By Annie Piekarczyk / Staff

Roswell City Council didn’t have a meeting last week, but that didn’t mean Councilwoman-elect Nancy Diamond wasn’t thinking about her plans for the city. She starts her position on council tomorrow evening, and the first thing she would like to accomplish while in office is reaching out to existing businesses in Roswell to determine what the council can do to help them be more successful, while exploring potential opportunities in the city.

Diamond replaces two-term incumbent Lori Henry, who gave up her council seat to run unsuccessfully for mayor in 2009.

“The Mayor and council are all committed to Roswell’s benefit,” said Diamond. “And we seem to be on the same page conceptually for working toward a positive redevelopment future.”

As redevelopment and growth were two paramount issues surrounding the elections, as well as many other critical issues with long-term implications, Diamond would like to help advance the processes by crafting economic incentives to encourage quality redevelopment in Roswell's blighted areas.

“One of my top priorities is setting the stage for successful redevelopment opportunities so that we are ready when the economy improves,” said Diamond. “This will require helping our Community Development department by streamlining, simplifying and organizing the rules they are given to work with, as well as packaging our city, our ‘product,’ to attract the best options for new or additional enterprises.” 

A lifelong North Fulton citizen, Diamond feels it’s her time to give back to the city. For Diamond, that meant bringing her knowledge of Roswell and the relationships she’s built in 25 years to her new position.

Diamond says her other priorities include transportation projects that are “needed for our quality of life and to accommodate whatever new business we attract."

Next to transportation, Diamond said the west side of Roswell is in need of one new fire station, and a replacement of an old one on the east side.

However, the downturn in the economy won’t make fulfilling those objectives particularly easy. Therefore, Diamond says she'll position herself as a councilwoman with a “do more with less” mantra.

“If we can use this downturn in the economy to do some preparation and organization, Roswell is certainly in a position to be extremely competitive with the surrounding areas,” said Diamond.

Roswell is in better shape than some other cities, Diamond said, because it is largely funded by residential taxes. “However, I believe that lower commercial tax income has hindered us in getting some capital improvement projects done. Funding… is not as available.”

Crucial to solving those issues, Diamond believes, is redeveloping empty and negative-impact commercial areas while attracting businesses.