East Cobb News

The Committee for East Cobb Cityhood is pushing back against allegations by cityhood opponents that the group’s founder, a commercial real estate executive, stands to benefit personally from incorporation.

Owen Brown, the founder of the Retail Planning Corp. that manages metro Atlanta shopping centers—including Paper Mill Village and Woodlawn Square in East Cobb—has been the subject of frequent speculation since the original cityhood effort in 2018 that he’s pushing cityhood for his own development interests.

In an e-mail message sent Wednesday morning, the committee accused the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes cityhood, of creating “a cancel culture attack [emphasis original] on long-term Cobb Native and East Cobb business owner Owen Brown. They have spun up a conspiracy theory that Mr. Brown is a ‘developer’ out for financial gain in East Cobb.”

The Alliance held public information sessions in March as the May 24 cityhood referendum campaign began, and suggested that citizens “follow the money” of development interests that it said were remaining in the background.

Brown was mentioned by name, and Cityhood foes have suggested at debates that a City of East Cobb, which would have a tax base that’s more than 90 percent residential, would have to turn to high-density redevelopment to boost revenues.

The East Cobb Cityhood message on Wednesday said that Brown “has spent over 40 years in Cobb County, raising his family and contributing to our county.”

Because of his retail management background, “he is uniquely positioned to understand the trends in development and the negative impact of high-density residential development on our schools, traffic, and community.”

The cityhood group recently posted three video clips of an interview with Brown and committee member Sarah Haas (you can view them by clicking here).

They’re some of Brown’s first public comments on the East Cobb cityhood effort that he and several others began in 2018.

He formerly was the treasurer of the group but is no longer listed in an official capacity. Some of the initial meetings were held at his Retail Planning offices at Paper Mill Village.

Among those taking part was Joe O’Connor, an East Cobb resident served on an ad hoc citizens panel examining the initial cityhood financial study. When he asked for clarity on  who was pushing for East Cobb cityhood, O’Connor said he was told it was none of his business.

At the time, only Brown and Joe Gavalis, an Atlanta Country Club-area resident, were publicly identified. O’Connor resigned in December 2018, citing a lack of transparency.

In the new videos, Brown said what prompted his interest in cityhood was a conversation with former Cobb commissioner Bob Ott about a significant shortage of police officers in the area.

When he talked to the mayor of Milton—which became a city in 2006—Brown said he was told that community went from having 15 Fulton County officers to 60 in a new Milton police force and has had no tax increases.

“That exploded in my head,” Brown said. “That’s got what me thinking about the city of East Cobb.”

But the initial cityhood effort fizzled in East Cobb toward the end of 2019, after community and political opposition emerged.

A renewed cityhood push in early 2021 focused on planning and zoning, pointing to high-density zoning decisions elsewhere in the county that have sparked cityhood movements in Lost Mountain and Vinings (where also will have May 24 referendums).

Brown referenced the new MarketPlace Terrell Mill development on Powers Ferry Road, anchored by a Kroger superstore but also featuring a large apartment building.

“I don’t want that in East Cobb,” he said, denying that he has any interest in development projects in a potential city.

“I’m 75 next month; I’m doing this for my kids and grandkids,” Brown told Haas.

Police, fire and 911 services were added to the proposed services provided by a City of East Cobb late last year, but that subject also wasn’t raised in the cityhood group’s videos with Brown.

In late April, the East Cobb Alliance sent out an e-mail saying the East Cobb financial feasibility study has “faulty math” that could prompt additional taxes and fees to pay for city services.

“There’s a lemon law for buying a car in Georgia, but no lemon law for forming a city. You’re stuck. There is no reversal back to being unincorporated,” the Alliance e-mail read.

The Alliance also repeated claims in a recent social media posting that the East Cobb feasibility studies, both conducted by Georgia State University researchers, “were paid for out of secretly-sourced funds” through 501(c) organizations “that do not have to disclose who donated what amount.”

In one of the cityhood video clips, Brown said that he and several others paid for the initial $36,000 financial feasibility study. He didn’t identify the others; Cityhood committee representatives asked for public support to fund the 2021 study but haven’t released financials.

“We didn’t want to solicit people if it didn’t work,” Brown said of the 2018 study. “We would just drop it and walk away.”

Related:

• East Cobb Cityhood debate rehashes finances, development claims
• Glitch leaves off East Cobb Cityhood referendum on some ballots
• Cobb judge orders East Cobb Cityhood referendum to proceed
• At Cityhood debate, citizens asked to keep an open mind
• East Cobb News Cityhood information page

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