InTucker Magazine

From the Mayor

October marks the start of autumn. The year is winding down, the air is crisp, football is midseason, and sweaters will soon come out of hibernation. This autumn is unique for me as it is the last quarter of my service as Mayor for the City of Tucker. Over the next three months I’ll be sharing some stories about the road to city-hood, the promises made, our progress throughout our ten years, and our potential in the coming generations.

This journey from “unincorporated” to the strong and established municipal government that we are today started over a decade ago. A group of concerned residents and neighbors gathered and forged a path to self-governance that led to a three-year period of sweat, tears and long hours, beginning in 2013. Ten years ago right now, we were in the run-up to a referendum to create the City of Tucker, which ultimately passed with an overwhelming 74% YES vote in November of 2015. It’s the best decision we ever made for our community, and things have never been the same.

The driving force for incorporation was a very specific philosophy that there were certain things we could do better for ourselves very locally (like parks and zoning), and others where we would be better served by being part of a larger government (like sanitary sewer and water, and Fire services). We promised that as a city, we would make decisions right here at home about how to improve and care for our parks, and have local control over development in the city limits. Neighbors would be elected by neighbors to make informed decisions for the community, and local citizens would fill the boards and commissions that would steer us into the future. The results would include a higher level of service delivery and increased local investment to improve the community’s quality of life. Those are promises we’ve kept, and the results can be seen everywhere in the city.

From the beginning, we sought to be wise and efficient with our provision of the three services authorized in our original charter: Planning and Zoning, Code Enforcement and Parks and Recreation. Parks and Recreation is where we have been able to make some of the biggest tangible impacts on the community, and our success there provides a great example of the benefits of local spending and decision-making:

• We replaced and added to play equipment in every park we inherited from DeKalb
• We added 20% of acreage and numerous amenities to our parks system, including Rosenfeld Pool, new trails and on-site restrooms
• We greatly expanded programming at the rec center and added a variety of sports and athletic leagues, including the return of the Tucker Baseball League after a 15 year hiatus
• We acquired and renovated Fitzgerald Park, creating a state-of-the-art youth sports facility
• We created safe off-leash spaces for our dogs and their owners

A city is much more than just the services mandated by our charter. Tucker has expanded and improved services year after year. Our Building and Permitting process has been streamlined and is more responsive than ever. We have expanded our engineering services and managed SPLOST revenue to repave nearly 120 miles of our roads and streets, and we’ve built over six miles of new sidewalks since 2018. In 2023 we added a fourth direct service – Public Works – and have since cleared out the inherited backlog of stormwater issues, drastically reduced response time for filling potholes and removing dangerous trees, and improved traffic flow and safety through better signage and signals. All around the city, we have been replacing infrastructure that has been aging for decades.

Our success has been self-evident, and I am proud that we have been able to make good on the promises of cityhood. The foundation we’ve built by fulfilling those promises will support continued growth and increased quality of life for generations to come.

In the next two months, I look forward to sharing more about our progress, and highlighting our potential, our vision and the many reasons to have optimism for the future of our home town. See you out there!