Here’s the first look at the new East Cobb Cityhood bill filed Monday by State Rep. Matt Dollar (you can read through it here).
As we reported on Thursday, this had to be done before the Georgia legislative session ends on Wednesday because cityhood bills must follow a two-year process.
Should the legislature pass the cityhood bill next year, there will be a Nov. 2022 referendum by eligible voters in the proposed City of East Cobb, which has been scaled down from the 2019 boundaries.
Here are the main components of how a City of East Cobb, with a proposed population of around 55,000, would work:
- It would provide zoning and planning, code enforcement and parks and recreation services in what proponents are calling a preservation effort;
- The East Cobb City Council would have six elected members from three posts, which would have two members each. One member from each post must be elected city-wide;
- A special election would be held in March 2023 to elect council members;
- A mayor would then be chosen by a council majority to serve a two-year term and could serve up to two consecutive terms;
- There would be a city manager and a city clerk, an outsourced city attorney and a municipal court;
- Property taxes would be capped at 1 mill, but the city would collect other revenues such as franchise fees, occupation and business taxes, licensing, permits, assessments and other fees;
- Starting Dec. 1, 2023, the city would begin collecting taxes, fees and other revenues at the start of a transition period from county government that ends on Dec. 31, 2025.
What’s not in the bill are council district maps.
The new city boundaries (you can view the map here) include areas south of Shallowford Road and east of Murdock Road and Old Canton Road, in much of the Walton High School attendance zone.
The 2019 proposed map included areas in the Wheeler High School cluster and was being expanded to include more of the Pope and Lassiter clusters when the cityhood group abandoned its effort.
Those areas have been removed; the 2019 bill called for police and fire services that are not part of the new legislation.
Three other cityhood bills have been filed by Cobb legislators in the 2021 session, including two new ones, for a City of Lost Mountain in West Cobb and a City of Vinings.
In 2019 a bill was filed for a City of Mableton and that was also re-introduced this year.
Dollar has a co-sponsor this time, something he didn’t have in 2019, in fellow East Cobb Republican State Rep. Sharon Cooper. She said at the time she was collecting information like other citizens; during a campaign forum late last year she said as far as she was concerned the cityhood matter is “a dead issue.”
The bill still needs a Senate sponsor, and State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, an East Cobb Republican, has been reluctant to add her name because of what she says has been a lot of negative response from constituents.
The bill is expected to be assigned to the House Governmental Affairs Committee, just like the 2019 legislation, where it will be taken up at the start of the 2022 legislative session.
The revamped East Cobb Cityhood group has said it will be conducting a new feasibility study, another requirement for a cityhood bill, but that process has not yet begun.
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Compare the two groups by going to their Facebook pages. The Alliance is non-partisan, including small-government conservatives, republicans, democrats, independents, and libertarians. The Alliance allows comments and welcomes feedback.
The Cityhood group is . . . ( who knows? They won’t reveal who is behind the Facebook page, the website, or the effort). The Cityhood group deletes comments and won’t allow discussion or feedback on its forum.
This idea was first proposed after HRC won Cobb in the 2016 election. It had fizzled out by early last year when it seemed like Trump’s reelection was a slam-dunk. Then we were hit with covid + a summer of unrest. Fast forward to November elections, Biden takes Cobb and the county Board of Commissioners goes from 4 republicans and 1 democrat to 3 democrats and 2 republicans. All the sudden, COEC is back on the table. But yeah, it’s all about taxes.
Thank you EC News for your reporting on this. It would be helpful if those in favor of cityhood could identify the current actual and perceived forces that necessitate this “preservation” initiative (other than a shop on JF whose biz license has been revoked by a unanimous vote of the Cobb Commissioners).
I notice they carved out most of the areas they had in the LAST city of East Cobb that voted blue in the election this time. That’s pretty telling. Worried that lowers the property values? And yet, they’re still saying this is about avoiding being annexed.
No one in the areas they’ve proposed has ever been in ANY danger of being annexed into a neighboring city. This is now and has always been about one thing and one thing only: sweet land deals for people like Matt Dollar, who is a commercial realtor, to profit upon by siphoning up the East Cobb tax base.
They should just call it the City of Walton, as it’s clear the proponents think that only the Walton school district deserves to be “preserved” and that it needs to be separated from us riff-raff in the rest of East Cobb.