The group pressing for cityhood in East Cobb has hired two of the best-known lobbyists in state government, and both have deep connections in Georgia Republican politics.
According to filings with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb retained Don Bolia and Laura Norton on Oct. 29.
They are being paid more than $10,000 each to lobby on behalf of the East Cobb cityhood committee, according to the filings.
Bolia and Norton are the principal and senior associate, respectively, of Peachtree Government Relations, an Atlanta firm specializing in executive and legislative branch lobbying in Georgia.
Bolia, Norton and the firm have been named among the most influential in the state by JAMES, a magazine published by Phil Kent, CEO of the political consulting firm Insider Advantage and who previously served as a public relations representative for the cityhood group.
The East Cobb cityhood committee is holding a town hall meeting Monday at Wheeler High School and is taking part in a debate Tuesday sponsored by the East Cobb Business Association.
That forum also will include a representative of the East Cobb Alliance, a citizens group that opposes cityhood.
Legislation sponsored by State Rep. Matt Dollar (R-East Cobb) calling for an East Cobb cityhood referendum and proposed city charter is slated to be taken up next year in the Georgia General Assembly.
That bill, introduced on the next-to-last day of the 2019 session, calls for a city of nearly 100,000 people to be created out of unincorporated East Cobb in Cobb commission District 2.
Bolia was an aide to former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and served as political director and executive director of the Georgia Republican Party. He also was chief of staff to the Fulton County Commission.
Norton was a fundraiser for former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (now the U.S. Agriculture Secretary) and the Georgia Republican Party. Her husband is Smyrna City Council member Derek Norton, who is in a Dec. 3 runoff to succeed long-serving mayor Max Bacon.
The East Cobb cityhood group hired three lobbyists before the 2019 legislative session: John and Cynthia Garst, who have extensive experience with cityhood issues, and Jared Thomas, a partner in the Garst Thomas Public Affairs firm of Atlanta.
Thomas is another veteran Georgia GOP operative and was chief of staff and press secretary to current Gov. Brian Kemp when he was Georgia Secretary of State. Thomas also ran former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed’s unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor in 2006.
Although any city of East Cobb government would have non-partisan elections, the cityhood issue has sparked some partisan fire. In February, Kent, a conservative pundit, wrote on his Facebook page that “it will be a sad day when tax-and-spend Democrats take over the Cobb County Commission. East Cobbers need to protect themselves and their neighborhoods.”
Those comments, reported in various media outlets, came as cityhood leaders were planning for their first town hall meeting, and right before Dollar filed the East Cobb bill.
Cityhood leaders distanced themselves from Kent’s remarks, and since then, the cityhood effort has been publicly led by David Birdwell and Rob Eble, who came on board earlier this year.
According to files with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, Birdwell is listed as the CEO and Eble is the secretary of the East Cobb cityhood committee. The chief financial officer is Chip Patterson, who had been identified as a member of the committee earlier this year.
Patterson is a partner in an Atlanta real estate development firm who lives in the Atlanta Country Club area and is a former president of the Walton Touchdown Club.
The names of other members are no longer listed on the cityhood committee’s website, which has a different domain address than the original.
The East Cobb cityhood bill must pass both houses of the Georgia legislature in order for a referendum to be called.
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Does Acworth and Kennesaw, incorporated republican cities in Cobb County, pay higher taxes? Would citizens from East Cobb not move to Acworth or Kennesaw because they are incorporated? I’m confused as to the objection when much of Cobb County (particularly the higher-income and higher economically-ranked areas of Cobb) are incorporated. Do we want to be lumped in with the poor parts of unincorporated Cobb/Marietta?
This is a good article with lots of details that reveal that cityhood for East Cobb is going to be profitable for some people. Already, major money has been spent on this for lobbyists and the feasibility study. But the author, who acknowledged that Patterson, a member of the cityhood committee, is a real estate developer, didn’t tell us about the backgrounds of Eble and Birdwell, the other two “out” members.
The bottom line is this- do we want East Cobb to become overdeveloped like Sandy Springs or Smyrna? Because that is what this is all about. What will the impact of that be on our traffic, schools, and environment?
East Cobb has money and everyone wants it. Corrupt commissioners like Bob Ott gave the Braves a one sided contract allowing the Braves to walk away with 148 million (missing stadium build receipts). On top of the Braves getting 148 million (our tax money) for free, a gift from Bob Ott, our commissioners are spending over 120 million this year alone on pet projects that benefit the few. East Cobb taxes are available to anyone who wants it.
Where did the twenty thousand bucks come from? And if it’s such a good idea why do they need to spend that kind of money to convince people?
Make no mistake: Kent’s partisan mindset is driving all these folks, they’re just savvy enough to realize that his attacxk dog mouth can’t be the public face. As for Bolia, he served under Gingrich, the most vile partisan soldier ever whelped by the state of Georgia:
“One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty,” he told the group. “We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal, and faithful, and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around the campfire but are lousy in politics.”
For their party to succeed, Gingrich went on, the next generation of Republicans would have to learn to “raise hell,” to stop being so “nice,” to realize that politics was, above all, a cutthroat “war for power”—and to start acting like it.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/