AJC > Sandy Springs > Blog > Archives > 2008 > July > 21 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USCityhood movements send strong message to counties
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The folks over in Dunwoody voted last week to become a city, following our lead. Those in favor tallied around 80 percent of the vote, meaning they didn’t vote “yes” they voted “Hell yes!”
It was three years ago June that we Sandy Springsteens overwhelmingly voted to incorporate as a city, and we were followed by Milton, Johns Creek and Chattahoochee Hill Country. And more will follow, I’m sure.
There is no doubt in my mind that becoming a city was a good thing. We had been ill-served by Fulton County for decades. I have since wondered whether we would be a city today if 10 years ago the Fulton County Commission realized the discontent they were creating and started making moves to clean up their act.
And I’m more amazed that other county governments, like DeKalb, haven’t seen the number of cities that have escaped from under the thumb of county rule in the last three years and tried to make an effort to make life better for the communities in their borders.
This is not advanced government we’re talking here. It doesn’t take a genius to see that metro Atlanta counties have suddenly become vulnerable to losing millions is tax revenue by seeing communities incorporate. Some have estimated that cityhood for Dunwoody will cost DeKalb $15 million. That’s going to be a very bitter pill to choke down.
I once posed the question in this space, is there anyone out there willing to offer an argument that we were better off under Fulton County. I had no takers then and I doubt I’m going to find one this time out.
There is no measurement by which I can see that becoming a city was a bad idea. Has it cured all the ills here in our little town? Of course not. But problems that have been years in the making are not cleaned up in two or three years.
But, by becoming our own city we at last had our own mayor and city council representatives to attack those problems, instead of the absentee landlord that was the Fulton County Commission.
Which begs the question - are county governments learning a lesson here or are they on their way to becoming irrelevant?
Permalink | Comments (8) | Post your comment | Categories: Jim Osterman
Comments
By D
July 23, 2008 9:35 AM | Link to this
You can’t drive through Sandy Springs these days without being impressed by how much better the place looks sicne incorporation. Aggressive code enforcement combined with a greater sense of community pride have gone a long way toward improving the overall appearance of Sandy Springs. That said,the jury is still out on the privatization concept. My sense is that we may have gone too far and the problems revealed recently at the police department could signal a host of other problems of which we have been kept largely unaware.
Our City Council, made up generally of decent hardworking people trying to do the right thing generally functions more like a condominium association than a city government. They collect the dues and make the big decisions on where to spend the condo fees on capitol improvements but largely leave everything else to the management company. How bad are the problems at the police department? Who knows and it isn’t in the management company’s interest to be all that tranaparent. Just look at the press release and it is clear no one is talking.
If I were giving advice to Dunwoody, it would be to incorporate much greater oversight into their model of government. I’d fund and maintain a number of positions that report to the City Council and provide greater oversight of the contract performance of the outsourced management and are also much more responsive to the citizens.
By Joeventures
July 26, 2008 9:06 AM | Link to this
The greatest mistake was made long before Sandy Springs was incorporated.
Some time ago, an amendment was made to our State Constitution that gave counties the ability to provide municipal services. Had that amendment not been made — and municipal services would have remained a task appropriately assigned to the cities — the entire Atlanta region would look much different politically (and physically) than it does today.
I won’t try to make the case that Atlanta would look better — there’s no way to know that for a fact. However, it’s unlikely our region would be so balkanized as it is today. So long as unincorporated areas are allowed to build out, urbanize, and develop the need for municipal services, there will always be places that are underserved by their county governments.
By dan
August 1, 2008 9:29 PM | Link to this
When liberals were elected by both south and north fulton residents to the Fulton County Comission, things went down hill. then all of a sudden, north fulton realized they had been hoodwinked by their south fulton liberal buddies and were now paying for all the feel good projects, but getting few of them. So the ugly racial divide raised its now enlightened head.However the liberal south fulton pols still do not get it.
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