AJC Calls Out DeKalb For Wallpapering
Decatur Metro | January 21, 2010Budget gaps are no fun. Once a local government starts implementing hiring freezes and proposing tax hikes, constituents immediately become more sensitive to any and all expenses.
And the AJC knows it.
Splashed across the front page of this morning’s paper, a story about the DeKalb County Commission’s recent approval of up to $101,000 to repaint and wallpaper government buildings.
Commissioner Connie Stokes explained to the paper that the wallpapering is not just a cosmetic expense, but will replace “flood or water-damaged wallpaper.” And though the paper cites real estate agent Mark Ponzer as knowing “that some wallpapering can be put on hold”, no specific examples are provided to refute Stokes claim.
However, the commission did not respond to questions about why any of the county’s 8,000 employees could do the work, instead of contracting the work out.
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How nice of them to award the contract to a company based in Snelville, which is not even in Dekalb County.
The contract is awarded to the qualified low bidder. Awarding a contract to a company with a higher price, but based in DeKalb is a different problem.
This newspaper story is really kind of absurd. It is very unfortunate that DeKalb is shedding employees, but the preferred method is through voluntary retirement. DeKalb has twice as many employees as Cobb, a comparbly sized government that is well run. We need to slim down. Every organization that owns property has to maintain it. The Maloof building isn’t exactly the Taj Mahal. given the number of buildings that DeKalb County owns, I’m sure the county is spending more than a $100k on maintenace, and it should.
I hate to break it to Ms. Stokes, but wallpaper is virtually always cosmetic, not structural. In other words, water damage to wallpaper — as opposed to the wall itself — isn’t going to cause the building to collapse. She may as well just admit they wanted to fix the wallpaper to make it look nicer, even though they don’t have the money to do so.
She’s trying to play it nice since she’s planning to run against Hank, however, she’s over the board
If an area has been flooded or water-damaged there could also easily be a mold issue. But that would apply not just to the wallpaper, but also the wall itself.
Is covering up a moldy wall considered cosmetic? Yeah, I guess it is.
The roof of the County building on Memorial Drive is leaking so badly rooms can’t be used and they’re using black plastic to keep rain off equipment, but it is not in the budget to be replaced soon, so occasionally they come through and put up new ceiling tiles. I can’t help but wonder if the sources of the leaks are being repaired before the new wallpaper goes up.
In other news of “public servant” irresponsibility, 22 state legislators somehow forgot to file GA income tax returns. http://www.ajc.com/news/unidentified-legislators-sent-letters-278984.html?cxtype=rss_news_128746. Ah well, just following in the footsteps of Tim Geithner, Charlie Rangel, etc., of the federal government.