Johns Creek Mayor Mike Bodker spoke to a group of Brookhaven residents about what it takes to form a new city.
Bodker, who became Johns Creek’s first mayor after leading the push for incorporation, talked to the Brookhaven Community Connection on Oct. 11 about Johns Creek’s positive experience becoming a city.
Brookhaven residents are exploring the possibility of becoming a city. A nonprofit group called the Citizens for North DeKalb has raised money for a feasibility study of a city of Brookhaven, which is expected to be complete by the beginning of November.
“I’m not here to tell you why you should or shouldn’t become a city of Brookhaven,” Bodker said. “I hope you all will look at it objectively.”
Bodker said for Johns Creek, the main issue was that residents did not feel they were getting the services they deserved for the taxes they were paying to Fulton County.
“Why would you want to become a city?” Bodker said. “I don’t know what your reasons are. But for us, we wanted to make sure dollars were spent locally. We wanted to put the limit on out of control government spending and our millage cap stopped that. We wanted to make sure decisions were made by people who actually lived in our community and not in our case by people who lived as much as 70 miles away.”
He said cityhood is not the only option Brookhaven should consider.
“If you don’t want to create your own city, go get annexed,” Bodker said. “My first goal was to become part of Alpharetta or Roswell. I didn’t want to be mayor.”
He warned that incorporation is hard work, but he said the effort was worth it for Johns Creek.
“The citizens got what they bargained for,” Bodker said. “We are one step removed from that evil county government we hate so much.”