Attorneys for Stockbridge on Thursday filed a lawsuit in Henry Superior Court seeking an injunction on a November referendum to create a city of Eagle's Landing and calling the de-annexation of Stockbridge unconstitutional.
Gov. Nathan Deal earlier this month signed two bills that will allow Henry voters to decide this fall whether to create the county's fifth city by using territory de-annexed from Stockbridge.
“We will be asking the court to hold everything in place until the constitutionality of those two acts in question is in fact determined,” said Bob Wilson, a founding partner of Wilson Morton & Downs. “No case is perfect, and no case is a certainty. However we believe ... that this is a solid case.”
Supporters of cityhood for Eagle's Landing, a series of well-heeled neighborhoods and a golf course in the southern half of Stockbridge, say they need to secede and create their own city because Stockbridge has failed to fulfill basic needs, such as parks, senior facilities and road and infrastructure improvements.
Stockbridge leaders contend that some of the requested needs are county issues, not city, and that the way to resolve the differences is through dialogue and not by breaking the city up.
