That led the business community to come together and pledge themselves to putting private dollars into beefing up what everyone knows is an understaffed police force citywide, buckhead is a huge commercial node. It's arguably one of the biggest retail entertainment nodes in the southeast. And what was going on just hurt everybody, by reputation and physically.

Councilmember Shook

My constituents don't compare Zone 2 crime stats to Zone 5 crime stats. They are human beings. They compare how they feel now about crime and how they think they remember feeling about crime 10 years ago, and I will tell you, statistics bear out the fact that their instincts and feelings are correct. Things are much worse here, relatively speaking, than they were 10 years ago.

Councilmember Shook

I can tell you that crime, traffic and taxes are numbers one, two and three that I hear from constituents. The order of one to three varies from year to year. The spread usually is not as wide as it is now – pretty much the only thing I hear about is crime, and then you drop way, way, way down to the number two concern, which is infrastructure.

Councilmember Shook