Retreat:

Continued from Page 1 that lies ahead, the city is on a good path forward.

“This was probably one of the more optimistic retreats in quite a long time,” District 6 City Councilman Andy Bauman said.

Here are some of the priorities identified by Sandy Springs officials at the retreat.

Public safety support

Sandy Springs Fire Chief Keith Sanders and Police Chief Ken DeSimone gave presentations about the big wins their departments had with staffing in 2022 and the steps they will take to retain those employees.

Sanders said the Fire Department, as of the new year, is fully staffed with 99 employees spread equally across three shifts.

Similarly, DeSimone said the Sandy Springs Police Department is on the verge of being fully staffed and has only two vacant positions in a department budgeted for 147 officers.

In recent years, public safety agencies across the state and nation have had difficulty filling ranks with qualified candidates due to intense competition in the marketplace. But DeSimone said the city’s emphasis on supporting public safety employees has overcome these obstacles.

Construction of the Sandy Springs Police Headquarters and Municipal Court will be “huge” for the city and will show future police department candidates, the community cares about their safety, training and wellbeing, he said.

“But I think the biggest thing is culture and leadership, not leadership from my office on down, but leadership from the mayor and council,” he said. “Nobody in today’s world, in law enforcement, is going to work somewhere where they’re not supported.”

Along with the police headquarters, Sanders said construction will also begin on a new fire station in District 1 in 2023. Groundbreaking for that facility is set for March.

Sanders said the Fire Department also will begin examining how it can better support employees with more time off, without burdening others.

“My generation, we live to work,” he said. “The generation today, they work to live, and they want their time off.”

He said this factor is important, considering the department’s daily staffing requirements and cases where employees are injured or have family emergencies and have no option but to be away from work.

“We want to look at ways that we can ensure that we’re staying on top of that, our employees are able to take their time off and plan that accordingly,” he said. “We still use a number of overtime hours each year in order to address that, especially when we’re impacted by work-related injuries or [family or medical leave] cases.”

City water reliability

In 2023, Sandy Springs officials hope to settle a multi-decade-long issue of making the city’s water system more reliable, by forging a new agreement with the City of Atlanta and Fulton County.

City Attorney Dan Lee said that since the city’s inception in 2005, it has purchased its water from the City of Atlanta, using various systems built by different developers over the years, including some installed when Sandy Springs was part of unincorporated Fulton County.

“When developers wanted to leave Atlanta and go to unincorporated Fulton County, Fulton County would not provide water, so Atlanta was the only source,” Lee said. “To their credit, they allowed developers to build out their system and turn it over to the city.”

This mish-mash infrastructure of the city’s water system has caused countless headaches, Lee said. Without intervention, the city could face massive problems.

But until now, Lee said officials in Atlanta and Fulton County have been unwilling to take up the city’s concerns about water delivery, leading to multiple lawsuits, arbitration and appeals to the Georgia Supreme Court.

“We’ve prevailed on all five actions to get to the point of letting our experts go examine the system of Atlanta,” he said.

That examination produced a 1,100page report on the water system, showing Sandy Spring’s water actually comes from the City of Johns Creek and the system needs roughly $50 million in immediate repairs.

“There has been no real improvement to the water system in 50 years,” he said.

But with the election of Mayor Andre Dickens, Lee said Atlanta officials have been open to new negotiations over the city’s water contract, and Sandy Springs leaders believe a positive resolution is on the horizon in the next year.

As part of the new agreement with Atlanta, Sandy Springs renegotiated for cheaper water service rates that include funding for system upgrades, a greater ability to fix their water system problems as they arise, and a possible “redundant source” of city water in case of emergencies.

Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul called the process of working with Mayor Dickens and his team a, “breath of fresh air” and said they have a real chance of making a lasting improvement on the city water system.

“Mayor Dickens and his team understood and understand the significance of our concerns and the impact on our community if we have a catastrophic water failure and don’t want to be responsible for that in any shape or form,” Paul said. “The question is, ‘how does that get paid for?’ That’s going to be a key issue that we will have to talk about.”

Combatting “older” image

Following a presentation by Sandy Springs Economic Development Manager Caroline Davis, Paul said he would like to see an effort made to combat the notion that Sandy Springs is an “aging” community.

The mayor said that in talks with potential developers, restaurateurs and business owners, they learned that it’s commonly believed Sandy Springs is a community of mostly older people, with an aging stock of real estate, which damages the city’s economic opportunities.

“The perception is that Sandy Springs is an older community. We’re not hip,” he said.

However, Davis and City Manager Eden Freeman said that perception couldn’t be more wrong.

“We are actually the youngest of all of the North Fulton cities,” Freeman said. “The median age in Sandy Springs is 36.7. Closest to us is Alpharetta at 39.9, then Roswell at 40.2, Milton at 40.5 and Johns Creek is the eldest at 41.6.”

Paul tasked city staff with finding new ways to communicate the message.

“We’ve got to develop some materials and a campaign of some sort … that begins to deal with that very erroneous perception,” he said.

City Springs expansion

Davis, the city’s economic development manager, said a top priority this year will be the continued development of City Springs and downtown Sandy Springs.

Some of their biggest accomplishments in 2022, she said, were the updates to the City Springs Master Plan and locating five potential master developers for Phase II of the City Springs development.

She said request for proposals have been issued to the qualified development teams, and a master developer could be selected by April.

The City Council voted Jan. 23 to solicit proposals on the development plans for Phase 2 of the project which includes the City Springs campus and surrounding area.

Davis said with the new development, Sandy Springs will unlock vital space for the types of businesses that are needed and would be successful in the area.

“I think as soon as we have a new built environment in our City Springs District, the retailers will come,” she said. “They’re all beating down the door, they all want to be here. There is not occupancy of sufficient size in this area for some of the retailers that I think you all would be excited by, that really want to be here.”

City events

Sandy Springs has always placed an emphasis on hosting city-sponsored events, concerts, performances and showcases. That is obvious to anyone who visits the City Springs campus, with its outdoor greenspace concert venue and two theatre performance spaces.

Michael Pauken, interim executive director for the Sandy Springs Performing Arts Center, said the city plans to turn the dial up to 11 in the coming year.

Speaking at the retreat, Pauken said that 2022 was a banner year for the city’s stable of events, despite the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Between the Performing Arts Center and the Conference Center, we close out 2022 with 541 (event) bookings,” he said. But other college and club bookings brought the total events closer to 800.

Those bookings meant the city exceeded 2021 totals by $40,000 and 1,100 tickets sold, across all performances.

“Our goal is to have at least 15 shows presented directly by the Performing Arts Center, with attendance of about 12,000 people, in this next fiscal year,” he said.

To make that goal happen, they have contracted with Professional Facilities Management (PFM) to bring new artists to Sandy Springs and help market the City Springs Performing Arts Center.

“Director of Concerts for PFM was in town; she was in an Uber and the Uber driver was all familiar with the outdoor concerts but didn’t know there was a theater inside the building,” Pauken said. “So that kind of thing is the perfect example of what we want to work on.”

Councilman Bauman said he thinks the best way to improve visibility would be to complete the Performing Arts Center’s marquee boards, which will better promote acts coming to City Springs.

“I certainly was glad to see about the Christopher Cross and Kansas (concerts), but we had some duds as well,” he said. “It breaks my heart to hear that somebody doesn’t know about our indoor theater.”

In addition to new artists and partnerships, Pauken said they plan to roll out a series of 24 new Thursday night concerts on the City Springs Green.

“Thursday’s on the Green will be at least initially, and perhaps substantially, music events,” he said. “It won’t be as massive as City Green Live Concerts, but its consistency brings value so that every Thursday there’s going to be something happening out there.”

ACT3 PRODUCTIONS/PROVIDED

Act3 veteran actor Lauren Tully plays Aunt March in a musical production of “Little Women” while Kayla Perry plays Jo March for her Act3 debut. Act3 Productions will kick off 2023 with several productions of the musical, starting Feb. 17.