When it comes to MARTA, north Fulton County feels ignored. Taxpayers would like more say when it comes to rail and bus expansions in their area. Subsequently, Rep. Mike Jacobs, a Republican from north DeKalb County, feels city leaders in north Fulton should decide who represents them on the MARTA board.
With House Bill 1052, Jacobs has proposed reshaping the board so that two of three MARTA Oversight Committee board appointments come from north Fulton mayors. Currently, the Fulton County Commission gets three appointments to the 12-member board, two from north of Atlanta and one from south of Atlanta. Jacobs’ proposal also removes a voting member from the Georgia Department of Transportation and gives a vote to the Georgia Regional Transit Authority.
Naturally, the Fulton County Commission opposes the bill, which dilutes its power. Commissioners met the bill’s clearing of the House on Crossover Day last week with charges of segregation. Commissioner Emma Darnell said the bill would disenfranchise the south side of the county. “We don’t want our children to think that they’re going to live in a world based on race and class,” she said.
Her comments set off Sandy Springs Councilman Gabriel Sterling, who said, “Part of the rationale for us wanting to become cities is attitudes like that, where our needs and aspirations were ignored.”
Commissioner Robb Pitts said the bill is flawed because it doesn’t give any appointments to south Fulton’s seven mayors.
Jacobs, chairman of the MARTA Oversight Committee, doesn’t buy it. As he told the AJC’s Johnny Edwards last week, “To the extent that the Fulton county Commission is objecting, it’s driven by personal power and not the realities of how transportation policy is set in north Fulton County these days.”
Johns Creek Mayor Mike Bodker said north Fulton residents have seen little return on the MARTA tax they’ve been paying for decades. “Arguably, we’re paying for something that we do not get,” he said.
Clearly, there is room and need for conversation, and even compromise.
Will the legislature remove the straitjacketing “50-50” law that requires MARTA to spend at least half of its sales tax revenues on capital expenditures, and no more than that on operations? No other transit agency in the state — or in the nation — is tasked with such a limitation. But, as Fulton County Commission Chairman John Eaves argues in his column below, such a move would help free the agency, which receives virtually no support from the state. That might be one way to lessen the indignation of the commission having to relinquish a board appointment, if the Senate goes ahead and approves the Jacobs bill.
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