Birrell on proposed East Cobb city: ‘I don’t support it’

East Cobb city forum
Mindy Seger of the anti-city East Cobb Alliance debates David Birdwell of the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb. (East Cobb News photo by Wendy Parker)

After learning that the proposed City of East Cobb map would include areas she represents, Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell gave an emphatic answer Tuesday about what she thinks about it.

“I don’t support it,” Birrell said after pro- and anti- cityhood representatives debated before the East Cobb Business Association.

‘I don’t see how you’re going to provide better services for the same taxes you’re paying now.”

That’s what anti-cityhood advocates have been saying after the group leading the cityhood push has claimed a new municipality can deliver better services at the same tax rate East Cobb residents are paying now to the county.

For the first time, opposing forces in the cityhood issue faced one another in a forum format that included opening and closing statements and questions from the audience.

Among the crowd of nearly 200 at the Olde Towne Athletic Club was Birrell, whose District 3 includes some of east and northeast Cobb. The original proposed city boundaries included only parts of District 2, represented by commissioner Bob Ott.

But at a town hall meeting Monday, the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb announced that the map had expanded to include the Pope and Lassiter school attendance zones.

Birrell said she has not heard anything from the cityhood group about revising the map, and that the only information she learned came from visiting the cityhood committee’s website.

“They’re encroaching in my district,” she said. “So now I’m being outspoken.”

Ott, whose town hall meeting in March was the first public event for the cityhood committee, has not taken a position on the issue.

There’s been speculation he would be interested in running for mayor of East Cobb if a city is created, but he hasn’t responded to that, nor has he indicated if he will be running for re-election or another office in 2020.

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During the debate, David Birdwell of the cityhood group repeated many of the same points he had given at the Monday town hall meeting: That a new city, with around 115,000 residents, would give citizens more local control of their government, improve public safety, not raise taxes and develop a stronger civic identity in East Cobb.

Mindy Seger of the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes cityhood, mentioned the current staffing and retention issues facing Cobb public safety agencies and wondered “how a new city just getting its legs would be able to solve this problem better than any other city has.”

She also pressed Birdwell to reveal the identities behind those funding cityhood expenses that include a Georgia State University feasibility study ($36,000) and more recently, two high profile lobbyists for next year’s legislative session (both at more than $10,000 each).

He said three of the 14 members of the cityhood committee have real estate backgrounds (including himself). Those names are not currently listed on the group’s website, but he said he “would be glad to share it.”

“It raises suspicions about what people are doing” behind the scenes in the pro-cityhood group, Seger said.

She pressed him to name names, saying the cityhood committee has issues with a “lack of transparency.”

Birdwell said a”large group” of East Cobb residents have made donations, but he didn’t identify anyone during the forum. He said in addition to town hall meetings in the spring and Monday’s at Wheeler High School, the cityhood committee has met with homeowners associations, business groups and others.

Seger also said she had heard nothing from State Rep. Matt Dollar, the East Cobb Republican who sponsored a cityhood bill in the 2019 legislative session, in regards to the revised city maps.

“We don’t need a new city for this area,” said Seger, an accountant who has lived in East Cobb since 2006.

Birdwell argued that if real estate interests wanted to pursue high-density development in East Cobb, “they would want to keep it like it is,” meaning having zoning cases decided by county commissioners.

“If you love East Cobb the way is is,” Birdwell said, borrowing the Alliance’s slogan and holding up the opponent’s business card, “the best way to keep doing that is with incorporation.”

Birdwell said after the forum the cityhood group would like to have some more town hall meetings, ideally in December, before the legislative session begins in January.

Dollar’s bill would have to pass both houses next session for a referendum on East Cobb cityhood to take place.

Although originally eyed for the primaries next May, Birdwell said it would be “virtually impossible” to put a cityhood referendum on the ballot then, and that it would more likely be on the November 2020 general election ballot.

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Business group to hold East Cobb cityhood forum in November

East Cobb cityhood forum
Bill Simon, left, a leader of the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes cityhood, talks with David Birdwell of Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb at an April town. (ECN file)

The East Cobb Business Association announced Tuesday it’s holding a forum in mid-November on the East Cobb cityhood issue.

The forum will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 12, during the ECBA’s monthly luncheon from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Olde Towne Athletic Club (4950 Olde Towne Parkway).

According to Rosann Hall, who heads the ECBA’s speakers and program committee, the forum will include representatives of the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb, which supports incorporation, and the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes cityhood.

“Whether we become a city or whether we don’t, this is going to impact us a lot as business owners and as citizens,” ECBA president Jim Harris said at Tuesday’s luncheon.

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The pro-cityhood group held two town hall meetings and spoke at another civic meeting in the spring, after State Rep. Matt Dollar (R-East Cobb) sponsored legislation (read HB 718 here) that, if passed next year, would call for a cityhood referendum, also in 2020.

The cityhood group wants to carve out a portion of unincorporated Cobb, mostly below Sandy Plains Road, and create a city of around 100,000, citing public safety and development reasons.

The proposal has been controversial from the beginning and has generated plenty of skepticism in the community. East Cobb cityhood forum

The East Cobb Alliance was formed recently to launch organized opposition, questioning a financial feasibility study conducted for the pro-cityhood forces and what it calls a lack of transparency by those pushing for a city.

In September, an independent group of finance and legal experts reviewed the feasibility study and concluded it was fiscally sound, but recommended any City of East Cobb not start with police services.

(The review group’s summary and full report).

David Birdwell, a leader of the cityhood committee, said the review confirmed that cityhood is financially viable, and that a new city can provide better services without raising property taxes.

The East Cobb Alliance hasn’t formally responded to the independent review report, but it has examined various portions of the feasibility study, including public safety, franchise fees and inter-governmental agreements.

Most recently, the group posted a graphic on its Facebook page of a hungry-looking raptor with the message that “while the Raptor is fictional….the ‘City of East Cobb’ is a government horror that will slowly eat you alive for years.”

The cityhood group has redirected its original website to one with the domain of communityofeastcobb.com that includes much of the same information it has been discussing in recent months:

  • East Cobb’s Precinct 4 police staffing of 53 patrol officers that is 24 fewer than has been allocated;
  • Claiming property tax rates wouldn’t be higher than they are now in unincorporated Cobb;
  • Promising more prompt road repairs;
  • And “passing zonings without interference of votes from outside the city.”

Rob Eble, another leader of the cityhood group, said it’s looking to have a town hall tentatively on Nov. 11, but a venue has not been confirmed.

East Cobb cityhood forum

 

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