In May a portion of the East Cobb community was asked about incorporating into a city, more than three years after the issue first came up.
The result of a May 24 referendum was a resounding no, with 73 percent voting against cityhood.
The East Cobb Cityhood referendum was one of three that went down to defeat, along with Lost Mountain and Vinings. In November, voters in Mableton barely approved a cityhood referendum, making it the first new city in Cobb County in more than a century.
But the East Cobb campaign was different from the rest, especially the increasingly contentious tone of the debate.
It started in late 2021, when the East Cobb cityhood group sprung a surprise on the public, adding expensive police and fire services that the other cityhood movements did not include.
Instead of a city of more than 100,000 floated in 2019, the 2022 proposed map showed a population of around 60,000 for a city of East Cobb, roughly along the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
During the 2022 Georgia legislative session, former Rep. Matt Dollar made several changes to legislation calling for the East Cobb referendum, including moving it up from November.
After committee hearings, more changes were made to how the East Cobb city council members and mayor would be selected. Cobb government officials expressed concern that they wouldn’t have time to assess the possible financial impact to the county if cityhood referendums passed.
But the East Cobb bill eased through the legislature, and Dollar promptly resigned his seat to take state government job.
For the next two months, public events got even more heated.
Supporters of cityhood said a new city would curb an incursion of high-density development in East Cobb that was trending elsewhere in the county.
Opponents said a new layer of government wasn’t needed, and that taxes and other local government costs would go up.
In addition to the anti-cityhood East Cobb Alliance, cityhood proponents had to go up against Cobb government officials who said they were providing objective information at town hall meetings.
The cityhood group balked, accusing the county of campaigning against the referendums.
As the referendum date neared, lawsuits were filed to stop the East Cobb, Lost Mountain and Vinings votes, citing unconstitutional provisions.
But a Cobb judge ordered the referendums to go ahead as scheduled.
The East Cobb Alliance turned up the heat further, alleging that the cityhood group added police and fire because it needed the Cobb fire fund millage to avoid imposing additional property tax rates for a new city.
The cityhood group denied that charge and another by the Alliance for not filing a campaign finance report, saying it wasn’t required.
When the final votes were counted, the pro-East Cobb vote won only one precinct, around the Atlanta Country Club where many of the cityhood group’s leaders live.
The cityhood group scrubbed much of its online presence and said little after the vote, telling East Cobb News in a prepared statement that “make no mistake; the facts have not changed. East Cobb will be under increasing growth and tax pressure from Cobb County to urbanize our community. Our polling told a different story from the results last night. Cobb’s policy direction explains why the county worked so hard to stop the cityhood effort(s).”
Mindy Seger of the East Cobb Alliance said after the referendum that there’s an interest in trying to “raise the bar for Georgia’s Cityhood process. The community has the mic, we hope those in authority are listening.”
In October, the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood was fined $5,000 by the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission and submitted a campaign financial disclosure report showing that it had raised $112,525 and spent $64,338.
The East Cobb Alliance reported total contributions nearing $30,000 and disbanded its operations.
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