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Meet the Candidates for District 3, Leslie Mullis
Posted on Oct 25th, 2021
Candidate: Leslie Mullis
photo source: https://reporternewspapers.net/2021/09/29/sandy-springs-voters-guide-leslie-mullis/
Safety on our surface streets is a major concern for residents. How will you respond to the growing and unique safety issues specific to our area, including the rise of golf cart traffic on city streets and speeding on Riverside Drive?
I would like to hear the specific concerns of your neighborhood residents. But more generally the city needs to design and build roads that are safer for all residents by using medians and landscaping to slow down traffic. We need to investigate why we are struggling to complete sidewalk projects on time and within budget so that we can ensure it is safe to walk along our streets. In areas allowing golf carts, we can post signs to make sure car drivers know to watch out for golf carts. Finally, we could review traffic incidents involving golf carts to determine if we need additional laws and restrictions in the use of golf carts.
As the city grows, city infrastructure is at risk of becoming overburdened. What will the mayor’s office/city council do to improve street maintenance, better prepare our streets for winter storms and ensure post-storm clean-up is efficient?
Earlier this year the city ranked the condition of the 302 miles of Sandy Springs streets. The assessment showed 72% of the city streets are in good or satisfactory condition but we needed to spend $5.2 million to keep all the streets in good or satisfactory condition. It is difficult to find the latest information on how much of this money was allocated and the progress of the program. There was a subsequent meeting this year where the public works department mentioned a significant cost overrun on the paving and I believe some roads slated to be repaved were pushed out to a future year. I would like to ensure we are prioritizing enough budget for maintaining our roads and storm drains and create a score card that would include metrics on infrastructure maintenance like roads, drains and bridges.
Power outages are a very regular occurrence in District 3. What can city council do – likely in partnership with Georgia Power – to ensure that pruning and maintenance keep outages to a minimum?
According to information on the Georgia Power website, Georgia Power prunes trees away from its power lines on a planned cycle to reduce outages caused by tree contact. The city could add information in our city newsletter reminding property owners to look for signs of diseased and vulnerable trees and have them trimmed or removed to reduce outages. Finally, it is widely known that we are experiencing more frequent severe weather that is increasing the likelihood of power outages and the city council should request the city manager to complete a vulnerability assessment to determine how prepared we are to manage those outages and determine what steps we can take to limit or mitigate the occurrence of outages. This could also address concerns regarding post preparedness for post storm clean-up.
Find more about Leslie on her webpage: https://www.leslieforsandysprings.com/
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