Peachtree City Mayor Kim Learnard had this message for city residents earlier this month:
“Residents no longer have the luxury of sticking [your] head in the sand and keep saying [you] don’t want Peachtree City to change, because everything around [the city] is changing, ” the mayor said in her state of the city address.
• Unbridled growth in Coweta County, sending its increasing traffic straight through Peachtree City;
• Annexation and housing would be two priorities for Council in the coming year, Learnard said, zeroing in on what she termed “the lack of affordable housing for young people in Peachtree City and Fayette County.”
Following is the State of the City address delivered by Mayor Kim Learnard at the Jan. 4, 2024 City Council meeting (from the minutes of the meeting):
The Mayor presented the annual State of the City address, beginning by saying 2023 was a year of record collaboration and success.
The year began with the hiring of Robert Curnow as City Manager, and the first priority was to address the ongoing crisis in staffing, especially in the Police Department, where they were losing officers to other jurisdictions.
Council approved a revamped compensation package, and Learnard said she had sworn in seven new officers and they had not lost any staff to other agencies since.
The next challenge, she stated, was City communications, and they had hired talent in videography, graphic design, and creative content.
The results had been a beefed-up presence on social media, a new weekly City newsletter, and Mondays with the Mayor programming that updated citizens on hot topics. They had created videos for the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), the municipal elections, and the recreation master plan.
If a citizen wanted factual information, the Mayor stated, the City was your source.
City leaders held an off-site retreat in March where they agreed on core values such as professionalism, accountability, teamwork, honesty,…
Read the full article here
