East Cobb Cityhood group presses for ‘right’ to referendum

After a bill to call for a referendum about creating a City of East Cobb passed a Georgia House Committee this week, the group pushing for the legislation created a petition to build public support.

The Committee for East Cobb Cityhood on Saturday sent out an e-mail with a link to an online petition.

“The residents of East Cobb deserve the right to vote in a referendum to decide whether we should become the City of East Cobb,” states the petition, which is addressed to East Cobb-area legislators, including the bill’s sponsors.

“The decision is best left in the hands of the voters in the next election. We should not be denied our right to vote on the question of local, representative government for our community.”

HB 841, which got the approval of the House Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday, would call for a referendum this year that would let voters within the proposed city limits decide on whether East Cobb should become a city.

If the bill fails to pass in the Georgia General Assembly, there would be no referendum, and the cityhood issue would have to begin again in the next legislative cycle.

In 2019, an East Cobb cityhood bill was abandoned by supporters and never was considered by the legislature.

At a subcommittee hearing Wednesday and the committee meeting Thursday, local officials were asked by a lawmaker if the citizens of East Cobb should be able to vote on whether a city should be created.

Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid wanted more time to examine the bill and a financial feasibility study, saying voters don’t have “clear and accurate information.”

She said she doesn’t oppose cityhood bills in general, but “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 pressed by State Rep. Barry Fleming about whether she opposed HB 841 (a substitute to the original bill) as it is written now, she said, “at this time, yes.”

On Saturday afternoon, the East Cobb Alliance, a group of citizens opposed to cityhood, issued a response to the cityhood group’s online petition, accusing the latter’s e-mail of largely containing “half-truths” about the issue of a referendum and other topics.

In a lengthy e-mail message, the Alliance, who had a representative at the legislative meetings this week, also said “the actual ballot language is not crystal clear as to what regular voters (not legislators and lawyers, but regular people) can decipher on the ballot. It is as convoluted as the trick-polling in which the Cityhood group has engaged.”

The Alliance message also delves into the addition of police and fire services to the East Cobb financial feasibility study, after proposing a “city lite” set of services without public safety in the bill introduced in 2021.

“Right out of the gate, a City of East Cobb will be operating at a huge loss, and the city will have to take on heavy debt immediately,” the Alliance e-mail concludes.

East Cobb House Republican Matt Dollar was the only co-sponsor in 2019, but this time around got the support of State Rep. Sharon Cooper.

HB 841 also will need a local sponsor in the Senate if it passes in the full House. (A House vote will not take place before Jan. 24, since the legislature will be holding budget meetings all next week.)

In 2019, State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, a Republican from East Cobb, said she couldn’t support the bill because she got a lot of negative feedback from constituents.

She told East Cobb News on Friday that she is more receptive to the bill this time.

“The bill and the map are much different than 2019 and I am getting a lot more positive feedback on it this time,” she said. “I have said all along that if there was sufficient interest from the citizens in voting on this issue, I would support it and that appears to be the case this time. Then the community can vote it up or down.”

Kirkpatrick, however, isn’t a co-sponsor. While she represents the proposed City of East Cobb currently, her District 32 will not include any of that area in the 2022 election, due to redrawn lines during reapportionment.

Instead, the Senate co-sponsor would be John Albers, a Republican from North Fulton, whose District 56 will soon include the proposed East Cobb city area.

Among the signatories to the East Cobb Cityhood group’s petition include Scott Sweeney, a former Cobb Board of Education member who joined the group last year, and current school board member David Banks, who represents the Pope and Lassiter clusters in East Cobb.

Related content:

• East Cobb Cityhood bill approved by House committee
• East Cobb residents sound of on cityhood bill at hearing
• East Cobb Cityhood bill to get first legislative hearing
• Cityhood, reapportionment top 2022 Cobb legislative agenda
• East Cobb News Cityhood page

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