Chapter 6-Forsyth "Club Member" Commissioners Double Size of Local Government, Do Nothing for the People
The 6th in the Series Entitled, "War Under the Waves-The Struggle for Political Control of Forsyth County
If you live in Forsyth County, please keep this in mind. The same three Forsyth County Commissioners we discussed in Chapter 5, yes, those responsible for screwing over the City of Cumming regarding the terms of November’s SPLOST referendum, are each 100% responsible for every decision, every motion, every design feature, every inclusion, and every exclusion, and every expenditure of the “new” county administration “complex” presently under construction on Freedom Parkway. However that explosive cash outlay of taxpayer funds turns out, committed without approval from Forsyth County voters, the result will be their baby. Those three commissioners will own it all, forever.
The three commissioners to whom I refer would be Chairman Alfred John, Laura Semanson and Kerry Hill. Forsyth County taxpayers can always count on those three “Club Members,” comprising a majority of the board, to cast votes together to carry whatever decisions their “Club” sees in its best interests. Frankly, the other two commissioners, Cindy Mills and Todd Levent, may as well stay home. When three commissioners out of five, always leave the huddle with the same play, it does not matter what the other two say or believe, it does not matter what the people in their districts say or believe. That is because in the end, three votes carry any question coming before the board. In this article, together you and I will take a holistic journey through the events ultimately yielding the project we see under construction on the largely undeveloped Freedom Parkway corridor.
New Administration Complex Never Approved by Forsyth County Voters
Since 1996, when the existing administration building located on East Main Street in downtown Cumming opened its doors, Forsyth County Government operations have been run largely out of that facility. That building was built at a cost to taxpayers of $4.5 million, an amount long since paid. Importantly, to pay for that building the CITIZENS OF FORSYTH COUNTY VOTED TO APPROVE A SPECIAL LOCAL OPTION SALES TAX of 1%. That is how we used to do things around Forsyth County, democratically. The present administration building was built during a time when local politicians, they being real “conservative Republicans,” not fake ones like today, would never dream of committing to such an expenditure without taxpayer approval. And if my memory is correct, it took several votes for the SPLOST to finally pass. That was a good thing, not a bad thing. That was the democratic process at work. What I describe is how true, conservative Republicans carry out the people’s business involving major expenditures. They make their case and empower the people decide.
But that’s not how county business is done anymore, not by a long shot. Today our Forsyth County Commissioners, marketing themselves as “conservative Republicans,” systematically over-tax county citizens, resulting in substantial surpluses year after year. Rather than cutting taxes back to a level necessary to run an historically-conservative county government, and rather than asking the voters to approve such an extravagant project, these days your county commissioners deliberately program the annual over-charging of taxpayers until the county has enough of their hard-earned cash to splurge on an extravagant county government complex such as the one presently under construction on Freedom Parkway, a set of buildings many now refer as the Forsyth County, “Taj Mahal.” The total cost of building this 130,000 SF complex, initially approved in January, is over $134 million! The contract to build this facility, $114 million, passed the board’s vote by the slimmest of margins, again 3-2. Guess which members voted to approve the project? That’s right, “Club members” Alfred John, Laura Semanson and Kerry Hill. Voting AGAINST were Cindy Mills and Todd Levent. But, listen to how the three big spenders spin the fact that county taxpayers had no say in committing public funds to such project:
Speaking for the commissioners in January, County Manager David McKee crowed over the fact that Forsyth County taxpayers have been overcharged each year, almost bragging, “There’s nobody else in the state that’s doing this.” From an historically conservative viewpoint, the fact that “nobody else in the state is doing this” is not a good thing. It’s a bad thing. The three members of the Forsyth County Commission voting for this project have simply gone rogue, spending enormous amounts of public funds wrecklessly without asking permission from those who ultimately pay the cost.
The county has devoted a web page to supply slanted information concerning the building of the new administration complex. That page can be found here. On it, there is a video in which several county employees discuss the project and what it entails. In the video, county manager David McKee (far right) is asked why the county is moving its operations and why to the Freedom Parkway location.
Here is Mr. McKee’s answer:
Thus, according to County Manager McKee, Forsyth County must be able to deliver the services necessary for a growing county population, claiming that since the county has ballooned to thirteen different departments (McKee must have lost count, the number is reported elsewhere on the county website as seventeen), the space available to county employees is not sufficient to effectuate the services they provide. In his next breath, however, the county manager claims the communications team provides the highest quality work, while housed in tight quarters, and that county employees in asset management and water and sewer do their work in a room the size of a closet. Let’s assume that everything Mr. McKee says is true. If it is true, then just know that what he describes is precisely what “conservative government” is. Truly “conservative Republican” commissioners would look at those conditions as virtues, rather than vices. They would find joy in the fact of government employees performing such great work with so little public investment in facilities. Limiting the size and scope of government is exactly what “conservative Republicans” strive to accomplish. And should conservative Republican elected officials decide after long last that minimally-necessary governmental services can no longer be managed in present facilities, only then would they find it necessary to take a case for facility expansion to to the taxpayers. And the process I describe is precisely what happened in the 1990’s resulting in the present administration building.
According to the county manager, the facility under construction is designed to DOUBLE the number of county government employees, BEFORE they are even needed. It seems these commissioners operate under the adage, “Build it and they will come.” These three commissioners are planning a massive expansion of Forsyth County government. So you see, this is all backwards. The decision to go forward with the new government facility was already made BEFORE any attempt to sell the idea to the voters. This marketing video found on the county website, and created under the auspices of the county communications manager, was recorded AFTER-THE-FACT to justify a major financial decision county taxpayers had no part in approving.
Yet, below we find two of three “Club member” commissioners running for re-election in November, each touting themselves to be “conservative Republicans.” I have some swamp land to sell you.
While Commissioner Kerry Hill, not running for re-election, claims nowhere to be a “conservative Republican,” she does claim to work tirelessly to keep taxes low, while, however, never arguing to return massive county tax surpluses to those who paid them.
The Employee “Wellness Center”
Winning the prize of the most nonsensical, wasteful element of the new Forsyth County Administration Complex is the employee “Wellness Center.” According to the county website:
So, according to the three commissioners by whose votes the project was approved, they being, once again, Alfred John, Laura Semanson and Kerry Hill, the employee wellness center, costing taxpayers anywhere from $16 million to $22 million depending how you look at it, is purposed to:
Attract and retain top talent required to deliver the most excellent services to county residents;
Keep all those talented employees fit, and thereby healthy, offering them the use of workplace exercise equipment; and
Reduce healthcare costs by increasing “fitness” and “wellness” among county employees and dispensing health aids and drugs without having to go to third-party providers.
Now, realistically, were I to study how many county employees might spend their lunch breaks working out in the fitness center, or how many might stop in at the fitness center for a brisk workout before heading home in the evenings, or if I might situate myself in the parking lot to witness how many government employees would wake up earlier than necessary to develop a habit of regular workout sessions at the employee fitness center, only to report hot and sweaty to one of dozens of interior work cubicles surrounded by gray walls and no natural light, I am more than comfortable to predict the honest answer would approach zero. Instead, I expect we would most likely witness the grand majority of prospective “top talent” recruits, supposedly attracted to careers with Forsyth County by the allure of such a facility, sauntering by the entrance to the place, glancing in to observe dozens of expensive, state-of-the-art exercise workstations idly awaiting someone to use them, the only semblance of exercise most county employees ever engaging at that facility being to turn their heads back straight while maintaining a steady gate toward their parked vehicles.
But, the kicker of the employee wellness center, built with supposed “surplus” county tax dollars, is the fact that the county employees, themselves, will pay to operate the facility out of a “surplus in the employee benefit fund as a result of employees being good stewards of their health and wellness.” So, understand what your three county commissioners are saying here. All these new, top notch employees, recruited to work for Forsyth County by the promise of receiving access to this fitness/wellness facility, will be paying to operate the facility themselves out of health benefits or salaries they will never receive, resources which will instead be diverted to pay the operating costs of the facility. According to county officials, the county will be able to do that because these employees will become so incredibly healthy from essentially NOT using the exercise equipment sitting idle in the employee fitness center. I’m sorry, but if this employee wellness center is not the biggest government boondoggle ever, I do not know what would be.
Now, based upon my own observations of human behavior, what I have described is my personal judgment of the waste of funds necessary to build and operate this employee wellness center facility. Thus, in addition to my own personal judgment, I offer below objective studies to support my judgment that in approving this facility, the three “Club member” county commissioners to whom I refer, Alfred John, Laura Semanson and Kerry Hill, continue to waste massive amounts of taxpayer dollars, spending other people’s money like drunken sailors. Below you will find a list of well-researched findings on the question whether workplace wellness systems actually succeed in the purpose of (1) achieving wellness and (2) decreasing costs of maintaining employee health. These studies were conducted under the auspices of such institutions as Harvard University, the Wharton School of Business, and the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The New York Times economics bloggers (The Incidental Economist) show that it does not work at all
Case Western Reserve medico-legal journal has comprehensive data on why they fail
Health Affairs: It costs a million dollars to possibly avoid a heart attack
STATNews exposes "award-winning" program as harming employees
The last article in this list challenges any or all of the three county commission Club members to demonstrate that their wellness program will truly save money by promoting wellness among county employees. Should they back that conclusion with hard data, one confident researcher in the industry has offered a $3 million reward which they could split three ways.
Club Commissioners Screwed Up Royally
Notwithstanding the waste of taxpayer dollars inherent in the decision to go forward with the project as I describe, commissioners Alfred John, Laura Semanson and Kerry Hill chose to proceed with construction without first solving a major road block restricting the full transfer of county operations to the location on Freedom Parkway. By the time the three voted in the majority to accept a $114 million bid to build the facility, everyone on the board of commissioners understood the very real problem that official business conducted by the commissioners in that location could most likely never be lawfully enacted. One reason is apparently because existing Georgia law grandfathered under the 1983 state constitution, requires that official votes by Georgia county commissions can only be taken within the limits of a county seat. In our case, the county seat would be the City of Cumming. The Freedom Parkway site is not within the city limits.
Another reason reinforcing the dim prospect of using the new admin facility to conduct commission meetings is a local ordinance approved by the Georgia Legislature in 2014 dictating that the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners must meet at the address of the existing administration building.
Because the “Club” about which I continue to write has so estranged itself from non-club members of the Forsyth County delegation, and because any attempt to change local ordinances requires a unanimous vote of the county’s state delegation, my guess is that a unanimous vote to request the state legislature to change that provision will never materialize, or at least not occur until the makeup of the delegation changes one way or the other, which, as I have demonstrated previously, is a major purpose of the “Club” waging war for political control over Forsyth County.
In my last Substack, you will remember how these three commissioners, Club members Alfred John, Laura Semanson and Kerry Hill, just screwed over the City of Cumming to the tune of $6 million should the November SPLOST pass into law. Ironically for the commissioners, one of the only practical means remaining for the tremendous trio to move board meetings into the new facility on Freedom Parkway would be to convince the same city council whom they just “sh*t on” to annex the county complex into the city limits of Cumming. I mean, I don’t know what the Cumming City Council and Mayor might say to such a “hat-in-hand” request, but I expect a “yes” would come at a stiff price, maybe double or triple the $6 million the city just got screwed out of.
Years ago, someone near and dear said something to me I will never forget, “Get your ducks in a row.” In the case at hand, that means that, before one commits over 130 million dollars of taxpayer money to a project such as the Freedom Parkway County Administration Complex, one should at least ensure that the facility can be used for the purpose for which it is designed. The main building is designed at great expense to host meetings of the Forsyth County Commission. Not only can it apparently not be used for that purpose, but now, the commissioners will likely be limited to holding meetings as they always have, at the existing administration building in downtown Cumming. That existing building, scheduled for a multi-million dollar renovation to house the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Department, will therefore have to remain as is. That is because the present commissioner’s meeting room will have to remain unchanged until all I describe works out. Until then, that meeting room will have to remain open for the public to access, meaning that the rest of the building cannot be renovated for the sheriff’s department as planned. I mean, folks, this is a cluster____, knowingly created by three county commissioners, Alfred John, Laura Semanson and Kerry Hill. They should each resign. Barring resignations, commissioners John and Semanson are up for re-election in November. Remember, these officials are NOT CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS. They are liberal-minded, big-spending, big-government, short-sighted, incompetent, and did I mention mean-spirited, politicians who deserve to be sent packing.
Friends, I don’t even know the Democrats contesting these two in November, but at least give them a listen. It is time to break up the Club. I have shown you the truth of what I say over and over and over. And, friends, we are still not done with this discussion.
Whatever Happened to the Mental Health/Crisis Center?
Now, notice on the left on the original complex site plan, a building labeled, “Whole Health.” That ground, which apparently has since been cleared to build something or other, was originally designed to house a mental health/crisis center. The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners has already spent over $2 million of taxpayer funds designing that building. As designed, that 57,000 square foot building would cost in the neighborhood of $25 million.
Regarding cost, from a builder’s perspective, and as any layman might plainly see, the arrangement of square footage is inherently inefficient. The number and sizes of interior courtyards and the nature of numerous appendages creates much more costly exterior surface area than is necessary to house the same interior square footage under a simpler design, while providing the same services. Apparently, “form” considerations took over as a more important design criteria for this building than the functions it would provide, functions such as saving lives. Now, we can’t be saving lives unless we do it in a most fashionable building, can we? I am told the marching orders to the architectural designers were to make it “big and beautiful,” which translates to, “extravagant.” Why would “conservative Republicans” give marching orders to design “extravagant” government facilities? Rest assured, for the purpose of providing a functioning mental health/crisis center, the building depicted on this site plan could be value-engineered to provide those same functions and services, but in a much more economical package. Thus, when we say the cost of this building would be close to $25 million, a redesign could save millions without loss of necessary function.
Now, in the past I have written extensively concerning the provision of mental health services at the state level in Georgia. I have been extremely critical on that subject because, at that level, it is apparent that there is much money to be made by private contractors who can successfully tap into the hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars the State of Georgia spends each year, ostensibly pursuing societal mental health. Some of those contractors could even be tied to elected or appointed state officials. The state-level effort to further that pursuit has roots emanating from right here in Forsyth County. The author of two major pieces of legislation affecting the statewide effort ostensibly promoting mental health is Rep. Todd Jones from south Forsyth County. The Director of the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health, who signs all the checks, is former Forsyth County legislator and County Manager, Kevin Tanner. Because so much work and effort toward the pursuit of aiding those in need of mental health services originates from those two members of our Georgia Government, it does make me wonder why we have seen so little effort from them on this issue to benefit those right here in their home county. Perhaps it is that a mental health crisis center, set up solely to intervene during acute moments of high anxiety, rather than to monitor individuals for long periods of time once released by law enforcement or the prison system, may not provide the same opportunities for economic gain. Be that as it may, I do not disagree with the conclusion that Forsyth County deals with enormous mental health problems, and that presently, there are no local facilities established to deal narrowly with the kinds of crises which all to often end sadly with the life of a local sufferer being lost to suicide.
County Chairman Alfred John-Promises Made, Promise Broken
Two years ago, the Forsyth County Commission, headed by Chairman Alfred John, publicly recognized the severe mental health problems which have drawn so many local concerns, to the extent that during the 2022 State of the County Address, the chairman committed that Forsyth County would take this problem head-on and build a first-of-its-kind, state-of-the-art mental health facility, including a mental health crisis center. Here is what Chairman John said during that event:
Frankly, I will not weigh-in on whether this facility is the best solution for Forsyth County to deal with the kinds of mental health problems we are experiencing. That is for others with much more training and expertise in the field to argue. My purpose here is to contrast the reasoning of the Forsyth County Commission, led by Club members, Alfred John, Laura Semanson and Kerry Hill, spending the millions and millions they have, foolishly creating a path forward to merely increase the size of local government, doing so without authorization from the people, the building in question providing the means to at least double the county workforce once it is open. And then, there is the foolish “wellness center” I have already addressed.
I understand that once Chairman John identified a public need for governmental action in solving Forsyth County’s mental health problem in 2022, and planted the idea of building a facility to enact that solution in the public mind, the county commission has voted as many as eight times to continue developing the plans for the facility the chairman described in the video above, spending $2 million in “surplus” taxpayer funds in the process.
However, during the January 9, 2024 Board of Commissioners meeting, with bids from an able and willing contractor on the table, the three commissioners, John, Semanson and Hill suddenly turned about face and failed to approve the mental health building to go forward. At that moment, all the talk, all the hype, all the money spent toward the “big and beautiful” mental health facility effectively became sunk costs paid out of the pockets of taxpayers. After all that, the three decided the project would not go forward.
As I said, I will not venture into agreeing or disagreeing whether the mental health project should have been built on its own merits. I will however strike a contrast that project against what our three controlling members of the Forsyth County Commission decided to do with all that taxpayer money they impounded year after year. With that money, our commissioners decided AGAINST building a facility to deal with a real societal mental health epidemic in Forsyth County, and decided FOR building a facility to double the size of county government. They also frivolously decided FOR building a multi-million dollar “wellness and fitness center” ostensibly purposed to keep all those new government employees fit, healthy and working for the government. Notice that all of that money these commissioners piled up from withholding tax surpluses year after year went to building additional, extravagant government facilities, the result being more government controls over the lives of Forsyth County citizens, and none of those taxpayer dollars went toward promoting the welfare and mental health of the people the government is bound to serve. What we see here is NOT conservative, Republican government spending. What we see here is liberal, big government spending, all of it for the sake of growing government and the number of government employees and none of it spent for the sake of the people.
A Better Use of Dollars
The dollars necessary to build the mental health facility would have largely come from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Essentially, that means the federal government would go into further debt to provide a grant to build most of the facility. Of course, I am not advocating indebting the American people as a whole to build Forsyth County a mental health facility. But, as it turns out, our commissioners are still going to take that federally-borrowed money, and divert it to pay for a small portion of water and sewer improvements necessary in the county. To complete those improvements, the county will still have to finance in excess of $170 million to pay the total cost. There is no free lunch. Had the commissioners decided to do some good for the county taxpayers, rather than simply promote the size and scope of local government, they could have taken the funds accumulated to build the Administration Building complex, and paid for most of the water and sewer system upgrades. Just an idea…
Below you will find links to previous chapters in this series:
War Under the Waves-The Struggle for Political Control of Forsyth County-Chapter 1- The Marc Morris Letter
War Under the Waves-The Struggle for Political Control of Forsyth County-Chapter 2-Ghost-Writers in the Sky
War Under the Waves-The Struggle for Political Control of Forsyth County-Chapter 3-Club Now Bullying Private Citizens-Local Warlords Apparently Running County Politics, Perhaps Even the Courts
War Under the Waves-The Struggle for Political Control of Forsyth County-Chapter 4-Cyber-Warfare to Go With Bullying? Well, Would You Expect? This is War
Chapter 5-How Three County Commissioners Screwed Over the City of Cumming-Vote NO on SPLOST
Your story sounds like it could be applied to "the Club" that currently runs Cobb County. Except that spendthrift group is composed of Democrats.
Hank:
Since I have read every word of each Chapter you have posted here, I refer to that monstrosity as a despicable monument to the “Administrative State” that we all should oppose every chance we get.
Since I live in the neighborhood that this is built in, it is going to do nothing to ease the traffic coming off the peninsula of Pilgrim Mill and choked and clogged as it presently is. This plus the new development adjacent to Flo’s will only make it more difficult for us to exit the peninsula. In addition, the BOC voted on a zoning change to this development which eliminated a cut through road from Freedom Parkway to Holtzclaw Road which was the only saving grace of this townhome/apartments/single family homes development but no the BOC voted to eliminate this road. Just mind boggling what they have done to all of our neighbors, living here,now.