Judge Reportedly Rules for Cities in Gwinnett Services Dispute

The Service Delivery Strategy dispute between Gwinnett County and the 13 cities in the Gwinnett Municipal Association reportedly has ended in the cities' favor.

Duluth City Administrator Phil McLemore said in an email Monday that "in general it looks like there was a finding on all points for the cities" by Judge David Barrett of Blairsville, who has been presiding in the case. Barrett's office would not comment on the matter.

Randy Meacham of the Gwinnett Municipal Association and Gwinnett County spokespersons could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

The matter dates to 2009, when the county sued the GwMA; the matter concerns cities' costs to the county for services they provide themselves, such as police. The disputed amount has been estimated at $14 million.

One notable sanction resulting from the case is that since Jan. 1, 2011, .

Continued Duluth's McLemore, "The big thing it means is that hopefully it will bring to an end to this SDS and allow us to have an agreement with the county so that our police officers can get back to doing their work of controlling speeders and so forth, using radar, and our citizens maybe see some benefits from reduced county property millage on the services that the city's already providing that the county's not."