Editor’s Note: Demorest Mayor Rick Austin is seeking a second term in Tuesday’s election. Austin, a Piedmont College professor and former Georgia State Representative, has served as Demorest’s mayor since 2014. He faces opposition from local realtor, pastor and political newcomer Jim Welborn. Both candidates were invited to submit columns to Now Habersham. Mayor Austin submitted the following. The opinions expressed in this column are his.
When I took office as Mayor four years ago, no one had any idea that our beloved small town was as deeply in trouble as it was. I don’t think anyone could have known. The city was nearly bankrupt. The office manager had bounced so many city checks that it cost us nearly $14,000.00 in NSF bank fees. Over $600,000.00 in cash had been stolen from residents. Unbalanced budgets, unclean audits, no ability to borrow money, and no Bond rating plagued the city. And not one single principal payment had been made on a fire truck that was bought in 2012
Now, after serving as your Mayor for 4 years, our small town is back on track and well positioned to move into the future. With a dedicated team in place, we examined and streamlined our city operations to maximize efficiency and reduce expenditures. Through a tremendous amount of hard work, we now have financial controls in place to ensure that all of the people’s monies are accounted for…down to the last penny! Our budgets are balanced. Our city has clean financial audits with the highest rating possible. We have paid every bill we owe, some dating back as far as 2012. We have earned an A bond rating and have watched as our insurance premiums have dropped because of our efficient operations. We’ve nearly paid off that fire truck…and we haven’t bounced a single check in the process. We refinanced our existing debt, cut 10 years of payments off the books, saving our small town over 1 million dollars in the process. Most importantly, in the last four years we have reduced our city tax rate from 8.5 to 7.31! In other words, your tax rate has dropped while we have increased services!
But that’s not all that has been accomplished in the last four years. We’ve relentlessly worked to restore the people’s confidence in our city and become extraordinarily efficient in operating the people’s business. We moved our City Hall, complete with a drive-thru window, to make room for a business in our downtown. We replaced a 1980’s computer system in our office that was barely workable with a new system that moved us into the 21st century. We moved from a part-time to a full-time fire department and improved our ISO rating (and lowered your insurance premiums) from a 5 to a 3. We reconstructed our police department and were named the Number 1 Police Department in the state! We were named the Safest City in Georgia in 2016! We repaved miles of city streets and expanded our water and sewer systems. We implemented an ElderCare program to check on your loved ones and put a Vacation Watch program in place for our police officers to check on your house while you are away…all while lowering your tax rate!
The City of Demorest is a special place. It is still a small town with a small town feel. People still speak to each other on the street and ask how their day is going or how their family is doing. We still check on our neighbors and help people when they need it. My commitment to you is to continue to move us forward, listen to your concerns/suggestions, and provide the best services at the lowest rates, all while keeping our taxes as low as possible. Thank you for trusting me 4 years ago to bring progressive, and much needed change to our city. It has truly been an honor to work shoulder to shoulder with you and for you. I humbly ask for your continued confidence and your vote in this important upcoming election. Let’s work together to keep making our small town better! Please contact me if you have questions or concerns (or just want to talk). If you’d like me to come by and visit, just call! It is my honor to work for you and to serve you!
Yours in Service,
Rick
