I am running in a Special Election this fall for the Council Seat that is vacant due to the untimely death of Councilman Marshall Cheek. I would like to honor his legacy by serving the last year of his term.  

After I retired as Chair of the Music Department and Director of Bands at Georgia Tech, Janet and I moved to Norcross in 2003 and immediately became active in the community.  I believe that serving as your Mayor from 2008-18 gives me the experience to represent your interests from day one. 

I have the passion, time and ability to fill this important position.  My pledge to you is to help make our City more efficient and effective by weighing the merits of each item that comes before the Council.  Using your input, I will look for ways to make our community stronger and more vibrant.  I am asking for your vote and support.

These are the areas that I believe are important to the community:

·  Prioritizing safety and security for citizens and businesses

·  Keeping taxes low and maintaining high levels of service

·  Enhancing quality of life experiences

·  Managing measured growth and development

I’m in favor of:

·      Maintaining a high level of public safety

·      Zero based budgeting

·      Improving Customer Service, especially in the Planning Department

·      Encouraging active citizen involvement (possibly through a Citizen Advisory Council)

·      Limiting school traffic cameras to give citations only when caution lights are blinking (currently they are active during the entire school day)

·      The Canopy @ Crooked Creek Mixed Use Project as amended and presented at the October 7 PDC meeting (they originally had 150 apartments for 55+, listened to community input, and made a change to roughly 50 owner-occupied flats above enclosed, secured parking (this will reduce the building footprint dramatically).

If elected, I promise that I will get back to you within 24 hours with a response to your question/concern and if I don’t have the answer, I’ll do my best to find it for you.  No matter who wins the election, I encourage you to engage the Mayor and Council.  It would be great to hear from many voices, both pro and con, on issues that face our City. I am asking for your vote and support as we move forward as a community that can be respectful of everyone’s right and responsibility to speak authentically.

Here are five areas that had a major impact on the City that I had a hand in accomplishing while I was Mayor.  I will use the same collaboration, creativity and persistence in my role as your Council representative.

1.    When I was elected Mayor in 2008, I saw a real problem the long-term costs of the Norcross water and sewer system since Gwinnett County provided water and treated sewage. Norcross had to maintain all the pipes, install new pipes as needed and do monthly billing and collections.  I empaneled a citizen committee to study the options and they unanimously recommended that we sell the system to the County saving the citizens a tax increase.  The County did a thorough study and purchased the system from the City. Since then, the County has invested over $15,000,000 for repairs and upgrades. The cost per customer has been only a slight increase.

2.    I was attending a leadership conference and happened to sit beside an engineer with the Georgia Department of Transportation.  I mentioned to him that Norcross and the The Gwinnett Village Community Improvement District (now Gateway 85 CID) were trying to get a TIGER grant from the Federal Government to replace the Jimmy Carter Blvd bridge so that more lanes would be available to ease traffic congestion.  He said that the bridge replacement would cost $65,000,000 and be almost impossible to get because the bridge was in good shape and would not be high on the priority list plus the disruption due to construction would be difficult to endure.  He mentioned that there was a way to increase the throughput of the bridge by 45% by creating a Diverging Diamond. As it turns out that cost was $1,500,000.  The CID under Chuck Warbington’s guidance, pushed that through the state and  County and we were the first Diverging Diamond in Georgia.  Many followed suit: today there are seven (7) active Diverging Diamonds, four (4) under construction and three (3) in development in the state.

3.    Gwinnett County and the 16 cities that are in the County (or partially in the County) are mandated by the State of Georgia to have a Service Delivery Agreement (defining which governmental entity pays for each service) in place after each census.  The two groups fought for four years attempting to come to an agreement and even went to court but still could not settle.  I was the President of the Gwinnett Municipal Association during the fourth year of the discussions and was named the lead negotiator for the cities.  I met with Charlotte Nash, just elected as Chair of the Gwinnett County Commission, and we came to an agreement on a settlement that all parties ratified unanimously. It saved different amounts for each City, but the ones that had their own police saved the most.  Since 2014, Norcross residents have saved 2.2 mils on their County tax bill and we also began to receive 911 fees that help fund our dispatch center (prior to that the County received 100% of the 911 fees).

4.    I witnessed numerous wrecks and close calls at the railroad intersection at Holcomb Bridge Road.  I recommended, and the Council agreed, that the City get an engineering company to see if there was a viable plan to improve the safety of that crossing.  They came up with an elegant solution, but we had to get the Norfolk Southern Railway and the County to agree.  We not only got consent, but the County paid 90% of the construction cost and the City only paid 10%.

5.    The Norcross Library used to be located on Buford Highway, south of Norcross Tucker Road.  It was one of the busiest libraries in the County.  The County was going to put an addition on the existing library.  Councilman Keith Shewbert had the idea of relocating a brand-new library next to Lillian Webb Park which is close to three schools and the downtown (Suwanee and Lilburn had accomplished that in their downtowns).  Norcross purchased the land next to Buford Highway and I helped negotiate a land swap with the County so that the future Norcross Police Station could go to the former library location and the new expanded library could be built in downtown.  The state-of-the-art Norcross Public Safety Building recently opened.

Additional City accomplishments during my 10 year term:

·      Norcross awarded Platinum Green Community by the Atlanta Regional Commission

·      Revamp of Thrasher Park including new pavilion with bathrooms and playground

·      Pinnacle Point Park purchased and developed

·      Discovery Garden Park developed

·      Public Works and Norcross Electric moved from downtown to Lively Street

·      Cotton Gin purchased by Downtown Development Authority and redeveloped

·      Splash pad added to Lillian Webb Park

·      Buford Highway safety and beautification installed

·      Right-of-way purchased and new streetscape installed on Holcomb Bridge

·      Astroturf soccer field and community building built between Summerour Middle School and Beauty Baldwin Elementary School

·      Crossing parking lot reopened to the public

If you would like to contact me to discuss your ideas for our community or would allow me to place a sign in your yard, you can reach me at bucky.johnson@comcast.net or by text or phone at (678) 361-7108. 

About the Election:

Advance voting will be available at City Hall from Tuesday, October 13 through Friday, October 30, as well as Saturdays, October 17 and 24, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Election Day voting will be November 3, 2026, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.