The purchase of three parcels of land on Canton Road for a new Cobb Fire Station 12 is on the Cobb Board of Commissioners agenda next Tuesday.
The current station, located at 810 Brackett Road in the Shaw Park area, is 55 years old. It’s one of four stations in the Northeast Cobb area but the only one serving the Canton Road corridor.
On the agenda is a request to purchase property located at 3852, 3592, and 3686 Canton Road owned by Chastain, LLC, and to be assembled with a parcel at 3587 Centerview Drive, which also is on the agenda.
According to the agenda item, the total purchase price for the three Canton Road properties is $1.1 million. They are located on the east side of Canton Road, between Kensington Drive and Chastain Corners Road.
The purchase price for the Centerview Drive property, currently owned by the Cochran Family Trust, is $263,000.
The cost to construct a new facility is estimated to be $4.1 million.
Also on Tuesday’s meeting agenda is a request from Cobb DOT to condemn four parcels of land for the planned Windy Hill-Terrell Mill Connector. DOT says that while negotiations continue with property owners, condemnation is needed for right of way acquisition if talks fall through.
The four parcels are 1.4 acres at 1557 Terrell Mill Road (Forest Ridge at Terrell Mill Apartments), and 1,206 square feet each at three townhomes located at 1631 Turnberry Lane, 1617 Turnberry Lane and 1613 Turnberry Lane.
The land is located near the northern portion of the road project, close to its intersection with Terrell Mill Road.
It would be the second such condemnation of property in the path of the Connector, an 0.8-mile stretch. Commissioners voted in November to condemn portions of apartment complexes near Windy Hill Road.
Tuesday’s meeting begins at 9 a.m. in the second floor board room at the Cobb government building, 100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta. The full meeting agenda can be found here.
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A week after a group touting East Cobb cityhood released a rosy financial feasibility study, the report was revised with a projection of additional annual revenue.
The report, prepared by Georgia State University researchers and made public Dec. 11, initially included no revenue from the state title ad valorem tax (TATV), explaining that the proposed city of East Cobb has no car dealerships.
But the revised report, which was dated Dec. 18 and made public today, acknowledges that the TAVT calculation is based on where motor vehicles are registered.
The revenue based on vehicles in the proposed city of East Cobb, according to the revised report, would come to nearly $1.4 million a year.
Here’s a link to the revised study, which explains the calculation in detail on Page 8. The estimated revenue table on Page 22 and shown in the chart above includes that line item, which was absent from the initial study (PDF here).
The estimated annual revenue for the City of East Cobb would rise from $48.4 million to $49.8 million. The estimated annual expenses are unchanged, at around $46 million a year.
The expenses would include police, fire and emergency services, planning and zoning and for general administration.
The updated report still concludes that East Cobb cityhood is financially feasible. The Committee for East Cobb Cityhood, Inc. paid $36,000 to commission the report by GSU’s Center for State and Local Finance.
It’s one of two entities, along with the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia, that conducts required feasibility reports for those seeking cityhood.
The two-year process includes state legislation that would call for a referendum to be voted on by residents of a proposed municipality. New cities must provide a minimum of three services.
The revision of the 22-page East Cobb cityhood study noted the addition of the ad valorem revenue and said “no other material changes were made.”
In an e-mail response to a request by East Cobb News, Phil Kent, the public relations consultant for the cityhood group, said the revised study also “answered critics with additional references to the base year 2017 for its property tax analysis.”
We’ve followed up for a further explanation and will update when we get it.
The proposed city of East Cobb includes unincorporated areas of Cobb Commission District 2 that are east of I-75 and outside the Cumberland Community Improvement District.
The population of that area comes to around 96,000.
The initial GSU study was circulated to a select group of community influencers in East Cobb right before Christmas, and some of them had concerns about the numbers and methodology.
One of those citizens, Joe O’Connor, resigned in protest, accusing the cityhood group of a lack of transparency.
Little is known about who is behind the cityhood drive other than its president, Atlanta Country Club resident Joe Gavalis, and G. Owen Brown, founder of the East Cobb-based Retail Planning Corp.
Thea Powell, a former Cobb commissioner who also is part of the ad hoc citizens advisory board, said she found information about East Cobb businesses outdated, going back to 2012, during the aftermath of the recession.
The East Cobb cityhood group has not indicated what its next steps may be or when the public may be informed of its plans.
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The general fund budget of $454 million includes a boost in the millage rate of 1.7 mills to 8.46. Services like fire and water are included in separate millage rates.
The boost came in spite of a record Cobb tax digest, but the county was facing what Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce said was a $30 million deficit.
The current budget is funding the hiring of additional police and public safety positions, additional road work crews and increased library hours. Boyce calls it a “restoration budget,” as some of those services had been cut back during the recession.
A contentious, months-long public discussion about the budget, including town hall meetings, came after proposed or possible cuts in county services were made public.
A number of citizens groups formed, including Save Cobb Libraries. East Cobb resident Rachel Slomovitz galvanized countywide support for libraries, as advocates were vocal at town hall meetings.
Boyce, an East Cobb resident and a Republican completing his second year in office, was adamant that taxes had to go up to keep Cobb “a five-star county.”
After the outcry from those fearing further cutbacks in services, Boyce revised the budget to include the preservation of parks and library services, and said “We’re not closing anything.”
But Boyce struggled to find a third commissioner (along with South Cobb’s Lisa Cupid) to vote for a tax increase.
“I get it. You don’t want to stick your neck out. But this isn’t hard. It’s $30 million in an economy of billions. You would think we’re living in Albania! I just don’t understand.”
East Cobb commissioners Bob Ott, left, and JoAnn Birrell voted against the FY 2019 budget. (ECN file)
East Cobb commissioners Bob Ott and JoAnn Birrell voted against the final budget proposal. Commissioner Bob Weatherford of North Cobb, in a re-election battle, indicated ahead of his runoff that he would support the increase. The day after he lost convincingly to Keli Gambrill, an opponent of a tax hike, he cast the decisive vote in favor of Boyce’s budget, and said he had no regrets.
“The only thing I’m running for now is the hills, but I do not want to leave the county worse than than when I got here,” he said.
A few weeks after the vote, Ott said the only benefit of the tax increase for his constituents in District 2 was a Cobb DOT work crew.
Among other things, he said he didn’t like the way the proposed budget cuts were presented to the public, which he heard plenty about from citizens: “I tell them that the services that are being threatened to be taken away were never proposals that came before the board.
“A borrowed quote from William S. Buckley sums up this tax increase and budget: ‘What do we care how much we—the government—owe so long as we owe it to ourselves? On with the spending. Tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect . . .’ ”
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One of the late-breaking major stories in East Cobb in 2018 figures to linger well into 2019 and beyond: An exploration of a possible city of East Cobb.
It’s not the first time such an idea has been floated, but a group called the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood, Inc. has spent $36,000 for a feasibility study that currently is circulating among a hand-picked group of community leaders.
Both the committee and the citizens group chosen to examine the study have not been fully identified, and those contacted by East Cobb News to provide further information beyond perfunctory press releases have been reluctant to discuss anything.
That includes likely next steps, and possibly the introduction of state legislation calling for a referendum that is part of a two-year process.
Joe Gavalis is the cityhood group’s president and a resident of the Atlanta Country Club area. G. Owen Brown, founder of the East Cobb-based Retail Planning Corporation, is listed as the group’s incorporator, and political consultant and TV pundit Phil Kent has been hired for public relations.
One member of the citizens advisory board, Joe O’Connor, resigned in protest, telling Gavalis that the cityhood effort needs better transparency.
“I’ve always said that if you’re hiding something, then you’ve got something to hide,” O’Connor told East Cobb News.
Other members of the citizens group told East Cobb News right before Christmas that they’ve just begun looking at the study and haven’t formed any impressions. Former Cobb commissioner Thea Powell said while she has some problems with the study’s numbers and methodologies, the idea of cityhood is worth examining.
Among the concerns is that 85 percent of the proposed city’s tax base would be from residential property, and only 15 percent is commercial property.
Another question that’s been raised is the proposed city map, which doesn’t include all of East Cobb. Its boundaries include only areas of unincorporated Cobb in commissioner Bob Ott’s District 2 that are east of I-75 and outside the Cumberland Community Improvement District.
The northern boundaries of the proposed city, in fact, identically match the northern boundaries of District 2, which was redrawn and went into effect in 2017. The population of the proposed city would be around 96,000, roughly half of what is generally considered East Cobb.
In addition, the exact reasons why the cityhood group is pursuing this effort also haven’t been fully revealed. Gavalis has said there is displeasure that District 2 property taxes provide 40 percent of Cobb property tax revenue, and that some want more of their tax money to stay here.
He did say that among the potential service priorities for a city of East Cobb would be police and fire, as well as community development (planning and zoning).
Gavalis has said that the community will be informed of the cityhood’s next steps but did not indicate when that might be.
“We want to be transparent but we are compiling answers to questions about the study and formalizing our strategy on the expertise levels that will be needed to provide insight and professional advice,” he said.
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Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell has been sworn in for her third term in office.
Birrell, a Republican who represents District 3, took the oath on Wednesday at the Northeast Cobb Business Association luncheon at Piedmont Church.
She narrowly defeated Democrat Caroline Holko in the November elections, receiving a little more than 51 percent of the vote. Birrell, who was first elected in 2010, thanked her constituents and supporters in her weekly newsletter on Friday:
“Together, we have brought new businesses to the district, connected neighbors through various homeowner associations, worked to ensure we are fiscally responsible stewards of your tax dollars, added parks/green space, and supported our public safety team who is second to none. There are not enough words to express my gratitude to you for being so engaged, passionate, and supportive of our community.”
Birrell also has been appointed to serve as vice chair of the Cobb Board of Commissioners in 2019. That appointment was made by chairman Mike Boyce.
The only other commission election this year was in District 1 in North Cobb, where incumbent Bob Weatherford was defeated by Keli Gambrill. She also was sworn in this week.
The new terms for Birrell and Gambrill officially begin in January.
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A member of an informal citizens steering committee examining a possible East Cobb cityhood initiative has resigned, saying he and other committee members weren’t being told who funded a $36,000 feasibility study released last week.
Joe O’Connor, a resident of the King’s Cove neighborhood and a longtime community activist, told East Cobb News that he insisted that Joe Gavalis, president of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood, Inc., offer more clarity about who’s pushing for a portion of East Cobb to become a city.
“I told Joe, ‘you’ve got to be transparent about this,” O’Connor said, recalling his conversation late last week. “His exact words to me were, ‘It’s none of anyone’s business.’ “
In response to questions from East Cobb News, Gavalis on Wednesday did not address O’Connor’s issues with who paid for the feasibility study or his other transparency concerns.
Instead, Gavalis said those who had been invited to serve on an ad hoc citizens group were being made the subject of “some misinformation” by “an attendee who is not for cityhood [and who] chose to share the names of people in the group knowing there were individuals who asked to remain anonymous and who had not made up their minds.”
He said the group is still gathering basic information about possible cityhood. “Many East Cobbers who attended are simply asking questions just like everyone in the aftermath of the Georgia State cityhood feasibility release,” Gavalis said.
East Cobb News contacted some of those individuals. One was upset her name had been given to a reporter and did not want to be interviewed. Some others have not returned messages seeking comment or were unavailable.
O’Connor said he has been friends with Gavalis, a resident of the Atlanta Country Club area, for many years, as they both have served on the Cobb Neighborhood Safety Commission and the Cobb Elder Abuse Task Force.
O’Connor also said he had problems with some of the data and information included in the study compiled by the Georgia State University Center for State and Local Finance. (Read it here, and view a proposed city map here.
In a response to written questions from East Cobb News over the weekend, Gavalis declined to say who funded the study or to name the individuals serving on the citizens committee.
He said the cityhood group, the Commitee for East Cobb Cityhood, Inc., has received donations from around the community to fund the study but he provided no specifics.
Among those on the citizens committee is former Cobb commissioner Thea Powell. She told East Cobb News that she thinks the cityhood idea is worthy of consideration, but “the process should have started sooner, of going out into the community.”
Powell—who said she hasn’t formed an opinion about whether East Cobb should be a city—referenced recommendations from the Georgia Municipal Association that strongly encourage cityhood advocates to get community input early on.
O’Connor said his first meeting about the cityhood idea was held in the office of G. Owen Brown, founder of the Retail Planning Corp., a commercial real estate firm located at Paper Mill Village. Brown is listed on the cityhood committee’s state filing documents as its incorporator. Gavalis is the only other individual who has been named.
O’Connor said after he first began reading through the study last week, he “immediately saw problems.”
Some of the statistical data was outdated and inaccurate, he said, and he was troubled by the low number of businesses in the proposed East Cobb city (around 3,300), far fewer than those in Alpharetta, Johns Creek and similar cities that were compared (bottom line in the chart below).
The residential-to-commercial split in the proposed city of East Cobb would be 85 to 15 percent.
“That’s a concern,” O’Connor said. “The other cities have a good combination.” In East Cobb, he said, “we’re so much more residential.”
Powell also noted that those business number stats are from 2012. “We’re working on really old figures when the economy wasn’t doing very well,” she said.
In his response to that issue over the weekend by East Cobb News, Gavalis said that the city of Milton, also in North Fulton, has a similar breakdown of its tax base, and there hasn’t been millage rate increase there since 2006.
Gavalis said he was asked to lead a possible cityhood effort after some citizens complained they didn’t think they were getting their money’s worth in county property taxes. He has not said who any of those people are.
Among the service priorities Gavalis indicated for a possible city of East Cobb were police and fire and community development, including planning and zoning.
A cityhood effort is a two-year process, requiring state legislation calling for a referendum that must be approved by voters living within the proposed city area. Cityhood advocates must also provide a feasibility study.
Gavalis told East Cobb News the community will be informed but did not indicate when that might be. Here’s more of what he told us Wednesday:
“We are in the beginning stages of our planning process and are seeking answers to some legitimate and sincere questions at this time. The Committee is not trying to be evasive but instead we have honored requests from participants who did not want their names disclosed since this group is still informal. We want to be transparent but we are compiling answers to questions about the study and formalizing our strategy on the expertise levels that will be needed to provide insight and professional advice.
“When we complete our strategic plan we will finalize who will be formally asked to join us and then we will announce who has accepted.”
With the possibility of legislation coming in the new year, Powell thinks the larger community should have been told more by now.
“Public input is of utmost importance,” she said. “Ultimately it doesn’t matter what I think. They will have the final say.”
O’Connor has been supportive about a city of East Cobb, writing a letter to the editor of The Marietta Daily Journal and commenting onEast Cobb News to that effect.
But, he said, that support is based on solid “facts and numbers” and a willingness to make a good-faith effort to inform the public. He doesn’t think that is happening.
“I’ve always said that if you’re hiding something, then you’ve got something to hide,” O’Connor said.
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The president of a committee exploring possible cityhood for East Cobb is declining to identify those he has been meeting with and is not indicating when the group may begin a community dialogue about the issue.
Joe Gavalis, a resident of the Atlanta Country Club area, said in response to written questions from East Cobb News this weekend that he and others he has been discussing cityhood with are still examining a feasibility study released this week.
That study, commissioned by his Committee for East Cobb Cityhood, Inc., was conducted by Georgia State University researchers, who concluded that based on the data they were given to work with, such a city is “financially feasible.”
The most likely next step would be introduction of state legislation, a two-year process that would require a public referendum. If such a bill is introduced next year, the earliest such a vote could take place would be 2020.
Gavalis said if “a review of the GSU study and the community response indicate a desire to proceed,” the group “will work with our elected officials to introduce appropriate legislation.”
He would not say when the public would be fully briefed on the cityhood group’s plans, only that “meetings with our fellow citizens in our community will be initiated” and media outlets “utilized.”
The group also has launched a website, but there’s no other information there than what’s previously been released.
Gavalis said he began the cityhood inquiry “after hearing that others in our county were looking to form a new city,” a reference to conversations taking place in South Cobb, and to see if a new city of East Cobb would be feasible.
During that process, he said, “hundreds of neighbors, business owners and social groups were engaged in recent months about their interest in creating a city in East Cobb. Many asked me to spearhead a loose-knit group to help foster debate regarding the idea.”
He did not identify anyone by name. The only other name that has been made public about the cityhood committee is G. Owen Brown, who is listed on state filing documents as the group’s incorporator. Brown is the founder of the Retail Planning Corporation, an East Cobb-based commercial real estate firm located on Johnson Ferry Road.
Gavalis said that one of the driving forces behind East Cobb cityhood is more local control of government services. Currently, he said, each of the four Cobb district commissioners serves 175,000 people. In the City of East Cobb map that’s been proposed, each city council member would represent around 12,000 citizens, “who would be better served regarding local services and other issues.”
Commissioner Bob Ott, who represents District 2 that covers the proposed city map, has pointed out previously that roughly 40 percent of property tax revenue comes from his district. He has said some residents have told him they don’t think they’re getting their money’s worth.
His district also includes the Cumberland-Vinings-Smyrna area, with major corporate and commercial offices, but it is not part of the proposed City of East Cobb.
For a more detailed map of the proposed City of East Cobb, click here.
When asked which services were priorities for the cityhood group, Gavalis said that community development (which includes planning and zoning), police and fire “are high on the list.” State law requires new cities to provide a minimum of three services.
Gavalis is a retired federal agent who serves on the Cobb Neighborhood Safety Commission and has also been on the Cobb Elder Abuse Task Force. He noted that regarding East Cobb cityhood, “discussions have always taken place since former Cobb Commissioner Bill Byrne proposed a city [in the 2012 elections], and there have always been cityhood movements in metro Atlanta over the last decade.”
Gavalis said there is an East Cobb cityhood steering committee that “is an unofficial group of citizens with knowledge of our community who have volunteered to look at the issues of forming a new city with no pre-set determination for or against a city.”
He said those individuals, whom he also declined to identify, are also examining the feasibility study.
That study cost $36,000, according to a copy of the contract East Cobb News obtained through an open records request. Here’s the full report, which was delivered to the cityhood group on Dec. 7.
Gavalis also would not identify who paid for the study, saying only that “citizens, neighbors and business owners have financially contributed for the cost.” He’s anticipating other donations in the future but would not elaborate.
He also declined to indicate how much the group is paying Phil Kent, CEO of the Cobb-based Insider Advantage political publication and panelist on the Fox 5 public affairs program “The Georgia Gang.” Kent has been retained by the cityhood group to serve in a public relations capacity.
The proposed City of East Cobb map that the cityhood group released doesn’t include all of what’s considered East Cobb. With a population of 96,000, it contains only unincorporated Cobb east of I-75 that is in Cobb Commission District 2, and outside the Cumberland Community Improvement District.
Asked why areas north of Sandy Plains Road are not included in the map, Gavalis would say only that the map “uses boundaries of voting districts already set by the legislature. The proposed map is clean, with no conflicting boundaries.”
The feasibility study indicated that no property taxes would need to be levied above what East Cobb residents are paying for county services.
Gavalis also was asked to respond to citizens who may be happy with the services they’re getting and worry that they might be asked to pay for another layer of government.
“Many residents are not happy and have concerns about the county adequately addressing the values and wishes of East Cobbers.”
He also would not identify those residents or specify their concerns.
Gavalis said that the proposed city is based on a tax base that’s 85 percent residential and 15 percent commercial, similar to Milton in North Fulton. He said officials there have indicated they have not raised the millage rate since 2006.
The GSU study for East Cobb suggested a millage rate of 2.96 and said it may even begin operations with a surplus of nearly $3 million.
“A smaller government can focus on providing the services important to their residents in a timely fashion and can work closely with their citizens to create the type of community they desire,” Gavalis said.
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The Cobb Police Precinct 4 headquarters on Lower Roswell Road was among the county government entities that received a bomb threat today.
Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt said that e-mail threats were sent to Precinct 4 and Precinct 1 in North Cobb, Cobb Police Headquarters, Cobb Superior Court and Cobb 911.
Cavitt said the threats were not deemed to be credible and those buildings were given the all-clear. While Cobb Superior Court was evacuated, Cobb Police Sgt. Wayne Delk said none of the police facilities receiving threats were.
“We did conduct thorough security checks and determined the threat to be unfounded,” he said.
Precinct 4 is located at the East Cobb Government Service Center, which also houses Cobb Fire Station 21 and a tag office.
A number of e-mailed bomb threats were sent elsewhere in metro on Thursday, including schools and businesses, as well as around the country.
Several lockdowns took place at schools in the Dunwoody area, and another bomb threat was made at Columbine High School near Denver. That’s where a 1999 mass shooting killed 13 students and teachers.
The threats at Columbine and other schools in the Denver area were also not deemed to be credible and lockdowns there were lifted.
Some of the e-mail threats demanded payment in Bitcoin, but it’s not clear now if the messages sent to Cobb agencies were that specific.
Also getting threats across the country were universities, media organizations and even the opera house in Boston.
Cavitt said the Cobb threats have been turned over to the FBI for investigation.
We’ll be updating this story as new information becomes available.
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The Cobb Chamber of Commerce has hired Dana Johnson, who heads up community development for Cobb County, to head its economic development efforts.
The Chamber made the announcement Wednesday afternoon that Johnson will become executive vice president of economic development and executive director of Select Cobb.
That office directs the chamber’s economic development strategy.
“Dana is the right person to lead Select Cobb for our next chapter of advancing a thriving economy for our community. He brings a great passion for Cobb and our state as well as extensive economic development experience in working with our many partners to attract, recruit and retain jobs,” Cobb Chamber president and CEO Sharon Mason said in a statement. “I look forward to his leadership that will take Select Cobb and our team to the next level.”
Johnson has been with Cobb community development since 2005 and was appointed director in 2015. The agency oversees planning and zoning, code enforcement and business licenses and inspections in addition to economic development.
He has developed a business concierge service to assist businesses to relocate or expand operations in Cobb.
“I am honored to join an organization with a strong record of achievement and I look forward to building on that momentum,” Johnson said in a Chamber release. “I see tremendous potential for Select Cobb’s efforts to attract and retain businesses to the county, to assist entrepreneurs and grow its international strategy. “
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After filling out the unexpired term of her predecessor, Cobb Planning Commission chairwoman Judy Williams has been reappointed to a full four-year term.
Williams was reappointed earlier this week by Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell to represent District 3, which covers the Northeast Cobb and Town Center/KSU areas.
Earlier this year, Williams became the chairwoman of the five-member board, which hears zoning cases and makes recommendations to county commissioners, after then-chairman Mike Terry retired.
Williams, whose term starts on Jan. 1, has served on the planning board before, appointed by former Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee. She was chosen early last year to replace Christine Trombetti, an East Cobb realtor who had served for 14 years.
Compensation for chairing the planning board is $275 a month.
Birrell, who was re-elected last month, also reappointed Williams to serve on the Cobb Board of Zoning Appeals, also for four years starting Jan. 1.
District 2 commissioner Bob Ott also made several reappointments this week.
Two prominent East Cobb citizens will continue serving on the Cobb Neighborhood Safety Commission. Longtime East Cobb Civic Association activist Trish Steiner will serve through September 2020. The term of Joe Gavalis, who is spearheading an East Cobb cityhood initiative, will end in December 2021.
Ott also reappointed Jill Flamm, another veteran East Cobb Civic Association leader, to the Cobb Recreation Board, through March 2023.
Jon Jordan, an East Cobb resident, will continue serving on the Cobb Library Board of Trustees through 2021. An author of military history books and an attorney, Jordan was appointed by Ott last year to fill an unexpired term.
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The map proposed by the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb, Inc. would include most of Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott’s District 2.
We’ve just gotten a City of East Cobb feasibility study commissioned by a local group that is claiming a number of “positives” for incorporation, including no additional tax levies above the current Cobb millage rate.
The study, which was conducted by the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State University, was paid for by a group called Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb, Inc.
The research analysis concluded that the City of East Cobb could expect annual revenues of around $48 million and expenses of around $46 million.
The cityhood group is led by Joe Gavalis, a resident of the Atlanta Country Club area, who said the study is just the first step toward having a public dialogue about the possibility of East Cobb becoming a city.
He said “the study’s findings are extremely favorable to East Cobb cityhood.”
The Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb is claiming the benefits of cityhood would include more local control, enhanced police and fire services, better road maintenance and expansion of the East Cobb Government Service Center.
A two-year process would be required to formally pursue cityhood, including passage of state legislation calling for a referendum that would give citizens the final say about forming a new city.
According to the study’s executive summary, State Rep. Sharon Cooper, an East Cobb Republican, contacted GSU. Cityhood efforts also require a state representative and a state senator from the possible new city to sponsor referendum legislation.
“This study is not a budget, it is a feasibility study. It develops revenue and expense estimates based on property tax files, a boundary map and estimated business license revenue,” Gavalis said in a statement.
Georgia law also requires that new cities provide at least three public services. GSU was asked to examine the provision of public safety, fire management, parks and recreation and community development in East Cobb. The researchers noted that the latter category is a broad one, and for this study included zoning and code enforcement.
The GSU study estimates that nearly half of the proposed revenues, $23 million, would come from property taxes. The biggest expense would be public safety, around $19 million, with around $12 million of that for police.
The GSU researchers projected a 142-officer police force, as well as the acquisition of five current Cobb fire stations within the proposed East Cobb municipal boundaries (stations 3, 15, 19, 20 and 21, see fire department maps).
The study compared populations, demographics, home values and other data for the East Cobb cityhood proposal with Alpharetta, Dunwoody, Johns Creek, Roswell and Smyrna (see chart below).
The proposed map, which comprises around 40 square miles, doesn’t include all of what’s generally regarded as East Cobb. It includes only unincorporated Cobb east of I-75 that is in Cobb Commission District 2 (in map at top) and outside of the Cumberland Community Improvement District. Click here for a detailed view of that map.
It includes none of the East Cobb area that is in District 3, which generally lies between Sandy Plains Road and Canton Road.
The population in the proposed city map area amounts to 96,858, which would make the city of East Cobb the second-largest in metro Atlanta. Roswell’s estimated population is around 94,000 and Johns Creek, which incorporated in 2006, is around 84,000.
A city of East Cobb would have an elected mayor and six-member city council and an appointed city manager. Neighborhoods in unincorporated areas could petition to join the city if it is chartered.
Startup plans would estimate the hiring of 35 non-public safety city employees. No public works department is being proposed for East Cobb, but such a city would be eligible for Cobb SPLOST and state funding for road maintenance and improvements.
Previous suggestions for East Cobb cityhood haven’t gotten past the talking stage. Most recently former Cobb Commission Chairman Bill Byrne proposed it during his 2012 campaign to regain his seat, but the idea never took off.
That was right before voters in Brookhaven and Tucker began to organize their own successful cityhood efforts. There hasn’t been a new city in Cobb County, which has six municipalities, since the late 1800s.
The Committee for the City of East Cobb, which has not revealed its parties beyond Gavalis and one other person, paid $36,000 for the GSU study.
Gavalis has been a member of the Cobb Neighborhood Safety Commission, a citizen advisory board, and was reappointed Tuesday by District 2 Commissioner Bob Ott.
According to documents filed with the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office corporations division, the committee registered as a non-profit organization in September and stated that it does not intend to have members.
The only other name listed on the filing forms is the group’s incorporator, G. Owen Brown, who is the president and founder of the Retail Planning Corporation based on Johnson Ferry Road in East Cobb.
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After Cobb seniors were asked to pay a membership fee and pay higher fees for services at county senior centers this year, a senior citizens group is asking that they be eliminated or at least reconsidered.
At a recent Cobb Board of Commissioners meeting, June Van Brackle, president of the Senior Citizen Council of Cobb County, cited a figure that fewer than 3,000 seniors are using the centers this year, compared to around 6,500 before the fees were imposed.
Earlier, commissioners set an annual membership fee of $60 a person to take part in activities at the senior centers.
While some were upset by the membership fees and higher cost for activities fees and room rentals, he said “we’re all in this together.”
One group that regularly met at the East Cobb Senior Center has stopped having regular events there. The Foxtrotters Ballroom Dance Club, held a farewell dance in June after 21 years. They’re having a reunion dance there on Jan. 18.
Here’s more from Van Brackle’s remarks:
The Senior Citizens Council of Cobb is urging the Board of Commissioners to eliminate these mandatory fees. Cobb County is renowned for the services it offers to its residents. The reduction in participation at the five centers can only be a major detriment to the overall quality of life for Cobb seniors.
The Senior Citizen Council of Cobb County is an all-volunteer organization that has been in existence for 45 years and advocates for better public policies for Cobb seniors. The Council has always been against additional burden on our oldest citizens and if you are interested, we ask that you contact your commissioner and express your feelings regarding these fees.
Commissioners will be holding their semiannual retreat Monday at the Cobb Civic Center, and Boyce told Van Brackle to attend.
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This just issued from Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt:
The City of Atlanta had an issue with their water system that resulted in a Boil Water Alert. Many in Cobb County are reporting receiving a phone message about the alert.
Cobb County’s Water System is operating normally and does not have a boil order alert at this time.
Most of the city of Atlanta was experiencing a water outage or low water pressure after a pump failure at a water plant on Monday morning.
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Cobb County Tax Commissioner Carla Jackson will permanently close the motor vehicle office located at 700 South Cobb Drive, Marietta, at 5 p.m., Friday, Nov. 30.
It has served Cobb for more than 20 years, but the complexity of retrofitting today’s security, technology and business functions would have been extremely costly, according to Jackson. Monday, Dec. 3, will be a move and set up day for all team members.
The newly-renovated North Office will open at 8 a.m., Tuesday, Dec. 4, to handle all commercial (dealer, fleet and HD trucks) and individual motor vehicle transactions. This office is located at 2932 Canton Road, Suite 300, Marietta.
The renovated space on Canton Road will feature additional workstations and expanded services to better accommodate residents.
With this closure, the correct Tax Commissioner’s Office mailing addresses are:
Motor Vehicle (General) P.O. Box 100128, Marietta, GA 30061
Motor Vehicle (Commercial and Fleet) 2932 Canton Road, Suite 300, Marietta, GA 30066
Property Tax (Payments) P.O. Box 100127, Marietta, GA 30061
Tax Commissioner (General) P.O. Box 649, Marietta, GA 30061-0649
Please direct all correspondence to the appropriate P.O. box to avoid any service delay. For more information about the Cobb County Tax Commissioner’s Office, visit www.cobbtax.org.
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Cobb commissioners on Tuesday approved using $8 million in fiscal year 2019 general fund reserves for the construction of a new forensic laboratory for the Cobb Medical Examiner’s Office.
The 40-year-old facility needs to be replaced, and cost estimates range around $11 million. The remaining $3 million will come from SPLOST revenues.
In 2014 a critical audit of the medical examiner’s office suggested sweeping changes that prompted the resignation of the chief medical examiner.
Since then, the office has been run by Christopher Gulledge (in photo), and in recent years has been ramping up efforts to grapple with the county’s growing opioid crisis.
The audit was brought about by complaints by citizen Tom Cheek about the way his son’s autopsy was handled, and revealed wider organizational problems.
Cheek unsuccessfully ran for the District 3 Cobb commission seat this year, losing to incumbent JoAnn Birrell in the Republican primary.
Commissioners also voted on Tuesday to spend more than $158,000 to purchase flood storage volume at Wigley Lake in Northeast Cobb.
The funding, which will come from the Cobb Water System Agency, will create an additional 933,926.4 cubic feet of space for stormwater runoff, or around four vertical feet of space in the lake.
The lake is located near the intersection of Kincaid Road and Addison Road.
The county had an agreement with the Wigley Family Trust in 2003 to spend nearly $300,000 for additional stormwater volume at the lake, but the agreement was never executed. The Wigley family recently came back to the county about reactivating the agreement.
The water system says that the additional space being purchased now will address flood mitigation issues in the Noonday Creek Watershed.
Also on Tuesday, commissioners approved spending $474,805.16 for engineering design services for the second phase of the Bob Callan Trunk Trail, a 10-foot wide trail from Interstate North Parkway to Terrell Mill Road that will span around a third of a mile. The funding comes from the 2015 SPLOST and the design work was awarded to Heath and Linebeck Engineers, Inc.
This portion of the Bob Callan Trail is the central component of the project, which connects the Cumberland area with Marietta. The trail also is being developed near the forthcoming Windy Hill-Terrell Mill Connector.
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Johnson Ferry Road at Roswell Road in the heart of East Cobb.
This isn’t a new topic, and it’s one that hasn’t gone very far beyond the talking stage in the past: Should there be such a thing as a City of East Cobb?
A group of mostly unidentified people is behind a new push to create what would be the second-largest municipality in metro Atlanta.
The Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb, Inc., is led by Joe Gavalis, a resident of the Atlanta Country Club area. His group has commissioned a feasibility study being conducted by the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State University. He has not returned calls seeking comment.
However, the suggested City of East Cobb his group is advocating would not include all of East Cobb.
According to a map Gavalis furnished to the MDJ, the proposed map would fall almost entirely within Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott’s District 2.
East Cobb has long been a place name, but never a city.
The area generally regarded as East Cobb includes most of the ZIP codes 30062, 30066, 30067 and 30068, as well as the Cobb portion of 30075, and has an estimated population of 200,000.
The proposed City of East Cobb borders generally fall south of Sandy Plains Road, until it gets closer to the Fulton County line. The southern boundaries would fall roughly along the Powers Ferry Road corridor north of Terrell Mill Road.
The western edges of the city would run along Roswell Road Sewell Road and Holly Springs Road to Post Oak Tritt Road.
Everything east and north of that would become a city in what has long embodied classic suburban Sunbelt sprawl.
Cityhood measures require state legislation to call for a referendum that voters in the proposed municipality would decide. Under Georgia law, cities must provide a minimum of three services.
The cityhood effort in East Cobb comes after the Cobb Board of Commissioners approved a property tax hike for the first time since the recession. There has been some grumbling that East Cobb provides 40 percent of county tax revenue but some citizens don’t feel they’re getting their money’s worth in services.
After voting against the tax increase, Ott claimed that all District 2 residents were getting from the tax hike in the fiscal year 2019 budget was “1 DOT work crew.”
According to the East Cobb cityhood group’s contract with Georgia State, it is spending $36,000 for the study, which will develop revenue and expense estimates based on property tax files, a boundary map and estimated business license revenue.
The contract indicates that the feasibility of municipal services to be studied include police, fire management, parks and recreation, community development (libraries) and roads.
Gavalis is the lone signatory from the committee for the contract, which also lists G. Owen Brown, of Retail Planning Corp., a commercial real estate company based on Johnson Ferry Road, as a representative for the cityhood group.
The study is expected to be completed by mid-December. According to the contract, the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State is using a similar methodology as a feasibility study it conducted for Tucker, which became incorporated in 2015.
According to the East Cobb cityhood contract, a team of three CSLF researchers will:
” . . . estimate the total annual cost of government operations, including general administrative services and the discretionary services, based on the experience of several comparison cities in Georgia. The set of comparison cities in Georgia will include between four to six cities with similar demographic and economic conditions to the proposed area.
“In addition, the cost estimates will include the cost associated with purchasing any assets in the proposed incorporation area that are currently owned by Cobb County and any one-time costs associated with the initiation of municipal operations.”
The last time the City of East Cobb issue was raised also came after county commissioners voted to increase taxes, and during the heat of a political campaign. During the 2012 Republican runoff for Cobb Commission Chairman, challenger Bill Byrne proposed the idea but it didn’t gain much traction.
Byrne, a former chairman, was seeking to regain his seat against then-incumbent Tim Lee, who eventually edged him in the runoff.
Byrne would have had an elected mayor and five city council members for the City of East Cobb, which would have had its own police, fire, water and sewer services, purchased from the county for $1 a year. He also wanted the county, in his plan, to spend $1 million to build an East Cobb City Hall.
Byrne had attacked Lee for raising the property tax millage rate in 2011, during the aftermath of the recession.
At the time, Byrne’s idea didn’t resonate in East Cobb as it has elsewhere in metro Atlanta. This was right after citizens of Brookhaven voted to incorporate, and followed other successful cityhood drives in Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek and Milton.
But that sentiment hasn’t seriously spread in Cobb, which has six cities that have been incorporated for more than a century, and in some cases before the Civil War.
In 2009 there was a group called Citizens for the City of East Cobb that launched a website but never identified itself or pressed for action beyond that.
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Some of the most recent cityhood efforts elsewhere in metro Atlanta have failed. Earlier this month, a push to create the city of Eagle’s Landing out of Stockbridge fell short in a referendum.
Earlier this year, voters in a portion of Forsyth County turned down a similar measure that would have created the City of Sharon Springs, with a population of 50,000.
Others that have become cities have ended up providing fewer services than what is being studied for East Cobb.
Tucker, which has population of 35,000, provides zoning and planning, code enforcement and community development, and last year added overseeing the Tucker Recreation Center.
Tucker doesn’t charge a millage rate—city residents still pay the full DeKalb millage rate for county-provided services—but generates revenue from business permits, alcohol and excise taxes and utility franchise fees.
Other cityhood drives are continuing, including the Towne Lake community of Cherokee County, with a goal of having a referendum there in 2020.
The only services being suggested for Towne Lake are zoning and planning, code enforcement and sanitation, which would be optional. Those organizing cityhood there say they’re doing it to preserve property values.
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Karen Hallacy of East Cobb was reappointed to serve on the Cobb Development Authority this week.
She was reappointed by a 4-0 vote on Tuesday by the Cobb Board of Commissioners. Her new term will run through March 13, 2022.
The development authority is a seven-member board that oversees some economic development activities, including financial incentives for expanding or relocating businesses, and to market Cobb County to businesses and industries.
It considers tax abatements requested by companies seeking to redevelop or reoccupy properties on the county’s redevelopment list.
Among them is the MarketPlace Terrell Mill development that commissioners approved earlier this year. The developer, which is including a Kroger superstore as an anchor, has been seeking a tax break that was granted by the development authority.
Hallacy was opposed, concerned about setting a precedent for retailers getting abatements.
That tax break is being contested by East Cobb resident Larry Savage, whose successfully appealed in Cobb Superior Court. The developer and development authority have appealed that denial to the Georgia Supreme Court.
Hallacy has been active in many community activities in East Cobb, the county and the state and is the president-elect of the Georgia PTA.
She is the development authority appointee of District 2 commissioner Bob Ott.
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The Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved an agreement to continue a joint school bus camera program with county courts and public schools for another five years.
The automated enforcement system issues citations to motorists who ignore school bus “stop arm” signs. The cameras, equipped on about 100 of nearly 1,000 buses in the Cobb County School District, take photos of the license plates of violating vehicles.
The agreement (agenda item here, formal agreement doc here) includes the Cobb County State Court Clerk, the camera manufacturer American Traffic Solutions and the Cobb Board of Education, which also must approve the agreement.
Cobb State Court judges had not been enforcing the violations for a time earlier this year, questioning their legality. Enforcement resumed in February, but the county said the burden of handling stop arm violations required additional staffing.
In September, commissioners approved the creation of three positions in Cobb State Court and two more in the Cobb Solicitors office to start with the fiscal year 2019 that began in October.
County officials estimate more than 8,000 such cases are generated annually. Each violation comes with a fine of $300.
The fine money, which exceeded $2 million in 2017, is split evenly between the county, Cobb schools and ATS, which provides the cameras at no charge.
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