City of East Cobb

East Cobb cityhood town hall to mark community ‘reset’

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East Cobb cityhood
More than 600 citizens turned out to hear an East Cobb cityhood presentation in March. (ECN file)

The leaders of an effort to create a City of East Cobb will be holding their own town hall meeting for the first time on Monday, vowing to foster a dialogue with the public about an incorporation process that has stumbled out of the gate.

The town hall meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of Walton High School (1590 Bill Murdock Road). A panel discussion moderated by Cynthia Rozzo, publisher of the EAST COBBER magazine, will include Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb members David Birdwell, Rob Eble and Karen Hallacy.

The town hall also will include members of a cityhood effort in Mableton, which like East Cobb has had local legislation introduced to be considered next year.

Last month, Birdwell faced an occasionally rowdy audience at Cobb commissioner Bob Ott’s town hall meeting. It was the first public encounter for the cityhood group, which formed last fall, commissioned a financial feasibility study and hired a lobbyist in the General Assembly with cityhood experience.

The group didn’t say much publicly until last month’s town hall, and the cityhood legislation, sponsored by State Rep. Matt Dollar, was filed the following day.

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Eble told East Cobb News Friday there’s still a lot of information he has to obtain and digest after he joined the group in January, but pledged that he and the others are committed to a “reset” in communicating with the community.

“I wouldn’t vote on it today,” he said, referring to a referendum tentatively eyed for the 2020 Georgia primary next spring if the cityhood bill passes.

There’s still so much to examine, he said, and more feedback from the public to solicit.

Rob Eble, East Cobb cityhood
Rob Eble

He’s a life-long East Cobber, and a Walton graduate, who took a look at the feasibility study, which concluded a city could be created without a tax increase, and thinks it’s worth considering.

“It’s all about the process, and shaping it the way the community wants it,” Eble said.

Since last month’s town hall, he said the group has heard from plenty of East Cobb residents about the study—which he expects to be discussed extensively on Monday—as well as the proposed city boundaries.

For now, the map is the unincorporated East Cobb portion of Ott’s commission district (map here), and would include a population of around 96,000.

The legislation calls for a mayor to be elected citywide and a six-member city council, whose districts have yet to be drawn.

Eble said he’s heard from citizens who live in areas of East Cobb outside of the map, and they wonder why they’re not in it.

He added that the map is subject to change, and that doing so “is under discussion. We want to hear from people.”

Skepticism has abounded since the cityhood effort was revealed, most of all why this is happening in an area where no serious municipal push has been made before.

A member of citizens ad hoc group asked to look at the feasibility study quit in protest of what he called a lack of transparency.

Eble insisted that “nobody is trying to push anything down anybody’s throat.

“Nobody’s trying to prosper off this,” Eble said. “We believe that local citizens of East Cobb are much better equipped to have a say about what happens in their backyards.”

Both the East Cobb and Mableton cityhood groups have said they want more responsive local control over government services than what is provided by Cobb, which has a county-elected chairman and four district members who represent more than 185,000 people each.

The proposed East Cobb city services are police, fire and community development, including planning and zoning.

Eble said the town hall format on Monday will include presentations and questions from the audience, to be submitted on note cards.

The cityhood group also will be appearing at a meeting next month of the Powers Ferry Corridor Alliance. Eble said other meetings are in the works with homeowners groups and civic and business associations. Cityhood representatives also be at next weekend’s Taste of East Cobb event.

“This is education,” Eble said. “There is an opportunity to create a community here.”

 

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East Cobb cityhood steering committee member resigns, citing lack of transparency

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A member of an informal citizens steering committee examining a possible East Cobb cityhood initiative has resigned, saying he and other committee members weren’t being told who funded a $36,000 feasibility study released last week.

Joe O’Connor, a resident of the King’s Cove neighborhood and a longtime community activist, told East Cobb News that he insisted that Joe Gavalis, president of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood, Inc., offer more clarity about who’s pushing for a portion of East Cobb to become a city.

“I told Joe, ‘you’ve got to be transparent about this,” O’Connor said, recalling his conversation late last week. “His exact words to me were, ‘It’s none of anyone’s business.’ “

In response to questions from East Cobb News, Gavalis on Wednesday did not address O’Connor’s issues with who paid for the feasibility study or his other transparency concerns.

Instead, Gavalis said those who had been invited to serve on an ad hoc citizens group were being made the subject of “some misinformation” by “an attendee who is not for cityhood [and who] chose to share the names of people in the group knowing there were individuals who asked to remain anonymous and who had not made up their minds.”

He said the group is still gathering basic information about possible cityhood. “Many East Cobbers who attended are simply asking questions just like everyone in the aftermath of the Georgia State cityhood feasibility release,” Gavalis said.

East Cobb News contacted some of those individuals. One was upset her name had been given to a reporter and did not want to be interviewed. Some others have not returned messages seeking comment or were unavailable.

O’Connor said he has been friends with Gavalis, a resident of the Atlanta Country Club area, for many years, as they both have served on the Cobb Neighborhood Safety Commission and the Cobb Elder Abuse Task Force.

O’Connor also said he had problems with some of the data and information included in the study compiled by the Georgia State University Center for State and Local Finance. (Read it here, and view a proposed city map here.

City of East Cobb

In a response to written questions from East Cobb News over the weekend, Gavalis declined to say who funded the study or to name the individuals serving on the citizens committee.

He said the cityhood group, the Commitee for East Cobb Cityhood, Inc., has received donations from around the community to fund the study but he provided no specifics.

Among those on the citizens committee is former Cobb commissioner Thea Powell. She told East Cobb News that she thinks the cityhood idea is worthy of consideration, but “the process should have started sooner, of going out into the community.”

Powell—who said she hasn’t formed an opinion about whether East Cobb should be a city—referenced recommendations from the Georgia Municipal Association that strongly encourage cityhood advocates to get community input early on.

O’Connor said his first meeting about the cityhood idea was held in the office of G. Owen Brown, founder of the Retail Planning Corp., a commercial real estate firm located at Paper Mill Village. Brown is listed on the cityhood committee’s state filing documents as its incorporator. Gavalis is the only other individual who has been named.

O’Connor said after he first began reading through the study last week, he “immediately saw problems.”

Some of the statistical data was outdated and inaccurate, he said, and he was troubled by the low number of businesses in the proposed East Cobb city (around 3,300), far fewer than those in Alpharetta, Johns Creek and similar cities that were compared (bottom line in the chart below).

The residential-to-commercial split in the proposed city of East Cobb would be 85 to 15 percent.

“That’s a concern,” O’Connor said. “The other cities have a good combination.” In East Cobb, he said, “we’re so much more residential.”

Powell also noted that those business number stats are from 2012. “We’re working on really old figures when the economy wasn’t doing very well,” she said.

In his response to that issue over the weekend by East Cobb News, Gavalis said that the city of Milton, also in North Fulton, has a similar breakdown of its tax base, and there hasn’t been millage rate increase there since 2006.

Gavalis said he was asked to lead a possible cityhood effort after some citizens complained they didn’t think they were getting their money’s worth in county property taxes. He has not said who any of those people are.

Among the service priorities Gavalis indicated for a possible city of East Cobb were police and fire and community development, including planning and zoning.

A cityhood effort is a two-year process, requiring state legislation calling for a referendum that must be approved by voters living within the proposed city area. Cityhood advocates must also provide a feasibility study.

Gavalis told East Cobb News the community will be informed but did not indicate when that might be. Here’s more of what he told us Wednesday:

“We are in the beginning stages of our planning process and are seeking answers to some legitimate and sincere questions at this time. The Committee is not trying to be evasive but instead we have honored requests from participants who did not want their names disclosed since this group is still informal. We want to be transparent but we are compiling answers to questions about the study and formalizing our strategy on the expertise levels that will be needed to provide insight and professional advice.

“When we complete our strategic plan we will finalize who will be formally asked to join us and then we will announce who has accepted.”

With the possibility of legislation coming in the new year, Powell thinks the larger community should have been told more by now.

“Public input is of utmost importance,” she said. “Ultimately it doesn’t matter what I think. They will have the final say.”

O’Connor has been supportive about a city of East Cobb, writing a letter to the editor of The Marietta Daily Journal and commenting on East Cobb News to that effect.

But, he said, that support is based on solid “facts and numbers” and a willingness to make a good-faith effort to inform the public. He doesn’t think that is happening.

“I’ve always said that if you’re hiding something, then you’ve got something to hide,” O’Connor said.

 

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City of East Cobb group releases ‘favorable’ feasibility study

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City of East Cobb
The map proposed by the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb, Inc. would include most of Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott’s District 2.

We’ve just gotten a City of East Cobb feasibility study commissioned by a local group that is claiming a number of “positives” for incorporation, including no additional tax levies above the current Cobb millage rate.

The study, which was conducted by the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State University, was paid for by a group called Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb, Inc.

Our previous story here. For a more detailed view of the proposed map above, click here.

The study concludes that not only would a City of East Cobb be financially viable, it would start out with a surplus of nearly $3 million.

Here’s a link to the full report, which was made public on Tuesday.

The research analysis concluded that the City of East Cobb could expect annual revenues of around $48 million and expenses of around $46 million.

The cityhood group is led by Joe Gavalis, a resident of the Atlanta Country Club area, who said the study is just the first step toward having a public dialogue about the possibility of East Cobb becoming a city.

He said “the study’s findings are extremely favorable to East Cobb cityhood.”

The Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb is claiming the benefits of cityhood would include more local control, enhanced police and fire services, better road maintenance and expansion of the East Cobb Government Service Center.

A two-year process would be required to formally pursue cityhood, including passage of state legislation calling for a referendum that would give citizens the final say about forming a new city.

According to the study’s executive summary, State Rep. Sharon Cooper, an East Cobb Republican, contacted GSU. Cityhood efforts also require a state representative and a state senator from the possible new city to sponsor referendum legislation.

“This study is not a budget, it is a feasibility study. It develops revenue and expense estimates based on property tax files, a boundary map and estimated business license revenue,” Gavalis said in a statement.

Georgia law also requires that new cities provide at least three public services. GSU was asked to examine the provision of public safety, fire management, parks and recreation and community development in East Cobb. The researchers noted that the latter category is a broad one, and for this study included zoning and code enforcement.

The GSU study estimates that nearly half of the proposed revenues, $23 million, would come from property taxes. The biggest expense would be public safety, around $19 million, with around $12 million of that for police.

The GSU researchers projected a 142-officer police force, as well as the acquisition of five current Cobb fire stations within the proposed East Cobb municipal boundaries (stations 3, 15, 19, 20 and 21, see fire department maps).

The study compared populations, demographics, home values and other data for the East Cobb cityhood proposal with Alpharetta, Dunwoody, Johns Creek, Roswell and Smyrna (see chart below).

The proposed map, which comprises around 40 square miles, doesn’t include all of what’s generally regarded as East Cobb. It includes only unincorporated Cobb east of I-75 that is in Cobb Commission District 2 (in map at top) and outside of the Cumberland Community Improvement District. Click here for a detailed view of that map.

It includes none of the East Cobb area that is in District 3, which generally lies between Sandy Plains Road and Canton Road.

The population in the proposed city map area amounts to 96,858, which would make the city of East Cobb the second-largest in metro Atlanta. Roswell’s estimated population is around 94,000 and Johns Creek, which incorporated in 2006, is around 84,000.

A city of East Cobb would have an elected mayor and six-member city council and an appointed city manager. Neighborhoods in unincorporated areas could petition to join the city if it is chartered.

Startup plans would estimate the hiring of 35 non-public safety city employees. No public works department is being proposed for East Cobb, but such a city would be eligible for Cobb SPLOST and state funding for road maintenance and improvements.

Previous suggestions for East Cobb cityhood haven’t gotten past the talking stage. Most recently former Cobb Commission Chairman Bill Byrne proposed it during his 2012 campaign to regain his seat, but the idea never took off.

That was right before voters in Brookhaven and Tucker began to organize their own successful cityhood efforts. There hasn’t been a new city in Cobb County, which has six municipalities, since the late 1800s.

The Committee for the City of East Cobb, which has not revealed its parties beyond Gavalis and one other person, paid $36,000 for the GSU study.

Gavalis has been a member of the Cobb Neighborhood Safety Commission, a citizen advisory board, and was reappointed Tuesday by District 2 Commissioner Bob Ott.

According to documents filed with the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office corporations division, the committee registered as a non-profit organization in September and stated that it does not intend to have members.

The only other name listed on the filing forms is the group’s incorporator, G. Owen Brown, who is the president and founder of the Retail Planning Corporation based on Johnson Ferry Road in East Cobb.

 

Read the full report here

 

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City of East Cobb proposed by citizens group; study underway

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East Cobb Black Friday traffic
Johnson Ferry Road at Roswell Road in the heart of East Cobb.

This isn’t a new topic, and it’s one that hasn’t gone very far beyond the talking stage in the past: Should there be such a thing as a City of East Cobb?

A group of mostly unidentified people is behind a new push to create what would be the second-largest municipality in metro Atlanta.

The Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb, Inc., is led by Joe Gavalis, a resident of the Atlanta Country Club area. His group has commissioned a feasibility study being conducted by the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State University. He has not returned calls seeking comment.

However, the suggested City of East Cobb his group is advocating would not include all of East Cobb.

According to a map Gavalis furnished to the MDJ, the proposed map would fall almost entirely within Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott’s District 2.

City of East Cobb
East Cobb has long been a place name, but never a city. 

The area generally regarded as East Cobb includes most of the ZIP codes 30062, 30066, 30067 and 30068, as well as the Cobb portion of 30075, and has an estimated population of 200,000.

The proposed City of East Cobb borders generally fall south of Sandy Plains Road, until it gets closer to the Fulton County line. The southern boundaries would fall roughly along the Powers Ferry Road corridor north of Terrell Mill Road.

The western edges of the city would run along Roswell Road Sewell Road and Holly Springs Road to Post Oak Tritt Road.

Everything east and north of that would become a city in what has long embodied classic suburban Sunbelt sprawl.

Cityhood measures require state legislation to call for a referendum that voters in the proposed municipality would decide. Under Georgia law, cities must provide a minimum of three services.

The cityhood effort in East Cobb comes after the Cobb Board of Commissioners approved a property tax hike for the first time since the recession. There has been some grumbling that East Cobb provides 40 percent of county tax revenue but some citizens don’t feel they’re getting their money’s worth in services.

After voting against the tax increase, Ott claimed that all District 2 residents were getting from the tax hike in the fiscal year 2019 budget was “1 DOT work crew.”

According to the East Cobb cityhood group’s contract with Georgia State, it is spending $36,000 for the study, which will develop revenue and expense estimates based on property tax files, a boundary map and estimated business license revenue.

The contract indicates that the feasibility of municipal services to be studied include police, fire management, parks and recreation, community development (libraries) and roads.

Gavalis is the lone signatory from the committee for the contract, which also lists G. Owen Brown, of Retail Planning Corp., a commercial real estate company based on Johnson Ferry Road, as a representative for the cityhood group.

The study is expected to be completed by mid-December. According to the contract, the Center for State and Local Finance at Georgia State is using a similar methodology as a feasibility study it conducted for Tucker, which became incorporated in 2015.

According to the East Cobb cityhood contract, a team of three CSLF researchers will:

” . . . estimate the total annual cost of government operations, including general administrative services and the discretionary services, based on the experience of several comparison cities in Georgia. The set of comparison cities in Georgia will include between four to six cities with similar demographic and economic conditions to the proposed area.

“In addition, the cost estimates will include the cost associated with purchasing any assets in the proposed incorporation area that are currently owned by Cobb County and any one-time costs associated with the initiation of municipal operations.”

The last time the City of East Cobb issue was raised also came after county commissioners voted to increase taxes, and during the heat of a political campaign. During the 2012 Republican runoff for Cobb Commission Chairman, challenger Bill Byrne proposed the idea but it didn’t gain much traction.

Byrne, a former chairman, was seeking to regain his seat against then-incumbent Tim Lee, who eventually edged him in the runoff.

Byrne would have had an elected mayor and five city council members for the City of East Cobb, which would have had its own police, fire, water and sewer services, purchased from the county for $1 a year. He also wanted the county, in his plan, to spend $1 million to build an East Cobb City Hall.

Byrne had attacked Lee for raising the property tax millage rate in 2011, during the aftermath of the recession.

At the time, Byrne’s idea didn’t resonate in East Cobb as it has elsewhere in metro Atlanta. This was right after citizens of Brookhaven voted to incorporate, and followed other successful cityhood drives in Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek and Milton.

But that sentiment hasn’t seriously spread in Cobb, which has six cities that have been incorporated for more than a century, and in some cases before the Civil War.

In 2009 there was a group called Citizens for the City of East Cobb that launched a website but never identified itself or pressed for action beyond that.

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Some of the most recent cityhood efforts elsewhere in metro Atlanta have failed. Earlier this month, a push to create the city of Eagle’s Landing out of Stockbridge fell short in a referendum.

Earlier this year, voters in a portion of Forsyth County turned down a similar measure that would have created the City of Sharon Springs, with a population of 50,000.

Others that have become cities have ended up providing fewer services than what is being studied for East Cobb.

Tucker, which has population of 35,000, provides zoning and planning, code enforcement and community development, and last year added overseeing the Tucker Recreation Center.

Tucker doesn’t charge a millage rate—city residents still pay the full DeKalb millage rate for county-provided services—but generates revenue from business permits, alcohol and excise taxes and utility franchise fees.

Other cityhood drives are continuing, including the Towne Lake community of Cherokee County, with a goal of having a referendum there in 2020.

The only services being suggested for Towne Lake are zoning and planning, code enforcement and sanitation, which would be optional. Those organizing cityhood there say they’re doing it to preserve property values.

 

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