City Government
Meet the City Officials who Keep Peachtree Corners Humming: Greg Ramsey Feature
Photos by George Hunter
Consider a high-performance vehicle — bright, shiny and powerful. It leaps ahead quickly when it needs to, but can also settle back to a comfortable cruising speed. It’s nimble, able to turn on a dime or smoothly reverse direction, if need be.
Ever wished for a vehicle like that? The good news is that if you live within the city limits of Peachtree Corners, you already have one.
Gwinnett County’s largest and newest city has a most efficient “vehicle” for governing its home turf — a staff helmed by experienced department heads who put their shoulders to the wheel, are adept at balancing the sometimes-clashing interests of residents, the business community and other constituencies and aren’t afraid to embrace unconventional approaches.
Public Works Director- Greg Ramsey
Greg Ramsey has his mind on the gutters, and on the roadways, sidewalks, storm drains and other existing and planned public city infrastructure that falls on his watch.
The Peachtree Corners Public Works Director loves his job keeping the city’s public facilities humming along in good shape — and planning for the future. He loves his job and its variability.
Asked what occupies the bulk of his workday, he replied, “Honestly, that changes from day to day.” Obviously, on a rainy day stormwater is a big issue, making sure the system can handle the runoff, he said, and engineering projects for development is a big consumer of time, as are city “customers” who find problems and report issues.
“It’s spread out pretty evenly and that’s what makes this job interesting,” he stated.
Ramsey came to work for the city in 2014 and was part of the public works operation startup in November of that year, taking over from Gwinnett County. He said one continuing challenge is that Peachtree Corners was mainly built out by the time it incorporated. There is more of a concern with retrofitting and assessment management, which are part of two major linchpins in his job description — project development and infrastructure.
Another challenge that has emerged is residents’ changing taste in public amenities.
Sidewalks are a good example. “They weren’t a priority back in the 70s when a lot of stuff was built. They just built roads,” Ramsey noted. “They didn’t contemplate a future where people would want to walk for pleasure or walk their dogs or walk for transportation.”
Recent years have brought a much greater emphasis on sidewalks and on the trail network the city is now building.
The takeover from Gwinnett involved handling a good bit of road maintenance. “The Gwinnett footprint is so huge that we had the ability to narrow the focus on the smaller geography and, for example, we certainly had some opportunity to expand the sidewalk network,” Ramsey explained.
One of the new and signature projects he’s most proud of is the pedestrian bridge that links the Forum with the Town Center.
Perhaps less high profile, but no less important, are such projects as a stormwater replacement/upgrade that became necessary after a tropical storm washed out a roadway in his first year at the helm. Pipelines and pipeline replacement have also been major undertakings. And the expansion of the trail system is under his umbrella.
Ramsey also looks to the future and the city’s long-range transportation plans. “Traffic is certainly not going to reduce over the coming years,” he noted. That argues for the need for continued traffic improvements. At the same time, he’s proud of what’s been done up to this point to get people out of their cars and make it more feasible for them to bike and walk.
His biggest frustration about the job? “It’s that I can’t please everybody,” he said. It’s a reminder of finite resources pitted against many, many requests.
Ramsey IS pleased to coach his kids’ baseball and softball teams in his time off. He’s also an avid golfer.
Source: Peachtree Corners Post 2 Councilmember Eric Christ’s recent newsletter.
On Tuesday, November 4, we will have municipal elections here in the City of Peachtree Corners for three council seats. [And] for the first time since 2013, there will be a state-wide election on the same day as our city general election.
The state-wide election is to fill two seats on the Public Service Commission, which regulates Georgia Power and other utilities.
For the PSC election, the Gwinnett County Board of Elections will have all 156 county precincts open on November 4. Historically, Peachtree Corners has had a single voting location for city elections — at City Hall.
If we do the same this year, citizens who want to vote in both the PSC and the City Council elections will need to go to two places to cast their ballots.
A few years ago, I convinced the County Board of Elections to remove their prohibition against the Gwinnett Elections Department managing city elections. (Every county surrounding Gwinnett already offered this service to their cities.)
This means there is the potential of adding our city council elections to the county ballot.
I would like to hear your thoughts on the pros and cons of combining our city council races with the county’s for this year’s elections.
Please complete my brief survey by clicking here.
To sign up for Councilmember Christ’s newsletter or find him on social media, visit linktr.ee/votechrist.
You can read more from his latest newsletter updates here and here.
Some people lament paying taxes. They don’t understand that taxes allow us to live in a more civilized manner, helping and protecting us all along. That’s why I don’t mind paying reasonable taxes for the safety of everyday living.
Many don’t recognize it, but you are often paying a small tax without realizing it as you go about your everyday business….but it’s not called a tax.
It’s called a “fee.” Each time you pay your power or utility bill and cable bill, your insurance premium, when you rent a hotel room or car…and other ways…you are providing a few cents or dollars to help fund mostly local government.
The newly-minted City of Mulberry (and previously Peachtree Corners) will run its government without taxing property owners paying a tax to fund its operations. How so? Entirely from fees.
Let’s visit what the other city without property taxes, Peachtree Corners, is doing.
We talked with Cory Salley, who is the finance director for Peachtree Corners. He sent along a graphic which shows where Peachtree Corners gets its funding, as well as how it is spent. (See graphic.)
For the most part, Peachtree Corners is funded by fees. The biggest comes from Georgia Power Company, paying $2.8 million in fees for the city for 2025. Other utilities include $450,000 from Atlanta Gas Light Company; $250,000 from Comcast; $70,000 from Direct TV; and $42,000 from AT&T. (That last figure was interesting, in effect, showing how few people have land-line telephones anymore.) Altogether, utility fees brought in $4.3 million in Peachtree Corners for 2024.
Another bucket of fees include $3.8 million in insurance fees. This comes in one check from the Department of Revenue, which collects insurance fees for all cities.
Each business in Peachtree Corners pays an occupational business license tax. With lots of professional offices in the city, these businesses contribute $4.4 million to the city coffers.
Other fee collections for 2024:
- Alcoholic licenses and sales: $1 million.
- Zoning and land development permits: $1.4 million.
- SPLOST funds on sales within Peachtree Corners: $10 million.
- Automobile and vehicle purchases: $1.7 million. This is interesting: no matter where you buy an automobile in Georgia, part of the sales tax reverts to the city where you live.
Then there are other funds coming to the city; stormwater fees, grants, solid waste, etc. Altogether, it added up to approximately a $40 million income to run the city.
Some specifics and the way they are figured:
- Real estate transfer taxes: This tax is imposed at the rate of $1 on the first $1,000 and 10 cents on each additional $10 on any conveyance of real property when the value of the interest transferred exceeds $100.
- Distilled Spirits—up to 22 cents per liter on package sales and up to 3 percent of the sale price of a drink on sales to the public;
- Wine—up to 22 cents per liter; and
- Malt Beverages—up to $6.00 per bulk container (no more than 15.5 gallons) to be paid by the wholesaler and up to 5 cents per 12 ounces when sold in bottles, cans or other containers.
- A municipality may levy a business license tax on depository financial institutions (such as a bank.) The maximum rate of this tax is 0.25 percent.
- Hotel-motel tax: a municipality may levy a hotel-motel tax at a rate of 3 percent or less or at a rate of 5, 6, 7, or 8 percent. (Yes, let the out-of-towner pay!)
Perhaps this gives you an idea of how a city, like Mulberry in the future, can operate without property taxes.
Have a comment? Send to: elliott@elliottbrack
Written by Elliott Brack
This material is presented with permission from Elliott Brack’s GwinnettForum, an online site published Tuesdays and Fridays. To become better informed about Gwinnett, subscribe (at no cost) at GwinnettForum.
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