East Cobb cityhood effort delayed: ‘We want to take the time to do it right’

The Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb announced Thursday it will not be pursuing legislation next year that would call for a referendum later in 2020.

A bill introduced this year by State Rep. Matt Dollar of East Cobb was to have been considered in the upcoming legislative session.

But after two public events last month, including the announcement of an expanded proposed city map, the cityhood group said it’s opting to go through another two-year legislative cycle.

“We are committed to continuing this process,” cityhood CEO David Birdwell said in a statement. “We want to take the time to do it right because we know that the more educated voters are on this issue, the more they will support it.”

East Cobb News has left messages with Birdwell and Dollar seeking comment.

Rob Eble, another cityhood leader, told East Cobb News the group “got a lot of feedback,” and “people feel like the process was rushed. That was the biggest complaint.

“We really took that to heart. The last thing we want is for this to be divisive and this was becoming divisive.”

Eble said the cityhood group wants to make a renewed effort to engage more with the public.

He acknowledged that while there are those who oppose cityhood, others said they weren’t sure what they thought but felt they didn’t have enough information and felt the process was being rushed.

Related stories

• Cityhood opponents unveil revised map estimate
• Dollar: Proposed map revisions still in progress
• Editor’s Note: A golden goose, and boiling frogs
• Cityhood group releases names of committee members
• Pro- and anti-cityhood forces square off in debate
• Proposed city map expands to include Pope, Lassiter districts
• Cityhood group hires high-profile state lobbyists
• More East Cobb News Cityhood coverage

Last month, the cityhood group conducted a town hall meeting at Wheeler High School and participated in a debate with cityhood opponents.

The cityhood group had not made any further public comments or appearances since then, until Thursday’s announcement.

The expanded map was to have included the Pope and Lassiter attendance zones, but the cityhood group has not produced a detailed map for the public.

Legislators, including State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick of East Cobb, who would be the bill’s likely sponsor in the Senate, said they haven’t seen a map.

When contacted by East Cobb News Thursday, Kirkpatrick said she was glad for the cityhood delay, because of feedback she got from constituents.

“I think that’s a wise decision,” she said. “This is going to be much more fair to the people of East Cobb.”

She said the group was running out of time to have a new map ready for the legislative session, and constituents were all over the map on what they thought about cityhood.

Kirkpatrick said some were opposed, others worried about their taxes going up, and some were concerned about development issues.

“There’s just been a lot of confusion,” she said, referring to the changing map and suggestions to change the proposed services of a City of East Cobb.

She said she was preparing to do a poll before the legislature begins, but holding off on cityhood for now “is a better approach.”

Earlier this week, the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes cityhood, produced what it called its best estimate of the revised map. Birdwell estimated the new population would exceed 115,000.

The Alliance said it still considers the legislation active, since the cityhood group “is no longer in control of what happens in the Legislature.” 

“Until/Unless [Dollar] says he will withdraw the bill, and does withdraw the bill, he can, and very well may, continue to push this bill forward, regardless of what the Cityhood Committee says they want.”

Dollar, who sponsored the cityhood bill in the house on the next-to-the-last day of the 2019 legislative session, told East Cobb News earlier this month that the map was still being revised and probably would be until the 2020 General Assembly starts.

Eble said the map Birdwell showed during the Wheeler town hall was an estimate done by a GIS firm for the cityhood group.

“That’s one of the reasons we don’t want to do this during the legislative session,” Eble said.

The decision to delay cityhood comes a little more than a year after the group unveiled a financial feasibility study conducted by Georgia State University.

That study concluded that a City of East Cobb, in unincorporated Cobb in Cobb Commission District 2 east of I-75 and with a population of 96,000 was financially viable.

The study concluded that a city could provide community development, police and fire services at or below the current Cobb millage rates, and with a surplus.

But skeptics of the study and of cityhood emerged quickly, as the group declined to identify donors and others pushing for a municipality.

The group asked several citizens to examine the feasibility study. One of them, Joe O’Connor, quit the ad hoc group when he was told it was none of his business to know who funded the study.

O’Connor said he was told most of the study was funded by Owen Brown of the East Cobb-based Retail Planning Corp., which leases shopping center space. Brown is the cityhood group’s treasurer, but the refusal to name others has fueled suspicions of development interests behind the cityhood drive.

Earlier this year, Birdwell, a retired entrepreneur with a real estate background, became the public spokesman for the cityhood group and is listed as its CEO.

He conducted the first public meeting involving the cityhood group, during commissioner Bob Ott’s town hall meeting in March, and was met with skeptical and at times hostile reaction.

Under state law, cityhood bills must go through a two-year cycle. A bill would have to be reintroduced in 2021 and must be passed by the full legislature by 2022 for a referendum to take place.

Alliance leader Bill Simon said his group will continue to track Dollar’s bill unless or until “it dies in committee, or is defeated in the Legislature. One thing we know from experience in watching the Georgia Legislature: Nothing is ever guaranteed, and we trust nothing we hear or read when it comes to legislation.”

Eble said the cityhood group’s plan is “not to give up,” but to use public feedback it received to offer a fresh approach to connecting with the public.

“We made some mistakes,” he said, “but there’s no ulterior motive here.”

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