Many of the familiar talking points about East Cobb cityhood were made Monday night at a town hall meeting at Wheeler High School.
So were many of the objections to a City of East Cobb that also have been heard for many months.
What was new at the meeting organized by the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb was the proposed map for a City of East Cobb that would be larger than the original, and would include the Pope and Lassiter high school attendance zones.
Cityhood committee members said they just got the map earlier Monday from the state legislative office that draws up such boundaries.
The revision comes several months after a lobbying effort that also included citizens from the Sprayberry High School community, which for now is being left out.
“It could be added now or through annexation,” cityhood leader David Birdwell said.
The original map included most of unincorporated Cobb in Cobb commission District 2 east of I-75. That covered the Walton and most of the Wheeler attendance zones, but only a sliver of the Pope and Lassiter areas and had a population of nearly 90,000 people.
The new population figure wasn’t immediately available, but it could boost a potential City of East Cobb to the second-largest city in metro Atlanta.
‘Wait and see’
The map is part of legislation sponsored at the end of the 2019 session by State Rep. Matt Dollar (R-East Cobb), and that must pass in 2020 for a referendum to be called next fall.
Among the more than 100 people in attendance at the Wheeler auditorium was State. Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, a Republican of East Cobb who is a critical player in the process.
State law requires cityhood bills to have local sponsors in each chamber of the legislature. Kirkpatrick and State Rep. Sharon Cooper, who also was in attendance Monday, have said they have not formed an opinion on East Cobb cityhood.
Kirkpatrick told East Cobb News she’s been getting plenty of anti-cityhood sentiment from constituents, and that she wants to give the pro-cityhood forces a chance to “make their case.”
Her perspective, she said for now, remains “wait and see.” During the town hall, she said she would do some polling near the end of the year and said she continues to welcome feedback from citizens, no matter how they feel about the issue.
The cityhood committee also has retained two high-profile lobbyists for the 2020 legislative session.
When a citizen asked Kirkpatrick about Dollar’s whereabouts, she said he had been out of the country and would be returning Tuesday.
The crowd occasionally grew boisterous during a question-and-answer period. Questions were to have been written on note cards, but some shouted out questions or made statements, often in opposition to cityhood.
Others were concerned about how East Cobb cityhood would affect public schools. When Birdwell repeatedly said there would be no effect on schools—including the Cobb senior tax exemption—some citizens still interrupted.
By Georgia law, new cities cannot create school districts. School districts remain in such cities like Marietta, which have had them for many years.
We’ll have more from Monday’s meeting and other cityhood news after a forum on Tuesday between Birdwell and Bill Simon of the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes cityhood.
That forum will take place at a luncheon of the East Cobb Business Association.
And as soon as we get a better map of the revised City of East Cobb proposed boundaries, we’ll post that here too. Birdwell said it may take time for the state legislative office to make that available to the public.
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