Challengers to the Falcons stadium financing deal has been granted a hearing before the Georgia Supreme Court, while a challenge to the Braves bond financing plan has been docketed for February.
Lawyers for a group of Vine City and English Avenue residents opposed to the city of Atlanta issuing bonds worth more than $200 million for the project will present arguments to the state’s highest court on Monday.
The Georgia Supreme Court also placed on its February docket the challenge to Cobb County’s plan to issue $397 million in bonds for the Braves stadium, according to a notice sent Friday to the three people who filed an appeal in that case. The parties appealing the authorization now have 20 days to file briefs in the case, and to request oral arguments before the justices.
The legal challenges present potentially significant hurdles to the sports franchises, both of which are counting on hundreds of millions in tax dollars to build new stadiums in time for their anticipated 2017 seasons. The bonds cannot be issued until both the challenges are resolved, although such appeals are rarely successful.
The Falcons began construction of the nearly $1.3 billion stadium in February, work that included demolishing two historic black churches and re-routing Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The team is bearing the cost of the work until the bonds are issued. The Braves have also been working on their site for months, relocating underground pipelines, clearing the area and grading the land.
In June, Atlanta residents Mamie Lee Moore, Tracy Bates, Joe Beasley, the Rev. William Cottrell and John H. Lewis III filed an appeal of Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville’s approval of the Falcons stadium bonds. The group, represented by attorneys John Woodham and retired Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Moore, filed the initial legal challenge to the financing plan last February.
Under the deal pushed by Mayor Kasim Reed and approved by the Atlanta City Council in 2013, Invest Atlanta — the city’s economic development agency — will issue bonds worth more than $200 million for stadium construction. Hundreds of millions more in hotel-motel tax revenue would also be allocated to fund stadium operations and maintenance over 30 years.
The group alleged numerous legal flaws in the financing plan and asked Glanville to declare it unconstitutional. Among the complaints, the residents believe the 2010 state law authorizing extension of the existing Atlanta hotel-motel tax for the purpose of replacing the Georgia Dome is unconstitutional because it morphed a “general law” with statewide applicability into a “special law” applying only to one situation.
But Glanville ruled against their objections in May, clearing the way for the city and Invest Atlanta to move forward with the bond issuance. Though city leaders anticipated issuing those bonds as early as last summer, the appeal has placed those plans in limbo.
Officials from Atlanta and the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, which will own the future Falcons stadium, do not comment on pending litigation. Falcons owner Arthur Blank has previously said the challenge to the bond issue involves Atlanta and GWCCA leaders, but not the team.
“We are observers to it, and we feel like it’s a process that has to play out and will play out, ” Blank said in April.
Cobb County leaders are facing similar hurdles.
Cobb Superior Court Judge Robert Leonard II validated the county’s bond issuance in July, overruling more than a dozen objections made on a variety of legal grounds, including that the facility will be “private” and taxes therefore can’t be used to pay for it; that there should be a referendum before public money is expended; and that there will be no public benefit to the stadium.
The parties – attorney Tucker Hobgood, along with Cobb residents Larry Savage and Rich Pellegrino – filed an appeal of Leonard’s ruling in late August. The groups now have 20 days to file legal briefs summarizing their arguments before appearing before the Supreme Court in early 2015.
The stadium project has a $622 million budget; the Braves will pay a portion of the financing of the public bonds through annual rent payments of $6.1 million.
Braves’ spokeswoman Beth Marshall said the team is fine with the February hearing date.
“The Braves are confident that the process undertaken to issue the bonds was thorough and legally sound and that the bonds will be issued in a timely manner,” Marshall said.
Pellegrino said the oral arguments will be a first for him.
“I’ve been arrested on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington, but to be working inside the system is interesting,” Pellegrino said. “I’ve done many things, but this is a first.”
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