State Rep. Matt Dollar

East Cobb Cityhood bill sponsor resigns from Ga. legislature

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State Rep. Matt Dollar
State Rep. Matt Dollar speaking in favor of the East Cobb Cityhood bill on the House floor last Thursday.

State Rep. Matt Dollar, a Republican who is the chief sponsor of the East Cobb Cityhood bill that just passed the House, is resigning his seat in the Georgia legislature, effective today.

Dollar, who has represented District 45 since 2003, said in a release that he is leaving to become the deputy commissioner of economic development for the Technical College System of Georgia.

“Having been born and raised in Marietta, it has been the greatest honor of my life to serve the citizens of House District 45 in the Georgia House of Representatives,” Dollar said in a statement. “I want to thank the people of East Cobb for putting their trust in me, as well as Speaker David Ralston for the confidence he has shown in me during my time as a member of the Georgia House. I look forward to my new role at TCSG and to continue helping Georgia companies grow and succeed.”

Tuesday was the ninth of the 40-day Georgia legislative session, which is scheduled to run into early April.

He initially announced his resignation during a floor speech after the East Cobb Cityhood bill was sent to the Senate for consideration.

There will be a special election for a successor to serve the rest of Dollar’s term; previously he had announced he wouldn’t be seeking re-election in November.

Gov. Brian Kemp has 10 days to call for the special election, which will take place within the next 30 to 60 days.

Dollar and State Rep. Sharon Cooper, an East Cobb Republican who represents District 43, were drawn into the same legislative seat during reapportionment in November.

Cooper and Dollar co-sponsored the East Cobb Cityhood bill that passed the House on Thursday.

However, another Cobb lawmaker, Democratic Rep. David Wilkerson, asked for a notice to reconsider, which meant it could have been voted again by the House.

But on the House floor Tuesday, Wilkerson’s motion to reconsider the bill was rejected by a vote of 97-68.

After that, Dollar moved to transmit the East Cobb Cityhood bill to the Georgia Senate, and that was approved by a vote of 100-63.

The bill, if passed by the legislature, would call for a May referendum by voters within the boundaries of the proposed City of East Cobb.

If that referendum should pass, voters in the city would then choose a mayor and six city council members in November, with the City of East Cobb beginning operations in early 2023.

“People are really seeing the value of not increasing the size of government, but shifting important services to a more local level. I want to thank my colleagues for their bi-partisan support of this effort,” Dollar said.

Shortly after Dollar announced his resignation, the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood sent out a message congratulating and thanking him for his cityhood efforts.

“We would like to thank Rep. Matt Dollar for sponsoring HB841, which in large part, has been made possible by his commitment to listening closely to what residents want out of their community’s future plans,” the cityhood group’s message said. “In partnership with the support of East Cobbers, Cityhood will incorporate our great community into one cohesive whole by preserving the character of our community not just now but down the line as well. We appreciate Rep. Dollar’s perseverance and commitment to this goal and wish him the very best in his next endeavor.”

The statement was signed individually by the group’s 13 committee members.

Dollar, a realtor and graduate of Pope High School, was the chairman of the House Creative Arts and Entertainment Committee. In 2020 he sponsored a bill to update the state’s film tax credit.

He also served on House committees on Appropriations, Economic Development, Transportation, Insurance, Motor Vehicles, Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications and Interstate Cooperation during his legislative tenure.

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East Cobb cityhood bill sponsor draws Democratic opponent

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State Rep. Matt Dollar, who filed the East Cobb cityhood bill in the Georgia legislature earlier this year, has at least one announced opponent in 2020.Sara Tindall Ghazal

She’s Sara Tindall Ghazal, an attorney who has headed a voter access project for the Georgia Democratic Party since last year.

On her campaign website, Ghazal said she’s running for several reasons, including improving voter access, health care and education.

Ghazal and her husband Patrick are raising two daughters who attend public school in East Cobb. She opposes cityhood and says that “Georgians deserve better policy when it comes to common sense gun safety.”

Ghazal was hired last year by the Georgia Democratic Party as the first full-time director for voter protection by a state party.

The move was made as Georgia Democrats challenged voter access when current Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was Secretary of State.

She’s been an elections monitor for the Carter Center in Jamaica, Liberia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and the Cherokee Nation. Ghazal is a graduate of the University of the South and earned a law degree from the Emory University School of Law.

According to Dollar’s latest financial report, filed on June 30 with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, he has nearly $50,000 in cash on hand.

The same agency indicates that Ghazal registered her campaign committee, Friends of Sara Tindall Ghazal, on Nov. 27, and that her campaign chair is Charisse Davis, who represents the Walton and Wheeler clusters on the Cobb Board of Education.

East Cobb News has reached out to Ghazal seeking more information about her candidacy.

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She’s the latest Democratic political novice to seek elected office in Republican-heavy East Cobb.

Dollar, who’s represented District 45 since 2003, has had little opposition from opponents in either party. Last year, he defeated Democrat Essence Johnson with 60 percent of the vote.

Democrats fielded candidates in every federal, state and local race involving East Cobb constituencies last year, and they won in the 6th Congressional District (Lucy McBath), Cobb Board of Education Post 6 (Charisse Davis) and Georgia State House 37 (Mary Frances Williams).

Democrats also ran close in Cobb Commission District 3 and State House 43. Those candidates seeking office again in 2020. Caroline Holko, who ran against commissioner JoAnn Birrell, is running for State House District 46, where Republican John Carson is the incumbent.

In State House 43, Republican incumbent Sharon Cooper, the chairwoman of the House Health and Human Services Committee, is being challenged again by Democrat Luisa Wakeman, who got 48 percent of the vote against Cooper in 2018.

In addition to the area of East Cobb shown below, District 45 also includes a small portion of Sandy Springs.

Georgia House District 45 map
For a larger view, click here. (Georgia Elections map)

 

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Dollar: Proposed East Cobb city map revisions still in progress

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The sponsor of the East Cobb cityhood bill says changes to the proposed city map are still ongoing, and he doesn’t think anything will be finalized until the Georgia legislature returns in January.

East Cobb cityhood
State Rep. Matt Dollar is the sponsor of the East Cobb cityhood bill.

State Rep. Matt Dollar (R-East Cobb) said he hasn’t seen a proposed revision of the map that was presented at a town hall meeting on Nov. 11 by the group pushing for cityhood.

The Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb wants the map to include the areas around Pope and Lassiter high schools. The initial map included most of unincorporated East Cobb in Cobb Commission District 2.

The new map would venture into Commission District 3, represented by JoAnn Birrell, who’s come out against cityhood.

During the town hall meeting at Wheeler High School, David Birdwell of the cityhood committee flashed a revised map for the audience, which he said he received only that day.

A more detailed map, he said at the time, would not be immediately available from the state apportionment office.

Nearly a month later, there still isn’t a revised map proposal for the public to view. The cityhood committee’s website includes an interactive map for citizens to see whether or not they live in the proposed city, but it’s the original map.

East Cobb city interactive map
The East Cobb cityhood group’s website still has the original proposed map; click here for details.

When contacted by East Cobb News, Dollar said he was out of town and unable to attend that meeting and “I’m not sure what they were showing.”

“We’re still taking feedback,” Dollar said about the process for drawing a revised map. “We’ll have a better idea what the map will look like once the legislative session begins.

“We’re all working together to see what the map’s going to look like.”

Dollar filed HB 718 (you can read it here) on the next-to-last day of the 2019 legislature and the day after the cityhood group’s first public meeting.

Under state law, cityhood bills have to go through a two-year process. The full legislature must pass the bill in the 2020 session before a referendum would go to voters—most likely in November—living in the proposed City of East Cobb.

The original city map would have a population of nearly 90,000, and if it expands as Birdwell has suggested, it would top more than 110,000.

David Birdwell, new East Cobb map
East Cobb cityhood leader David Birdwell presented an expanded map at a Nov. 11 town hall meeting, but has not provided more details of the proposed revisions.

That would make a City of East Cobb the second-largest municipality in the metro Atlanta area. But a more accurate estimate, along with detailed boundaries of the proposed new map, remain unclear.

East Cobb News has left a message with Birdwell seeking comment.

State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick (R-East Cobb) told East Cobb News earlier this week she hasn’t seen a new map. Cityhood bills must have a local Senate sponsor, but she hasn’t taken a position and may be doing some polling.

Dollar said reaction from his constituents in East Cobb’s District 45 has been mixed. He acknowledges there’s opposition, including the group East Cobb Alliance, but said he’s gotten “a lot of e-mails from people who do like” the cityhood proposal.

He said the objective is to have a formalized map for the proposed City of East Cobb by the time the bill would be considered by the House Governmental Affairs Committee, the first step in the legislative process.

He said he doesn’t anticipate, at least for now, any other significant changes to the rest of the cityhood bill and proposed City of East Cobb charter.

Ultimately, the legislature would draw up a final city map and make other changes if it passes the cityhood bill.

“We’ll have a lot more clarity soon,” Dollar said about the map. “Right now, it’s just not there.”

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