One of the additions to the county budget with this year’s tax increase was the hiring of dedicated road employees in each of the four commissioners districts. The Cobb DOT District 2 work crew has been fully staffed and already at work performing mowing and clean-up duties.
They were introduced by commissioner Bob Ott Monday at his town hall meeting at the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center. They are: Skip Vaccaro, equipment operator; John Allen, crew worker; Andrew Eison, crew leader; Shamond Williams, crew worker; and Todriquez Huey, equipment operator.
They’ve already completed some big tasks, including collecting 32 bags of litter on Atlanta Road last week (Cobb DOT photo below).
When Ott showed that photo to the audience, there was a burst of applause. He and other commissioners commented during the summer budget hearings that citizens were complaining frequently about unmowed medians and rights-of-way.
Since the recession, the county has hired a contractor to do that work. But that was done only for six months, from the spring to the fall. The $1.4 million the county is spending for work crews in the FY 2019 budget is a bit more than the $1.1 million annually it paid the contractor, but now the work will be performed year-round.
Bill Shelton, the Cobb DOT road maintenance director, told the audience that Ott “has been a champion” of making a change to hire in-house crews, who started working two weeks ago with the new budget year kicking in.
“We can do it a lot better, and these guys are already proving it to you,” Shelton said, referring to the District 2 crew.
Said Ott: “I am very confident the decision to hire crews will result in saving tax dollars and most of all improve the aesthetics of all county right of ways.”
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