Gwinnett residents urge commissioners to deliver promised parks after SPLOST allocations fell short

Mark Johnson, a longtime Gwinnett County resident and parent, told the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners on April 15 that roughly 5,000 children in his local secondary school cluster have no county-owned athletic fields or community park to call their own. "Not 1 single Gwinnett County Park or athletic field to call their own — not 1 diamond of clay, not 1 rectangle of grass," Johnson said during the public-comment period.

Johnson said projects identified in older master plans — including the Duncan Creek master plan and recommendations for Bogan Park — were not completed and that capital from SPLOST (the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) has not reached his cluster. He told commissioners that SPLOST generated "$1,240,000,000 in revenue" in the most recent round and that $97,000,000 (about 7 percent) went to parks and recreation, figures he presented as context for his claim that his community received no funding for parks.

Why it matters: Johnson told the board families in unincorporated Buford and surrounding neighborhoods contributed to successive SPLOST referendums expecting local park improvements. "Our kids will be in college before they even play on a field in their own neighborhood," he said, adding that planned work on parcels identified in earlier cost summaries — which he cited, including a 2004 summary listing roughly $3.8 million for soccer fields and $1.3 million for tennis and related facilities — has not occurred.

Another speaker, Mary Belle Hodges of Duluth, pressed the board on fiduciary duties and the constitutional basis for spending public funds. Hodges cited the Georgia Constitution, Article 10, Paragraph 2, and urged commissioners to exercise due care when contracting or allocating public dollars, particularly where tax allocation districts or hybrid public–private arrangements are involved.

Board response and next steps: Commissioners did not give any formal direction on the record during the public-comment period. The remarks were presented during the meeting’s public-comment segment and not as part of an agenda item with staff presentation, so no staff report or vote followed during the session. Residents asked the board to revisit SPLOST allocations and accelerate land acquisition and park development for the cluster; the board did not set a public follow-up date in this meeting.

Ending: The public-comment segment concluded with additional speakers raising similar concerns about accountability and distribution of county capital projects; no formal action or vote addressing the park requests was recorded at the April 15 session.