State of the City
Ladies and gentlemen, hello, and welcome to Sugar Hill’s third State of the City Address and the first delivered by podcast. It has been a great year, and I am excited to say that the state of our city continues to be STRONG.
Before I start, I want to say thank you to my wife – Tara. She makes a great First Lady. When we married nearly eighteen years ago, she joined me in Sugar Hill. This community is a place that we have grown to love deeply and are proud to call home. In many ways, it has become our hometown.
In addition, I want to thank City Council Member Taylor Anderson. He has made the decision to retire from public service. I am thankful for his many years of service to the community and the opportunity to do this podcast with his help.
I would also like to acknowledge and thank our community groups like the Black Women’s Association of Sugar Hill, the Historic Preservation Society, the Arts Commission, the Downtown Development Authority, the Planning and Zoning Commission, the Riverlands Authority, the Youth Council, the Sugar Hill Community Garden, the Running Club, the Theo Hutchins Inclusive Task Force, and the Friends of the Sugar Hill Greenway.
I know that all of you work quietly and without fanfare to make our lives richer. The projects that each of you has been involved in, and the improvements you have helped make have forever changed Sugar Hill for the better.
The success of our team would not be possible without the support of over 137 dedicated full-time and part-time city employees that support us and our community’s 28,000 plus residents.
Our City Manager, Paul Radford, leads a great team. I cannot thank him enough for his STRONG and steady stewardship over the last twelve years. In the past year, Paul has been recognized with two very prestigious awards. The Georgia Municipal Association Hall of Fame and the Starr Award are the highest acknowledgements that can be achieved in municipal government. The first award recognized him for his leadership as the city manager for Sugar Hill, and the second award highlights his efforts towards creating Sugar Hill’s downtown area. We have the very best person for the job and are lucky to have Paul serving our community.
Paul would also want me to recognize our very talented Assistant City Manager, Troy Besseche. Troy is Paul’s right-hand man and manages some very important services for the city, including our natural gas utility, public works, and construction project management.
Paul has assembled a great team of professionals that serve our community with pride, integrity, and professionalism.
Our City Clerk, Jane Whittington, also leads well. I cannot thank her enough for her many years of service to our community. She is responsible for records management, customer service, human resources, and many other critical activities for residents and employees. Jane helps contribute to the positive culture we have within and outside City Hall.
It is important to recognize that our city's leadership has played a big role in maintaining our financial health. I am proud to tell you that our financial health as a city continues to be STRONG and most importantly, sustainable.
As of this address, the city has nearly $39 million cash-on-hand, nearly $10 million in unrestricted reserves, and over $300 million in city owned capital assets. City financial policies only require that 20 percent of our annual General Fund operating budget, as a city, be set aside in reserves. For Fiscal Year 2024, the reserves were 100 percent of our operating budget. This is STRONG!
Regarding eliminating our mortgage, the city’s bonds for the E-Center were scheduled to be paid off by 2035 when they were issued by City Council in 2016. The city’s bonds for the Lyric parking deck and commercial space were scheduled to be paid off in 2033 when they were issued by City Council in 2021. The city established a sound and sustainable plan to eliminate the mortgage when each of the bonds was issued. That has not changed and won’t change. No citizen property taxes are used to pay off the mortgage, only revenue from programming and leases.
The E-Center’s commercial space is home to numerous restaurants and businesses. The E-Center Gym is busy seven days a week. It now has over 24,000 unique members. In August, over 3,100 members checked into the gym and fitness area. These figures do not include basketball leagues, meetings and classes, life-line screening and blood drives and similar type events. The E-Center meeting rooms, 39th Street Station and Waterfall Rooms, are also routinely full, serving our community, schools, recreation groups and businesses. The Eagle Theatre is booked 350 days of the year for a wide variety of users. It hosts the Broad Street Concert Band, the Players Guild, On the Stage Children’s Theatre, movies, concerts, comedy, and various arts academies and recitals. Sugar Hill is considered a fine arts hub because of The Bowl, The Eagle Theatre and other downtown venues. The various users of the Eagle bring thousands of people to our downtown area yearly, many who have never been to our downtown. This intentionally compliments our local schools that have one of the highest fine arts participation rates in the Gwinnett County School System. The city owns 250 dedicated parking spaces in the Lyric development as well all 12,000 square feet of commercial space along Temple. We have Starbucks, Playa Bowls, Kilwins and soon August Swine occupying these spaces with two more retail bays in leasing discussions. These investments have helped bring over one million visitors a year to our downtown last year. The city, through its efforts, has created nearly 750 new jobs downtown and attracted nearly $750 million in private sector investment. A downtown gathering space for our community would not exist if these investments had not been made, and I am thankful to all the City Council Members that unanimously supported these investment decisions in 2016 and 2021.
Our Fiscal Year 2024 Annual Financial Report was completed and adopted in August. Completed by a third-party auditor, this audit is required by state law. I am excited to say that, once again, the city has received a completely clean audit with no findings.
Our financial health has enabled us to make ongoing investments at Pirkle Park, at Ridge Lake Park, the Sugar Hill Greenway, and other assets in our community.
This past year, we completed a very important stream bank restoration project at Pirkle Park. The restoration ensures that thousands of families can continue to utilize the park for recreational activities, like soccer and football. This past year, we also opened disc golf and fishing at Ridge Lake Park. Stocked through a unique partnership with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, families in our community can catch bream, bass, and even catfish. Future phases are planned at Ridge Lake Park, including a new playground. Investments in the Sugar Hill Greenway also continue, with an additional mile completed north of Nelson Brogdon Boulevard that will be connected to the rest of the greenway with a pedestrian bridge that is in the beginning stages of construction. The city, in mid-2025, began community input for two new pocket parks near the downtown area. One of the new pocket parks is proposed to be an inclusive playground for children and adults with diverse abilities.
Our vision for future investments in parks, recreation, and green space, has also inspired our closest neighbor and partner along the Chattahoochee River. The National Park Service and the Chattachoochee River National Recreation Area, earlier this year, announced a new park on both sides of the Georgia Highway 20 Bridge that will encompass the restored Crayfish Creek. The proposal includes opportunities for hiking, birding, fishing, and learning. For several years, White Oak Elementary School, in partnership with the Mayor’s Office, has conducted learning days at Crayfish Creek. The added amenities by the National Park Service, like restrooms, will open opportunities for additional schools and grade levels to learn about the ecology of Crayfish Creek and the importance of conservation of our natural resources.
The National Park Service announcement coincides with our own completion of a Riverlands Master Plan. Published in early 2025, the master plan was designed with input from the community, market data, and programming analyses to ensure it meets the needs and desires of the citizens of Sugar Hill. The goal of the planning effort is to create a vibrant community space that offers both economic opportunities and recreational amenities. Highlights of the master plan and community input include mountain biking and cross-country trails, enhanced access to the Chattahoochee River, an educational center for our local schools, and picnic areas. I am thankful to the members of the Board of Directors for the Riverlands Authority and their efforts to be good stewards of this important green space along the Chattahoochee River.
New parks, new recreational opportunities, and new green space will continue to be a top priority for Sugar Hill.
In addition, this past year, nearly five miles of repaving has taken place in Sugar Hill’s neighborhoods. Significant upgrades, the first improvements since 1967, were also made to the city’s gas utility infrastructure that will ensure safe and reliable natural gas services for all our residents and customers. Nearly three thousand linear feet of new sidewalk installations have taken place along First Avenue, Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, and Spring Hill Drive. These are just several examples of the day-to-day activities and investments of our city employees and partners that work every day to maintain and improve our city’s infrastructure.
Because of our investments towards making Sugar Hill a desirable place to live, work, and play, our economic health as a city is also STRONG.
Over the past year, we have continued to improve our residential to commercial mix to a healthier and sustainable 73 percent to 27 percent. The ultimate benefit of this more balanced tax base is reducing the property tax burden on residential property as we add quality commercial development to our Sweet City. We are working every day to make this mix even better.
In 2025, we welcomed 128 new businesses to Sugar Hill, which brings our total to 1,045 active businesses. While we are a community of mostly small and home-based businesses, our local economy grows stronger each day.
We continue to see improvements in all the metrics of a strong local economy.
Sugar Hill’s average household income is $121,910, median household income is $99,479, and median income for married families is $123,221. These numbers are substantially higher than Gwinnett County, metro Atlanta and the State of Georgia.
A look at the city’s successes for this past year is only part of the story that I want to share tonight. We must also be focused on the future, and that future includes our most important residents. Our youth deserve our full attention as a community.
Sugar Hill is blessed to have two amazing school clusters serving our most important residents. The Lanier Cluster and the North Gwinnett Cluster are the very best in the Gwinnett County Public School System. Every school in the Lanier Cluster - Lanier High School, Lanier Middle School, Sycamore Elementary School, White Oak Elementary School, and Sugar Hill Elementary School – is within the city limits of Sugar Hill. This provides us with a unique opportunity to co-brand and celebrate our community together. Many of our long-time residents graduated from North Gwinnett High School, and the North Gwinnett Cluster provides a tradition and history that is unparalleled in comparison to other communities.
I would like to talk about just some of the ways we are partnering with our local schools to serve both students and parents.
First, I would like to highlight that under the leadership of Principal Stacey Pickett at White Oak Elementary, the Mayor’s Office, over the last two years, has partnered with all elementary schools in the Lanier Cluster to design and host Explore Sugar Hill Field Trips for all students in 1st through 5th grade. Designed around school curriculum requirements, students have had the opportunity to visit the Sugar Hill Community Garden, Crayfish Creek, Ridge Lake Park, City Hall, Downtown Sugar Hill, Gold Mine Park, the Sugar Hill History Museum, and many other locations in our community. Curriculum during field trips focuses on history, civics, science, and other areas that help students better understand the world we all share as humans. Participants, like members of City Council, local businesses, and volunteers from the Sugar Hill Historic Preservation Society, help model to our youth the relationships and activities that make a community function well.
Second, I want you to know that because of venues like The Bowl at Sugar Hill and the Eagle Theatre, our community has a growing reputation for the performing arts. There is no better example of this than the annual North Gwinnett Jazz Festival. Led by Brandon Soloff, this year’s festival brought fifteen middle school and high school jazz bands to Downtown Sugar Hill. The festival has created an amazing opportunity for our youth to showcase their musical talent, as well as discover the power of performing arts to bring a community together.
Third, I want to talk about something that is difficult to discuss because of continued stigmatisms around mental health in our modern-day society. Over the last several years, tragically, the Sugar Hill community has experienced multiple deaths by suicide. While not isolated to any age group, student health data in both the North Gwinnett Cluster and Lanier Cluster indicate a growing trend of thoughts about suicide. Lending Hope is a partnership between Sugar Hill Church, our local schools, and the Mayor’s Office. Through Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), Bobby Gueh and Diane Andree are training laypeople in suicide awareness and prevention. To date, they have trained nearly ninety people in our community. Future training will include peer leaders at both Lanier High School and North Gwinnett High School. I personally took the two-day training in early Summer and feel better able to lend a helping hand to our parents and school counselors in identifying youth in our community that are struggling mentally. Other individuals like Shamika Battle with Just Heal Counseling and Sharon Wiley with Impact Christian Counseling are coming alongside Lending Hope, to help in this very important effort. By battling the stigmatism associated with suicide and creating hope through awareness and prevention, we are taking steps forward to stop these tragic losses to our community.
Fourth, I am excited to let you know that out of a continued desire to develop leaders at Lanier Middle School, the BMM Enrichment Academy just began its second cohort of students. I first highlighted this amazing organization during my 2023 State of the City Address. In partnership with Lanier Middle School, Lanier High School, Sugar Hill Church, and the Mayor’s Office, BMM is a program developed by Bobby Gueh that focuses on enrichment opportunities for 7th and 8th graders. Chosen by school counselors, these young men spend two years with teachers and mentors like Joy Crowe, Leslie Adames, Alvin Hicks, Barton Robinson, Lamont McLeod, and many other inviduals that come alongside the participants and provide academic and life support. Parents, through Shamika Battle, are also offered coaching and life skill development. The first cohort of students recently started at Lanier High School, and many have joined an extension of the program called Distinguished Gentlemen. I am a mentor for this program and have personally seen lives changed as these young men make lifelong friendships and discover their path in life.
Fifth, it is no secret that I talk a lot about the fact that all the Lanier Cluster Schools are within the city limits of Sugar Hill. Through a partnership with all five of the Lanier Cluster Principals and by hosting annual events like “We Are Lanier”, “Meet the Player”, and the “Lanier Homecoming Parade”, the city is working hard to created traditions and model the importance of community to our youth. This past year’s homecoming parade brought several thousand residents to Downtown Sugar Hill and helped highlight several hundred student athletes from the Lanier Athletic Foundation, Lanier Middle School, and Lanier High School. Youth athletics play a big role in building a sense of community. I am thankful for Principals Christopher Martin, Bryce Fulcher, Stacey Pickett, Nick Boyers, and Kelly Scarbrough for their continued partnership and focus on building community. The Gwinnett County Public School System, recognizing this uniquely important partnership, has produced a video to highlight the Lanier Cluster’s relationship with the city and Sugar Hill Church.
Sixth, I am proud to let you know some details about The Theo Hutchins Inclusive Task Force. It is a great example of the impact of community champions that volunteer their time towards a passion that stirs their hearts. Begun in 2024 and led by Chelsea Hutchins and Samanth Piovesan, this task force is focused on building community awareness and programming for children and adults with diverse abilities. Even though their focus is broad in scope, they are assisting to plan for and eventually construct an inclusive park that will provide an opportunity for us to partner with Sugar Hill Church on a future special needs ministry and bring our community together around a common goal of inclusivity.
Last and certainly not least, beginning on September 22nd, and under the leadership of Leslie Adames from Sycamore Elementary School, all three elementary schools in the Lanier Cluster began participating in a community-wide reading challenge. Sweet Reads is in partnership with the Mayor's Office and part of a statewide effort called Georgia Reads that was started to improve literacy rates among third graders. This challenge will culminate on November 4th with our traditional "Story Walk and Bookmobile" in Downtown Sugar Hill.
As a city and community, we will continue to make our youngest and most important residents a top priority. When our youth have a strong connection to their community, it provides them with a sense of place and makes them more likely to come back to Sugar Hill to live and invest, when they graduate from college or a technical school.
In closing……
It is my honor to serve you and our sweet city, as Mayor. I speak to you today with immense gratitude and pride for the incredible journey we have embarked upon as a community. Our city has had a remarkable transformation over the last several years, and this past year was no different. It is all thanks to the dedication and collaborative spirit of our volunteers, residents, businesses, city staff, and city officials.
Thank you for your trust, your support, and your dedication to making Sugar Hill such a sweet city to live in, work, play, and serve.
May God continue to bless this sweet city and each of you!
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