Effective on March 1st, the issue between Gwinnett and 15 of its cities has been upgraded by the State of Georgia.  The 15 cities and Gwinnett are now listed with the state as No Longer Qualified Local Governments.

The cities are: Auburn , Berkeley Lake, Buford, Dacula, Duluth, Grayson, Lawrenceville, Lilburn, Loganville, Norcross, Rest Haven, Snellville, Sugar Hill, Suwanee and Braselton.

At issue are parallel services being offered by Gwinnett County and the individual cities.  Things like police services…  Several of the cities have local police departments, but Gwinnett County Police (one of the largest departments in the state) patrols the same areas.

In effect, the various cities and the county need to come to agreement on exactly who is going to provide which services in which locations.  And they need to do it quickly.  While the cities and the county are on this list, none are eligible to receive state grants, permits or loans.  Stimulus money could be held up or lost if there is a continued stalemate between the parties.

Hopefully they will be able to get this worked out prior to the end of the month and we can be restored before April.

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Late in 2008, Gwinnett County, GA, announced the implementation of a new Waste Management Plan.  I wrote about the announcement here…  You can check out the costs and so forth there…

Just a few weeks later, the plan was killed in court.  The trash haulers that weren’t selected successfully sued the county to stop the plan.  The plan was to take effect on January 2nd, 2009.

It’s Baaack…

On March 2nd, the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners approved the plan.  It has been slightly modified, but is largely the same plan.  Instead of two haulers dividing up the county, now there are five haulers.  The plan is expected to start effective July 1st, 2010.

On the plus side, there should be curbside pick-up for more recyclable materials.  Costs are projected to be almost the same as they are for most private contracts.

Will it hold?  We’ll see…

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The real estate market for Gwinnett County is in a state of flux.  There are wide variations between different location throughout the county, as well as different price strata.  There are a few themes that are readily apparent, but some locations and price ranges are standouts (good or bad)…

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I have been digging around out of curiousity, and came across the budget for Gwinnett County Public Schools.  GCPS spends $8,156/student.  Their total budget proposed for FY2010 is $1.859Billion…  That is a lot of coin.

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While speaking with a prospective client, we touched on home marketing.  As we were discussing it, I was asked about venues and their importance…  “Should we be on Craigslist, MLS, Trulia, Zillow, etc?”

Tags: business of real estate, client protection, gwinnett, marketing, real estate, sellers  |  Posted under all posts, buford, business of real estate, client protection, duluth, gwinnett, lawrenceville, lilburn, loganville, norcross, real estate, sellers, snellville, sugar hill, suwanee  |    View Comments