education
(25:46):
and stuff to incentivize people to live in the city,
even to make it easy to do.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
You have the service sector occupations to live here, correct,
I mean those vehicles, access to technology, you know again,
enhance training opportunities, little things that we can do to
separate us from other departments. So that if you know,
(26:11):
newly minted officer Figliolini is looking at the North Metro
area as where he wants to become a police officer.
We just want to be one of maybe even the
but but you know that department that holistically, you're like,
you know what, I like P Street Corners instead of
(26:33):
going to Gwynedd or you know, Sandy Springs or whatever,
because and it could be a lot of different things.
They're going to incentivize me living in the city something
I couldn't afford without help. They're going to send me
to extra training. I make a little bit more than
I would at another department. We do have a little
bit more control of trying to make our open positions
(26:56):
a little bit more enticing than the next department. Or remember,
how do you not how do you prevent you and
your buddy from, you know, or you getting eaten by
a bear when you're out in the woods with your buddy.
Is you still got to be a little bit faster.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
Than your buddy, right, you know?
Speaker 3 (27:12):
I mean, we just have to be a little bit
better than the other departments, and then we can end
up getting the officers that want to come here first.
And that's that would be our goal as to how
we could.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yeah, and I think the argument that I heard was like,
you know, how would Pie Street corners do it any
better than that? Well, we we only need a certain
amount of officers here versus hundreds, let's say on a
county level.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
And I know, what is it? Nine and thirty six
is their authorized strength and ours would be fifty two.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
There you go, So all we need is, like I
say to my kids, all you need is one job,
you know, when the job market's bad, you just need
one job. That's all you need, right, So, I mean,
if we could control that aspect of it, and plus
the things that I know that's already being done, the
crime center and the cloud. You know, people talk about, well,
you know it's technology. You know, you keep pointing that
(28:06):
stuff out. It's like, yes, it makes a difference on
how you police, how you can break cases, how you
can follow with the criminals without doing high high speed
car chases, you know, and if you get one or
two of them, maybe the rest of them will get turned.
I mean, it's just like you know, it's just the drones,
the way of doing the policing that the modern day
(28:31):
police force can do can be done on a faster,
one nimble basis that they can a smaller unit if
you will then in a larger place.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
That's correct. I mean, it's just it's simple. It's also
simple math when you have officers. Even with gwennet if
if we if a city police department started with the
exact same amount of officers to patrol priestreet corners as
Gwen does, even if we had the same starting point
(29:03):
at the beginning of a shift, the fact that Gwennette officers,
because of the calls for service and the types of
calls for service, end up getting pulled out from p
Street corners to respond outside of our city limits. Even
if we had the same amount as the city police Department,
(29:24):
our guys and gals would never respond to calls for
service outside the city limits. So now their response times
or less because they're not having to come from say
West Precincts headquarters at Jimmy Carter and I eighty five
or even on the other side of eighty five. Our
guys and gals would be always right here, so the
response would be quicker. We would have more presence because
(29:47):
they're not leaving the city, and we would get our
officers would get more intimately familiar with the community, like
the beat cop thing that you grew up with. Even
if we start with the exact same amount, and you know,
we're proposing a higher amount, but even with the exact
same amount, we're at an advantage that Gwinnett unfortunately will
(30:11):
never have because they have such a large area to patrol.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, and all that makes sense, you know. The argument,
I guess really is that if you take away the
special units, which we discussed may or may not be
a matter of importance for our city, and we'll have
them covered anyway in a variety of ways. If you
take that away and you take away the what else
could take away. But it really comes down to a budget,
(30:39):
and budget is as we've discussed, I mean more or
less than four years time, the paying a little bit more.
We're versus seventy dollars on the average. Let's say, you know,
I think that's worth it. I'm paying a certain amount
of money for my home insurance, for my car insurance,
(31:00):
so paying a little bit more for my life insurance,
paying a little bit more for insurance if you will.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
It really is. That's a good analogy. It's insurance against
future crime, you know, and how to deal with it.
It's an insurance policy to make sure you get to control,
you know, Mayor and council here in a smaller you
get to control how we address it, versus hoping that
that bigger policy you know, you can tweak. So it
(31:28):
is an insurance policy.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
In a way. And I understand people may say, well,
that doesn't stop crime. Yes, you're right, it doesn't in
the sense of being able to be at that moment
when a crime happens, but it is to a degree
a deterrent when they are around, and it is to
a degree the ability to use the force multiplier of
(31:51):
the cameras, of the other things that will come through
over the next few years to be able to do
the policing way better to capture the criminal, to make
sure that people understand then at some point that if
you're going to commit a crime in city piece three corners,
you're eventually going to be caught. Technology is such that
you're going to be caught at some point, you know,
(32:12):
if not now not this crime, if you come back in,
you know, at some point you will be caught. Then
you'll be put to gene you know. I think I
think we've you know, reached a certain point where do
you did you want to talk about what maybe I
know one of the things that what may be coming
(32:32):
up over the next few months as far as as
far as this agenda, if you will.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, so, you know, I said at the beginning of
the meeting, it's a process. That was just yet another
step in the process. We learned some things, we're getting
more into, you know, some more data and certain things.
As I said in there, we're having a professional company
help us write survey questions that are you know, clearer
(33:02):
and more comprehensive than what we created internally without outside help,
which again was my error of not realizing that when
sixty percent of the people haven't done any education for
you know, personal education on the issue and the first
(33:22):
time they're responding to it is the survey itself, you
can oversimplify the questions and potentially create a problem. So
we're doing that. That'll be out, I hope in the
next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
But it's also going to be administered in a way
that you're getting a broad section of people that's correct,
not just the motivated people that go online to go
take it because they want to say no, which is
you know, to be fair majority I guess of that survey,
but that survey was not representative of the city as
a whole.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
So three hundreds of three hundred and sixty eight people
and of those, seventy percent were against. But that was
three hundred and sixty eight of forty five thousand plus people.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Right, So it's going to be administered more professional.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
It will. And to that point, one of the other
things we're going to do is we're going to have
some more geographically focused community meetings, specifically getting to areas
that generally are not civically active and come to the
big meetings that we've had so far, and at those
(34:29):
we may be having the survey with us and say here,
phill it, we've got your attention for this brief period
of time. Fill it out now. So it's a way
to ensure that we're getting to as many people as
we can. So that's going to be done.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Plus you'll probably find out more things, I think, as
you did with this meeting. You'll you'll find out more
what their concerns are, yes.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
What's important to them correct, And we are going to
bundle a kind of ORGANI eyes compile kind of our
concerns about the current level of service from Gwenet into
one you know, holistic request of Gwinnett. That's going to happen,
(35:14):
and so something.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
That should also take care of the people that suggest
that we should that the city should work with the
Bunette County Police to see if they can address the
issues that we want them to address right.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Right, And you know we have done some of that already.
But I will say that the resistance we've got has
been at the county administrative level, not necessarily within Gwenet
Police department itself. That's why I keep saying that this
isn't you know, a testament to Gwinnett police departments, you know, professionalism.
(35:54):
It's more of a strategic perspective that Gwenett County government
has on you know, this the communication between both law
enforcement entities. But those things are being done, and so
I envision the next large community meeting will be some
(36:14):
time at the beginning of twenty twenty six, because we
have some work to do. Sure, we want the survey
to have time to you know, get people to do
what we need, time to have some smaller targeted meetings
with maybe large apartment complex residents or things like that.
(36:38):
So and then when you factor in the holidays, you know,
people are not I think it's fair to say it
will be the beginning of twenty twenty six we'll have
the next community meeting in which you know we will
we will no longer We're done needing to start at
the very beginning. I think we've done enough of that.
You know, We're going to just present the new information
(36:59):
that even or updated crime maps, which takes some time
to build. And so yeah, we've learned a lot. We've
learned where we need to zero in on. We learned
that we've we've got to get more active in seeking
out input for this and not just sitting back and
hoping that a cross section of the city comes out
(37:20):
to community meetings.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
They don't, No, they don't.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
You know, we have to go to them to some
degree to get their inputs. So council still in you know,
they're in listening mode, and my job is to get
them to a point where they feel like they have
that the community has been informed enough, or at least
those who are interested in getting informed, and those in
those people have provided council their thoughts, and then each
(37:44):
council member is like, you know, well at a certain
point be like, yeah, I think I'm ready to I'm
ready to make my decision.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah, yes, because it informs them too, obviously them as well,
because they're the ones I can have to vote on it.
That was I think that was what someone had asked.
They said, how how can we get on this board?
I was just being voted. It's like, no, it's not
a board, it's a city council that you all elected,
you know, and people are funny that way. They're like,
(38:13):
we didn't elect them. Well, you know the elections are
coming up. Well, the next set of elections that are
that would be contested probably would be twenty seven.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
Actually, yes, November seven is the next time any seats
are open.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah, because this election this year, all the seats are uncontested.
So apparently city council is doing a good enough job.
No one decided to run to run for a seat.
But anyway, so appreciate Brian you giving me time to
discuss this. I mean, when I was at that meeting
four hours. I think I stayed almost until the last
(38:47):
fifteen minutes of that meeting. It was just can't take
it anymore, had to leave.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
I wanted to leave with u Rico, but you didn't.
You didn't invite me.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Yes, that's your job to stay there. Sorry, the bull
aarans are at the gate. But thank you for sharing
stuff with us. As anyone knows from this conversation, at
least I don't have a problem having the city stand up.
It's on police force. I mean, that's just my own opinion. Obviously,
there's tons of other opinions. So if you disagree with me.
(39:18):
You should leave comments, and I'm sure some people will,
but be gentle. Don't. Don't make them, you know, personal comments.
Give me factual stuff. Put what you want in the comments.
Whether this is on Facebook, it'll be on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter,
and the normal channel you see the podcast at, so
put your comments there, share it with your friends if
(39:38):
you'd like. Hope to see you soon. I'm sure we'll
be seeing a lot of people in January. Brian, thank you,
Thank you, Rico reported and again stay with me. I'm
just gonna thank you everyone. Appreciate you all being with me.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Thanks thanks for listening to Peachtree Corner's Life with Rico Figliolini.
You can listen to the show wherever podcasts are found,
like iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Apple Podcast. Leave us a review too,
it helps others find the show as well. Don't forget
(40:15):
to like our Facebook page and YouTube channel for notifications
of our live simulcast video streams of the show. Catch
our other podcast shows at Living in Peachtree Corners dot com.
In fact, you can listen to our other popular show,
The Capitalist Sage, a twice a month podcast about and
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(40:36):
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show at the Capitalistsage dot com.
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