Roswell’s Bright Future

The City of Roswell staff began adapting and adjusting to our new reality a year ago when Georgia's governor declared a state of emergency, and I declared a state of emergency for Roswell. I formed an internal COVID-19 task force to ensure the City provided essential services and community programs for our residents.

Throughout the year, Roswell police officers and firefighters continued to serve our community with honor and distinction. They are true heroes. Many other staff members provided very important services for our community including employees in sanitation, the Water Department, transportation, and Recreation and Parks. Our City's communications staff provided critical services by ensuring citizens received the latest information on best practices to stay safe, testing locations, and where and how to get the vaccine. The City administration staff and my office ensured transparency by utilizing technology that enabled our residents to watch public meetings remotely.

The City of Roswell has not stopped moving forward or planning for our future. My Mayor's Business Recovery Task Force has made suggestions for ways to support local businesses and conduct business differently to make it through these trying times. One of the first things we did was to allow restaurants with alcohol licenses to sell unopened spirits, beer, and wine with to-go orders. This small change helped many of our struggling restaurants stay afloat. The City also passed occupation tax relief for commercial establishments, which generated more than $100,000 in credits in the first few weeks to Roswell businesses, and we awarded $600,000 in Community Development Block Grants for COVID-19 relief to local nonprofit organizations.

In addition to those important measures, the City Council approved my proposal to divide $800,000 in COVID-19 relief grants, with $400,000 available to residents and $400,000 available to Roswell brick and mortar businesses that have lost revenues during the pandemic. These grants would not need to be paid back to the City.

I am committed to helping our residents and business owners during these unprecedented times. These grants are something the City can do to help families in need pay their mortgage, rent, utilities, or buy groceries. It also helps brick-and-mortar businesses stay afloat until the vaccine is widely distributed, and we can get back to normal.

Your City government has not been standing still during the pandemic. We are planning for a hereafter without the threat of COVID-19. We are in the final stages of developing and adopting a strategic plan, charting the course for Roswell's future. We are looking at how to resume all of our Recreation and Parks programming, and we are already creating a budget for next fiscal year that puts the City back on solid footing for a better and brighter tomorrow.

With our residents receiving the vaccine and the CDC projecting that we may soon be able to get back to some semblance of normalcy, the future of our community looks bright. We will get through this together and come out stronger on the other side. In the meantime, please take all the necessary precautions to stay safe and healthy.