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DEL.ICIO.USDunwoody done in by clock
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lawmakers again dashed the hopes for Dunwoody cityhood, leaving the bill stalled as the 2007 Legislature shut down.
The last-day defeat for Senate Bill 82 mirrored the bill’s dramatic failure a year earlier when Dunwoody incorporation fell to a last-second Senate filibuster.
The proposal made it through the Senate earlier in the session but fell 20 votes short of passage in the House on Thursday.
Lawmakers restored the bill to the House calendar late Friday but it died when the 2008 budget, private cities and other legislation consumed the day’s final hours.
The sponsor, Sen. Dan Weber (R-Dunwoody), made repeated trips Friday to the House to muster votes, but he couldn’t get the bill voted on before time expired.
Rep. Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody), who carried the bill in the House, said the bill died simply from the sheer number of laws flying back and forth on the final day.
“I think it had a good shot,” Millar said. “I’m disappointed it didn’t happen.”
Still, the bill remains alive for 2008, though that delays the start of the proposed new city of 40,000 in north DeKalb until at least a 2009.
The idea of incorporation has been hotly debated in DeKalb where most of the political structure has been against it.
DeKalb’s Board of Commissioners has complained the new city would sap the county of about $15 million a year.
Lawmakers and activists from inside Dunwoody, however, have pushed their cause regardless of the opposition.
They say the county losses would be offset by the services the county will no longer have to provide when the city takes over.
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