Judiciary
Court in Atlanta Suburb Is Run by an Engineering Company
The Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs is taking privatization to a higher level.
The town, incorporated in 2005, “has handed off to private enterprise just about every service that can be evaluated through metrics and inked into a contract,” the New York Times reports.
Business licenses, building permits and trash collection are all overseen by employees of private companies, the story says. Even the city’s court is privatized. Administrative duties are handled by employees of the Jacobs Engineering Group. The judge, Lawrence Young, “is essentially a legal temp, paid a flat rate of $100 an hour,” the story says.
Young juggles his court duties with private practice as a trusts lawyer.
