Sandy Springs Must Share City Management Firm With Milton, Johns Creek

By CYNTHIA DANIELS, DOUG NURSE The Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionPublished on: 04/24/07

Nearly 18 months into Sandy Springs' cityhood, some residents aren't that happy with their cutting-edge experimental government.It's not that the honeymoon is over between the city and the citizens who voted to create it. That happened last summer about the time of the first controversial zoning decisions.

OUTSOURCED CITIES• CH2M Hill-OMI is a Colorado-based employee-owned engineering and consulting company with 18,000 employees and offices in 110 countries. • Through contracts with the cities of Sandy Springs, Johns Creek and Milton, the company provides the staff for many cities services, including pothole patching and administrative operations, such as operating a 24-hour call center.• The company's contracts do not cover the Police Department, Fire Department or city courts.

The problem now is akin to jealousy: Residents have watched CH2M Hill-OMI, the private company that provides much of the city's staff, begin to send code enforcement officers over to work in the new cities of Milton and Johns Creek — the two newest North Fulton cities that also hired CH2M Hill for day-to-day services.

"This is maybe an aspect of privatization that we hadn't anticipated, and it's rearing its ugly head now," said Sandy Springs resident Thaea Lloyd, who worries that fewer officers will mean less enforcement.Sandy Springs was the first of its kind in Georgia, an elected government served by a largely outsourced staff.

After Milton and Johns Creek opened for business Dec. 1, CH2M Hill sent three Sandy Springs code enforcement officers to the new cities, leaving only four officers and one director. Sandy Springs is in the process of searching for an additional officer. Residents complained that they have seen enforcement of the city's codes dwindle.
Things got so bad that last month that City Councilwoman Ashley Jenkins complained to the city manager.

"I was driving down Roswell Road, and I felt like we were back under Fulton County control," Jenkins said. "There was graffiti on everything, there were signs everywhere with balloons on the signs, there were dancing bears advertising free rent in front of apartment complexes, and I went nuts. ... I felt like we were slipping back into the abyss, and it's real hard to crawl out of."
Jenkins' complaints resulted in a sweep that filled a truck bed with 75 signs collected from along Roswell Road. And now CH2M Hill is providing regular reports to the Sandy Springs City Council on its code enforcement work. Jenkins said Monday she is satisfied with the response and believes the company is "out there and being aggressive" on code enforcement.
CH2M Hill insists that Sandy Springs is not being shorted on service. The company has promised to provide a certain level of service to each city — not a fixed number of workers.
"We have not shortchanged anyone at all," said CH2M Hill Vice President Rick Hirsekorn. "If anything, we're supplying more service than what's in the contract."

In each of the three cities, most of the employees — except for police officers, firefighters, and city and court clerks — are paid by CH2M Hill and can be moved at the company's discretion.
Some workers may see duty in more than one place, but CH2M Hill has staff whose primary assignment is Sandy Springs, Hirsekorn said. For those workers, Sandy Springs is always top priority, he said.

In Johns Creek, Mayor Mike Bodker said residents seem content with the level of code enforcement there. Johns Creek has two full-time code enforcement officers, although city officials are expecting CH2M Hill to provide a third by the end of the year. They borrow from other cities as needed. He said he's seen no evidence that CH2M Hill is cutting corners.
In Sandy Springs, Mayor Eva Galambos and City Manager John McDonough acknowledge the complaints but say the city is going through an evolution. When it first opened in late 2005, the new city was busy making up for years of uneven enforcement by Fulton County.
Residents and officials say there was only one code enforcement officer for all of unincorporated north Fulton county.

In early 2006, the new city's seven code enforcement officers were busy inspecting apartments for violations like broken window screens, garbage and mold. The city even made cases against costumed characters advertising a local restaurant; they're considered portable signs under Sandy Springs law and are banned.

The volume of cases was so high that Municipal Court heard code violation cases every week.
But things have changed — violations have decreased and are now only heard in court twice a month. The departure of three code enforcement officers was warranted, Galambos said, since the city's properties are now more in compliance than they had been. That's precisely the kind of flexibility that the city intended when it hired the private company.

Sandy Springs is still a work in progress. When it comes to CH2M Hill, McDonough added, the city is still mastering balancing community expectations with learning how many people are needed in what departments "to get the job done."

"We have the right people in place, and we're fully staffed [once we hire the additional officer]," McDonough said. "And we're confident that these issues have been resolved."
Residents plan to keep an eye on things — and to complain again if need be.

"If code enforcement doesn't work, we're going to hell in a handbasket and our communities will deteriorate," said Alan Berk, who has lived in Sandy Springs for 25 years and regularly attends Sandy Springs Municipal Court. "You can't come out like gangbusters and then retreat."