Brookhaven voters narrowly created one of the state's largest cities in a hard fought contest that pitted neighbor against neighbor. Civic leaders will now have to govern a divided city while DeKalb County commissioners will have to address an estimated $25 million budget hole.
The Tuesday ballot measure passed with just over 54 percent of the 10,867 votes cast — far from the commanding mandate of 94 percent that Sandy Springs voters gave when they started new city movement in 2005 but a clear victory.
Supporters contended the new government will allow for better city services, especially in park and road maintenace, zoning and, especially, police. "Some people couldn't accept that having a new government would mean less taxes or less government," said J. Max Davis, president of Brookhaven Yes. "The county was not doing its job."
DeKalb Chief Operating Officer Richard Stogner acknowledges the county had to cut $163 million and 1,100 county workers from its budget to deal with collapsed tax collections that resulted from plunging property values over the last three years..
"Most cuts have fallen on staff services— parks and libraries and roads and drainage," he said. "Maintenance is expensive and it requires a lot of resources."
The county may now have to make more cuts to deal with the $20 million to $25 million that the Brookhaven incorporation is estimated to cost the county in 2013.
"We're just very disappointed," said Mary Ellen Imlay, co-chair of No City Brookhaven, which opposed city-hood. "I think for (metro) Atlanta to recover and to be an international city, you can't divide it into these little kingdoms."
The new city in northwest DeKalb is about two miles wide and six miles long — what Davis called a "sliver" of a city — but it will still have nearly 50,000 people, according to a University of Georgia study, putting in the top 17 largest cities in Georgia.
Davis estimated it would have about 54 police officers and a handful of other key employees who would contract out work to repair roads and swimming pools and to maintain parks. DeKalb County would still deliver fire protection and water and sewer service.
Georgia State University professor Katherine Willoughby, a former Brookhaven resident who has studied the incorporation trend, doubted that the new city would find smaller government saved its residents much money.
It might find out the opposite, but she said there were other values to creating a city than saving money. "This is about local government, I don't feel it is about cost savings," she said. "I think it is a testament to democracy that people can come together and decide hey want to, quote, rule themselves."
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