Opponents can't derail Sandy Springs' bid for tech campus

By Joel Anderson

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Whether residents like it or not, Sandy Springs is still holding out hope of becoming a college town.

At the end of a heated, and very crowded, four-hour meeting Tuesday night, Mayor Eva Galambos and city council members narrowly approved a proposal to bid for a satellite campus of Gwinnett Technical College.

The 4-3 vote ended weeks of contentious debate over the measure, which allows Sandy Springs to continue its pursuit of a planned new technical college in North Fulton. Roswell and Alpharetta are the other cities thought to be competing for the campus site.

“I have no personal agenda,” said Galambos, who cast the deciding vote. “I’m thinking of the future of Sandy Springs.”

Sandy Springs, Alpharetta and Roswell must respond to Gwinnett Technical College’s request for a proposal by Jan. 31. All of them want the daily influx of learners and consumers to boost economic development and the bragging rights that come with a state college.

One thing about the proposal is certain: The winning city will have to give up money, either in cash or land, to make the campus a reality. College President Sharon Bartels has said she prefers a site equal to the size of the current Gwinnett Tech campus, a 100-acre school with more than 5,000 students.

To that end, Sandy Springs has offered $2.5 million from excess budgeted revenue in the city’s property tax fund for the fiscal year of 2011 and land at the North Springs MARTA Station site. City officials also pledge to raise another $2.5 million from local private investors.

“There is a cost of economic development,” council member Tiberio DeJulio said. “That is what happens when you attract corporations. You have to give them incentives.”

Nonetheless, hundreds of Sandy Springs residents crammed into City Hall Tuesday evening, most of them there to voice their displeasure with the bid.

Opponents argued the plan would remove an attractive piece of property from the tax rolls and require more than $9.5 million in improvements to Peachtree-Dunwoody Road to handle the increased traffic. A number of alternative sites have been proposed, including the Lakeside property near GA-400/Pill Hill and the Ackerman site at 400 and Abernathy Road.

Before the debate could even get started, council members spent about 15 minutes sorting out how many public comments to allow before moving on to another issue. Moments before opponents of the plan addressed the council, one speaker asked those in the crowd who were against the proposal to stand; more than three-fourths of the audience jumped to its feet.

“This is the first time I’ve seen any issue in Sandy Springs generate this many e-mails,” said Councilwoman Ashley Jenkins, who spearheaded much of the opposition. “I worry that people will lose faith in governance of the city going forward. That concerns me more than anything else.”

The city’s Gwinnett Technical College planning committee estimates the school will invest as much as $100 million in Sandy Springs, just in new facilities.

Also in the report, the committee notes that local economic impact would come from spending by school administration, faculty, staff and students; spending on capital improvements, goods, services and supplies; local jobs filled by Gwinnett Tech graduates, and companies drawn to Sandy Springs because of the supply of skilled workers.

“A one-time investment of $2.5 million for a lifetime of new students is very wise money spent,” said the report handed out to council members.

At last Thursday’s work session, four of the six council members indicated their support of Galambos’ proposal through a straw poll. Ashley Jenkins and Karen Meinzen McEnerny voted against the plan, saying they didn’t want to use taxpayer money and preferring to use the designated site as office space.

Later in the week, Councilman Chip Collins joined the bloc of dissenters, evening up the potential vote at 3-3 with Galambos primed to cast the deciding vote. And despite all the e-mails, hours of debate and vocal opposition from the crowd, that was the way the vote unfolded Tuesday night.

But it will be at least a year before Gwinnett Tech is expected to put a north Fulton campus on its capital projects list. In early September, the State Board of the Technical College System of Georgia released its project list for 2011, and the north Fulton campus was not included. That means it will be at least 2012 before any construction could begin.

The new college would be the first technical college built from the ground up since 1996, when Sandersville Technical College opened in east Georgia. The technical college system includes 26 schools that historically prepare students directly for work in areas ranging from health sciences to automotive technology to culinary arts.