To All My Neighbors and Friends,

Alpharetta will go to the polls next Tuesday to decide who is best to lead our City as your Mayor over the course of the next four years.

The Mayor’s first and foremost responsibility is to keep our City safe. This is an imperative if we are to provide the quality of life deserving of our families, to sustain our stature as a business address of choice and to retain and attract jobs in our City.

During my tenure on the City Council, I worked with our Public Safety leadership, to re-organize our service delivery model. We consolidated administrative duties between our Police and Fire Departments, removed duplicate processes, positioned Alpharetta to obtain a higher level of public safety and homeland security grant dollars and we where able to put more police and firefighters on our streets. This was accomplished with an annual savings to the taxpayer of over $500,000 per year. And by the way, this was accomplished while improving our level of services to the City.

As your next Mayor, I would want to lead on the following new initiatives:

Outreach to Our Youth -

Partner with our schools to provide anti-drug/anti-alcohol education in our schools and work towards engaging our youth with our Police and Fire personnel to reach common goals and common respect.

Enhance Community Policing -

Enhance our patrols within our subdivisions and communities to have a more visual presence, thereby creating more of a deterrent for potential criminal activities within our communities.

Bolster Up Cross Swearing of Police Officers with Bordering Cities -

Continue to complete our efforts to cross swear our officers with police officers from bordering Cities. This will allow all Cities to coordinate and build a more robust cross-City borders proactive policing posture. This will legally allow all police officers to become more effective and build a improved policing model at no additional cost to the taxpayer.

Support the Needs of Our Police and Fire Professionals -

Your next Mayor needs to lead on maintaining a safe City, while recognizing that our greatest asset in maintaining a safe City are the professionals who carry out the job of keeping us safe. Our Public Safety professionals need a Mayor who understands and meets their needs so that they can be as effective for us as possible This means maintaining competitive salaries, providing for ongoing educational and training needs in a changing world, and providing the assets required to do their jobs effectively and safely.

I want to thank our Police and Fire professionals who have done an outstanding job in working hard to keep us safe 24/7. As a former firefighter myself, I know first hand the amount of time and effort that is required of our Public Safety professionals. I attended many Command Staff meetings and other Public Safety events during my tenure as your City Councilman these past 10 years and saw first hand the dedication and commitment our Public Safety Officials demonstrate in all that they do.

I am ready and willing to serve you as your next Mayor and maintaining a safe City will be a top priority for me.

I thank you for taking the time to read this and ask for your vote next Tuesday, November 8th.

Regards,

Douglas J. DeRito