Ramsey: 'Curb Appeal' Helps Businesses

Editor's Note: , , Public Works Director Greg Ramsey, and each spoke at the Powder Springs Business Association's monthly luncheon on Tuesday. Click on each person's name for highlights from their speeches.

Director Greg Ramsey said at Tuesday’s business association luncheon that one of his main goals is to improve the city’s “curb appeal,” which in turn would help businesses.

“If the curb appeal is high,” he said, “people are going to be drawn to your shop, they’re going to be drawn to the city. That’s a very important part of what we do (in Public Works) is curb appeal.”

He mentioned recent efforts to clean up Powder Springs in preparation for several public ceremonies, including , a new flagpole being donated for the Court Services building, for Brent Crawford, and the .

“So we’ve had a lot of public events lately that our folks have gone above and beyond to dress up the city, to clean it up and get it aesthetically pleasing,” he said. 

Ramsey touched on last week being , where citizens were allowed to set out larger items like couches and TVs to be picked up by the city at no extra charge.

“During an ordinary week, we pick of 95 tons of waste. Last week we picked up 163 tons. … You can not imagine the treasures we found,” he joked. 

Ramsey noted a few statistics: the city has about 6,500 water accounts, 5,200 sewer accounts, and 5,400 sanitation accounts.

One citizen asked Ramsey what is being done to prepare if there is a snow storm .

“Ultimately, I can tell you that we can’t prepare for every storm,” he said. “There’s just no way. There’s no way financially feasible to do that kind of thing.”

He added that area transportation officials have been meeting in preparation for the winter, and that neighboring cities are planning to work together.

“We cannot afford to overlap,” he said. “We have to share our resources, share our equipment.”

The city’s salt-sand spreader will be ready by the end of November, the director said.

“We’re going to be prepared as we can be. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be like we live in Pennsylvania. We’re going to do the best we can with what resources we have.”