Ms. Kesting said her district is one of the largest districts, covering Powder Springs, Austell, Mableton, and parts of Marietta and Smyrna.
She said there were many topics she could speak on, but she chose quality of life and the water issue. She said there are a lot of things that go on around Cobb County that the Commissioners see each and every day, and sometimes she agrees on a lot of issues and sometimes she disagrees. She said she did disagree about the development near her on Macland Road.
Ms. Kesting said we have a lot of issues that are going on around code enforcement. She receives a lot of calls from the week ordinance to eight to ten cars parking in one driveway, to abandoned houses. They ask her what they should do about these things. She mentioned that in an ordinance just passed a homeowner is allowed to have four cars parked on the driveway, and they are not allowed to park on the grass. When she gets a call from someone who has the car limit, but needs to park a business car, for instance, she tells that person to call the Economic Development Unit, come into the office, and apply for a special land use permit. This will be reviewed by the Board of Commissioners. Also, in the case of abandoned houses, the process is a long one. The County has to contact the owners of the home, sent a certified letter stating that the home has been abandoned; the grass is up to 12 inches, they need to cut the grass. Even though people get upset at the delay, the County has to wait until the owner contacts the County. If there is no response the Board then decides whether to take action or try again to contact the owner. She said she takes beatings about things that go on in her district. She said her district has been overlooked for many, many years, and she gets a lot of calls about “our streets need to be paved. She talks to DOT, and manages to get that taken care of.
In response to questions about the Board passing the development C165 near Lake Allatoona with what looked like an unfunded mandate for the improvements, Ms. Kesting said the Commissioners have their meetings behind closed doors about different type issues, it’s that they set their goals on how they want the layout to be, and when Commissioner Thompson has spoken to Helen about that issue, they both agree they have different issues done different ways with the screen buffer and all that. Other than that Joe would not have made a motion to approve that. He cares about quality of life and water, they all do, and she said she does too. But they have made issues about how they want things laid out. It’s not that they just voted, that they didn’t care about the constituents, or didn’t care about the river. They recalled back and did it over again. When asked if voting for development without the stipulations that the developer pay for improvements was going to be a trend, Ms. Kesting said they were looking into that.
In response to a question regarding a commissioner’s vote that a non-profit group, which never pay property tax, should be exempted from paying for improvements to build because the cost would be too high, and having that burden fall on the tax payer, Ms. Kesting responded that behind closed doors, since she has been a commissioner for three years, a lot of times politics plays a part in what goes on behind closed doors. She said, some of the commissioners might agree, and some might disagree with it, so where are we at with that? And sometimes it’s who they want to help. That’s just the game of politics. She said she goes through that every day.
In response to a question regarding the slowness of the state in moving forward on transit programs the time spent on continued studies, Ms. Kesting said she believes further studies are a waste of time. She said she campaigned on transit, she has surveys on transit, and she gives town hall meetings every other month especially for District 4’s need for transit. She has spoken with the Chairman and the other commissioners about transit. She says she is the only commissioner who needs transit in her district. Some of the commissioners don’t want transit in their districts. She said she spoke with Chairman Olens about transit and he said they need direct calls about transit. Everyone’s speaking up about transit now, but when she campaigned about transit no one wanted it. She said when she lived in Pittsburgh, all they had was transit. She said she believes they are wasting time and offered to look into the budget to see how much has been spent getting consultants to come and tell us what we need in transit, but she feels they are not moving on transit. She says she is the only commissioner who talks about transit.
In response to a question regarding rapid growth in Cobb County and how to manage it, Ms. Kesting responded that she has tried to meet with the Board of Education and with other commissioners regarding development and its impact, but, she says, no one wants to meet with her. She says she is very pro-active and out in the community every day knocking on doors. She talks to her homeowners, and they say the same thing – what can they do to work together on this. But we are not getting anywhere with this. She spoke about the proposed development at Macland Road near Lost Mountain. She said she knocked on about 200 doors, and her constituents all said they did not want the development because of the traffic. They have McEachern. They have Paulding. They have Dallas Highway. Still that was passed. It should not have passed because of the congestion up and down that way. And they are still fighting me behind that. She said, politics is played that way because of who they want to help, and this is what she is up against. And so they go around her and get the three votes, and that should never have happened. And that’s more traffic on top of traffic. She said, this is life; this is what she goes through.
There was general discussion regarding transportation problems including infrastructure, the fact that we have three bus systems working in the county, many of which travel less than full. Ms. Kesting said part of the problem is lack of communication among the various agencies. A suggestion was made that the county acquire smaller buses. Ms. Kesting said she would try to get support for that.
A question was asked regarding the accountability of county agencies and their unwillingness to respond in a timely manner to complaints about such things as code violations. Ms. Kesting said her response to her constituents who call is to do a three-way call to resolve a situation or to make a promise to respond to the caller within a day or two. And she makes a follow-up call a week later. She said every commissioner is different, but that is how she handles her constituents. She said it depends on the relationship a commissioner has with code enforcement. When she calls code enforcement they know to move and they e-mail back and forth until the problem is solved. She said the commission is a part time job, but she is there every day and keeps on top of what happens in her district.
When asked if she had some feel for who might be opposing her in the next election and what the issues might be, Ms. Kesting responded that she was to busy taking care of her constituents to think about who might oppose her. She said it’s a four-year term, and anyone in the world can run for it.
In response to a question about the problems transportation problems related to developments and the lack of alternate routes in and out of various areas, Ms. Kesting said it is a problem, but the infrastructure is already there. Someone should have thought about that 10 or 15 years ago, but no one did, so there’s nothing they can do. She said that looking for alternate routes is a good idea and working with Paulding and Dallas would help, but it is hard sometimes to gat all the parties to work together. Traffic from Paulding and Dallas hits at Macland Road, so it is up to Helen and her to decide what can be done from Macland to Powder Springs to Cumberland Homes. What they’ve come up with is expanding the road. She said Paulding and Dallas didn’t want to participate in the study they had, so, there again, communications. She said we all have to work together. It doesn’t matter what party you’re in. But down here no one wants to work together. But, she says, she is all about working together and bringing people together. But hen they come together it’s not about playing politics, it’s about doing what the taxpayers want to get the job done. But, she says, we’re not even moving. We’re just standing still. We’re not going anywhere.
In response to a question about the water level in Lake Lanier and what she sees happening in the next six months, she replied; it will still be the same. We need rain. Nothing’s going to change, we need rain. When asked if they are looking for alternatives to finding water, she said there had been a meeting that day, and
would have another one next week, so she couldn’t say anything about that. She gave a phone number to call for tips on how to survive this water problem. The number is: 770-419-6244.
In response to a question about Cobb’s immigration problem, Ms. Kesting said When she drives through the 16 ARC mobile home communities all you see is Hispanics, and it makes her wonder if there is some type of connection somewhere. She said some things you can’t just throw you hands up and say forget about it, which she doesn’t do. She says she has some concerns about a lot of things done here in Cobb County and she thinks its time for us and her, as commissioner, to bring the stuff to the light here in Cobb County as to what is going on here in Cobb County, and dealing with the tax – property taxes and all that, it’s a lot that’s going on. There’s something wrong somewhere.