By Melissa Weinman
Some DeKalb County legislators question whether any of the bills for creating cities in central DeKalb will be approved during the upcoming legislative session.
At a recent town hall meeting in Brookhaven, members of DeKalb County’s legislative delegation discussed how to handle the competing efforts to create new cities.
Three groups – the Lakeside City Alliance, the City of Briarcliff Initiative and Tucker 2014 – have all commissioned feasibility studies and are angling for legislative approval to make their municipal dreams a reality. The problem is, all three proposed cities overlap in the area around Northlake Mall.
“How are we going to resolve this mess?” Angela Trosclair of Tucker asked.
“The question you ask is really something that worries me a lot,” said Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur. “We’re about to do some serious damage.”
Rep. Tom Taylor, R-Dunwoody, said he’s not sure there will be enough time to untangle the mess before the 40-day session of the General Assembly wraps up. Due to earlier primary elections this year, the Legislature will likely convene sometime in late April, Taylor said.
“We’ve got an extremely compressed session,” Taylor said. “If any of these comes up – and I say if – because there’s a certain level of DeKalb and Fulton fatigue [in the Legislature] … if it’s not essential I don’t know that it’s going to happen this session.”
Rep. Mike Jacobs, R-Brookhaven, said he thinks the chaos surrounding the cityhood bills could be their demise.
“Frankly, I can’t tell you what’s going to happen,” Jacobs said. “I think it makes the process more difficult, particularly this year.”
Oliver said she thinks there needs to be a cohesive discussion or planning process for potential new cities and annexations proposed by existing cities.
“I think that discussion needs to go together in some way,” Oliver said. “Everything in my district is subject to one new city or another.”
To read the full story, visit Reporter Newspapers.
Come on folks. MMO lives in a city, and has those benefits. Mike Jacobs lives in a city and has those benefits. Tom Taylor lives in a city and has those benefits.
Why don’t they want us to have the benefit of local control of zoning, parks and police? Why is it good for them and not good for us? When they announce that they want to get rid of Decatur and Atlanta I’ll start treating them as serious.