The heavy hand of a tanking economy hasn’t hit Roswell as hard as other governmental entities, according to the city’s mayor.

“Roswell has not escaped the re-cession, but I believe we have fared better than most,” Mayor Jere Wood told his audience at a His-toric Roswell Kiwanis Club meet-ing.

“I can tell you there will be no property tax increase, we will not have layoffs, we will not have furloughs and we will be able to continue our current level of opera-tions and not drop the level of services,” he said.

This was Wood’s promise de-spite what he said was a projected $2.1 million drop off in revenue in the upcoming budget year.

He credited council with plan-ning for the fiscal slowdown by passing a conservative budget for 2008.

“We have $31 million in sav-ings, and $15 million of that is set aside for a rainy day,” Wood said. “That leaves us $16 million avail-able for capital projects.”

The mayor hinted that he hopes to convince council to spend some of that money when the new budget passes at the end of June.

Due to economic conditions, costs of building supplies are at an all-time low and contractors are bidding out projects at cost just to stay busy, according to Wood. In his view, the city would have lever-age in what is essentially a buyer’s market in the construction arena.

“I see a lot of opportunities for the city of Roswell,” he said.

Transportation issues are the city’s biggest challenges, he said. Among the primary projects he said he hopes to move forward in the upcoming budget are the realign-ment of Oxbo Road with Ga. Hwy 9, a Mansell Road extension and widening South Atlanta Road from three lanes to four lanes. All of these are in various stages of dis-cussion and planning.

“But the biggest project under study right now is what’s come to be called the Big Creek bridge, a bridge over Ga. 400 connecting Old Alabama to Old Roswell Road,” Wood said. “It’s a huge project and a very expensive project but it’s crucial for the long term health of Roswell.”

Projects are completed in phases over a period of years and council members must agree on funding priorities.

Commercial redevelopment is all but dead in Roswell right now, Wood said, with developers post-poning projects until the economic climate improves. “One day we’ll start building again in Roswell. We’ve got some projects on the shelf ready to go when that day comes.”