Cityhood Fails
The push to form a city of South Fulton met strong opposition from a number of forces. What happened? Let's talk about it.
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The push to form a city of South Fulton met strong opposition from a number of forces. What happened? Let's talk about it.
4 comments:
What do you mean what happen?
Yes won or no won?
Nothing on news about results.
Here is a quote from a resident (B. Crane) in the AJC today: "The voters of south Fulton spoke today. They made it clear they want to have a city controlled by six commissioners who don't live in south Fulton County."
Has one person been interviewed who stated "I voted NO because I want to have a city controlled by six commissioners who don't live in south Fulton County." Of course not.
Could it be that residents were concerned with:
- Challenges of starting a a new city
- Service delivery
- The tax millage rate being higher in most existing South Fulton cities such as East Point
- Problems experienced by the newly formed North Fulton cities.
- Virtually turning over management to a firm that is already stretched with supporting other cities.
- Tactics and behavior of those who would likely run for office in the new city
What a terrible and lacking article that insults the intelligence of 85% of our South Fulton voters. Please write D.L. Bennett and express your displeasure. The article does not accurately reflect the mindset of our community.
Should we push legislators for a township option now?
Is our next big fight a split of the county?
I agree, I don't think it is as simple as saying citizens don't want an orgainzed local representation, but taking every fragment of in many times unadjoined South Fulton County and saying that means you will have local representation is not accurate. The areas that would have been in the City of South Fulton would not have necessarily been the same community and we could end up still not having representation for our area. Fulton Industrial is not the same community as the Old National/SR-138 area by far.
I think annexation by the cities around would almost be better, if we can't map out a better city that isn't all or nothing.
And I think it is a dumb idea to annex EVERY AREA OF LAND into a city. I am from Florida and there are always unpopulated areas that are unincorporated because otherwise the city would have to provide police, parks, etc. to small groups of rural people and it would cost A LOT of money. The proposed area was nearing the size of the City of Atlanta - CRAZY!!!
Obviously this is about money because some want to control the undeveloped land that will eventually have a lot more residents on it. They want to get the taxes etc. But regarding the LOST tax, I don't know who's thinking this through, but we don't have popular malls and shopping centers in the area that was to be City of South Fulton - nor convenient access, so what sales tax are we missing. Sandy Springs etc. have major shopping areas that even we in South Fulton shop at. We need shopping areas with welcoming roadways easily accessible to major interstates to bring in shoppers not only from South Fulton but from throughout Atlanta in order for us to be in a good positon as a city when it comes to Sales Tax income, and our centers have to be top notch in order to take business from Atlantic Station, Lenox, Perimeter Mall, now Newnan has bigger shopping areas, Peachtree City, Fayetteville etc. We don't even shop in the City of South Fulton area. We would be in a real financial bind I think.
Lets look at what we have here. It seems like everyone who wanted to be in a city had the loudest voices (either City of South Fulton or an existing city). Yet, no one bothered to ask those who did not want neither. People moved to the suburbs to get away from city life, hence the Home Rule powers act of the 1960's. This is when unincorporated areas blew up (Fulton, Gwinnett, etc).
I took the vote as people wanted to simply stay unincorporated. If we want certain services, we would be willing to pay for them. I'm a firm believer of you get what you pay for. I don't want government provided trash service, I much rather chose my provider. I also don't want a money hungry city looking to set up speed traps to steal money from the citizens. I also don't want to be in a city where they allow anything to be built or exort money from developers or else kill their otherwise suitable projects.
I like being unincorporated. While Fulton does have its problems (our fault because we don't vote folks out like we should), it has its advantages. We as the citizens need to do more to hold our elected leaders accountable and when they fail to perform, we need to have a better memory so we can vote them out in the next election. It happened it other cities in our area this fall and even in Milton. So there's hope we can do the same.
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