Government
The City Council consists of a mayor and six council members who are elected at large, and serve four-year terms. Elections are staggered every two years.
The effort to launch the City government was expedited by hiring CH2M HILL-OMI, a global, Colorado-based consulting firm that provided most day-to-day municipal services (except for police and fire) for the first three years of cityhood.
The company provided equipment and staff so the City could be functional immediately upon the first day of operation.
The public-private partnership, modeled after a similar plan in Sandy Springs, was one of the most extensive in the country at the time. Only the city manager, city clerk, city attorney, mayor’s aide, finance director, municipal court clerk and judge were city employees. Other staff was provided by CH2M HILL-OMI or their sub-contractors.
As the City grew and matured, it reduced its reliance on CH2M HILL. In September 2010, the City Council voted to revise its public-private partnership with CH2M HILL. Community Development and Public Works operations continue to be provided by CH2M HILL while all others are provided by city employees or other contractors and sub-contractors.
The Johns Creek Police Department launched October 7, 2008, and the Fire Department launched April 27, 2008. The Police Department was certified by the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police and accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement within two years of the department’s formation, a feat not matched since the history of CALEA.
Read more about this topic: Johns Creek
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“I thought it a pity that some poor student did not live there, to profit by all that light, since he would not rob the mariner.... Think of fifteen Argand lamps to read the newspaper by! Government oil!—light enough, perchance, to read the Constitution by! I thought that he should read nothing less than his Bible by that lamp.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“All forms of government symbolize an immortal government, common to all dynasties and independent of numbers, perfect where two men exist, perfect where there is only one man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)