I am asking for
your vote on July 18th because
my work is not finished. I want Cherokee County
to continue to be a place where people strongly desire
to live and where my children want to return to and
raise their families and start their businesses.
We need to continue to strengthen our Public Safety,
our County recreation, our roads and our schools and
I need your help to accomplish that goal.
Upcoming
Calender of Events
Early advanced voting begins Monday, July 14.
See Derek's eNewsletter
for a list of satellite locations.
Public
Safety
Since becoming the Post 4 County Commissioner
we have lowered the county Insurance Services
Office to a 5 which translates into lower insurance
rates. more>>
Community Planning
I will continue to work closely with the School
Board to ensure proper planning and growth and
will work hard to implement long term Future
Land Use to guide growth.
more>>
Parks & Recreation
As Vice Chair of the Cherokee County Recreation
and Parks Department I will work closely with
the Commission to ensure continued proper planning
and growth more>>
Dear Fellow Resident of Cherokee County;
Cherokee County is currently experiencing geometric population growth. As a Commissioner, I have to balance a person’s Constitutional property rights with the needs and good of the community. This has been and always be a fine balancing act and the most difficult part of being a Commissioner. Cherokee County is currently building a new long term Future Land Use Map that will provide a guide to the Board of Commissioners for help in deciding various re-zoning cases that come before us. This is a tool we use in addition to infrastructure needs, traffic and public safety impact. We are forbidden by state law to deny a zoning case simply because of it’s impact on our school system. That may sound very odd, but it is one of the rules we must live by. To assist with the school issue however we ask every residential developer to make monetary contributions to the school system to help defer some of the cost impacts. We have been fortunate that most developers comply and work closely with Cherokee County Schools and we have secured over 10 million dollars for them . I also personally worked with the school system and a developer to secure a 40 acre site in Southwest Cherokee for a new school site. The developer was happy to provide this donation because it was a nice selling point for his new homes to show a new school coming to the area.
I have also worked daily at pursuing funding for our road systems. We suffered for six years with little to no road funding but have recently secured more in one year than in the previous six combined. Those funds are being applied to the Eagle Dr and Sixes Rd. projects, re-paving projects, widening of Hwy 92 West to I-75, Bells Ferry widening, an additional lane on Towne Lake Pkwy under I-575 and access lanes on I-575 from Towne Lake Pkwy to Hwy 92 and back.
The Board of Commissioners has also set aside 15 million dollars for the expansion of the Cherokee County Airport. This is a way to expand business, increase the tax base and have no negative impact on the school system. This would actually have a massive positive impact on the schools by providing a tax base for the schools without adding any children into the system. The calculations provided by the State of Georgia project this airport expansion could provide in to the billions… that’s right, with a B in the billions of tax revenue to Cherokee County while allowing us to continue to cut your property County tax rate every year just as we have in the past.
