Competent service from Commissioner Johnson’s office

I was busy searching for some information on a rezoning request that came before the commission recently when I noticed that several documents related to public meetings were missing from the county’s website. Well, being the pessimist that I am, I immediately thought our local government was trying to hide something. Well I was wrong. Turns out, the BOC and ZBOA minutes have to be approved before they can be made public. the missing documents had not been approved by the CEO or the board and until they are they are not released to the public. How did I find this out? It was a lady who worked in Commissioner Johnson’s office by the name of Ingrid Butler. I called Mr. Johnson’s office because the issue that I was interested in fell in his district, and he voted against the rezone so this was a natural place to start. Ms. Butler was a breath of fresh air. She was polite, knowledgeable and showed a genuine concern for issue. In fact she called me back twice. Once to tell me how to navigate the documents repository that holds the documents for the public to see, which I already knew, and the second call was to explain to me why the documents were not in the repository. I was thoroughly impressed, but was not surprised as she works in Commissioner Johnson’s office and he is one commissioner that actually votes for what is best for his constituents. It seems most of the time when you deal with government employees, local or otherwise, you walk away with a bad taste in your mouth. It is nice to deal with people who are competent, and are not just working a job to draw a paycheck. We need more of these types of people in DeKalb government.