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DeKalb CEO Lorraine Cochran Johnson outlines county priorities in first-quarter 2026 update
Summary
At a public town-hall update, DeKalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran Johnson highlighted parks, public safety, SPLOST-funded infrastructure, website and technology upgrades, and new sustainability and housing hires. Officials answered questions about short-term rentals, data centers and neighborhood repairs.
Lorraine Cochran Johnson, chief executive officer of DeKalb County, opened the county's first quarterly 2026 update with a run-through of administration achievements and projects underway across parks, public safety, infrastructure and service delivery.
Johnson credited the county communications team with producing more than 450 press releases and over 1,000,000 newsletter views last year and said the county completed a year-long overhaul of its website to reduce broken links and move many transactions online. She announced that Phase 1 of Entrenchment Creek Park — roughly 85 acres — has begun and is expected to open to the community around Labor Day weekend, with a Phase 2 project described as the “Michelle Obama Park.”
On workforce policy, Johnson said DeKalb raised its internal minimum wage from $17 to $19 an hour and highlighted broader pay packages that the county has used to improve recruitment and retention. “Police recruitment in DeKalb County is up over 300%, and we have a 98% retention rate,” she said, linking higher pay to stronger patrol presence.
Johnson framed many operational improvements as a response to recommendations in the Malden Jenkins review, which she said produced a 407-page report with 266 actionable items; the county has hired a director of change management and introduced service-level dashboards to track permits, payments and service backlogs.
Officials also described public-safety technology investments: the county opened a Real Time Crime Center on Dec. 15, 2025, to tie together county, DOT and privately operated camera feeds to assist real-time response and investigations, and has expanded 9-1-1 capabilities. Johnson and police leaders said the combination of staffing, cameras and a drone-first responder program has reduced response times and aided prosecutions.
The session closed with a citizen Q&A on topics including short-term rental rules (Johnson said a short-term rental ordinance recently passed), code enforcement for illegal pad splits, a board-level data-center moratorium while the county drafts guardrails, and a pledge to follow up in the county newsletter with the full slide deck and written answers.
Johnson said the county will continue public briefings and has a separate town hall planned to go deeper on park plans and other neighborhood projects.
