After the Georgia legislature passed a law in the early 2000s making it easier to create new cities, referendums passed with relative ease.
Sandy Springs voters started off in 2005 by approving a cityhood referendum with nearly 94 percent of the vote.
Similar votes in North Fulton also passed easily, including Johns Creek (88 percent in 2006) and Milton (85 percent, also in 2006).
Those two cities have been referred to often by proponents of East Cobb Cityhood during the campaign that culminates with a referendum on Tuesday.
Dunwoody, Brookhaven and Peachtree Corners also came into being as cities between 2008-2012.
But in recent years, cityhood votes have been faltering.
The three Cobb cityhood referendums on Tuesday’s ballots—including Lost Mountain and Vinings—are the first such votes in Georgia since 2019.
That year, voters in Skidaway Island, near Savannah, rejected cityhood by roughly a 62-38 margin.
Failed referendums in 2018 took place in Eagles Landing (Henry County) and Sharon Springs, which would have created only the second city in Forsyth County.
The latter referendum did get a majority of voters in support, with 54 percent voting yes. But the Sharon Springs charter stipulated that the referendum had to pass with 57 percent of the vote.
Dating back to 2015, in fact, only three cityhood referendums have passed, in Tucker and Stonecrest in DeKalb County and the City of South Fulton, where an initial referendum in 2007 was handily defeated.
The Skidaway referendum is the only cityhood vote to take place outside of metro Atlanta since 2005.
That was in March 2019, as the initial East Cobb cityhood legislation was being introduced, and as that first cityhood group was finally meeting the public.
Before town hall meetings began in East Cobb, Charlie Harper, a Cobb-based political consultant, wondered if the cityhood movement was losing its steam, and specifically its message of promising better government with local control instead of less government.
Those have been the conflicting messages of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood and the anti-Cityhood East Cobb Alliance, respectively, in what’s become an increasingly bitter campaign.
Harper also thought it was a good time to “re-evaluate the rush to cityhood in many cases. We need to set a higher bar before pitting neighbor against neighbor. There needs to be a clear and consistent reason why we should.”
The cityhood movement picked up in Cobb after Democrats gained control of the Cobb Board of Commissioners and Republican elected officials expressed concern over high-density development in more suburban areas.
The GOP-dominated legislature easily passed the three cityhood bills calling for Tuesday’s referendums, as well as another to take place in November in Mableton.
There has not been a new city in Cobb County for more than 100 years.
While the East Cobb Cityhood group said it was not doing any formal polling, State Sen. John Albers, a North Fulton Republican who carried the East Cobb Cityhood bill in the Senate, said he thinks the vote could go either way.
He has been involved in some of those cityhood referendums in North Fulton, and said those new cities have largely been governed smoothly. (Like East Cobb, Johns Creek and Milton are affluent communities that are providing police and fire services.)
There were initial problems on the Milton City Council due to some personality conflicts that required the help of an industrial psychologist.
But of the last five cityhood votes that were approved, three passed with less than 60 percent of the vote. The exception was Tucker, with 74 percent of the vote.
The following is a summary of the 15 cityhood votes that have taken place since 2005. State Rep. Mitchell Kaye said he requested the information from the House Budget and Research Office.
He was sworn in earlier this week to fill out the rest of the term of Matt Dollar, the chief East Cobb Cityhood bill sponsor.
Kaye said he was initially undecided about cityhood but now is opposed, saying he doesn’t think a City of East Cobb could improve upon current county public safety services.
He said while he was initially pleased at the level of community engagement when the referendum campaign began, he’s troubled by more recent dialogue that has “taken on a more personal tone.
“I hope our community can come together however the vote turns out,” Kaye said.
| County | Year | Vote | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sandy Springs | Fulton | 2005 | Yes, 93% |
| Johns Creek | Fulton | 2006 | Yes, 88% |
| Milton | Fulton | 2006 | Yes, 85% |
| South Fulton | Fulton | 2007 | No, 84% |
| Chattahoochee Hills | Fulton | 2007 | Yes, 83% |
| Dunwoody | DeKalb | 2008 | Yes, 81% |
| Peachtree Corners | Gwinnett | 2012 | Yes, 57% |
| Brookhaven | DeKalb | 2012 | Yes, 54% |
| Tucker | DeKalb | 2015 | Yes, 74% |
| LaVista Hills | DeKalb | 2015 | No, 50.5% |
| Stonecrest | DeKalb | 2016 | Yes, 56% |
| South Fulton | Fulton | 2016 | Yes, 59% |
| Sharon Springs | Forsyth | 2018 | No* |
| Eagles Landing | Henry | 2018 | No, 56% |
| Skidaway Island | Chatham | 2019 | No, 62% |
(* 54 percent of Sharon Springs voters approved the cityhood referendum, but it failed because “yes” votes needed to cross a 57 percent threshold)
Related:
- East Cobb groups spar over police, fire as cityhood vote looms
- East Cobb Cityhood group decries ‘cancel culture attack’ on founder
- East Cobb Cityhood debate rehashes finances, development claims
- Glitch leaves off East Cobb Cityhood referendum on some ballots
- Cobb judge orders East Cobb Cityhood referendum to proceed
- At Cityhood debate, citizens asked to keep an open mind
- East Cobb News Cityhood information page
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This story is not “news.” Why not talk about East Cobb Cityhood’s failure to file campaign disclosures, or the revelation that the first draft of the 2021 feasibility study said the city would only be feasible if they added public safety services so they could use our fire fund to pay for other city operations? Or perhaps why not report on the fact that the bill’s sponsor, Matt Dollar, moved outside the proposed city boundaries in February yet voted using a false address, signing an affidavit swearing he lived at his already sold condo.
A more interesting story could be that despite the rumors cityhood is perpetuating, the East Cobb Alliance is multi-partisan, and many many republicans are against cityhood because they don’t want more government and higher taxes and fees.
This publication could do so much better Wendy Parker.
Earlier this week we published a thorough report on the subject of public safety services—and not for the first time—that you may have missed:
http://eastcobbnews.com/east-cobb-groups-spar-over-police-fire-as-cityhood-vote-looms/
It’s easy to single out a few stories that fit a narrative you want to emphasize at the end of a long referendum campaign, but this publication has covered all facets of the cityhood issue more comprehensively than any other news outlet, and it’s not even close.
The new cities in North Fulton, including Sandy Springs were serving as a cash cow for Fulton County government. Those residents had more tangible reasons to want to separate themselves from county government. DeKalb County was once the finest in the state but has been in a long, slow decline. The fear is that Cobb County will go the same way with Democrat governance. However, the urgency to form new cities in Cobb is not justified. And then there’s the City of Stonecrest in DeKalb, the posted child for diadtrous city government.