Johns Creek Mayor Criticised After Radio Interview

Johns Creek Mayor Mike Bodker Discounts Efforts of Volunteer Firefighters and Says Johns Creek Residents Care About Other Topics More Than A Fire Department

In Radio Interview With The Regular Guys of Rock 100.5

In a radio interview with The Regular Guys of Atlanta’s Rock 100.5, Johns Creek Mayor Mike Bodker said a Fire Department is not a real one if it’s staffed with volunteers, ridiculed the Fulton County Government once again and said the Johns Creek residents don’t really care about having its own fire department.

The interview took place on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008 as a radio debate between Mayor Bodker and The Regular Guys.

To listen to Mayor Bodker’s full interview with The Regular Guys visit www.LoveShackOnline.com/pressportal.html or www.RegularGuys.com.

Mayor Bodker insulted the nearly 800,000 volunteer firefighters in the United States when he said, “For many years you didn’t have a real fire department yourself.”

Mayor Bodker was referring to the city of Roswell because they used volunteers in the past. Volunteer firefighters account for nearly 73% of firefighters in the United States. Of the total estimated 1,064,150 firefighters across the country, 777,350 are volunteers.

In fact, the majority of fire departments in the United States are volunteers. Of the total 26,354 fire departments in the country, more than 23,000 of them are either mostly volunteer or all volunteer.

“Perhaps Mayor Bodker needs a history lesson as much as he needs assistance in governing Johns Creek,” said Love Shack owner John Cornetta. “I know his name is a relatively unknown one in the history of the United States, but some guy that helped draft the Declaration of Independence and invented bifocals also established the first volunteer fire department in 1736. His name is Benjamin Franklin.”

Later in the interview, when The Regular Guys said, “I don’t think you can call it (Johns Creek) a city if you don’t have your own fire department “, Mayor Bodker replied with “Why don’t we measure a couple of other things that people might actually care about.”

The questions must be asked of the citizens of Johns Creek, “Does your mayor really care about public safety? And do you care about having your own fire and police department?”

In an article written by Doug Nurse in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on May 14, 2007, Nurse said the average response time for firefighters citywide is about 6 minutes, but it can take 11 minutes for county emergency workers to reach some parts of Johns Creek.

That’s nearly three times what the National Fire Protection Association recommends.

“Mayor Bodker has wasted more than $150,000 of the Johns Creek residents’ tax dollars to try to shut down the Love Shack in Johns Creek,” said Love Shack owner John Cornetta. “Despite the city of Johns Creek being in operation for more than a year now, the city still does not have its own fire or police department. Now Mayor Bodker has the audacity to appear on Atlanta radio and tell thousands of Atlanta’s volunteer firefighters that they don’t count as real firefighters!

“This man continues to prove that he is unfit and incompetent to complete his duties as Mayor of Johns Creek. He is a Mayor with no prior government experience and he ran unopposed in his quest to become Mayor of Johns Creek. Unfortunately for the thousands of Johns Creek residents, which includes myself, he has three more years in office.”

Mayor Bodker also continued his personal vendetta against Fulton County Government when he said on air, “I could say positive things about the (Fulton County) School System, I’m not going to say such positive things about Fulton County Government.”

But in the same interview he said, “We have hired Fulton County (firefighters). We utilize the fine young men and women of Fulton County to deliver those services today.”

This is the same Fulton County whom Mayor Bodker continually puts down and recently said in a press release posted on the Johns Creek website “Once again, a majority of Fulton County commissioners chose to throw their citizens to the wolves and abdicate their responsibility to preserve the community’s quality of life by failing to deal with their past mistakes,” Mayor Bodker said. “We keep paying and paying tax dollars to Fulton County leaders with the expectation that they will protect our citizens and our quality of life.”

This press release can be found in its entirety at http://johnscreekga.gov/news/2007-12-05_billboards.html .

Which is it Mayor Bodker? Is Fulton County Government good enough for you to rely on to supply emergency fire and police efforts to the citizens of Johns Creek or is the Fulton County Government failing to protect the Johns Creek citizens and preserve its quality of life?

Meanwhile, the Cornetta Charitable Foundation, the non-profit charity started by Cornetta, still has more than $4,000 money earmarked for the city of Johns Creek to build a fire department. This money has still not been accepted by the city of Johns Creek.

The Cornetta Charitable Foundation has already donated almost $4,000 to two families that saw a loved one perish in a Johns Creek fire on May 28, 2007.