Joe Gavalis

East Cobb cityhood lobbyist is experienced in municipal campaigns

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The Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb, Inc. has retained a lobbyist who has worked on behalf of other groups in metro Atlanta in recent years that have sought incorporation, as well for as a contractor that has provided services to some of those cities.

John Garst registered on Monday as lobbyist for the East Cobb group, according to the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission.John Garst, East Cobb cityhood lobbyist

He runs Rosetta Stone Communications, an Atlanta-based political consulting and polling firm, and it is the official polling organization for WSB-TV.

His previous lobbying for cityhood efforts include the City of Brookhaven, the City of Stonecrest, the Eagles Landing Educational Research Committee and CH2M.

The latter, formerly known as CH2M Hill, was a Colorado-based engineering and operations firm with an office in Atlanta that has provided municipal services on contract for the cities of Sandy Springs, Milton and Johns Creek.

CH2M also has contracted with other newer municipalities, including Tucker and Chattahoochee Hills in South Fulton. In 2017, CH2M was sold to another Colorado engineering firm.

Phil Kent, a spokesman for the cityhood group, told East Cobb News that Garst, who specializes in a Republican clientele, will be paid “slightly in excess of $10,000 for this year. He will now begin educating and pitching various state lawmakers and the legislative leadership on the benefits of East Cobb cityhood, monitor future legislation, attend meetings, and perform other duties associated with the legislative process.”

Joe Gavalis, an Atlanta Country Club resident who is the chairman of the cityhood committee, wrote a column that was published Tuesday in The Marietta Daily Journal, making his case for “local control over local affairs.”

His column repeats arguments he has made previously, and including obtaining feedback from a group of citizens about a feasibility study for a proposed City of East Cobb:

“Conversations with numerous east Cobb citizens also include concerns over actions taken by a majority of Cobb County commissioners who don’t reside in our community. The recent vote on a property tax increase, for example, passed by a 3-2 vote. Our sole east Cobb commissioner was out-voted. Indeed, there is a perception that county funds are not being spent prudently, and that public safety services and road improvements are not top priorities. If this concerns you in east Cobb, there is a solution. The answer is self-determination through cityhood!”

The proposed map of the City of East Cobb (with a population of 96,000) does not include all of what is generally regarded as East Cobb. The northern boundaries match, nearly identically, the boundaries of Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott’s District 2.

East Cobb’s other commissioner, JoAnn Birrell, also voted against the tax increase.

In the column, Gavalis continued to decline to name other individuals in the cityhood organization, saying only that they are “a group of concerned east Cobb citizens.”

On the East Cobb Cityhood website, he said that besides commercial real estate business owner G. Owen Brown, other donors who paid for the feasibility study “for now, wish to be unidentified due to possible personal harassment or media attacks/smears from opponents.”

Gavalis also has declined to identify those in the citizens group (East Cobb News has contacted a few, including one who quit over what he called a lack of transparency), saying only that “many chose to remain anonymous since this Committee was merely exploring the concept of cityhood.”

He said the group has made the following recommendations:

  • Conduct community meetings to educate the public on the process;
  • Recruit volunteers for study panels;
  • Develop a communication plan;
  • Develop “frequently asked questions and answers” as well as “facts vs. myths” materials;
  • Develop a comparison of the GSU study data versus our study panel estimates and also comparing research with comparable cities;
  • Educate citizens living in adjacent properties about requesting annexation into the city after it is created. (Changing the proposed city boundaries now would require a new feasibility study).

Gavalis did not indicate in his column when cityhood backers would inform the broader public or seek to introduce legislation to establish a local referendum. The earliest citizens could vote on whether to create a City of East Cobb would be in 2020, but only if a bill is passed this year.

Kent reiterated “that the cityhood movement is still in its very early stage.”

He also said that “dates are currently being discussed for community meetings” and that they will be announced to the public when they are scheduled.

The feasibility study, for which the cityhood group paid $36,000, concluded that the City of East Cobb was financially viable without levying taxes higher than the current Cobb County general fund millage rate, and would even start with a budget surplus.

After a recent speaking engagement in East Cobb, Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce told East Cobb News that none of the six existing cities in Cobb have lower overall millage rates than the county.

“Unless you can show me there’s a big difference in the quality of services, you’re going to be paying extra to get those services” in a City of East Cobb, Boyce said.

Gavalis said the study committees would be involved in creating a charter, and he is seeking volunteers with expertise in taxes and finance, planning and zoning, public works and engineering, governance and administration and police and courts. Said Kent:

“A lot of feedback is already coming in via our website from east Cobbers and others with various areas of expertise who want to volunteer to be on study panels that are being established by the East Cobb cityhood committee.”

 

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East Cobb cityhood steering committee member resigns, citing lack of transparency

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A member of an informal citizens steering committee examining a possible East Cobb cityhood initiative has resigned, saying he and other committee members weren’t being told who funded a $36,000 feasibility study released last week.

Joe O’Connor, a resident of the King’s Cove neighborhood and a longtime community activist, told East Cobb News that he insisted that Joe Gavalis, president of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood, Inc., offer more clarity about who’s pushing for a portion of East Cobb to become a city.

“I told Joe, ‘you’ve got to be transparent about this,” O’Connor said, recalling his conversation late last week. “His exact words to me were, ‘It’s none of anyone’s business.’ “

In response to questions from East Cobb News, Gavalis on Wednesday did not address O’Connor’s issues with who paid for the feasibility study or his other transparency concerns.

Instead, Gavalis said those who had been invited to serve on an ad hoc citizens group were being made the subject of “some misinformation” by “an attendee who is not for cityhood [and who] chose to share the names of people in the group knowing there were individuals who asked to remain anonymous and who had not made up their minds.”

He said the group is still gathering basic information about possible cityhood. “Many East Cobbers who attended are simply asking questions just like everyone in the aftermath of the Georgia State cityhood feasibility release,” Gavalis said.

East Cobb News contacted some of those individuals. One was upset her name had been given to a reporter and did not want to be interviewed. Some others have not returned messages seeking comment or were unavailable.

O’Connor said he has been friends with Gavalis, a resident of the Atlanta Country Club area, for many years, as they both have served on the Cobb Neighborhood Safety Commission and the Cobb Elder Abuse Task Force.

O’Connor also said he had problems with some of the data and information included in the study compiled by the Georgia State University Center for State and Local Finance. (Read it here, and view a proposed city map here.

City of East Cobb

In a response to written questions from East Cobb News over the weekend, Gavalis declined to say who funded the study or to name the individuals serving on the citizens committee.

He said the cityhood group, the Commitee for East Cobb Cityhood, Inc., has received donations from around the community to fund the study but he provided no specifics.

Among those on the citizens committee is former Cobb commissioner Thea Powell. She told East Cobb News that she thinks the cityhood idea is worthy of consideration, but “the process should have started sooner, of going out into the community.”

Powell—who said she hasn’t formed an opinion about whether East Cobb should be a city—referenced recommendations from the Georgia Municipal Association that strongly encourage cityhood advocates to get community input early on.

O’Connor said his first meeting about the cityhood idea was held in the office of G. Owen Brown, founder of the Retail Planning Corp., a commercial real estate firm located at Paper Mill Village. Brown is listed on the cityhood committee’s state filing documents as its incorporator. Gavalis is the only other individual who has been named.

O’Connor said after he first began reading through the study last week, he “immediately saw problems.”

Some of the statistical data was outdated and inaccurate, he said, and he was troubled by the low number of businesses in the proposed East Cobb city (around 3,300), far fewer than those in Alpharetta, Johns Creek and similar cities that were compared (bottom line in the chart below).

The residential-to-commercial split in the proposed city of East Cobb would be 85 to 15 percent.

“That’s a concern,” O’Connor said. “The other cities have a good combination.” In East Cobb, he said, “we’re so much more residential.”

Powell also noted that those business number stats are from 2012. “We’re working on really old figures when the economy wasn’t doing very well,” she said.

In his response to that issue over the weekend by East Cobb News, Gavalis said that the city of Milton, also in North Fulton, has a similar breakdown of its tax base, and there hasn’t been millage rate increase there since 2006.

Gavalis said he was asked to lead a possible cityhood effort after some citizens complained they didn’t think they were getting their money’s worth in county property taxes. He has not said who any of those people are.

Among the service priorities Gavalis indicated for a possible city of East Cobb were police and fire and community development, including planning and zoning.

A cityhood effort is a two-year process, requiring state legislation calling for a referendum that must be approved by voters living within the proposed city area. Cityhood advocates must also provide a feasibility study.

Gavalis told East Cobb News the community will be informed but did not indicate when that might be. Here’s more of what he told us Wednesday:

“We are in the beginning stages of our planning process and are seeking answers to some legitimate and sincere questions at this time. The Committee is not trying to be evasive but instead we have honored requests from participants who did not want their names disclosed since this group is still informal. We want to be transparent but we are compiling answers to questions about the study and formalizing our strategy on the expertise levels that will be needed to provide insight and professional advice.

“When we complete our strategic plan we will finalize who will be formally asked to join us and then we will announce who has accepted.”

With the possibility of legislation coming in the new year, Powell thinks the larger community should have been told more by now.

“Public input is of utmost importance,” she said. “Ultimately it doesn’t matter what I think. They will have the final say.”

O’Connor has been supportive about a city of East Cobb, writing a letter to the editor of The Marietta Daily Journal and commenting on East Cobb News to that effect.

But, he said, that support is based on solid “facts and numbers” and a willingness to make a good-faith effort to inform the public. He doesn’t think that is happening.

“I’ve always said that if you’re hiding something, then you’ve got something to hide,” O’Connor said.

 

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City of East Cobb committee leader declines to identify group, or indicate when public response may take place

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The president of a committee exploring possible cityhood for East Cobb is declining to identify those he has been meeting with and is not indicating when the group may begin a community dialogue about the issue.

Joe Gavalis, a resident of the Atlanta Country Club area, said in response to written questions from East Cobb News this weekend that he and others he has been discussing cityhood with are still examining a feasibility study released this week.

That study, commissioned by his Committee for East Cobb Cityhood, Inc., was conducted by Georgia State University researchers, who concluded that based on the data they were given to work with, such a city is “financially feasible.”

The most likely next step would be introduction of state legislation, a two-year process that would require a public referendum. If such a bill is introduced next year, the earliest such a vote could take place would be 2020.

Gavalis said if “a review of the GSU study and the community response indicate a desire to proceed,” the group “will work with our elected officials to introduce appropriate legislation.”

He would not say when the public would be fully briefed on the cityhood group’s plans, only that “meetings with our fellow citizens in our community will be initiated” and media outlets “utilized.”

The group also has launched a website, but there’s no other information there than what’s previously been released.

Gavalis said he began the cityhood inquiry “after hearing that others in our county were looking to form a new city,” a reference to conversations taking place in South Cobb, and to see if a new city of East Cobb would be feasible.

During that process, he said, “hundreds of neighbors, business owners and social groups were engaged in recent months about their interest in creating a city in East Cobb. Many asked me to spearhead a loose-knit group to help foster debate regarding the idea.”

He did not identify anyone by name. The only other name that has been made public about the cityhood committee is G. Owen Brown, who is listed on state filing documents as the group’s incorporator. Brown is the founder of the Retail Planning Corporation, an East Cobb-based commercial real estate firm located on Johnson Ferry Road.

Gavalis said that one of the driving forces behind East Cobb cityhood is more local control of government services. Currently, he said, each of the four Cobb district commissioners serves 175,000 people. In the City of East Cobb map that’s been proposed, each city council member would represent around 12,000 citizens, “who would be better served regarding local services and other issues.”

Commissioner Bob Ott, who represents District 2 that covers the proposed city map, has pointed out previously that roughly 40 percent of property tax revenue comes from his district. He has said some residents have told him they don’t think they’re getting their money’s worth.

His district also includes the Cumberland-Vinings-Smyrna area, with major corporate and commercial offices, but it is not part of the proposed City of East Cobb.

For a more detailed map of the proposed City of East Cobb, click here.

When asked which services were priorities for the cityhood group, Gavalis said that community development (which includes planning and zoning), police and fire “are high on the list.” State law requires new cities to provide a minimum of three services.

Gavalis is a retired federal agent who serves on the Cobb Neighborhood Safety Commission and has also been on the Cobb Elder Abuse Task Force. He noted that regarding East Cobb cityhood, “discussions have always taken place since former Cobb Commissioner Bill Byrne proposed a city [in the 2012 elections], and there have always been cityhood movements in metro Atlanta over the last decade.”

Gavalis said there is an East Cobb cityhood steering committee that “is an unofficial group of citizens with knowledge of our community who have volunteered to look at the issues of forming a new city with no pre-set determination for or against a city.”

He said those individuals, whom he also declined to identify, are also examining the feasibility study.

That study cost $36,000, according to a copy of the contract East Cobb News obtained through an open records request. Here’s the full report, which was delivered to the cityhood group on Dec. 7.

Gavalis also would not identify who paid for the study, saying only that “citizens, neighbors and business owners have financially contributed for the cost.” He’s anticipating other donations in the future but would not elaborate.

He also declined to indicate how much the group is paying Phil Kent, CEO of the Cobb-based Insider Advantage political publication and panelist on the Fox 5 public affairs program “The Georgia Gang.” Kent has been retained by the cityhood group to serve in a public relations capacity.

The proposed City of East Cobb map that the cityhood group released doesn’t include all of what’s considered East Cobb. With a population of 96,000, it contains only unincorporated Cobb east of I-75 that is in Cobb Commission District 2, and outside the Cumberland Community Improvement District.

Asked why areas north of Sandy Plains Road are not included in the map, Gavalis would say only that the map “uses boundaries of voting districts already set by the legislature. The proposed map is clean, with no conflicting boundaries.”

The feasibility study indicated that no property taxes would need to be levied above what East Cobb residents are paying for county services.

Gavalis also was asked to respond to citizens who may be happy with the services they’re getting and worry that they might be asked to pay for another layer of government.

“Many residents are not happy and have concerns about the county adequately addressing the values and wishes of East Cobbers.”

He also would not identify those residents or specify their concerns.

Gavalis said that the proposed city is based on a tax base that’s 85 percent residential and 15 percent commercial, similar to Milton in North Fulton. He said officials there have indicated they have not raised the millage rate since 2006.

The GSU study for East Cobb suggested a millage rate of 2.96 and said it may even begin operations with a surplus of nearly $3 million.

“A smaller government can focus on providing the services important to their residents in a timely fashion and can work closely with their citizens to create the type of community they desire,” Gavalis said.

 

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Cobb Planning Commission chairwoman Judy Williams reappointed

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After filling out the unexpired term of her predecessor, Cobb Planning Commission chairwoman Judy Williams has been reappointed to a full four-year term.Cobb Planning Commission Chairwoman Judy Williams

Williams was reappointed earlier this week by Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell to represent District 3, which covers the Northeast Cobb and Town Center/KSU areas.

Earlier this year, Williams became the chairwoman of the five-member board, which hears zoning cases and makes recommendations to county commissioners, after then-chairman Mike Terry retired.

Williams, whose term starts on Jan. 1, has served on the planning board before, appointed by former Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee. She was chosen early last year to replace Christine Trombetti, an East Cobb realtor who had served for 14 years.

Compensation for chairing the planning board is $275 a month.

Birrell, who was re-elected last month, also reappointed Williams to serve on the Cobb Board of Zoning Appeals, also for four years starting Jan. 1.

District 2 commissioner Bob Ott also made several reappointments this week.

Two prominent East Cobb citizens will continue serving on the Cobb Neighborhood Safety Commission. Longtime East Cobb Civic Association activist Trish Steiner will serve through September 2020. The term of Joe Gavalis, who is spearheading an East Cobb cityhood initiative, will end in December 2021.

Ott also reappointed Jill Flamm, another veteran East Cobb Civic Association leader, to the Cobb Recreation Board, through March 2023.

Jon Jordan, an East Cobb resident, will continue serving on the Cobb Library Board of Trustees through 2021. An author of military history books and an attorney, Jordan was appointed by Ott last year to fill an unexpired term.

 

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City of East Cobb proposed by citizens group; study underway

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East Cobb Black Friday traffic
Johnson Ferry Road at Roswell Road in the heart of East Cobb.

This isn’t a new topic, and it’s one that hasn’t gone very far beyond the talking stage in the past: Should there be such a thing as a City of East Cobb?

A group of mostly unidentified people is behind a new push to create what would be the second-largest municipality in metro Atlanta.

The Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb, Inc., is led by Joe Gavalis, a resident of the Atlanta Country Club area. His group has commissioned a feasibility study being conducted by the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State University. He has not returned calls seeking comment.

However, the suggested City of East Cobb his group is advocating would not include all of East Cobb.

According to a map Gavalis furnished to the MDJ, the proposed map would fall almost entirely within Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott’s District 2.

City of East Cobb
East Cobb has long been a place name, but never a city. 

The area generally regarded as East Cobb includes most of the ZIP codes 30062, 30066, 30067 and 30068, as well as the Cobb portion of 30075, and has an estimated population of 200,000.

The proposed City of East Cobb borders generally fall south of Sandy Plains Road, until it gets closer to the Fulton County line. The southern boundaries would fall roughly along the Powers Ferry Road corridor north of Terrell Mill Road.

The western edges of the city would run along Roswell Road Sewell Road and Holly Springs Road to Post Oak Tritt Road.

Everything east and north of that would become a city in what has long embodied classic suburban Sunbelt sprawl.

Cityhood measures require state legislation to call for a referendum that voters in the proposed municipality would decide. Under Georgia law, cities must provide a minimum of three services.

The cityhood effort in East Cobb comes after the Cobb Board of Commissioners approved a property tax hike for the first time since the recession. There has been some grumbling that East Cobb provides 40 percent of county tax revenue but some citizens don’t feel they’re getting their money’s worth in services.

After voting against the tax increase, Ott claimed that all District 2 residents were getting from the tax hike in the fiscal year 2019 budget was “1 DOT work crew.”

According to the East Cobb cityhood group’s contract with Georgia State, it is spending $36,000 for the study, which will develop revenue and expense estimates based on property tax files, a boundary map and estimated business license revenue.

The contract indicates that the feasibility of municipal services to be studied include police, fire management, parks and recreation, community development (libraries) and roads.

Gavalis is the lone signatory from the committee for the contract, which also lists G. Owen Brown, of Retail Planning Corp., a commercial real estate company based on Johnson Ferry Road, as a representative for the cityhood group.

The study is expected to be completed by mid-December. According to the contract, the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State is using a similar methodology as a feasibility study it conducted for Tucker, which became incorporated in 2015.

According to the East Cobb cityhood contract, a team of three CSLF researchers will:

” . . . estimate the total annual cost of government operations, including general administrative services and the discretionary services, based on the experience of several comparison cities in Georgia. The set of comparison cities in Georgia will include between four to six cities with similar demographic and economic conditions to the proposed area.

“In addition, the cost estimates will include the cost associated with purchasing any assets in the proposed incorporation area that are currently owned by Cobb County and any one-time costs associated with the initiation of municipal operations.”

The last time the City of East Cobb issue was raised also came after county commissioners voted to increase taxes, and during the heat of a political campaign. During the 2012 Republican runoff for Cobb Commission Chairman, challenger Bill Byrne proposed the idea but it didn’t gain much traction.

Byrne, a former chairman, was seeking to regain his seat against then-incumbent Tim Lee, who eventually edged him in the runoff.

Byrne would have had an elected mayor and five city council members for the City of East Cobb, which would have had its own police, fire, water and sewer services, purchased from the county for $1 a year. He also wanted the county, in his plan, to spend $1 million to build an East Cobb City Hall.

Byrne had attacked Lee for raising the property tax millage rate in 2011, during the aftermath of the recession.

At the time, Byrne’s idea didn’t resonate in East Cobb as it has elsewhere in metro Atlanta. This was right after citizens of Brookhaven voted to incorporate, and followed other successful cityhood drives in Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek and Milton.

But that sentiment hasn’t seriously spread in Cobb, which has six cities that have been incorporated for more than a century, and in some cases before the Civil War.

In 2009 there was a group called Citizens for the City of East Cobb that launched a website but never identified itself or pressed for action beyond that.

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Some of the most recent cityhood efforts elsewhere in metro Atlanta have failed. Earlier this month, a push to create the city of Eagle’s Landing out of Stockbridge fell short in a referendum.

Earlier this year, voters in a portion of Forsyth County turned down a similar measure that would have created the City of Sharon Springs, with a population of 50,000.

Others that have become cities have ended up providing fewer services than what is being studied for East Cobb.

Tucker, which has population of 35,000, provides zoning and planning, code enforcement and community development, and last year added overseeing the Tucker Recreation Center.

Tucker doesn’t charge a millage rate—city residents still pay the full DeKalb millage rate for county-provided services—but generates revenue from business permits, alcohol and excise taxes and utility franchise fees.

Other cityhood drives are continuing, including the Towne Lake community of Cherokee County, with a goal of having a referendum there in 2020.

The only services being suggested for Towne Lake are zoning and planning, code enforcement and sanitation, which would be optional. Those organizing cityhood there say they’re doing it to preserve property values.

 

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