The upcoming town hall meeting for Cobb commissioner Bob Ott comes with East Cobb cityhood efforts underway and as a new county budget season on the horizon.
Ott’s office announced Friday his town hall will be March 28 at 7 p.m. at the Catholic Church of St. Ann (4905 Roswell Road).
His town halls usually don’t have a preset agenda, but Ott has indicated recently he wants to provide the public with more information about a proposed City of East Cobb initiative that was revealed in recent months (see our East Cobb Cityhood Resource Page for more).
The map drawn up by cityhood proponents would include unincorporated parts of Ott’s District 2 east of I-75, excluding the Cumblerand Community Improvement District.
Ott said he’s not part of this drive, which was launched by Atlanta Country Club resident Joe Gavalis, his appointee to the Cobb Neighborhood Safety Commission.
Ott has said he’s sympathetic with constituents who’ve complained that District 2, which includes some of East Cobb and the Cumberland-Smyrna-Vinings area, provides 40 percent of county tax revenue but doesn’t get that percentage back in services.
That’s one of the factors cited by the Committee for the City of East Cobb, Inc., for pursuing possible cityhood, along with public safety staffing and greater local control of services, including zoning and development.
The group, which formed last September, lists commercial real estate developer G. Owen Brown as its treasurer, but others who are part of the group and who helped fund a municipal feasibility study have not been identified.
The group has hired Republican political consultant and TV pundit Phil Kent to handle public relations and John Garst, another GOP political consultant, to lobby in the legislature.
No local legislation has yet been introduced in the current session of the Georgia General Assembly to call for a referendum that would be required for an East Cobb city to be created. The earliest that vote could take place is 2020.
Some citizens groups of their own have formed Facebook groups relating to the East Cobb Cityhood issue.
One is the City of East Cobb Citizens Group, which sprang up out of a thread on the Nextdoor social platform, saying it is non-partisan and has not taken a position on the issue.
Also coming up in early March are budget and transit town hall meetings by Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce. The first of those sessions take place March 5 at the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center and March 6 at the East Cobb Senior Center.
After pushing for a property tax hike last year, Boyce has said he will not ask for another one for the fiscal year 2020 budget. Both Ott and Commissioner JoAnn Birrell of Northeast Cobb voted against that increase.
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