What a difference a few months make. Early this year, the effort to create the new city of Lakeside in north-central DeKalb County carried an arrogant sense of inevitability, the air of a juggernaut destined to steamroll opponents with the inside support of Republicans who control the levers of power at the Statehouse.
The effort fell short in March, however, as Lakeside supporters wrestled with folks from historic Tucker for land flanking and outside I-285. Legislators had enough of the wrangling and punted the issue to the next legislative session. Lawmakers told the two city movements to get their acts (and borders) together and they’d let them put their reconciled proposals to voters.
The two sides couldn’t agree, so they were back Wednesday, arguing their respective cases before a panel of legislators. And I actually found my heart softening toward Lakeside. The re-branded effort, which is now called LaVista Hills, emerged as a sympathetic character, an underdog surrounded by enemies picking it apart from all sides.
The afternoon had all the ingredients of a perfect neighbor-versus-neighbor donnybrook: ambitions, aspirations, fear of crime and concern about being left behind. I can’t think of such a dispute over land since the Brits sent warships to the Falkland Islands to kick out the Argentinians.
The five members of the legislative team called in to play King Solomon in this dispute weren’t happy about spending an afternoon listening to competing visions of cityhood.
“We’d rather not be here; we’d rather not be in a situation that we have to draw lines,” said state Rep. Mark Hamilton, a Republican from Cumming. “But we are.”
Allen Venet, co-leader of the LaVista Hills movement, pronounced the whole matter “a hot mess.” He was being polite.
Venet once headed the now-defunct Briarcliff city movement, which was bulldozed by competing Lakeside, which set its sights on some of the same territory. The proposed LaVista Hills is largely the same footprint as the old proposed Lakeside, with a little land to its west tossed in. Much of the other land the proposed Briarcliff once coveted is being eyed by Atlanta, Decatur and other entities.
Venet told legislators that LaVista Hills, which would have 72,000 residents, might not have enough financial wherewithal to carry out incorporation if historic Tucker seizes a swath of prime tax-paying commercial land around Northlake Mall.
Meanwhile, on the west side of what would be LaVista Hills, the Executive Park area is playing footsie with Brookhaven, the new city to the north. And there’s an effort by residents of the Druid Hills area to get annexed by Atlanta, a move that would grab the Toco Hills shopping center.
Losing all those commercial centers “would be death by a thousand cuts,” Venet told lawmakers. LaVista Hills, which once looked so good on paper, would be left with the commercial base of a fruit stand on LaVista Road, a beer growler store in Oak Grove and the odd commercial cluster here and there.
LaVista Hills’ presentation was heavy on people living in the disputed area outside I-285. They said they thought of themselves more as intowners and liked the idea of a new city creating its own police force. Historic Tucker would stay with county cops for the time being.
Historic Tucker’s presentation was well-oiled by comparison and had some political firepower. It was run by Frank Auman, a former DeKalb GOP chairman whose day job is salesman, and he was backed up by Ann Lewis, the state Republican Party’s lawyer and an expert in redistricting.
Auman showed a PowerPoint demonstrating that historic Tucker was settled long, long ago. (I think the Vikings settled it, although they didn’t think to incorporate their idyllic burg, not knowing it would one day be smack dab in the middle of DeKalb County, an entity seen as corrupt and dysfunctional.)
Auman popped through his evidentiary slides one by one to show how historic Tucker is just that. There was a 1940 census; a Georgia Department of Transportation document; a historic Tucker ZIP code and even an old story from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He concluded by displaying stationery from Holy Cross Catholic Church, which said it was “celebrating 50 years as a special and holy place in Tucker, GA, where God reigns.”
It seemed effective. Who can argue with God?
But neighbors are arguing.
Jannean Bello, who has volunteered with the Tucker Civic Association, spoke on behalf of LaVista Hills, saying, “I really resent being strong-armed by people.” Historic Tucker people, that is. “Why do they want neighborhoods that want no part of them?”
Bello said just about everyone in her neighborhood wants to join LaVista Hills.
Later, historic Tucker proponent Anne Lerner told legislators she has served with Bello on civic matters and was “sitting with four of her neighbors who have Tucker badges on.”
The hearing was supposed to go 90 minutes but lasted twice that. Ultimately, the legislators said they wanted to see new tax revenue projections from the proposed cities because the borders have shifted since last year when Tucker and Lakeside did feasibility studies.
State Rep. Scott Holcomb, a Democrat who lives in what would be LaVista Hills, approached the legislative team as a witness saying he hoped the two sides could cut a deal. But “I’m not terribly sanguine that is going to happen. People who used to be friends are no longer friends.
“For Tucker, it’s very much a sense of community driving it,” he opined. “For LaVista Hills, it’s a sense that they can create a better future.”
Holcomb said that one obvious solution as seen from outsiders would be to draw the line at I-285. But that would disappoint lots of residents outside I-285 who want to be in LaVista Hills, and it would cut off historic Tucker from a huge chunk of commercial land inside I-285.
Someone’s going to split the baby. And there’s going to be plenty of screaming.
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