Future Dalton Mayor weighs in on Service Delivery Strategy disagreement

DALTON, Ga. (WDEF) – The Dalton Mayor-Elect is speaking out over an ongoing disagreement with Whitfield County.

The governments will be going into mandatory mediation to agree to a Service Delivery Strategy.

This comes as the county and city couldn’t see eye to eye on a strategy before their current one expired last month.

Cities and counties are required by law to negotiate a strategy every ten years.

It outlines services and funding for the services the governments will give residents.

Former and future Mayor David Pennington said that the agreement should’ve been taken care of sooner.

He added that the county and city need to focus on combining duplicate services.

“We’ve got multiple cities in a lot of these counties and you end up with a overlapping services where the citizens have to pay for it and it really hits harder on cities because the county can tax city residents, but the city can’t tax unincorporated county residents,” Pennington said.

“We could save millions of dollars. I really believe, that if we combine a lot of these services.”

With no strategy, governments can lose financial assistance and grants.

According to Dalton Communications Director Bruce Frazier, the city and county recently filed a joint motion in court for those penalties to be halted until next May so they can finish mediation.