For a larger view of the proposed East Cobb city council districts, click here.
The Georgia House on Monday adopted Senate substitute legislation to call for a referendum for a proposed City of East Cobb.
HB 841 (you can read it here) was approved by a 96-62 vote in the lower chamber without debate, and will be sent to Gov. Brian Kemp to be signed into law.
It would establish a May 24 referendum for voters in the proposed city to decide whether or not to incorporate.
The county is spending more than $40,000 for lobbyists to oppose the cityhood bills.
Cobb officials estimate the impact to the county budget would be more than $45 million a year if all four proposed cities—East Cobb, Vinings, Lost Mountain and Mableton—would come into being.
The financial estimates contend that nearly half of those revenues would come from a City of East Cobb of around 60,000 residents along the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
The county also has protested moving up the referendums in each of the four Cobb cities from November to May, saying it would put an additional burden on Cobb Elections for the general primary.
But the East Cobb Cityhood group questions the county’s financials and objected to taxpayer money being spent to fight the bills.
The Vinings and Lost Mountain bills have passed the House and are headed for the Senate; the Mableton bill is being heard by a House committee.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners is holding a special work session Tuesday at 6 p.m. to cover cityhood issues, including potential impact on county finances and services.
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The proposed Cobb Board of Education map passed by the House would remove Post 6 from East Cobb. For a larger version click here.
Mostly along party lines, the Georgia House on Monday approved Republican-sponsored bills redistricting seats on the Cobb Board of Education and the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
They now will be considered by the Senate.
The bills drew opposition from members of the Democratic majority in the Cobb legislative delegation, who accused their GOP colleagues of skirting local courtesies during reapportionment.
The House also voted 95-64 to approve a commission map drawn by GOP State Rep. John Carson of Northeast Cobb that he said would likely still maintain the current 3-2 Democratic majority.
But Democratic lawmakers objected to redrawing current Democratic District 2 Commissioner Jerica Richardson and District 3 Republican Commissioner JoAnn Birrell into the same East Cobb-based district.
Birrell and Keli Gambrill, the other GOP commissioner from District 1 in North Cobb, are both up for re-election this year.
If the commission map is approved, Richardson would have to move inside the boundaries of the new District 2 if she runs for a second term in 2024.
Although redistricting bills must be passed by the entire legislature, local delegations typically move maps forward for full House and Senate votes.
Most of East Cobb would be drawn into District 3 on the Cobb Board of Commissioners in a map approved by the Georgia House.
But in the last election cycle, Democrats became the majority on the Cobb commission, which previously had a 4-1 Republican majority.
Republicans hold a 4-3 edge on an increasingly fractious Cobb school board, with a mostly partisan split on a number of issues.
The GOP map would move Post 6—the Walton and Wheeler clusters currently represented by Democrat Charisse Davis—into the Smyrna-Vinings area.
The Walton, Wheeler and Pope clusters would be included in a new Post 5, where four-term Republican David Banks is the incumbent.
The Sprayberry, Lassiter and Kell clusters would be reformed into Post 4, whose current member is Republican David Chastain.
Chastain has indicated he will be seeking a fourth term this year. Davis, in her first term, has not said whether she’s running again in 2022.
(PLEASE NOTE: The process of redistricting elected school board posts has nothing to do with the boundaries of school attendance zones, which are drawn by school district administrative staff.)
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Gov. Brian Kemp has set April 5 as the date for a special election to fill a Georgia House seat in East Cobb.
That’s the day after the final day of the Georgia General Assembly’s 2022 session.
The vacancy in House District 45 was created when longtime State Rep. Matt Dollar, a Republican first elected in 2002, resigned his seat on Feb. 1.
He has been the chief sponsor of the East Cobb Cityhood legislation that is nearing passage in the legislature.
The special election will be held in jungle format—meaning candidates of all parties will be running together.
The successor will fill out the rest of Dollar’s term, which is through the end of the year.
During reapportionment in November, District 45 was redrawn to include both Dollar and Republican State Rep. Sharon Cooper, who has represented adjoining District 43 since 1997.
Last fall, Dollar announced he would not be seeking re-election. He stepped down shortly after the East Cobb Cityhood bill was transmitted to the Senate, saying he was taking an economic development job with the state technical college system.
The only candidate who has announced an interest in the special election thus far is Democrat Dustin McCormick.
He also said he will be running in the May 24 primary for the new District 45 seat.
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The Georgia Senate on Thursday adopted a bill that would establish a cityhood referendum for East Cobb, but the legislation needs further action by the House.
By a 31-18 vote, the Senate approved HB 841, which would call for a May 24 referendum.
The bill that passed the Senate was a substitute from a Senate committee that included clarifying language on residency requirements for city council candidates.
That’s why the bill has to go back to the House, since a different version was passed there.
A motion by Sen. John Albers, the Senate sponsor of the East Cobb bill, to transfer the bill to the full House passed 30-16, but it didn’t get the required two-thirds of a majority vote.
Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan referred the bill back to the lower chamber in “normal order,” meaning it has to go through the committee process.
Albers, a Republican from North Fulton whose district will include the proposed East Cobb city boundaries next year, said that voters in East Cobb deserve the right to self-determination through a referendum.
He noted that in the last 17 years, 11 cityhood bills in Georgia have been voted in, and 10 of them have passed.
“We do not create cities,” he said from the Senate well. “We only create opportunities for citizens in those areas to create them.”
Two Democratic senators spoke against the bill, mainly for the timing of the referendum.
The original East Cobb bill was to have been in November, but was moved up to May in a change made during the House committee process by former State Rep. Matt Dollar.
He was the bill’s chief sponsor before resigning after it was sent to the Senate.
Sen. Michelle Au of Johns Creek, a member of the Senate State and Local Government Operations Committee, said that while “I don’t have an objection to cityhood movements,” the May referendum is an “arbitrary deadline.
“There’s no reason that I can see that we need to rush.”
Three other Cobb cityhood bills—Lost Mountain, Vinings and Mableton—also have May referendums.
Au said more time is needed for the financial impact of those new cities, if they come to pass, on Cobb County government.
State Sen. Michael “Doc” Rhett, a Democrat from South Cobb, made the same point, and also said the May referendums would be hard for Cobb Elections to include on an already full primary ballot.
“I understand the need for autonomy,” Rhett said. “Let’s slow down.”
Voting for the East Cobb bill was Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, a Republican from East Cobb. She did not speak from the Senate floor on behalf of the bill.
Her district currently includes the proposed East Cobb area but is not under new boundaries redrawn in reapportionment.
She was opposed to the East Cobb cityhood bill when it first came up in three years ago but said recently she was supportive of letting voters decide on whether to have a city.
The East Cobb Cityhood group is having a virtual information session Thursday at 6 p.m.; you can register by clicking here.
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A Democrat who twice came close to toppling one of the Georgia House’s top Republican leaders in the last two elections will be running for the State Senate in 2022.
Luisa Wakeman has announced her candidacy for District 6 in the Georgia Senate, which has been been redrawn to include some of the Mt. Bethel, Sope Creek, Sewell Mill and East Side precincts as well as the Terrell Mill, Powers Ferry and Chattahoochee precincts in East Cobb (see map here).
District 6, which also include portions of Smyrna-Vinings and Sandy Springs, is represented by Democrat Jen Jordan, who is running for lieutenant governor.
Wakeman is an East Cobb resident who lost by fewer than 500 votes in 2020 to State Rep. Sharon Cooper, an East Cobb Republican who is the House Health and Human Services chairwoman.
A former flight attendant and nurse, Wakeman registered her campaign committee last week. Her campaign website can be found by clicking here.
In a release, she said that “this is an important election and we must step up in order to continue to move the state forward. We have a majority party pushing extreme legislation that defies the values of most Georgians. While our kids continue active shooter drills in school, Republican legislators are pushing a law that allows anyone to buy weapons without a license.
“As hospitals fill to capacity and frontline healthcare workers have been pushed to exhaustion, legislators used their power to prevent lawsuits from covid-19 harm. After an election where parents, grandparents, frontline workers, waited hours in line to vote, legislators made it even more difficult for Georgians to cast a ballot, especially voters in Black and immigrant communities. We deserve representation that will listen to the people of this district.”
Other Democratic candidates for the District 6 race include Jason Esteves, the former chairman of the Atlanta Board of Education.
Qualifying begins in March for the May 24 primary.
In 2020, the District 43 State House race between Wakeman and Cooper was one of the more expensive legislative races in Georgia, with both candidates raising more than $500,000 combined.
After reapportionment, both Cooper and Wakeman were redrawn into District 45, which has a vacancy after the resignation last week of State Rep. Matt Dollar.
Dollar, the chief sponsor of the East Cobb Cityhood bill, said last fall he would not be seeking re-election.
Redistricting sliced up East Cobb into four State Senate seats. Most of it has been in District 32, which is represented by Republican State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick since 2017.
That district has been redrawn to include some of Northeast Cobb and parts of Cherokee County. Kirkpatrick is seeking re-election but has a GOP primary opponent in State Rep. Charlice Byrd of Woodstock.
District 56 will include much of the Johnson Ferry Road corridor and has been represented by State Sen. John Albers, a Republican from North Fulton who is sponsoring the East Cobb Cityhood bill in the upper chamber.
District 33 includes the East Marietta area and is represented by Democratic Sen. Michael “Doc” Rhett.”
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With the resignation of State Rep. Matt Dollar this week, his East Cobb cityhood bill is being carried by lawmakers from Acworth and North Fulton.
By this time next week, a bill calling for a referendum to create a City of East Cobb may have passed the Georgia legislature and would await with the signature of Gov. Brian Kemp.
After only 10 days of legislative action, HB 841 easily has flown through the House and a seven-member Senate committee, and likely will be acted on by the full Senate this week.
Although the East Cobb bill was submitted nearly a year ago, that the legislation has taken on dramatic and confusing new dimensions since November, and especially in the last three weeks.
After filing an initial bill with a “city light” set of proposed services—planning and zoning, code enforcement and parks and recreation—then-State Rep. Matt Dollar brought a substitute bill with him to the State Capitol when the 2022 session began.
Instead, it included police and fire services—a controversial part of the initial East Cobb cityhood bill that was abandoned in 2019—along with planning and zoning and code enforcement.
Those were services that were evaluated in a financial feasibility study conducted by Georgia State University researchers and released in November.
That was the first surprise. Cityhood leaders said at the time that there was “unilateral” support for police and fire services from citizens they surveyed over several months, but they never bothered to tell the public about it until the study was done.
So would the three other cityhood bills in Cobb County—Vinings, Lost Mountain and Mableton—that are currently before the legislature.
After the initial committee meeting, Dollar also was questioned extensively about a governance structure that would have six city council members, who would choose a mayor from among themselves every two years.
So Dollar amended his substitute bill yet again, to still have six council members—with two each living in one of three districts—and a mayor elected directly, citywide.
The House Governmental Affairs Committee also heard from Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid, who said the county was still assessing the financial impact of cityhood and that she wanted voters to have more complete information.
While the county has had more than a year to prepare for this moment, the significant change in services in East Cobb, plus additional changes since the bill has been considered in the legislature, should prompt a pause.
What’s the rush to having a referendum in May? Not just in East Cobb, but in the other three proposed cities?
They comprise more than 200,000 people, or roughly a quarter of Cobb’s population, and voters are being asked to consider significant changes to their local governance. These shouldn’t be rammed through the legislature and then onto the May 24 primary ballot.
Dollar—who abruptly resigned his seat in the legislature this week after the House transferred his bill to the Senate—said it was to avoid having a special election in early 2023 for city council elections, should an East Cobb referendum pass in November.
But Cobb taxpayers will soon be footing the bill for a special election to fill the rest of Dollar’s unexpired term, with his successor likely serving only in a caretaking role after the legislative session is over.
At a Senate committee hearing on Thursday, State Rep. Ed Setzler, an Acworth Republican who’s sponsoring the East Cobb and Lost Mountain bills, was asked if he would delay the East Cobb referendum to November.
“The consensus among the community was to get moving,” Setzler said, not bothering to explain who those community members may be.
Another committee member who wanted to see the proposed city council districts that haven’t been released in map form asked to table a motion to favorably report the bill, but that failed.
Most of those doing the questioning on Cobb cityhood bills in the legislature have been Democrats. But Republicans easily control the Georgia legislature, and since Democrats took control of the Cobb Board of Commissioners last year, GOP members of the Cobb delegation have been busy with cityhood bills (the Mableton bill has two Democratic co-sponsors, one of whom voted for the East Cobb bill).
Concerns over controlling development and growth are the focal points of those bills. When the East Cobb bill was filed last year, I thought it was a vast improvement over the 2019 effort, which never made sense with its focus on police and fire services.
The GSU feasibility study for the current bill is scant on details about how an East Cobb city of about 60,000 people could afford and fund full-service public safety services. There would be one police precinct and two fire stations, but the financials are basically line items about annual revenues and expenditures.
The main revenue source would be the 2.86 mills in the current Cobb Fire Fund.
There’s not much in the study about the true cost for salaries and benefits (including pensions) for 71 police officers and an unspecified number of firefighters. Nothing is in the study about expenses needed to train and equip them.
Those aren’t the only areas where the feasibility study conclusions just don’t add up. That’s why the East Cobb bill should be amended to push back the referendum to November.
Voters deserve the time to educate themselves about the issues and to be able to question the lawmakers and cityhood supporters who are putting this before them.
That hasn’t happened since late last summer, before public safety services were added to the financial study, and before the fast-moving event taking place now at the Gold Dome.
There should be public, in-person or hybrid town halls—not the virtual-only meetings that have taken place over the last year—for those purposes. They could be done this spring and fall, as the previous cityhood group did in 2019.
But those pushing the East Cobb bill in the legislature don’t seem to be interested in that.
(None of whom, by the way, actually live in East Cobb with Dollar departed. State Rep. Sharon Cooper is a co-sponsor of the bill and voted for it in the House, but didn’t speak during floor debate. State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick is more supportive than two years ago but she is running for re-election in a district that doesn’t have the proposed city of East Cobb and is not a sponsor of the bill.)
I agree that they do, but the feasibility study they commissioned is flawed and the legislation that is built around it has changed a lot in such a short amount of time.
It needs to be improved before those voters go to the polls.
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A Georgia House subcommittee on Monday will consider two bills submitted by Cobb Republican legislators to redistrict seats on the Cobb Board of Education and the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
A special subcommittee on redistricting and elections will meet at 3 p.m. Monday to hear HB 1028 and HB 1154.
The agenda and a live viewing link for the meeting can be found by clicking here.
The Republican bills would redraw commission and school board lines very differently than State Rep. Erick Allen, a Smyrna Democrat and the Cobb legislative delegation chairman, has proposed.
Democrats have a 3-2 edge on the current commission, after Republicans have enjoyed majorities since the 1980s. Birrell, who is a Republican, and fellow GOP commissioner Keli Gambrill voted against recommending Allen’s proposed boundaries.
Both Birrell and Gambrill are up for re-election this year. Richardson, a Democrat whose first term expires in 2024, would have to move into the new District 2if the GOP bill is approved. She recently bought a home off Post Oak Tritt Road, which would be in the new District 3 under the GOP bill.
The school board map is identical to boundaries recommended by the four members of the Cobb school board’s Republican majority.
Cobb school board member Charisse Davis
That includes shifting Post 6, which includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters, into the Smyrna-Vinings-Cumberland area.
Like the Republican legislators’ commission map, school board representation in East Cobb would be reduced to one member, Republican David Banks of Post 5, who was re-elected in 2020.
Allen has proposed a map that keeps the seven school board posts very similar to what they are now.
That includes retaining the East Cobb areas of Post 6, which is represented by first-term Democrat Charisse Davis. She lives in the Smyrna-Vinings area and is up for re-election this year, but has not announced her plans.
The Cobb legislative delegation has a one-member Democratic majority. But as is happening in Gwinnett County, Cobb Republicans are attempting an end-around the typical delegation reapportionment process.
The Cobb GOP bills are likely to pass in a Republican-dominated Georgia legislature.
At a press conference earlier this week, Allen decried the Cobb GOP bills. As he was speaking, State Rep. Ed Setzler, a Republican from Acworth and a driving force behind the GOP legislation, crashed the event, leading to some heated discussion.
On Friday, Allen, who is running for lieutenant governor, urged his supporters and other Democrats to attend Monday’s subcommittee hearing on the “inappropriate” bills.
The Cobb County Democratic Committee also decried the “gerrymandered” maps, saying “you need to stand in protest against these shameful acts” and accusing Cobb Republicans of “overthrowing an election by other means.”
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East Cobb resident Dustin McCormick has announced he’s running in a still-to-be-called special election for a Georgia State House seat vacated this week by longtime legislator Matt Dollar.
McCormick, who’s in a financial management position at McKesson Corp., said Friday he’s seeking the short-term post in District 45 and will be running for the same seat in the May primary.
McCormick had already set up a campaign committee for the 2022 elections before Dollar’s abrupt resignation on Tuesday.
Dollar, a Republican, left his office of nearly 20 years shortly after the East Cobb Cityhood bill he sponsors was submitted to the Senate for consideration.
Gov. Brian Kemp has not yet called for a special election, which must be held within the next 30 to 60 days. The successor would fill out the remainder of Dollar’s term, although he or she may not take office until after the current legislative session.
For now, District 45, which includes some of the Pope and Walton High School clusters, has no representative (here are the current boundaries).
McCormick, who lives in the Bishop’s Green neighborhood, opposes East Cobb Cityhood. The bill, which passed a Senate committee Thursday, proposes public safety, planning and zoning and code enforcement services.
McCormick said it’s adding another layer of government and taxation, and said East Cobb residents already “enjoy fantastic Police, Fire, and EMT coverage with some of the best response times in the area.”
In a release issued Friday, he said that “I’m thrilled to run to represent the community that has given me and my family so much. I believe in a responsive government that preserves our quality of life and focuses on the issues that matter to your family.”
According to his website McCormick’s other priorities would be to update the current model of state funding for public schools and to implement anti-bullying programs in schools.
He also supports hate crimes legislation and supports expanding Medicaid.
McCormick and his partner Misty, and have two children, Audrey and Finley.
He is an active member of the Bishop’s Green HOA, the East Cobb Civic Association, Rotary Club of East Cobb, Cobb County Democrats, and Cobb County Chamber of Commerce.
He earned a finance degree from Georgia Southern University and an Executive MBA from the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.
District 45 will have new boundaries for the primary and general election this year (see map).
Dollar announced his retirement in the fall, after he and State Rep. Sharon Cooper, an East Cobb Republican who represents District 43, were drawn into the same legislative seat.
The only other candidate who’s set up a campaign committee for District 45 for the primary and general election is Carminthia Moore, who is active with the Cobb GOP.
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State Rep. Ed Setzler also is a co-sponsor of the Lost Mountain Cityhood bill.
The East Cobb Cityhood bill was approved by a Georgia Senate committee on Thursday, clearing the way for possible final passage next week.
By a vote of 4-3, the Senate Local Government Operations Committee favorably reported the bill, despite concerns from some panel members and a member of a citizens group against East Cobb cityhood.
One of those concerns—a district residency requirement for city council candidates—was addressed when State Rep. Ed Setzler, a West Cobb Republican and a bill co-sponsor—added clarifying language.
The other issue—pushing back a referendum to November instead of May, as was adopted in a substitute bill in the House—Setzler was not willing to entertain.
The bill now goes to the Senate Rules Committee, which could schedule the bill for a floor debate and full passage next week (the legislature doesn’t meet on Friday).
The East Cobb Cityhood legislation is the first of four such bills in Cobb to reach the Senate during the current session.
Bills calling for referendums in Lost Mountain and Vinings were favorably reported out of a House committee on Wednesday. A Mableton cityhood bill also is pending.
Also on Wednesday, Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said the county will be pushing an “awareness campaign” about cityhood as it relates not only to county government finances, but also explaining its current delivery of services.
Setzler and State Sen. John Albers, a North Fulton Republican who is sponsoring the East Cobb bill in the upper chamber, appeared before the Senate committee Thursday.
So did several members of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood.
Mindy Seger of the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes cityhood, pointed out that the bill passed by the House does not include language about city council residency requirements.
Under the bill, all six city council members would be elected at-large. However, there are three council districts, with each of them having two members who must reside in those districts.
The bill passed by the House requires anyone running for the city council to have been a resident of the city for at least a year (line 201 of the bill linked to above).
It doesn’t mention the district requirement, so Setzler asked for an amendment—noted in bold type—saying that “no person shall be eligible to serve as councilmember unless that person shall have been a resident of the city and the district from which he/she is elected for 12 months prior to the date of the election of members of the city council.”
Seger also said the May referendum date should be pushed back, a suggestion that some committee members also made.
Setzler said it would be ideal for a referendum in May, and if passed, with mayor and city council elections in November as preparations begin to start up a city in early 2023.
After the amendment passed, State Sen. Michelle Au, a Democrat from Johns Creek, asked if that’s “a real deadline.”
If it’s on the November ballot, Au asked, couldn’t a startup date be decided in the future.
Setzler said that a “consensus” of community feedback during virtual town halls conducted over the last year was “to get moving” early in the next year.
Another Democratic committee member, Sen. Emanuel Jones of Decatur, moved to table the bill because no demographic or district boundaries were provided, among other information he said was incomplete.
That motion failed before the committee voted to favorably report the bill.
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Lisa Cupid speaking to the House Governmental Affairs Committee in January.
Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid spoke out Wednesday against fast-moving cityhood efforts in the Georgia legislature and bills by Republican lawmakers that would override local redistricting efforts by the county’s legislative delegation.
Cobb spokesman Ross Cavitt sent a statement late Wednesday afternoon from Cupid, who said county officials have hired a consultant to evaluate the financial impact of legislation that could create four new cities, including one in East Cobb.
Those bills would also call for referendums in Vinings, Mableton and Lost Mountain in West Cobb. According to initial filings of those bills, those votes would have taken place in November.
But like the East Cobb bill that just passed the House, the other bills have been revised to move up the referendums in May instead.
She also said then she wasn’t opposed to new cities but “I’m opposed to persons having to vote and not having clear and accurate information beforehand.”
In her Wednesday statement, Cupid said that “the county understood that some of these initiatives could appear on the ballot in November.
“The impact analyses cannot be completed by the May primary, so I and staff will be much more active in assessing our impact internally and in educating citizens, both in city limits and outside, about the financial impact in Cobb.”
She said while she’s “not here to thwart efforts towards determining the future of one’s community,” she wants to “ensure some sense of transparency and to better educate Cobb Citizens, more broadly, about how cityhood can impact all here.”
At a committee hearing Wednesday to consider the Lost Mountain and Vinings bills, Cobb Deputy County Manager Jimmy Gisi said the county government will be creating an “awareness campaign” detailing current county services, especially those that the proposed cities would be providing.
Of the four, only East Cobb would provide police and fire services, after the initial bill called for planning and zoning, code enforcement and parks and recreation.
Public safety services were included in a financial feasibility study issued in November, but did not detail specific costs for personnel salaries, staff training and equipment.
At the East Cobb bill’s House committee hearing, Cobb Public Safety Director Randy Crider said that given that the proposed East Cobb fire department would have only two stations serving a city with 25 square miles, “how much are we going to be relied on to provide support?”
The East Cobb bill was given its first reading in the Senate on Wednesday and was referred to the State and Local Governmental Operations Committee.
The committee is scheduled to meet at 12 p.m. Thursday to consider that bill. You can watch it live by clicking here.
The Vinings and Lost Mountain bills were reported favorably out of committee and will likely be scheduled for a House floor vote next week. The Mableton bill was filed Jan. 10 and has had a second reading but has not been scheduled for committee action.
On Tuesday, State Rep. John Carson, a Northeast Cobb Republican, filed a bill to redistrict the four district seats on the Cobb Board of Commissioners in dramatically different fashion than Smyrna Democrat Erick Allen, the Cobb delegation chairwoman who would keep those lines similar to what they are now.
Carson’s bill would put the two commissioners representing East Cobb—Republican JoAnn Birrell and Democrat Jerica Richardson—in the same district.
The commission’s three Democrats, including Cupid, supported Allen’s map, but Birrell and Republican commissioner Keli Gambrill were opposed.
In her statement late Wednedsay, Cupid said that while Carson’s map would likely keep a 3-2 Democratic majority, “his iteration of the map occurred without communication to the full Board of Commissioners. It is unclear to me if he consulted with the local state delegation regarding his proposed map.”
Cupid further said that “no pothole is seeking an R or D for resolution. His map certainly undermines the respectfulness of elected leadership of this county when it fully draws someone out of an area that they have been elected to represent. It also furthers political polarization when districts must be drawn that are either Republican or Democrat and not a combination of both which can result in balanced thought within the leaders that represent them.”
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Most of East Cobb would be included in Cobb Commission District 3 (in yellow) in a bill filed by GOP legislators.
Like they did regarding reapportionment for the Cobb Board of Education, Republican legislators in Cobb County have filed their own map for the redistricting of Board of Commissioner seats that are separate from the county’s legislative delegation leaders.
In HB 1154, filed Tuesday by several GOP House members—including three from East Cobb—both county commissioners representing East Cobb would be drawn into the same district.
The current boundaries of Cobb commission District 3. For a larger view click here.
The lead sponsor of the bill is John Carson of Northeast Cobb, and his lines would place most of East Cobb inside District 3, currently held by three-term Republican JoAnn Birrell.
She’s up for re-election in 2022, along with fellow Republican Keli Gambrill of North Cobb.
They both voted against a recommended map drawn by State Rep. Erick Allen, a Smyrna Democrat and the Cobb delegation chairman, that was supported by the commission’s three-Democrat majority.
Birrell said she did not support that map because it has taken out some of her East Cobb precincts.
Like the school board map, the GOP proposal would reduce representation in East Cobb.
Currently, District 2 includes East Cobb north of Powers Ferry Road and east of East Piedmont Road, reaching up through the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford area and including the area around Mabry Park.
That seat has been held since 2021 by Democrat Jerica Richardson, who succeeded three-term Republican Bob Ott, and whose term expires in 2024.
She had been living in the Cumberland-Smyrna area, but last summer moved into a new home off Post Oak Tritt Road.
Under Carson’s bill, that area would be included in the new District 3 (in yellow on the map at the top), which would stretch down to the Powers Ferry Road corridor. District 2 (in pink in the same map) would fall along the I-75 corridor from Kennesaw and through Marietta and retain most of the Cumberland-Vinings-Smyrna areas.
The current East Cobb portion of District 2. For a larger view click here.
Districts 2 and 3 were redrawn in 2014 to balance population.
Birrell lost some of her Northeast Cobb base in exchange for more areas in and around the city of Marietta. In 2018, she was re-elected with only 51 percent of the vote.
Until 2020, she had been part of a 4-1 Republican majority on the commission. But Richardson defeated GOP candidate Fitz Johnson to succeed the retiring Ott and former commissioner Lisa Cupid ousted GOP chairman Mike Boyce to create a 3-2 Democratic majority.
The Cobb Republican bills aren’t the only ones that would usurp usual county delegation deference in local redistricting.
Typically the full legislature honors the votes of county delegations to redraw local lines. But both the Cobb and Gwinnett delegations have slight Democratic majorities.
GOP lawmakers in Gwinnett have filed similar bills as that once heavily Republican county has swung toward Democrats.
The Cobb Republican bills would go through a similar process, first being heard in a House committee.
HB 1028, the Cobb GOP school board redistricting bill, was revised on Tuesday and has not yet been scheduled for committee consideration.
The Cobb commissioners redistricting bill will have a first reading in the House before being assigned to a committee.
Allen has called a press conference for Thursday morning at the Georgia Capitol to address Cobb redistricting issues.
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State Rep. Matt Dollar speaking in favor of the East Cobb Cityhood bill on the House floor last Thursday.
State Rep. Matt Dollar, a Republican who is the chief sponsor of the East Cobb Cityhood bill that just passed the House, is resigning his seat in the Georgia legislature, effective today.
Dollar, who has represented District 45 since 2003, said in a release that he is leaving to become the deputy commissioner of economic development for the Technical College System of Georgia.
“Having been born and raised in Marietta, it has been the greatest honor of my life to serve the citizens of House District 45 in the Georgia House of Representatives,” Dollar said in a statement. “I want to thank the people of East Cobb for putting their trust in me, as well as Speaker David Ralston for the confidence he has shown in me during my time as a member of the Georgia House. I look forward to my new role at TCSG and to continue helping Georgia companies grow and succeed.”
Tuesday was the ninth of the 40-day Georgia legislative session, which is scheduled to run into early April.
He initially announced his resignation during a floor speech after the East Cobb Cityhood bill was sent to the Senate for consideration.
There will be a special election for a successor to serve the rest of Dollar’s term; previously he had announced he wouldn’t be seeking re-election in November.
Gov. Brian Kemp has 10 days to call for the special election, which will take place within the next 30 to 60 days.
Dollar and State Rep. Sharon Cooper, an East Cobb Republican who represents District 43, were drawn into the same legislative seat during reapportionment in November.
However, another Cobb lawmaker, Democratic Rep. David Wilkerson, asked for a notice to reconsider, which meant it could have been voted again by the House.
But on the House floor Tuesday, Wilkerson’s motion to reconsider the bill was rejected by a vote of 97-68.
After that, Dollar moved to transmit the East Cobb Cityhood bill to the Georgia Senate, and that was approved by a vote of 100-63.
The bill, if passed by the legislature, would call for a May referendum by voters within the boundaries of the proposed City of East Cobb.
If that referendum should pass, voters in the city would then choose a mayor and six city council members in November, with the City of East Cobb beginning operations in early 2023.
“People are really seeing the value of not increasing the size of government, but shifting important services to a more local level. I want to thank my colleagues for their bi-partisan support of this effort,” Dollar said.
Shortly after Dollar announced his resignation, the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood sent out a message congratulating and thanking him for his cityhood efforts.
“We would like to thank Rep. Matt Dollar for sponsoring HB841, which in large part, has been made possible by his commitment to listening closely to what residents want out of their community’s future plans,” the cityhood group’s message said. “In partnership with the support of East Cobbers, Cityhood will incorporate our great community into one cohesive whole by preserving the character of our community not just now but down the line as well. We appreciate Rep. Dollar’s perseverance and commitment to this goal and wish him the very best in his next endeavor.”
Dollar, a realtor and graduate of Pope High School, was the chairman of the House Creative Arts and Entertainment Committee. In 2020 he sponsored a bill to update the state’s film tax credit.
He also served on House committees on Appropriations, Economic Development, Transportation, Insurance, Motor Vehicles, Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications and Interstate Cooperation during his legislative tenure.
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The Cobb school board’s Republican majority is recommending a map that would leave East Cobb with two seats. For a larger view click here.
Republican members of the Cobb legislative delegation have filed a bill that would redistrict Cobb Board of Education posts along similar lines recommended recently by the school board’s GOP majority.
State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart of West Cobb filed HB 1028 on Wednesday (you can read it here) as the Cobb legislative delegation—which has a one-member Democratic majority—was meeting over reapportionment.
Co-sponsors of the bill include East Cobb Republicans John Carson, Matt Dollar and Don Parsons.
The delegation is carving out Cobb commission and school board lines for the next decade following the 2020 Census.
The local reapportionment process is usually completed within a county’s delegation before being submitted as a bill that must pass the full legislature, typically in consent fashion on what’s called a local calendar.
Instead, Ehrhart’s legislation will start in the House, after getting a first reading and committee assignment next week.
(PLEASE NOTE: The process of redistricting elected school board posts has nothing to do with the boundaries of school attendance zones, which are drawn by school district administrative staff and are done mainly to balance out school capacity.)
For the last three years, the Cobb school board has held a 4-3 Republican majority (after the GOP previously enjoyed a 6-1 advantage), and has been roiled in a number of controversies that generally have fallen along partisan lines.
State Rep. Erick Allen, a Smyrna Democrat and the Cobb delegation chairman, proposed a draft map of Cobb school board posts earlier this month that would make few changes to the current lines.
The four Republicans on the Cobb school board approved a map designed to maintain their majority. The map would take out most of the East Cobb portion of Post 6 that currently includes the Walton and Wheeler high school clusters.
That seat is currently held by first-term Democrat Charisse Davis, who under the GOP map would be drawn in the same post as Jaha Howard, another first-term Democrat who represents Post 2 in the Smyrna area.
The school board’s recommendation is advisory, but Ehrhart’s bill follows similar lines.
Post 6 would be centered in the Smyrna-Vinings area, keeping several precincts in the Powers Ferry and Terrell Mill corridors.
The Walton-Wheeler zones would mostly be shifted to Post 5, which covers the Lassiter and Pope attendance zones.
That seat is held by Republican vice chairman David Banks.
The new lines, however they might be drawn, will take effect for 2022 elections that include three school board seats.
They are Post 2 (Howard has declared his intent to run for state school superintendent); Post 6 (Davis has not announced her plans) and Post 4 in Northeast Cobb (incumbent David Chastain has said he will be seeking another term).
The Cobb delegation also will be redrawing the four district lines for the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
On Tuesday, the commission’s three Democrats voted in favor of a map drawn by Allen that makes minimal changes to the current lines.
But the two Republicans, JoAnn Birrell of Northeast Cobb and Keli Gambrill of North Cobb, voted against that map.
They are both up for re-election this year. Birrell said she does not support the proposed map because it has taken out some of her East Cobb precincts.
Like the school board’s map, the commissioners’ action is “more of an endorsement vote,” deputy county manager Jimmy Gisi said during the Tuesday meeting.
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The Georgia House on Thursday voted to approve a bill that would allow for a referendum for a proposed city of East Cobb.
After an hour of debate, the vote was 98-63, and the bill now goes to the Georgia Senate.
East Cobb Republican State Rep. Matt Dollar, the bill’s chief sponsor, voted in favor of the bill, along with other East Cobb Republicans John Carson and Sharon Cooper.
The latter is one of three co-sponsors of the East Cobb Cityhood bill, but was the only one of the trio who did not speak during the floor debate.
(You can watch a replay of the House floor session by clicking here and on the House Chamber Day 8 tab; the East Cobb debate begins around the 1:49 mark).
Voting against the bill was another East Cobb Republican, State Rep. Don Parsons, who said he wasn’t consulted about the legislation, nor has he ever heard anything from a citizens group supporting cityhood since the issue first arose four years ago.
He also objected because doesn’t think the proposed city area—around 60,000 people centered along the Johnson Ferry Road corridor—represents a community of interest.
“There is no city of east Cobb waiting to be incorporated,” he said. “There’s nothing that draws it together as a city.”
Also opposing the bill were Cobb Democrats who wanted all four current Cobb cityhood bills—including Vinings, Mableton and Lost Mountain—to be considered together.
Cobb delegation chairman Erick Allen, a Smyrna Democrat, was among those asking for a delay in an East Cobb vote for that and other reasons.
Among the charges opponents have made against the East Cobb bill would be that its proposed services—police and fire, planning and zoning and code enforcement—would add another layer of government.
But State Rep. Ed Setzler of West Cobb, another co-sponsor, said the bill isn’t about adding more government, but “representative government.”
While the current four Cobb district commissioners represent around 200,000 people, the six city council members in East Cobb would represent around 8,000 people.
“Why do the people of Smyrna deserve that level of self-governance, and the people of my community do not even deserve the right to decide if they want it?” Dollar said in his concluding remarks before the vote.
Opponents also questioned last-minute changes to Dollar’s bill this week, including moving up the East Cobb cityhood referendum from November to May.
“People need more than a couple of months of education to learn how the city would work,” said Rep. Teri Anulewicz, a Democrat and former member of the Smyrna City Council.
A co-sponsor of the Mableton cityhood bill, she said she’s not opposed to cities, but said the East Cobb bill—a substitute of legislation first introduced last year by Dollar and Cooper—is being rushed through and is “not ready for a vote. Certainly not in May.”
Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones, a Republican from North Fulton, noted than in 15 years of new cities being formed, mostly in metro Atlanta, residents of those municipalities are generally satisfied.
They include Milton and Johns Creek in her district, as well as Peachtree Corners, Tucker and South Fulton.
“It has been a resounding success,” she said, imploring her colleagues to let the citizens of the proposed East Cobb city to have a say in how they may want local governance.
“Keep an open mind, and let the people vote,” Jones said.
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The committee instructions include allowing up to an hour for debate before a vote. You can watch a replay of the Rules Committee meeting by clicking here.
The House session on Thursday begins at 10 a.m. and you can watch that by clicking here.
Only a few questions were raised by the Rules Committee. One member asked Dollar if he knew the financial impact a City of East Cobb would have on Cobb County government.
Dollar said he didn’t know and since he first introduced a Cityhood bill in 2019 he has not heard anything from county officials about those concerns.
However, at a House Governmental Affairs Committee meeting Jan. 13, Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid, Chief Financial Officer Bill Volckmann and Public Safety Director Randy Crider said they wanted more time to examine the possible impact of an East Cobb city.
It’s one of four bills in this legislative session that would create new cities in Cobb County, along with Vinings, Lost Mountain and Mableton.
A financial feasibility study required as part of the East Cobb legislation was released only in November, and included police and fire services that were not part of the bill Dollar and State Rep. Sharon Cooper introduced in 2021.
East Cobb Cityhood leaders commissioned the study in July and did not disclose until after the report was concluded that public safety was included in August.
Those leaders said in November that there was public feedback supporting those services, but they did not elaborate.
Critics of the East Cobb bill have said the study didn’t full provide a full financial picture of the cost and maintenance of public safety equipment, as well as financials for hiring police officers and firefighters.
His bill would call for a referendum for eligible voters in the proposed city of nearly 60,000 people to decide whether or not to incorporate.
The latest revision to the bill would move the referendum up from the Nov. 6 general election to the May 24 general primary, and to have a mayor directly elected citywide.
Those changes can be found by clicking here; it’s version LC 47 1445S in the upper right corner.
The East Cobb bill is the first Cityhood bill taken up by the legislature this year. The a subcommittee of the House Governmental Affairs Committee was hearing the Vinings and Lost Mountain bills Thursday afternoon.
A bill to create a city of Buckhead out of Atlanta also has been filed and has drawn considerable interest and opposition.
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State Rep. Erick Allen’s draft map of Cobb school board posts. For a larger view, click here.
Democratic members of the Cobb legislative delegation will be holding a virtual town hall meeting Tuesday to go over proposed redistricting maps for the Cobb Board of Education.
The event, which is organized by State Rep. Erick Allen, the delegation chairman, begins at 6:30 p.m. and can be accessed by clicking here.
The other lawmakers involved are State Rep. Teri Anulewicz and State Rep. David Wilkerson.
Democrats hold a one-member majority in the Cobb delegation, which will redraw lines for the school board as well as the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
(PLEASE NOTE: This process has nothing to do with school attendance zones, which are drawn by school district administrative staff and are done mainly to balance out school capacity or when new schools open.)
Redistricting for elected offices is done every 10 years by legislators after the Census is updated. In November, Georgia lawmakers redrew Congressional and legislative lines.
County legislators are responsible for redrawing the lines of districts for county commissioners and city council members and school board posts.
The map would reduce the number of school board members representing the East Cobb area from three to two.
Cobb school board Republicans are recommending a map that shifts Post 6 out of East Cobb. For a larger view click here.
The current Post 6, represented by Democrat Charisse Davis, currently includes most of the Walton and Wheeler clusters.
But the Cobb GOP school board map would shift that post into the Cumberland-Smyrna-Vinings area completely, drawing current Post 2 board member Jaha Howard into the same area.
Allen’s map retains most of Post 6 as it looks now.
Like Davis, Howard is a first-term Democrat who’s openly challenged the Republicans on a number of issues, including race, equity and diversity, school discipline and COVID response.
They also prompted a special review of the Cobb school district by its accrediting agency last year.
It was the latest in a series of contentious public meetings along sharp partisan lines that have roiled the school board over the last three years.
Chastain, who represents the Kell and Sprayberry clusters, has announced his intention to seek re-election this year.
Davis also is up for re-election but hasn’t announced her plans. Amy Henry, a Republican who has four children in the Walton High School cluster, has declared her intent to run for that seat, and has said that “Post 6 should remain largely as-is.”
Howard has declared his intent to run for Georgia school superintendent.
Qualifying starts in March, with a May primary.
The Cobb school board will meet at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Thursday and and include time for public comment.
Agendas for the meetings will be posted at this link on Tuesday.
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Despite requests from Cobb County government officials for a delay, the Georgia House Governmental Affairs Committee approved the East Cobb Cityhood bill Thursday morning.
After a nearly 90-minute discussion, the committee voted 9-4 to send the bill to the full House.
The bill, if passed by the legislature, would call for a November referendum for voters in the proposed city of 55,000 to decide on incorporation.
It’s the first of four cityhood bills in Cobb County to be considered this year, and drew the attendance of Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid and two of her department heads.
HB 841 has been revised from when it was proposed in March 2021 by East Cobb Republican House members Matt Dollar and Sharon Cooper (substitute bill as approved here).
A substitute bill was made available at Thursday’s meeting but has not yet been posted online; the bill has an additional co-sponsor in Republican Rep. Ed Setzler of West Cobb, who’s the main sponsor of a Lost Mountain cityhood bill.
Public safety services were added to a feasibility study that concluded in November that a proposed city of East Cobb would be financially viable, with an annual surplus of $3 million.
Those issues prompted remarks by Cupid to the committee that she wanted the community to have an opportunity to better understand “the merits of what’s in the feasibility study.”
She said she wasn’t opposed to cities, but “I’m opposed to persons having to vote and not having clear and accurate information beforehand.”
When pressed by committee member Rep. Barry Fleming if she would campaign against an East Cobb referendum, she said it was her role to represent all Cobb citizens on an issue that would have a financial impact on the county.
“So you’re in opposition to the bill, correct?” Fleming asked her.
“I don’t believe I stated that sir,” Cupid said.
“I’m asking,” he said.
Cupid said that “I’m in opposition to a bill being passed that has not been made clear, with information that is incomplete or is inaccurate so voters can make a wise decision.”
When he pressed her further if she opposed the bill as it is written now, she said, “at this time, yes.”
While cityhood bills in Georgia must have a financial feasibility study, they’re not required to include a study on how a new city would impact its county.
Bill Volckmann, Cobb’s chief financial officer, told the committee he wanted to have more time to examine how the city of East Cobb’s proposed major revenue mechanisms would impact the county.
The other three Cobb cityhood bills—Mableton, Vinings and Lost Mountain—do not include public safety services.
The East Cobb feasibility study includes the proposed transfer of 2.6 mills in the current Cobb fire fund to provide most of the city’s revenues.
Volckman said that would negatively affect the county’s general fund and its 911 fund and while he was not for or against East Cobb cityhood, “that is something we would like to have some time to go through and share those impacts with the citizens so they can make an informed decision.”
Cobb public safety director Randy Crider noted that the Cobb Fire Department—of which he was formerly chief—has a top insurance rating and was “curious to know how [East Cobb] residents would have a better fire department.”
Marietta also has what’s called an ISO 1 rating, and has six fire stations. Smyrna has five fire stations. They’re the only two cities in Cobb with separate fire departments, and Cobb Fire provides support for major fires and in special situations.
Crider said that given that the proposed East Cobb fire department would have only two stations serving a city with 25 square miles, “how much are we going to be relied on to provide support?”
Committee members didn’t question them, but some were concerned about another aspect of the bill, its governing structure.
According to the proposed East Cobb city charter, a six-member city council would be elected, with three members coming from three separate districts and three others elected at-large.
Council members would then choose a mayor among themselves to serve a two-year term.
Dollar said the reasoning behind that structure is that “we’re wary of one person coming in with a vision for East Cobb.
“We wanted this to be a true city council,” he said.
State Rep. Teri Anulewicz, a Democrat who formerly served on the Smyrna City Council, isn’t on the committee, but participated remotely.
She said such a structure could conceivably concentrate power to potentially having four council members from the same neighborhood, down to the level of a cul-de-sac.
“That’s not a city,” Anulewicz said. “That’s an HOA.”
But supporters of the bill from the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood reiterated points they made to the subcommittee Wednesday about the need for local representation closer to the community level.
Setzler questioned whether East Cobb residents now are getting an adequate level of police and fire services.
Craig Chapin, the cityhood group’s president, said he and other supporters don’t feel like their concerns are being heard on a Cobb Board of Commissioners whose four district members each represent nearly 200,000 people.
“This isn’t a criticism of Cobb or its leadership,” he said. “We want the ability to have local control.”
The next step for the cityhood bill will be to be placed on the calendar for the full House to consider.
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State Rep. Matt Dollar, sponsor of the East Cobb Cityhood bill, and Mindy Seger, a leader of the opposition East Cobb Alliance.
A bill that would call for a referendum on creating a City of East Cobb could get a committee vote as early as Thursday after the legislation got its first full hearing Wednesday.
East Cobb residents spoke both in favor and against the cityhood bill before lawmakers on Wednesday (you can watch the hearing by clicking here).
A special panel of the Georgia House Governmental Affairs Committee heard arguments that echoed public debate when East Cobb cityhood first came up in 2019.
The bill is listed on the agenda of the full committee, which meets at 8 a.m. Thursday. You can watch that meeting by clicking here.
Unlike the first campaign for cityhood—which was abandoned by the bill’s supporters after vocal opposition surfaced at town halls—the current effort was conducted last year in virtual format and small gatherings.
At the hearing at the Coverdell Legislative Office Building, proponents of cityhood, including chief sponsor Rep. Matt Dollar, stressed the importance of local government control in Cobb County, whose four district commissioners now serve around 200,000 citizens each.
Opponents made familiar complaints that cityhood would be adding another layer of government and questioned who was behind the campaign, despite newcomers who represented the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood.
“East Cobb, it is a place,” said Dollar, who sponsored the original bill in 2019 and now has the support of Rep. Sharon Cooper, another East Cobb Republican.
“It’s very relative. East Cobb means something different to everyone who’s out there.”
He said cityhood supporters have gathered plenty of feedback from the first campaign to incorporate into their drive to create a city of 55,000 people with public safety, planning and zoning and code enforcement services.
Dollar, who is not seeking re-election this year, said initially he was opposed to the cityhood bill.
“I think it’s a positive thing for a place I’ve called home my entire life,” said Dollar, who added that he’s recently bought a new home in East Cobb.
“It’s our forever home. I’m not leaving.”
What’s changed since 2019?
The political dynamics in Cobb County, for starters.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners now has a Democratic majority after Republicans began dominating in the 1980s.
Pamela Reardon, a realtor who said she opposed the initial cityhood effort, is now on board because of zoning and development issues in Cobb, suggesting that current county elected officials are plotting a high-density future for the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
“What scares me to death is the direction these commissioners are taking the county,” she said. “They make no bones that their goal is to urbanize our suburbs.”
But other East Cobb residents were just as adamant that they didn’t see a need for a new city.
“What’s in it for me other than more taxes?” said Robert Hanson, a retiree. “Who’s really behind this?”
He suggested Cobb County have a singular government, folding in the six existing cities and “eliminating politicians and bureaucracy.”
Resident Norman Black said “I don’t know of anyone whose opinion was solicited before this bill. It came from out of the blue.”
Mindy Seger, a leader of the East Cobb Alliance, which formed in 2019 to oppose cityhood, reiterated to the subcommittee that creating a city would be creating a new layer of government, and that while there are some new faces on the cityhood committee, “it’s the same song and dance.”
She questioned the late summer 2021 addition of police and fire services to a financial feasibility study, which was released in November and showed an annual revenue surplus of $3 million.
But Seger said the study didn’t include cost estimates for police and fire personnel, equipment and related expenses.
And she questioned the current bill’s governance structure of a weak mayor system—in which city council members would elect one of their own to serve two-year mayoral terms.
That’s a format similar to the Cobb Board of Education, which has been roiled in controversy over the last three years.
“It’s not the best model of governance right now,” she said in response to a question by Rep. Barry Fleming, a Republican from Harlem (near Augusta).
She was countered by State Rep. Ed Setzler, who spoke to the subcommittee in favor of East Cobb Cityhood.
He’s a Republican from West Cobb and is the sponsor of a bill to create a City of Lost Mountain, primarily for zoning and development reasons.
Setzler said that “it’s not more government, it’s representative government.”
He said his constituents in the cities of Acworth and Kennesaw get “40 times the representation” from their city council members as those in his district living in unincorporated Cobb County from a single commissioner.
With a city of East Cobb, he said, citizens would get “20 times the representation that you have now.
“The cityhood movement needs to be seen in the context of quality of life and representative government.”
State Rep. Mary Frances Williams, a Democrat from Marietta who represents part of Northeast Cobb that’s not in the proposed city, asked Setzler about East Cobb’s demographics—which she said were around 75 percent white—in comparison to the rest of the county.
He said he’s supported cityhood across the board, including South Fulton, with a high minority population, and countered that her premise “is wrong to ask. Does this group look the same as a broader group of people?”
She replied that “you haven’t really answered my question but thank you” and said she was curious about “why cityhood is being pursued here.”
Another Democrat on the subcommittee, Rep. Mesha Mainor of Atlanta, said she was familiar with East Cobb after having lived in Sandy Springs.
“East Cobb is its own place,” she said.
Cityhood committee members who spoke Wednesday said that’s why they’re getting involved now, after not doing so or being unaware of the issue three years ago.
“A lot of times it seems our representatives are out of touch,” said Cindy Cooperman, the group’s communications leader. “I’m not getting the engagement or representation I’m looking for.”
Another newcomer to the cityhood campaign, Sarah Haas, said she’s taking part now to help preserve “the character of East Cobb,” particularly regarding development and redevelopment.
“How do we have local control and a local voice?” said Craig Chapin, the group’s president. “This isn’t secession from Cobb County.
“Folks who live in the community should be making the decisions that are the most relevant to our community.”
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A special subcommittee of the House Governmental Affairs will hear HB 841 at 1 p.m. in Room 406 of the Coverdell Legislative Office Building (18 Capitol Square, SW, Atlanta).
It’s a hybrid hearing that also will be live-streamed at this link; the meeting is for hearing purposes only, and will deal only with the East Cobb legislation, according to the agenda item.
The bill, HB 841, was filed at the end of the 2021 legislative session by two East Cobb Republican House members, Matt Dollar and Sharon Cooper.
Under state law, cityhood bills must be considered over two years in the same legislative cycle, meaning they are introduced in the first year and considered in the second year.
The hearing by the special subcommittee is the first step in that process; the bill would eventually have to be voted out of the Governmental Affairs Committee to reach the full house floor. The Senate also would act along similar lines if the bill is approved in the House and then “crosses over.”
The full legislature must vote to approve the bill, which calls for an incorporation referendum in November 2022 to be decided by voters in the proposed city boundaries.
The Committee for East Cobb Cityhood hasn’t publicized the subcommittee hearing, but a group opposed to cityhood, the East Cobb Alliance, sent out an e-mail alert Tuesday afternoon urging those interested in speaking against the bill to show up in person.
“You do not need any long-winded speech to oppose,” the e-mail read. “You can just appear, sit down, and say ‘I oppose this legislation as I oppose a new city being jammed down my throat by a handful of people who keep pushing their agenda to add government to my life!’
“Or, say whatever you want in your words.”
This is the second East Cobb cityhood bill filed since 2019, when Dollar first submitted legislation that was later abandoned by its initial supporters.
Community opposition included local and state lawmakers, among them State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, who would need to sponsor the current bill. State law requires cityhood bills to have local sponsors in both chambers.
Cooper didn’t support the first bill but appeared with Dollar on a cityhood virtual town hall last year.
Current supporters said their reasons for backing cityhood now is to preserve the suburban feel of the community, with planning and zoning and code enforcement among the proposed services.
After a financial feasibility study was released in November, the cityhood group said it was adding police and fire services, which had been part of the initial cityhood campaign.
However, any services ultimately would be decided by the city council, should a cityhood referendum pass. State law mandates a minimum of three services for new cities.
The proposed charter that’s included in HB 841 also calls for a different governing structure, with six city council members coming from three districts (two members from each district), and with the council then selecting a mayor.
The current bill includes much smaller boundaries than the 2019 legislation, with around 55,000 in a city centered along the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
The special subcommittee conducting Wednesday’s hearing includes State Rep. Mary Frances Williams, a Democrat from Marietta whose District 37 includes some of Northeast Cobb, but not the proposed East Cobb city area.
Three other cityhood bills in Cobb—for Lost Mountain, Vinings and Mableton—will undergo a similar process—but no committee hearings have been immediately assigned.
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The 2022 session of the Georgia General Assembly began on Monday, with local reapportionment and cityhood bills of particular interest for the the Cobb delegation.
Outgoing State Rep. Matt Dollar is sponsoring the East Cobb cityhood bill, along with State Rep. Sharon Cooper.
The proposed City of East Cobb is one of four cityhood bills that have been introduced by Cobb lawmakers, along with Vinings, Lost Mountain and Mableton.
The Cobb delegation also will redraw lines for the four district seats on the Cobb Board of Commissioners and all seven posts on the Cobb Board of Education.
The initial East Cobb cityhood bill introduced in 2019 was abandoned by a committee pushing for incorporation after opposition surfaced from the community and Cobb elected officials.
State Rep. Matt Dollar has the support of State Rep. Sharon Cooper as a co-sponsor for the current bill, but it also will need the sponsorship of State. Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick.
She has not commented publicly on the bill; in 2019 she said she could not support it because of negative feedback from citizens.
In 2021 the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood held several virtual meetings and said it will be continuing to meet with individual civic groups as the legislative session continues.
The city would have a population of 55,000, centered by the Johnson Ferry Road corridor, and is proposing police and fire, planning and zoning and code enforcement services.
If the bill passes the full legislature, there will be a referendum in November for voters living in the proposed city limits to decide whether a City of East Cobb will be created.
The reapportionment wheels have already been cranked up for redrawing Cobb school board posts.
The board has a 4-3 Republican majority, and in December voted along party lines to recommend a map that would maintain that advantage.
Cobb school board member Charisse Davis
It would redraw the current Post 6, which includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters, into the Smyrna-Vinings-Cumberland area, and reduce East Cobb representation to Post 5 and part of Post 4.
Post 6 Democratic incumbent and current Post 2 Democratic incumbent Jaha Howard would be put together in the school board’s recommended map.
But the Cobb delegation has a two-member Democratic advantage, and a draft map that’s been circulating since then would keep Post 6 very similar to what it is now, and keep Davis and Howard in separate posts.
She vocally opposed the school board’s recommended map, as has Amy Henry, a parent of four students in the Wheeler cluster who has announced her candidacy as Republican for Post 6 later this year.
Davis has not announced whether she’s seeking re-election; Howard has declared an intent to run for Georgia school superintendent.
Cobb lawmakers also will be redrawing lines for the four county commission districts. Currently there are three Democrats (including chairwoman Lisa Cupid, who was elected countywide) and two Republicans.
Both of the GOP incumbents are up for re-election in 2022, including JoAnn Birrell of District 3 in Northeast Cobb.
In a November special session, the legislature redrew Congressional and legislative lines that will take effect after the 2022 elections (you can view the adopted maps here).
Links to East Cobb-area lawmakers are included below. You can see what legislation they’re sponsoring, how they vote, see maps of their districts and find contact and information.
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