Briarcliff Lessons Learned & Next Steps

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On Tuesday, 3/18/14 we start the day as a divided community. All the problems you’ve expressed and that your neighbors have expressed remain unchanged. This is not the time to walk away.

With Senator Millar withdrawing Lakeside’s bill (SB 270) it appears that cityhood will not happen in DeKalb County this year. Those that supported and advocated for Lakeside, Briarcliff and Tucker spent thousands of hours working to improve our community. This work should AND WILL be celebrated in the coming weeks.

The mission of the City of Briarcliff Initiative was to see through the creation of Briarcliff. That remains the mission. Before the end of this decade the voters will likely vote in a solution to DeKalb cityhood. Get this wrong and DeKalb will continue its slide. If we get this right -- our area prospers -- we lift up DeKalb and the surrounding communities.

What we cannot do as residents is sit idle, expecting things to be done for us. We have many knowledgeable people on the community, experts on various snippets of what is needed to make a great community. We need these experts to volunteer a little bit of time to ensure the community is molded the right way. 

You’re Invited – Cityhood Recap Event:

In the coming weeks we will be hosting an event that reviews what happened in the cityhood process, both with Briarcliff and cityhood overall. We’ll discuss the good, the bad, and the lessons that will allow cityhood for central DeKalb. We cannot let retrenchment occur. We will be personally inviting leadership from Lakeside and Tucker and will celebrate the hard work they put in to improve the community. We may not agree 100% on the tactical approach of cityhood, but we universally agree that cityhood can and should be part of the solution to reforming DeKalb.

Introducing “Briarcliff Version 2.0

Loosely speaking Briarcliff as you know it is over. Internally we’ve referred to this as “Briarcliff Version 1.0.” We produced the most financially strong cityhood plan. We produced the most inclusive plan and did it without cherry picking. In many ways we see Briarcliff Version 1.0 as the best cityhood plan that was never considered. We had our hearing at the Capitol and like the other cityhood plans we didn’t make it through. Briarcliff Version 2.0 starts now.

We’ll discuss more about Briarcliff Version 2.0 at the recap event. Here’s a preview. Cityhood for our area presents some unique challenges via the fact that we are not a naturally united community. We are community of small neighborhoods, HOAs and school districts. We all chose to move to unincorporated DeKalb for one reason or another and many of us have been disappointed with status quo, and a lack for meaningful county reform.

Keith Hanks

Member of the Executive Board

Resident of Decatur, 30033, Unincorporated DeKalb County