About 50 residents came out to Ben Robertson Community Center Wednesday for a town-hall meeting with Mayor Mark Mathews. The presentation was similar to his State of the City address given recently to the Kennesaw Business Association.

"We haven't been sitting still," Mathews said. "We have been working to make sure Kennesaw is positioned out front as the economy turns around, and now we're seeing the fruits of our labor."

Some of those "fruits" include more jobs and more housing coming to the city, said Mathews, who also introduced several city council members and staffers who were in attendance.

"When people hear about Kennesaw now, it's a lot different," said Mathews. "We have a fantastic reputation in metro-Atlanta and within the county, and that's due, in large part, to a great, hard-working staff."

One of those staffers, city stormwater manager Jon Whitmer, made a presentation on Kennesaw's aging stormwater system. He defined stormwater as the runoff water from rain or snow melting, which then "runs off" across land.

That water is collected in inlets, pipes, culverts, ditches, and 200 ponds across the city, said Whitmer. "Why worry about it?" he asked. The answer was the damage due to the flooding of 2009, sink holes, increasing maintenance costs, erosion, and water quality.

Kennesaw has 57 miles of aging pipes that will need to be replaced in the next 15 years, said Whitmer, at a cost of about $50 million. "If we take no action, we have fines by the EPA, more flooding issues, but, more importantly, we need to take care of the environment for our kids."

Mathews echoed Whitmer's concerns. "We have to address this subject and will have more meetings about stormwater in the next few months," said Mathews. "This will impact both residential and commercial areas. Get this on your radar."