Economic Development Features

Georgia is the 24th biggest state in the union but it has the second highest number of counties. That's 159 local governments crammed into a tight space, all of them scrambling to provide services for their citizens, accentuating their limited capacities for revenue generation, competing with one another for business, or joining forces to maximize their collective resources.

Seven counties joined forces in a precedent-setting effort to create the Middle Flint Regional E911 Authority. Schley, Dooly, Macon, Marion, Sumter, Taylor and Webster counties formed the authority in late 2001 to provide 911 service for all their residents.

For the seventh year Georgia Trend and the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA) are continuing a partnership to recognize municipalities that have taken unusual steps to get the maximum from their budgets and widen citizens' participation in local government.

A short time after Decatur leaders learned the city had nailed top honors in two separate Trendsetter Award categories, Mayor Bill Floyd was sitting in the local Starbucks musing on a possible connection between stretching the public dollar and encouraging more public input in government.

The only uniforms you'll see at the Gainesville Citizens' Government Academy are those worn by local cops giving a lecture on crime prevention.

By encouraging everyone he works with to throw out ideas, Hinesville city manager Billy Edwards not only saved his town a lot of money, he also helped it capture the 2006 Trendsetter Award for cities of more than 25,000 in the Fiscal Fitness: Stretching the Public Dollar category.

Things are dirt cheap in Jesup, and that's just the way city officials want to keep it. In fact, Jesup lays claim to being the cheapest place in Georgia for purchasing municipal basics. By providing inexpensive services - and a little fun - to its citizens with a dash of small town eccentricity, Jesup charmed the judges into awarding it the top Trendsetter Cities prize in the Fiscal Fitness category for cities with populations of less than 10,000.

Suwanee mayor Nick Masino, whose city won a Trendsetter Award in the Hearing Voices category for small cities, says he is no politician. Yet he has been enjoying a political life that's the dream of most elected officials - running for office with no opposition.