Mableton cityood leaders Tre’ Hutchins and Galt Porter spoke at an East Cobb cityhood town hall meeting at Walton High School in early 2019.
The last of four Cobb cityhood bills to pass the Georgia legislature this year was the only referendum approved by voters.
After cityhood bills failed in May in East Cobb, Lost Mountain and Vinings, a majority of voters in the proposed city of Mableton voted to create a new municipality on Tuesday.
It will the first new city in Cobb in more than 100 years and also the county’s largest city, with around 77,000 residents.
Voters approved the measure 53-47 percent (full results here), and by about 1,487 votes.
The reason the Mableton referendum didn’t get on the May ballot is because the bill took longer to make its way through the legislature.
The three failed Cobb cityhood referendums were pushed through in quick order by Republican lawmakers who wanted to accelerate the referendum date to May 24, the date of the Georgia primaries.
But that’s not the only different set of circumstances separating the Mableton cityhood effort from the others.
The South Cobb Alliance, created to support cityhood, began holding town hall meetings and other community events in 2015. Its leaders, unlike organizers in East Cobb, weren’t reluctant to be in the spotlight.
For a larger view of the Mableton city map, click here.
Also unlike East Cobb, Mableton cityhood leaders weren’t proposing expensive public safety services.
They included Galt Porter, at the time a member of the Cobb Planning Commission, and Tre’ Hutchins, who’s now a member of the Cobb Board of Education.
Their message was that their area wasn’t getting proper services from Cobb County government, especially development.
The proposed services in Mableton are planning and zoning, code enforcement and sanitation.
The East Cobb and Mableton cityhood groups revived their efforts in 2021, and vocal opposition arose in those communities, as well as in Lost Mountain and Vinings.
Cobb government officials also held town halls in all four communities, insisting they were impartial, but drawing objections from pro-cityhood groups.
The Preserve South Cobb group, which opposes Mableton cityhood, says it may be pursuing a deannexation process in precincts of the new city in which 70 percent or more voted against the referendum.
A full transition to cityhood will take two years, with Gov. Brian Kemp appointing a transition committee to get the process started. Mableton will have a mayor selected at-large and six city council members elected by districts (see map).
Those elections will start next March, and they will be non-partisan.
Mableton was a city from 1912 to 1916, then became unincorporated after flood damage was too cost prohibitive in the city’s budget. No other cities in Cobb have been created since.
More on Mableton’s next steps from the Cobb County Courier.
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Craig Chapin and Cindy Cooperman of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood at a March forum.
The Committee for East Cobb Cityhood has been fined $5,000 for failing to file a required campaign finance disclosure form before the May 24 referendum.
The Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission issued a fine of $4,875 in September, after imposing a late reporting fee of $125 on May 9.
Ballot committees are required by law to submit full disclosures before a referendum; the East Cobb Cityhood group maintained it wasn’t obligated as a 501 (c)(4) organization.
A complaint was filed by Bob Lax, a leader of the anti-cityhood East Cobb Alliance.
The cityhood referendum was soundly defeated with 73 percent of the vote against incorporating a population of 60,000 people along the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
According to the state ethics agency, the East Cobb Cityhood group reported raising $112,525 and spending $64,338.
It was the only ballot committee involved in Cobb cityhood referendums that did not file a report. The East Cobb Alliance report filed on May 9 showed total contributions nearing $30,000.
The largest contributor to the East Cobb Cityhood committee was Owen Brown, founder of the Retail Planning Corp., a commercial real estate firm, and who is one of the group’s founders.
He contributed $20,000, and several others contributed $5,000 or more, some of them corporate executives.
Nearly $49,000 of the cityhood group’s expenses were for political consulting services and billboard ads.
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At the Taste of East Cobb festival earlier this month, Craig Chapin, the chairman of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood, was approached by an irate citizen.
Less than three weeks before the East Cobb Cityhood referendum, tempers and allegations were flaring over what has been a contentious issue ever since it first arose in 2018.
With a vote looming over carving out a slice of a vast East Cobb community into a city of around 60,000 people, emotions were going into overdrive.
(Monitoring just a sliver of the cityhood chatter on NextDoor, a social media platform for people for whom Facebook apparently isn’t unhinged enough, is a vivid reminder for Internet oldies of the Wild West days of early Web message boards.)
Mindy Seger, Chapin’s counterpart with the anti-Cityhood group East Cobb Alliance, said she was called over “to help defuse the situation.”
She said they “discussed how heated things were getting and wanted to show our ability to share space.”
In between debates the two groups had agreed to—and before a forum at Pope High School that turned a little nasty— there was good-natured conversation, and the above photo-op.
“Craig and I agreed Top Gun Maverick is going to be a great movie, we both love BBQ and Righteous Q is one of the best, and that it is possible to be kind to people you disagree with,” Seger said Thursday, two days after the cityhood referendum was soundly defeated.
Mindy Seger of the East Cobb Alliance, who also debated Cityhood leaders in 2019, became a visible figure of the opposition.
She and what the Alliance claimed was a grassroots collection of citizens across political and social lines were gratified not just by the victory, but by the margin.
All but one of the 17 precincts voted handily against the referendum. It was a thumpin’, as President George W. Bush memorably described a midterm election that torpedoed his fellow Republicans.
More than 73 percent of those casting votes in the East Cobb referendum rejected it, a 46-point gap and by far a larger spread than defeated cityhood votes in Lost Mountain (58 percent voted no) and Vinings (55 percent opposed).
All three votes were, among other things, the victims of sloppy, poorly managed legislation that further riled up the citizenry and a chastened Cobb County government alike.
Instead of November referendums, they were pushed up to May. The East Cobb bill changed several more times, including how the mayor would be chosen and residency requirements for city council candidates.
Republican lawmakers responding to the new Democratic majority of the Cobb Board of Commissioners made a coordinated, and at times ham-handed, attempt to create the chance for more local control in the county’s most conservative areas.
Minutes after the Georgia House passed the East Cobb Cityhood bill, State Rep. Matt Dollar, its main sponsor, abruptly resigned, and non-locals were left to carry the bill.
State Rep. Sharon Cooper, a co-sponsor of the bill, and State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, whose seat was redrawn out of the proposed city, voted for allowing citizens to have a referendum, but neither spoke to the legislation during floor debate.
The East Cobb bill, predicated on the notion that our neighbors are best-suited to decide things like density and quality of life issues, was tellingly deflected by our neighbor-lawmakers.
Craig Chapin of the Cityhood committee talked up his longstanding ties to East Cobb, but opponents questioned the motives of leaders behind the scenes.
Cobb County government set up a web portal on cityhood and held town hall meetings, in particular honing in on what they said would likely be slower response times for public safety calls in East Cobb.
In the final week of the campaign, Cobb public safety agency heads appeared on a Zoom call organized by the East Cobb Alliance, rehashing previous concerns.
Most of all, Cobb’s cityhood referendums were swamped by everyday citizens of communities who never bought the argument that there was a need to change their form of local government, and in the case of East Cobb, to create expensive police, fire and 911 agencies.
When East Cobb cityhood was revived in March 2021, the new focus was to be on planning and zoning and controlling growth and development.
Those were issues I thought could make for a stronger cityhood campaign, as I wrote when the first effort was abandoned in 2019.
But when a required financial feasibility study was released in November, it included public safety services. That study left a lot easy financial holes for opponents to poke at, and even shred.
Cityhood leaders said police and fire “kept coming up” when they met with citizens, but they never offered specifics.
The Cityhood group decried comments by Cobb public safety heads about what they said would likely be longer response times in a City of East Cobb.
Just as in the initial East Cobb cityhood campaign, however, there never was much of a groundswell for cityhood. It was a secretive initiative that blindsided the community when it first arose nearly four years ago and lacked any kind of grassroots appeal.
That some behind-the-scenes leaders had development interests fanned the flames of suspicion.
An East Cobb resident I spoke to in late March who supported cityhood felt even then it was ill-fated.
“Too much emotionalism,” he said, adding that as a small-government advocate, he’s leery of a Democratic-led county commission and thinks a City of East Cobb would be preferable on a number of fronts, not just development.
While that’s a novel way to make the case for smaller government, those against cityhood turned up their calls that a new city would add another layer instead.
This citizen also questioned the county’s financial estimates of the cost of losing cities, and the numbers and claims being peddled by the Alliance.
But East Cobb Cityhood was always a hard sell, and its public-facing proponents, while well-meaning, were fighting a multi-front war on multiple issues. All three of the failed referendums in Cobb (another comes in November, in Mableton) also were the subjects of lawsuits that were ordered to be set aside until after the elections.
In trying to press for the need to better control zoning and development, East Cobb cityhood advocates spent too much time and energy defending why police and fire services were necessary.
After receiving documents via an open records request, the Alliance contended that transferring the county fire fund millage rate was the only way to make a City of East Cobb financially viable.
The Cityhood group disputed that charge without elaborating, and resorted to some dog-whistle rhetoric that Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid and federal Democrats in Washington, notably the Biden Administration, were pushing policies “to incentivize states and localities to buck market forces to increase housing density.”
It smacked of desperation, and was meant to appeal to voters who’ve been concerned about zoning density and a proposed Unified Development Code in Cobb County.
Near the end of the campaign, the Cityhood group insisted it wasn’t obligated to file a financial disclosure report revealing who was funding its efforts.
The Cityhood group parked an electronic sign in front of the former Tokyo Valentino sex shop, but refused to divulge how it was paid for.
That harkened back to the early days of Cityhood, when the group explained that it wasn’t identifying its donors or others involved for fear of harassment from their “enemies” and the media.
To repeat such an arrogant, even paranoid refusal to be modestly transparent reflects disdain for the citizens of a community whose blessing they needed to realize their vision for local control.
This was a case study in how to rub a community the wrong way while seeking its vote.
The East Cobb Cityhood group may eventually be right about the development and housing concerns it raised.
“East Cobb will be under increasing growth and tax pressure from Cobb County to urbanize our community,” the Cityhood group said in a post-referendum statement, as it scrubbed its website.
Their issues may, like Sandy Springs and other North Fulton communities that are now cities, resonate over time and gain adherents to a new effort to create a city.
Cupid’s handling of zoning matters—especially the Dobbins case that prompted a rare protest from the Cobb Chamber of Commerce—has sounded some understandable alarm bells.
The theme of the East Cobb Alliance has been that it likes East Cobb “just the way it is,” but this community isn’t static.
It’s not merely a bedroom community any more, just as a once-rural area became an affluent, in-demand suburban hotspot for great home values, schools and quality of life several decades ago, when I was growing up here.
If you remember the Parkaire airfield, and farmland where retail centers and million-dollar homes stand, you understand how different East Cobb looks and feels now, and how it can change again.
From the outset, the masterminds of the East Cobb Cityhood effort never understood or seemed to care about what it takes to create a winning grassroots campaign.
They had money and political influence to get a referendum bill passed in the legislature, but that’s about it. During the second campaign, a more concerted attempt was made to garner community support, and did they did make some headway.
Broader public support was essential, but ultimately they didn’t trust the public enough to come clean about who they are, or to build authentic community connections.
If there’s to be another attempt, there’s got to be the kind of ground-up impetus that prompted successful cityhood efforts elsewhere.
A revived East Cobb Cityhood effort also would need to be rid of its original parties, who while sowing visceral skepticism, inadvertently gave rise to a new brand of community activism they could learn from.
“Many in this community stepped out of their comfort zones by attending meetings, wearing buttons, knocking doors, and waving signs on street corners,” Seger said. “Not only did we find a way to work together sharing various skills, we made some unexpected friendships along the way.”
Seger said 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.”
She said while she doesn’t have contact information for Chapin, with whom she momentarily tried to demonstrate some local goodwill, “I hope we can connect in the spirit of community.”
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The final but official overall tally is 16,290 NO (73.4 percent) to 5,900 YES (26.6 percent), still to be certified by the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration (you can click through the results here).
A total of 22,190 Cityhood votes were cast in all: 13,043 Tuesday, with 7,686 during early voting and 1,461 absentee by mail votes.
In that lone YES precinct—Sope Creek 3, near the Atlanta Country Club and Chattahoochee Plantation where several Cityhood leaders live—that was a narrow YES, 643 to 600 votes, or 51.7 percent to 48.3 percent.
In all the others, NO votes won in a rout, ranging from 85 percent at the Murdock precinct to 65 percent at Mt. Bethel 3.
Cityhood referendums in Lost Mountain and Vinings also were defeated by narrower margins, with 58 percent and 55 percent, respectively, voting NO.
Sixteen of the 22 precincts in Lost Mountain (full results here) voted NO, with the six voting YES located in the most northwestern part of that proposed city, and none with more than 56 percent of the vote.
In Vinings (full results here), all five precincts voted NO, ranging from 51-59 percent.
A cityhood referendum will take place in Mableton in November.
We’ve compiled precinct-by-precinct breakdowns below for the East Cobb referendum. A couple of notes: the totals in the Pope and Sewell Mill 1 precincts are lower than the others because only a portion of those precincts are located in what was the proposed City of East Cobb.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
For primary election and East Cobb cityhood referendum results, click here.
ORIGINAL POST:
On Tuesday voters will be going to the polls in the 2022 primary election on a ballot that also includes a cityhood referendum for part of East Cobb.
This post rounds up everything we’ve put together before you head to your precinct—if you haven’t already voted. The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday at all precincts.
If you have an absentee ballot, that must be dropped off at a designated drop box location by 7 p.m. Tuesday. It’s too late to put it in the mail, because all ballots have to be received by Cobb Elections by 7 p.m. in order to be counted.
For voters in East Cobb, there’s a full slate of competitive races at every level—local, state and federal, as well as the cityhood referendum.
Voters in the proposed city of East Cobb (you must live within the boundaries of this map) will vote either for or against incorporating a new municipality of around 60,000 people. Visit our Cityhood tab for more information about the referendum.
It’s one of three Cobb cityhood referendums to be decided on Tuesday, along with Lost Mountain and Vinings.
Voters in East Cobb will have contested primaries in several key races, including District 3 Cobb Commission (Republican), Georgia Senate 6 (Democrat and Republican), Georgia Senate 32 (Republican), Georgia House 43 (Democrat) and Georgia House 45 (Republican.)
A big Republican field also is on the ballot in the 6th Congressional District, and several sitting statewide office holders are being challenged. They include Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock.
The sample ballots above are countywide; to get a sample ballot customized for you, and to check which races you will be able to vote in, click here.
Cobb Elections said 23,990 Democratic ballots, 30,938 Republican ballots and 564 non-partisan ballots were cast in-person during three weeks of advanced voting.
More than 10,000 of those ballots were cast at the East Cobb Government Service Center and nearly 6,500 at the Tim D. Lee Senior Center.
A total of 5,153 absentee ballots have been accepted out of 6,293 returned, and 9,457 issues.
The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration has changed several polling stations Tuesday, including one in the East Cobb area.
The Bells Ferry 3 precinct, which has been located at Noonday Baptist Church, will be moved to Transfiguration Catholic Church (1815 Blackwell Road).
That change is for the primary only; you can check your registration status and precinct location by clicking here.
Voters must present a valid photo identification or a special voter ID card with them to the polls.
Primary runoffs are scheduled for June 21.
For more local information, including absentee voting, voter registration, maps and an elections calendar, visit the Cobb Elections website.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
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.
Milton City Hall opened in 2016, 10 years after a cityhood referendum passed. (ECN file)
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)
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
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East Cobb Cityhood leaders protested a Cobb Fire Department sign at Station 21 on Lower Roswell Road. It’s one of two fire stations in the proposed City of East Cobb.
With a week remaining before the East Cobb Cityhood referendum is decided, those against the vote are ramping up questions about a financial feasibility study they has been manipulated.
In response, Cityhood proponents are accusing their detractors of last-minute desperation and spinning conspiracy theories.
The anti-Cityhood group East Cobb Alliance last week released a copy of an October 2021 draft financial study and e-mails between the Cityhood leaders and Georgia State University researchers that showed the proposed city of 60,000 would be operating at a $3.5 million annual deficit.
That was with a “city light” set of proposed services of planning and zoning, code enforcement and parks and recreation.
When the final study was released in November, after public safety services were added—and by transferring a 2.86 Cobb Fire Fund millage rate that would provide the majority of revenues for the new city—the bottom line showed a surplus of more than $3 million.
Bob Lax of the East Cobb Alliance concluded that the final study is “completely contrived, underfunding public safety to use those dollars for the city’s general fund.” (He compiled an analysis of the feasibility study that you can read here. It contains links to some of those e-mail threads.)
The Committee for East Cobb Cityhood accused the Alliance of trying to “distract voters” by going to media outlets and “peddling this non-story.
“Public Safety was included in the 2018 and 2021 cityhood efforts because supporters overwhelmingly provided feedback to our committee and Rep. Dollar that Public Safety, specifically police coverage, was mandatory for the city to provide,” the Cityhood group said in response to a request for comment from East Cobb News, and repeating comments they’ve made during the referendum campaign.
East Cobb is one of four cityhood referendums in Cobb this year, but is the only proposed city that would offer police and fire.
When former State Rep. Matt Dollar re-introduced cityhood legislation in March 2021, the focus was on preserving East Cobb’s suburban character from the high-density development that’s taking place elsewhere in Cobb County.
Cityhood bills must include a financial feasibility study. Dollar said at the time that such a study was to assume no new property taxes beyond what citizens in the proposed city were paying for county services.
While new cities can levy up to one mill without seeking voter approval, starting up revenue-neutral has been a major selling point by the East Cobb cityhood group.
The proposed police, fire and E-911 services in East Cobb have been a major topic at town hall meetings held by Cobb County government officials in response to the cityhood referendums.
While the final feasibility study estimated fire expenses of $5.7 million a year, the county’s numbers conclude the costs to be $12.4 million.
Cityhood leaders have said those figures are misleading, and accused the county of campaigning against cityhood. They sent Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid two separate letters demanding they stop.
Most recently, the Cobb Fire and Emergency Services Department launched a website portal and promotional campaign to celebrate its 50th anniversary. Signs were posted in front of Station 21, which the cityhood group decried.
“The County’s flagrant disregard of Georgia law in its attempt to influence these elections is outrageous,” the cityhood letter sates, saying the county is violating state law with the fire department campaign “launched to coincide with the start of early voting on the Cityhood referendums.” The letter continued:
“The County’s audacious decision to put up a sign promoting Cobb County’s ‘World Class Fire Department’ sign in the same building as the Early Voting location in East Cobb, is in direct violation of O.C.G.A. §21-2-414. Because the Cityhood referendum is on the ballot in that very building, the sign is an illegal piece of campaign material that must be removed at once.”
That letter was dated May 4. The following day the county responded by saying similar signs were included in front of stations elsewhere, including Station 20, located just outside the proposed City of East Cobb on Sewell Mill Road.
The sign in front of Station 21 remained as the last week of early voting got underway Monday.
On Wednesday, the Alliance is holding a public meeting via Zoom to discuss public safety, with Cobb police, fire and E-911 officials as guests. It starts at 7 p.m. and can be accessed at this link.
The East Cobb Cityhood Committee noted Georgia law requiring new cities to provide at least three services. “We could have taken three low-cost services that would have been feasible with no tax increase,” the group told East Cobb News.
“The East Cobb Alliance cannot accept the simple truth that East Cobb pays more than two times their share in taxes for services we do not receive. It is the hard truth. Supporters of the City of East Cobb are tired of paying the most and comparatively receiving the least in services from Cobb County.”
The issue of crime—which drove an ultimately unsuccessful Buckhead cityhood effort in the Georgia legislature this year—also has been raised more recently by East Cobb cityhood leaders.
“The Buckhead crime problem is coming to East Cobb,” the cityhood group’s response continued. “There is an explosion of crime in Buckhead. Further, the Atlanta Regional Commission study shows crime was Georgia citizens’ number one concern and that amount of concern doubled from 16 percent to 32 percent in one year.”
Bob Lax of the anti-Cityhood group East Cobb Alliance at an April debate.
From draft to feasibility
In its response to East Cobb News, however, the Cityhood group did not explain what happened between its receipt of the draft financial study and the release of the final study.
Parks and recreation services were dropped in the end, and other significant spending categories were either eliminated or reduced.
The draft study showed revenues of $10.9 million and expenses of $13.9 million annually.
The final study came to a budget of $27 million with expenses of around $24 million.
A total of $14.3 million in annual revenues would come from the fire fund, which would be used to cover other services in the proposed city, including police, planning and zoning and code enforcement.
Lax said he had to fight to get Georgia State to provide the draft study after filing an open records request in late March.
He got the draft and e-mails between Georgia State and the cityhood committee last week, after threatening legal action.
On Oct. 4, the e-mails show, the lead GSU researcher notified the cityhood leaders that “due to the smaller number of services, some revenue available in the previous iteration of the study [the 2018 East Cobb financial feasibility study that included police and fire] will not be available in this iteration.”
That e-mail came from Peter Bluestone, a senior research associate, and he added that “I think it would be useful to discuss the implications of this prior to your review of the draft.”
Craig Chapin and Cindy Cooperman of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood
Cityhood president Craig Chapin replied on Oct. 8 that the group “wanted to walk through the addition of services we want to consider.”
A reply from Bluestone later that day noted that “revising the report to include police and fire and the property tax revenue [$14 million] would push the date out for the completion of the final report closer to the end of November.”
He said substituting library services, which had been suggested by the GSU research team, would keep the report timeline on schedule.
Oct. 8 also is the date the of the draft study, which states in red lettering on the cover: “Not for distribution or attribution.”
The bulk of the revenues in the draft study would come from franchise fees, insurance premiums, licenses and permits and a tax on alcoholic beverages. Only $785,000 annually would come from property taxes.
The estimated annual expenses in the draft study include $6.9 million for administration and $2.5 million for parks and recreation, which would include East Cobb Park, Fullers Park, Fullers Recreation Center, Mt. Bethel Park, Hyde Farm and the Wright Environmental Education Center.
In the final study, the parks and recreation costs were detailed in an appendix; another $588,981 in costs for planning and zoning per year was taken out.
Facility leasing expenses of $600,000 also were eliminated entirely, and nearly $1 million in administrative costs were cut.
In his analysis of the two studies, Lax said that “the feasibility study was manipulated to make the city feasible . . .Your public safety services WILL suffer, and your taxes WILL go up. One might even ask if this level of public manipulation could constitute fraud.”
The East Cobb Cityhood group, in its response to East Cobb News, maintained that the study is valid, and that the issue before voters is simple.
“To be clear and not confuse voters, the referendum question in front of voters is to incorporate the City of East Cobb supported by a credible and impartial feasibility study performed by Georgia State. This is the question on the ballot for voters on May 24.”
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Bob Lax of the anti-Cityhood East Cobb Alliance speaks as Committee for East Cobb Cityhood member Scott Sweeney and moderator Donna Lowry listen.
Issues over finances and development within a proposed City of East Cobb dominated a second debate on Wednessday, just as they did in a previous forum last month.
With less than three weeks before a Cityhood referendum on May 24, representatives of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood and the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes cityhood, made familiar points—and accusations—that have marked their respective campaigns.
Sponsored by the Rotary Club of East Cobb, the event at Pope High School was the final time the groups will be appearing together. (You can watch a replay of the town hall, which lasts nearly an hour and a half, by clicking here.)
Like the previous debate, the East Cobb Alliance questioned the figures in a financial feasibility study, saying many startup costs are not included.
“Estimates, estimates, estimates,” Alliance president Mindy Seger said in response to the Cityhood group’s explanation that a study is not a budget, and that some numbers are estimates.
“Feasibility does not mean sustainability.”
Cityhood committee spokeswoman Cindy Cooperman said that some financials would be worked out during negotiations with Cobb County through intergovernmental agreements.
Bob Lax of the Alliance pointed to the proposed East Cobb millage rate of 2.86 mills—the current levy for the county fire fund—as the major source of revenues.
A comparable city of Smyrna, with a population of 60,000, has a property tax rate of 8.99 mills.
Pro-Cityhood forces stressed the need for local control with leadership on the Cobb Board of Commissioners—specifically Chairwoman Lisa Cupid—advocating “affordable housing near you” that they claim would all but guarantee higher density.
Her proposed 30-year transit tax was put on hold, Cityhood committee member Scott Sweeney said, due in large part to the mayors of Cobb’s six cities.
Cityhood chairman Craig Chapin noted the lack of greenspace in the proposed City of East Cobb—covering around 25 square miles centered along the Johnson Ferry Road corridor, and said how redevelopment is handled will be critical.
“Who are the right persons to make those decisions?” he said.
The East Cobb Alliance has questioned members of the Cityhood committee with real estate interests and said high-density zoning would be necessary to fund what they claim will be higher expenses than stated in the feasibility study.
“You keep hearing developers, developers, developers,” Sweeney said. “I know that my colleagues and everyone else on the committee favors low density. “But it’s up to the elected officials to make those determinations, the people that you elect.
“The anti-cityhood people are suggesting that that the people you elect are already corrupt. Think about that for a moment. Your choice is to elect people who do not favor high density.”
Lax said the legislation calling for the East Cobb referendum could have included a charter specifically limiting development density, “but you didn’t do that.”
The East Cobb Alliance also continued questioning the need for East Cobb to provide police, fire and 911 services, the only of the proposed four Cobb cities to include public safety.
“How do you improve something that is the best it can be?” Seger said, referring in particular to Cobb’s highly-rated fire and 911 agencies.
Questions also covered public safety response times, parks and recreation services and how a new City of East Cobb would be in a two-year transition period before going fully operational.
“Cityhood is a big step,” Lax said, urging citizens to ask pointed questions before voting in the referendum. “It affects all of us. We can’t undo this.”
Chapin referenced Alliance members who’ve “done a brilliant job on social media . . . with negative messages” about what would happen if a city is created.
“If your vision for East Cobb is not urbanization, then you better vote yes,” Chapin said.
The Committee for East Cobb Cityhood is having a town hall at Olde Town Athletic Club (4950 Olde Towne Parkway) on Monday, from 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m.
Attendance is limited to citizens living within the proposed City of East Cobb with a capacity of 300 people. The event will be recorded for replay viewing.
Registration is required and can be done by clicking here. You will have to provide a home address to confirm that you live in the proposed boundaries.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A 2015 Pierce Arrow XT engine at Cobb Fire Station 21, one of two stations in the proposed City of East Cobb.
As voters in the proposed City of East Cobb vote on a referendum that would create a city with public safety services, Cobb County Government is tooting its own horn about its fire department.
The county has launched a special portal called “World Class Cobb Fire,” which explains how the Cobb Fire and Emergency Services Department is organized, including details of each major piece of equipment, a map of all stations and testimonials from personnel.
The portal’s homepage includes videos of firefighters and emergency staffers on the job, including a “day in the life” profile of a recruit coming off his first shift.
The reason for the splash page: the Cobb Fire Department is observing its 50th anniversary this year, and recently was reaccredited through 2027 by Commission on Fire Accreditation International.
Cobb also has has a top rating of 1 from the Insurance Services Office.
The ISO-1 designation is a rare one, and has been the subject of discussion in the run-up to the East Cobb Cityhood referendum on May 24.
East Cobb is the only of four proposed cities that would be providing police, fire and 911 services. Leaders of the cityhood effort said that although they weren’t proposed in legislation introduced last year, public safety services “continued to come up in various ways” when they began meeting with the public.
Cityhood opponents have claimed insurance rates would rise, saying a new city fire department would be unlikely to get an ISO-1 rating.
And county fire officials have said in town hall meetings that response times would likely increase inside a proposed City of East Cobb, which would be covered by current Cobb stations 21 (4400 Lower Roswell Road) and 15 (3892 Oak Lane).
While Cobb officials have said fire services in the proposed City of East Cobb would cost $12 million a year, a financial feasibility study conducted for the Commitee for East Cobb Cityhood estimates the annual expenses would come to $5.7 million.
Cobb has ignored those calls, saying its Cityhood Resource Center is an objective response to public questions about the referendums.
The East Cobb Cityhood group has responded to some the Cobb Fire claims, saying residents of the proposed city are charged two to three times more for fire services than elsewhere in the county.
The cityhood supporters also said that in looking through Cobb Fire’s Strategic Plan, no capital improvements are included for stations 15 and 21. “Under funded and overcharged,” the cityhood group said. “Time for things to change.”
The World Class Cobb Fire portal indicates that Station 21 has a 2015 Pierce Arrow XT engine, a 2016 Pierce ladder truck, and a 2020 Ford F-450 Freedom Fire rescue truck.
Station 15 is equipped with a 2020 Pierce Enforcer engine.
In a flyer aimed at senior citizens, the cityhood group also says that “the city will have the ability to make targeted fire station improvements, which as of now Cobb County has no plans to improve. These benefits are extremely important for the safety and well-being of our seniors.”
The flyer also says a City of East Cobb would provide “improved ambulance transport times,” but doesn’t elaborate.
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The Committee for East Cobb Cityhood also held a town hall at Olde Towne in early April. For coverage, click here.
As early voting has begun for the primaries and the East Cobb Cityhood referendum, the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood said it is holding another in-person town hall next week.
The group said it will return to the Olde Town Athletic Club (4950 Olde Towne Parkway) on Monday, May 9 from 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m.
Attendance is limited to citizens living within the proposed City of East Cobb with a capacity of 300 people. The event will be recorded for replay viewing.
Registration is required and can be made by clicking here. You will have to provide a home address to confirm that you live in the proposed boundaries. You can check that by viewing an interactive map.
Only voters who live inside the boundaries will be able to vote in the referendum, which culminates on May 24.
Voters can check their cityhood voting eligibility when they check in to vote.
The last of two scheduled debates between the Cityhood committee and the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes Cityhood, takes place Wednesday at Pope High School. It’s sold out for in-person attendance but will be livestreamed at the Rotary Club of East Cobb’s Facebook page.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Check the interactive map by clicking here to see if you live inside the proposed City of East Cobb.
A voter who lives in the proposed City of East Cobb said that when he went to vote Monday on the first day of early voting, the cityhood referendum wasn’t on his ballot.
Ira Katz said he cast his ballot at the East Cobb Government Service Center around 10:30 a.m., then realized the cityhood question wasn’t on it.
He alerted the manager but said he wouldn’t be allowed to cast another ballot.
Katz told East Cobb News the Cobb Elections office was told about the problem and he in turn was told there was a technical glitch that they hoped to resolve today.
Cobb Elections director Janine Eveler said the problem wasn’t related to a particular item on the ballot, such as cityhood.
After some voters reported not getting the correct ballot, she said her office learned that the Georgia Secretary of State’s office didn’t provide Cobb’s latest database to its vendor for Poll Pad, a device used at precincts to check in voters.
“Therefore the Poll Pad was creating the wrong ballot card for some precincts, based on an earlier version of the database,” Eveler said in a message to East Cobb News.
“We have put a work-around in place where the poll workers are manually bringing up the correct ballot on the BMD, instead of encoding the card on the Poll Pad,” she said.
“It is a little slower, but it will be correct until we get a new download from the vendor. They told us it would be later today and then we will bring replacement Poll Pads to the locations.”
The Cobb County Courier reported that similar issues were taking place regarding the Lost Mountain Cityhood referendum and some other primary races.
“I just wanted to get the word out to people who live in the [proposed] city to check” to see if the referendum is on their ballot before they complete it, Katz said.
Voters who think they have been given an incorrect ballot should report it to a poll worker.
Early voting in referendums for East Cobb, Lost Mountain and Vinings cityhood and the general primaries continues through May 20 at the East Cobb Government Service Center and nine other locations, including the Tim D. Lee Senior Center.
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There’s one more scheduled East Cobb Cityhood debate, next Wednesday, May 4, at Pope High School.
It’s sold out for in-person attendance, but Blaine Hess of the Rotary Club of East Cobb, which is sponsoring the event, said it will be shown via livestream on its Facebook page for those who can’t be there in person.
The debate lasts from 6:30-8 p.m. in the new auditorium on the Pope campus (3001 Hembree Road).
And like the previous debate on April 19, the second forum will include representatives of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood and the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes the referendum.
As we reported earlier today, a Cobb judge has ordered that the East Cobb, Lost Mountain and Vinings referendums take place as scheduled on May 24, after lawsuits were filed to try and stop the votes.
Cobb Superior Court Chief Judge Robert Leonard ruled that he would hear the suits on the merits after the referendums, a day after the chairman of the East Cobb Cityhood group filed a motion to intervene as a defendant in the East Cobb lawsuit.
Advance voting starts Monday for the referendums and Democratic, Republican and non-partisan primaries begins on Monday; click here for details.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A Cobb Superior Court Judge ruled Thursday that Cityhood referendums in East Cobb, Lost Mountain and Vinings will go ahead as scheduled on May 24.
Chief Judge Robert Leonard issued an order to stay that notes he may hear the merits of three lawsuits filed to stop those votes after the referendums take place.
The lawsuits challenge the constitutionality of the charters for the proposed cities of East Cobb, Lost Mountain and Vinings.
But in his order (you can read it here), Leonard said that Colin Brady, the plaintiff in the suit to stop the East Cobb referendum, “seeks relief prematurely, and this matter is not yet ripe for review.”
Leonard said that Brady is asking the court to rule on the constitutionality of “a proposed law that may or may not go into effect.”
The judge further concluded that Brady, who is an opponent of East Cobb Cityhood, “is entitled to campaign against it” like any other citizen.
Leonard also wrote that “this Court declines to interfere with the legislative process and remove the referendum from the ballot.”
If the referendum fails, “the case will be moot and will be dismissed” and if it passes, Leonard added, the plaintiff may petition the court “and the complex issues presented in this case can be heard with the benefit of full briefing and argument, rather than with an abnormally shortened and rushed timeline.”
(Advance voting for the referendums and Democratic, Republican and non-partisan primaries begins on Monday; click here for details.)
The Committee for East Cobb Cityhood praised the ruling, issuing a statement Thursday from chairman Craig Chapin:
“The anti-city opposition’s desperate attempt to legislate from the bench and deprivation of East Cobb citizens’ right to vote has been recognized by a judge. We know the people in this community are smarter than what the opposition gives them credit for, but we still appreciate it when judges see through these tactics so that democratic processes can proceed without interference or manipulation. We are pleased that citizens will have the opportunity to vote on the Cityhood referendum questions for the cities of East Cobb, Vinings, and Lost Mountain on May 24th.”
He filed a motion Monday seeking to intervene in the East Cobb lawsuit as a defendant.
Attorneys for both sides in all three lawsuits met with Leonard late Wednesday before he issued his order.
(Leonard also will be on the primary ballot in a non-partisan race as he is seeking re-election. He is being challenged by Charles Ford, a public defender in Fulton County, and private attorney Matt McMaster.)
Allen Lightcap, an Atlanta attorney, filed all three lawsuits on behalf of residents in East Cobb, Lost Mountain and Vinings.
He said legislation in all three cases setting up the referendum and creating city charters is unconstitutional.
He said proposed city charters included in legislation that passed this year violate state home rule provisions regarding the provision of services by local governments.
Specifically, the suits say that the legislation in all three cases takes away the discretion of local governments to provide supplementary powers.
He said those powers can be enumerated only through general law applying to all local jurisdictions in the state and not via local law, which the three Cobb cityhood bills were.
In his suits, Lightcap said the referendums must be stopped because voters may think they’re voting for services that they may not end up getting.
In response to a request for comment from East Cobb News, Lightcap issued the following statement:
“We appreciate the Court’s thoughtful decision to stay the cases rather than dismiss them, as advocated by the County and the Intervenors.
“By staying the cases, the Court recognizes that the cases present important constitutional questions that should be heard if any of the referenda are approved by the voters.
“Ultimately, the plain language of the constitution specifically forbids the City-Lite provisions of these charters. If any of these cities pass, the Court will be squarely presented with an unconstitutional charter, and these important challenges will proceed.”
There’s one more scheduled East Cobb Cityhood debate, next Wednesday, May 4, at Pope High School.
It’s sold out for in-person attendance, but Blaine Hess of the Rotary Club of East Cobb, which is sponsoring the event, said it will be shown via livestream on its Facebook page for those who can’t be there in person.
The debate lasts from 6:30-8 p.m. in the new auditorium on the Pope campus (3001 Hembree Road).
And like the previous debate on April 19, the second forum will include representatives of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood and the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes the referendum.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
On Monday Craig Chapin, the president of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood, filed a motion to intervene as a defendant in the suit.
He’s also requesting consolidation of his complaint with similar motions filed in support of cityhood votes in Lost Mountain and Vinings, also on May 24.
Chapin has the same attorney who’s involved in the motions seeking interventions on behalf of the Lost Mountain and Vinings referendums.
Allen Lightcap, an attorney in Atlanta, has filed lawsuits to stop the East Cobb, Lost Mountain and Vinings referendums, challenging their constitutionality.
He said proposed city charters included in legislation that passed this year violate state home rule provisions regarding the provision of services by local governments.
Specifically, the suits say that the legislation in all three cases takes away the discretion of local governments to provide supplementary powers.
He said those powers can be enumerated only through general law applying to all local jurisdictions in the state and not via local law, which the three Cobb cityhood bills are.
In his motion (you can read it here) Chapin claims that East Cobb resident Colin Brady, a plaintiff in the lawsuit who is opposed to Cityhood, “seeks to use this Court as a tool in his efforts to suppress the right of East Cobb’s citizens to vote for the creation and charter” of a new city.
“The right to vote is a sacred and Constitutional right that that should be respected by all citizens and elected officials,” Chapin continued. “Unfortunately, [Brady] is actively seeking to deny this fundamental right to vote without any basis in law.”
While the lawsuit was filed against the Cobb Board of Registration and Elections, the motion claims that the county can’t be relied on to defend the suit “since Cobb County has engaged in a pattern and practice of conduct that is hostile to allowing an East Cobb referendum.”
Chapin’s motion continues by repeating claims that Cobb County officials are improperly using taxpayer funds and making misleading statements in their information sessions about Cityhood.
All three lawsuits have been assigned to Cobb Superior Court Chief Judge Robert Leonard.
Pro-Cityhood forces in Vinings and Lost Mountain, including State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart of West Cobb, have filed similar motions as Chapin to intervene and consolidate the legal actions.
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr also has filed notices of interest (amici curiae) in all three suits. That means he’s not an official party, but is following their proceedings.
As of Wednesday, no hearing on any of the Cobb Cityhood lawsuits has been scheduled.
There’s one more scheduled East Cobb Cityhood debate, next Wednesday, May 4, at Pope High School.
It’s sold out for in-person attendance, but Blaine Hess of the Rotary Club of East Cobb, which is sponsoring the event, said it will be shown via livestream on its Facebook page for those who can’t be there in person.
The debate lasts from 6:30-8 p.m. in the new auditorium on the Pope campus (3001 Hembree Road).
And like the previous debate on April 19, the second forum will include representatives of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood and the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes the referendum.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The intersection of Roswell and Johnson Ferry roads would be in the heart of a City of East Cobb.
A lawsuit was filed in Cobb Superior Court Thursday trying to stop or delay a May 24 Cityhood referendum in East Cobb by the same attorney who’s making similar challenges in Lost Mountain and Vinings.
Atlanta attorney Allen Lightcap said he filed the suit on behalf of Colin Brady, a longtime East Cobb resident and retired businessman opposed to a new city being formed in the community.
Like suits filed earlier this month regarding the Lost Mountain and Vinings referendums—also scheduled for May 24—the defendants are members of the Cobb Board of Registration and Elections and Director Janine Eveler.
And like the other two complaints, Lightcap said he would be seeking an emergency hearing given the timeliness of the referendums. The East Cobb case has been assigned to Chief Judge Robert Leonard, who also has been given the Lost Mountain and Vinings suits.
The East Cobb suit claims that the bill passed this session by the Georgia legislature is unconstitutional, violating state home rule provisions on four grounds.
Lightcap said that the General Assembly “may not limit or regulate a city’s home rule supplementary powers except by general law.”
The East Cobb bill, like the Lost Mountain and Vinings bills, he said, is a local law.
The East Cobb suit claims that the bill’s “unconstitutional defects go to the heart of the bill, and they cannot be severed without completely defeating the purpose of the law. . . .The voters should not be forced to vote for or against a proposed city whose charter is clearly unconstitutional.”
Specifically, the suit claims that the East Cobb bill, HB 841—which you can read here—unconstitutionally regulates how the proposed city can use its supplementary powers, including services to be provided.
Secondly, the lawsuit states, the legislation “takes away the proposed City of East Cobb’s discretion to use or not use some of its supplementary powers. Supplementary powers are purely discretionary for counties and municipalities; this discretion is constitutionally protected and cannot be abrogated by local law.”
The charter in the East Cobb legislation specifies five services to be provided—planning and zoning, code enforcement, police, fire and emergency services and parks and recreation.
New cities in Georgia are required to provide at least three services from a list of 14 services, but home rule provisions allow for a choice by the municipalities.
The East Cobb complaint said that city charter in the legislation also violates home rule law by capping the millage rate, something that cannot be done via a local law.
The suit also alleges that Cobb County’s home rule provisions would be unconstitutionally regulated during a two-year transition process if a city of East Cobb is created.
“This provision forces Cobb County—without regard to its own agency or discretion—to use its supplementary powers and provide services in the transition for the benefit of the City of East Cobb,” the lawsuit states.
The Committee for East Cobb Cityhood is denouncing the lawsuit, calling it a “last-second, copycat and desperate legal maneuver [that] is nothing more than a shameless attempt to stop the vote.”
Committee chairman Craig Chapin said in a statement that “opponents of Cityhood are hoping to legislate from the bench and block the citizens of East Cobb from having their voices heard in the May 24 Cityhood referendum. It has nothing to do with the actual merits of forming the City of East Cobb.”
Lightcap said last week he was not intending to be a part of a lawsuit to stop the East Cobb vote, but plans fell through for retaining another attorney.
He said there are no other plaintiffs. In Lost Mountain, the leader of a group opposing the referendum there, West Cobb Advocate, is the plaintiff.
But Lightcap said the East Cobb Alliance, the main group opposing cityhood here, is not involved in the suit he filed Thursday.
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East Cobb Business Association president Brian Kramer introduces the representatives of the Cityhood debate at Olde Towne Athletic Club.
When a May 24 referendum on East Cobb Cityhood was called earlier this spring, John Beville said was undecided on how he might vote.
A resident of the proposed city of nearly 60,000 residents, Beville said he initially thought he could support voting in favor of a new municipality when “city light” legislation was introduced last year.
Unlike a previous East Cobb Cityhood effort, this one would be centered not around public safety services but planning and zoning as a means to preserve the suburban character of the community.
Even after a financial feasibility study was released last November that included police and fire services, Beville said he was riding the fence.
But after hearing arguments for and against Cityhood at an East Cobb Business Association debate Tuesday, Beville said he’ll likely vote no.
“There’s still a lot of information that has not been feathered out,” Beville, an ECBA member, said after the Olde Towne Athletic Club event. “You’re dealing with a lot of ‘what ifs.’ ”
A former banker and now a financial advisor, Beville said the Cityhood supporters “are trying to sell an emotional issue without a financial substantiation of that issue.
“I’ve been ambivalent all along, but there’s no way I can support this.”
Beville, wearing a button in support of Republican gubernatorial candidate David Perdue, said he’s not enamored with some of the Cobb zoning votes of the Democratic majority on the county commission.
But he thinks the East Cobb financial study, prepared by researchers at Georgia State University, doesn’t contain enough details for him about the costs of police and fire equipment, personnel and training.
Stressing local control
During the hour-long debate, moderated by EAST COBBER publisher Cynthia Rozzo, who asked predetermined questions, the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood and the East Cobb Alliance repeated familiar talking points they’ve been raising for the last few months.
Before the Q and A session began, Susan Hampton of the ECBA said to the audience that even “if you have already made up your mind, please listen to the other side. We’re all neighbors.”
Cindy Cooperman and Craig Chapin of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood.
The pro-Cityhood group stressed the need for development and growth to be handled at the truly local level. The East Cobb area, they noted, will have one commissioner for nearly 200,000 people who could be outvoted.
“What’s the future of East Cobb going to look like?” asked Cindy Cooperman of the Cityhood group.
In response to a later question, she said that “you have to look at the decisions have been made” regarding rezoning, density and growth elsewhere in Cobb.
“It’s just a matter of time” before the East Cobb area must confront that reality, Cooperman said. “Why not elect people who reflect you views and your values?”
Mindy Seger of the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes Cityhood, said that “We do love East Cobb just the way it is.”
She repeated the familiar claims that incorporating would create an extra layer of government, and that residents of a city would be paying more in taxes, as those living in Cobb’s existing six cities do.
And commissioners “are up for re-election. That’s where you can make that change.”
Questioning public safety
Both sides hashed out repeated positions on the quality of services provided by a city against the current county services.
Unlike the three other Cobb Cityhood referendums—Lost Mountain, Vinings and Mableton—East Cobb is providing police and fire.
At previous town hall meetings, Cobb officials have expressed concerns about increased response times.
Alliance representatives were eager to repeat them.
Robert Lax and Mindy Seger of the East Cobb Alliance
“I’m most concerned about public safety services,” said Robert Lax of the East Cobb Alliance. “Those services are hard.”
He said the “aggressive assumptions” in the financial feasibility study “make it less difficult to provide the same quality.
“City light was what was proposed. Why are we taking heavyweight services here?”
The Alliance has said in previous public meetings that the Cityhood forces are underestimating the cost of acquiring public safety equipment beyond the state-approved $5,000 transfer of a fire station.
But Craig Chapin, chairman of the Cityhood committee, said that they’re “the top services that you can get in a smaller community.”
It’s part of a larger question Cityhood supporters have been asking during their campaign: “What’s your vision of East Cobb?”
Chapin said that Cobb government officials are “crystal clear” about proceeding with “the urbanization of our neighborhoods.”
He said he’s also confident that “we do not need to raise taxes to create a city.”
While East Cobb Alliance representatives poked holes in the feasibility study, Cooperman and Chapin said their questions are all contained in the report, including start-up costs and franchise fees.
But many of the details of the provisions of services and negotiations of intergovernmental agreements would be hammered out by a future East Cobb mayor and city council.
Should the Cityhood referendum pass, those elections would take place in November, followed by a two-year transition period to begin in January 2023.
More than 200 citizens turned out for the debate at the Olde Towne Athletic Club.
Alleged developer ties
The debate remained relatively civil—with members of each side passing a microphone back and forth—until a question was asked about commercial real estate interests on the Cityhood side, and what their agendas may be.
During the 2109 Cityhood campaign, the Alliance noted that 11 of the 14 members of the Cityhood committee either were in the development industry or had connections to it.
“Those people are still around,” Seger said, adding that if a city is formed, pressure will mount to increase a City of East Cobb’s commercial tax base (the feasibility study said the proposed city has a tax base that is 90 percent residential).
Chapin took umbrage at the suggestion to “follow the money.
“That’s categorically false and a conspiracy theory,” he said with some emotion.
Cooperman was also visibly upset.
“This time it’s the sweat of this man [Chapin], myself and the committee members who have been doing it.
“What evidence do they have? Zero evidence,” said Cooperman, who like Chapin was not involved in the the 2109 Cityhood campaign.
Handing out flyers in support of Cityhood at the debate was Andy Smith, an Indian Hills resident and a former member of the Cobb Planning Commission who ran for the Cobb Board of Commissioners as a Republican in 2020.
Smith said while he understands the concerns about public safety services, East Cobb citizens need to be watching the kinds of zoning decisions that have been made in recent years in the county.
He referenced the East Cobb Church rezoning last year in the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford area, and specifically the residential component of the mixed-use project that generated community opposition.
While the community-focused idea of a church fits in with the JOSH Master Plan, Smith said, housing density at around five units an acre is out of line with the nearby community.
Smith applauded the work of his Planning Commission successor, Tony Waybright, in pushing for a site plan that lowered the density cap, but said in the future that kind of effort is no guarantee.
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An attorney who’s filed lawsuits in Cobb Superior Court to stop May referendums to create cities in Vinings and Lost Mountain said it’s “inevitable” a similar lawsuit will be filed to prevent a referendum next month in East Cobb.
But Allen Lightcap, an Atlanta lawyer, told East Cobb News Thursday that he’s not involved in a potential East Cobb lawsuit.
Proposed East Cobb city boundaries include three council districts. For a larger view click here.
“There will be a suit,” he said, “but I’m not part of it.”
Lightcap said he doesn’t know which parties may be approached about serving as plaintiffs in an East Cobb lawsuit, but anticipates that one will be filed soon.
That’s because it’s a little more than six weeks before May 24 referendums in Vinings, Lost Mountain and East Cobb.
Last week, Lightcap filed suit to stop the Vinings referendum (you can read it here) on behalf of Joseph Young, a Vinings resident who was a legislative director to former Gov. Roy Barnes.
On Wednesday, Lightcap’s suit (you can read it here) names Dora Locklear, the head of West Cobb Advocate, a group fighting Lost Mountain Cityhood, as a plaintiff.
Both suits were filed against the Cobb Board of Elections in order to stop the referendums due to what Lightcap calls unconstitutional language.
State law requires cities to provide three services, and under home rule provisions they can choose from a list of 14 services.
The Vinings, Lost Mountain and East Cobb bills passed by the legislature this session and signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp specify in their proposed charters which services those cities would be providing.
Under the Georgia Constitution, that cannot be done via local legislation, according to the two lawsuits, which have been assigned to Cobb Superior Court Chief Judge Robert Leonard.
No hearings have been scheduled for either lawsuit, according to court records.
The Vinings bill includes a charter saying that city “shall” provide specific services: planning and zoning, code enforcement and parks and recreation.
The same language is included in the bill for Lost Mountain, which would provide planning and zoning, code enforcement and sanitation services.
The proposed East Cobb charter calls for planning and zoning, code enforcement, police, fire and parks and recreation services.
As we noted last week, here’s the provision of the East Cobb bill (you can read it here) that specifies which services the city “shall” provide, in lines 157-161:
“Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section, the city shall exercise the powers enumerated in subsection (a) of this section only for the purposes of planning and zoning, code adoption and enforcement, parks and recreation, police and law enforcement services, fire and emergency services, and those items directly related to the provision of such services and for the general administration of the city in providing such services.”
A fourth cityhood referendum in Cobb, in Mableton, is expected to take place in November, but that legislation doesn’t contain the same language about specific provision of services.
But a county spokesman said they will continue, including a town hall next week in Vinings, and that Cobb officials are providing objective information for citizens who’ve been asking.
Representatives from the East Cobb Cityhood Committee and the East Cobb Alliance will be debating the referendum twice in coming weeks, including a Tuesday forum sponsored by the East Cobb Business Association at Olde Towne Athletic Club.
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As it did in 2019, the East Cobb Business Association is sponsoring a Cityhood debate. (ECN photo by Wendy Parker)
Two debates on the upcoming East Cobb Cityhood referendum have sold out for citizens wishing to attend in person.
The East Cobb Business Association has scheduled a debate for next Tuesday, April 19, at the Olde Towne Athletic Club (4950 Olde Towne Parkway) from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
On May 4, the Rotary Club of East Cobb is organizing a debate at Pope High School (3001 Hembree Road) from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The ECBA is not livestreaming its debate but said a recorded video of the event will be posted on its website.
Blaine Hess of the Rotary Club told East Cobb News that livestreaming plans are in the works but “I am not 100% sure what the logistics are currently” and those will be announced when they’re finalized.
Those are the only debates that have been agreed to by the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood, which is spearheading the Cityhood referendum, and the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes Cityhood.
The Rotary Club sent out a message Tuesday afternoon saying it had reached its capacity limit of 500 people at the Pope auditorium and asked those who had signed up that “if your plans change and you can not make it to the event, please cancel your order so somebody else can come!”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
County department heads speaking during a Cityhood town hall meeting in March at the Sewell Mill Library.
The group pushing for East Cobb Cityhood is demanding that Cobb government officials stop holding town hall meetings and making public statements about the four upcoming Cityhood referendums in the county, including a May 24 vote in East Cobb.
Craig Chapin, chairman for the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood, sent a letter on Monday to Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid, alleging that the county is actively “campaigning against the referendums.” More:
“Based on the available facts, it appears Cobb County has violated Georgia law in its efforts to defeat the four Cityhood initiatives in Cobb County’s respective Referendums. Cobb County has, at the least, allowed county officials and employees to oppose Cityhood efforts, on County time and through official County channels. And they have done so by promoting baseless speculation in the guise of ‘education.’ Worse, the County’s ‘education’ consists of half-truths and even outright lies.”
The Cityhood group’s letter demands that the county also using public resources “to oppose the Cityhood Referendums. We have previously expressed our concern on the implicit and explicit bias in Cobb County’s awareness campaign and activities with the opposition ballot committee(s) to a group of Cobb executives. Not only has the unlawful behavior not been curtailed, but it also continues at an increasing velocity.”
You can read the full letter by clicking here; copies were sent to the other four Cobb commissioners, County Manager Jackie McMorris and County Attorney Bill Rowling.
Cityhood committee spokeswoman Cindy Cooperman also forwarded a copy of the letter to East Cobb News.
Cobb communications director Ross Cavitt told East Cobb News late Tuesday afternoon that Rowling is preparing a formal reply to the letter, and insisted that the county’s efforts are neutral.
“We’re not trying to take sides on this,” Cavitt said. “We’re trying to provide information to the many questions we’re getting from the public” about the cityhood initiatives “and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”
Cobb officials were holding their fourth in a series of Cityhood town hall meetings Tuesday evening at the Cobb Civic Center, and a town hall for the Vinings referendum is scheduled for next week.
They held a meeting in late March at the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center (ECN coverage here) and have created what county officials are calling a Cityhood Resource Center.
The East Cobb Cityhood committee’s letter accuses Cobb officials of using county resources to participate in legislative hearings and activities when the East Cobb bill was being considered in the Georgia General Assembly.
In particular, Cupid is accused of “unlawfully” engaging “without the approval of the BOC [Board of Commissioners],” a lobbyist to fight the bill.
That lobbyist was identified as former Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens. His law firm, Dentons, has been hired by the county to do lobbying, but Cupid has said publicly Olens has not lobbied on the cityhood issues.
The letter also alleges that county officials shared “misleading, incomplete and factually inaccurate information” about the financial impact to the county budget should all four Cityhood referendums (East Cobb, Lost Mountain, Vinings and Mableton) pass.
The county is saying the loss to its annual budget would come to $41 million and savings would amount to $4.3 million; the East Cobb Cityhood group says it “is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts by the county with the intent to dissuade voters. The county has disclosed it intends to redeploy these funds for other roles not currently filled having nothing to do with the Cityhood efforts.”
The letter doesn’t indicate what it thinks the actual financial numbers are. (While Cobb officials have said fire services in the proposed City of East Cobb would be $12 million a year, a financial feasibility study conducted for the East Cobb Cityhood group estimates the annual expenses would come to $5.7 million.)
The East Cobb Cityhood group’s letter also states that Cavitt and Cobb commissioner Jerica Richardson attended a meeting of the anti-Cityhood East Cobb Alliance in March, and that “neither has made any attempt” to attend or participate in East Cobb Cityhood group public meetings.
“This demonstrates a clear bias and is evidence of supporting the anti-city campaign,” the letter states.
The letter took issue with comments by Cobb public safety officials who’ve said response times in a City of East Cobb would increase (East Cobb is the only one of the four proposed cities that would provide police, fire and E-911 services).
The East Cobb Cityhood group also is accusing the county of providing “misleading and inflammatory literature” at town hall meetings.
The East Cobb group is demanding that questions directed to the county about cityhood “shall be funneled through a named and appropriate resource at the director higher or level.”
The group also wants the county to allow Cityhood groups to “respond and share data and responses to the County’s questions and information.”
Finally, the East Cobb Cityhood group is saying its letter is also serving as an open records request for the county to provide how it prepared financials and have the county commission a state-approved university to conduct an impartial third-party financial analysis of the four cityhood ballot measures.
The letter concludes:
“Cobb County is knowingly presenting biased, incomplete, and inaccurate information to the public. Meanwhile, the County has stated that it has no official position on the cityhood initiatives. While this disclaimer implies neutrality, Cobb County’s behavior has been anything but neutral. As far as we are aware, no County official has ever said anything positive about the cityhood proposals. In fact, Cobb’s desire to thwart the Cityhood efforts are clear as highlighted above and designed to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt in citizens’ minds—illegally influencing their vote.”
The first of two debates on East Cobb Cityhood will take place next Tuesday at Olde Towne Athletic Club. The debate between the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood and the East Cobb Alliance is sold out.
The East Cobb Business Association, which is sponsoring the event, said it would be recorded and posted on its website.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
