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Public commenters press council for financial transparency, ARPA accounting and road communications
Summary
During public comment residents urged the council to request internal-audit reports required by the charter, to clarify ARPA spending decisions and to improve communication about county road closures and noise mitigation.
Several members of the public used the meeting’s public-comment period to press the City Council for more transparency on financial audits and the use of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, and to ask for better communication about county road work and sound barriers.
Dave Marcus told the council he had requested the most recent quarterly internal-audit reports required by the city charter (Section 3.12) and received only an internal-audit plan from 2021 and an update from 2020; he said the lack of quarterly reports suggested the council had not exercised charter-required oversight. He also said the city is several years behind on state-mandated annual comprehensive financial reports.
Faye Cofield, executive director of the Evelyn Stokes Foundation, supported Marcus’s points and raised several specific concerns: an unannounced Panola Road closure that disrupted neighborhoods, the absence of a city tree ordinance despite prior requests, and distribution of ARPA funds. Mayor Jasmine Cabo and the city manager responded: the mayor said the internal-audit position has been vacant and that the city had provided the reports it has; she noted the charter change requiring the internal-audit position to be a council appointment and said that, once filled, the position will produce quarterly reports as required. The mayor said ARPA funds were allocated to 12 local schools (each receiving $100,000 for wraparound services) and to a $1 million design fund for roads, bridges and infrastructure; she also explained that $500,000 to Georgia Piedmont Technical College was for a logistics training center at the industrial park.
On the Panola Road closure and sound barriers, the mayor said DeKalb County and the Georgia Department of Transportation control county roads and I-20, respectively, and that the city has pressed those agencies for better communications and asked DOT about extending sound barriers but was told the current alignment would remain unless DOT, county or state representatives decide otherwise.
