Fulton County first in Georgia to relinquish city services (Marietta: schools, quality of life)

[cqholt]

Originally Posted by demonta4

Straight from the Fulton Industrial CID
\

Vote on Fulton Industrial could put district in South Fulton

It seems, is a long stretch from joining. Currently they are a special district.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by demonta4

Of course, just like many other companies that claim Atlanta but aren't in city limits.

But since they'll now be in an actual incorporated area, they (along with businesses/residents in Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, and Brookhaven) should use the name of the city they're in rather than piggyback on Atlanta (especially since they're apparently so gung-ho about South Fulton).

[flyonpa]

Originally Posted by Gulch

Of course, though I bet every single one of them will continue to use an Atlanta mailing address.

So.... Most of the US Mail system national wide, the "City" address on the envelope has no bearing on the political boundaries that exist.

I lived in South Forsyth, I had a mailing address of Alpharetta, Because 50? 100? years ago when the Post office drew the lines for boundaries that's what they did. So Parts of unincorporated Fulton (Alpharetta) included parts of unincorporated Forsyth (Also part of Cobb and Cherokee I think).

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by flyonpa

So.... Most of the US Mail system national wide, the "City" address on the envelope has no bearing on the political boundaries that exist.

I lived in South Forsyth, I had a mailing address of Alpharetta, Because 50? 100? years ago when the Post office drew the lines for boundaries that's what they did. So Parts of unincorporated Fulton (Alpharetta) included parts of unincorporated Forsyth (Also part of Cobb and Cherokee I think).

The big difference is that you lived in an unincorporated area, which is not the case for these businesses along the FIB corridor if they get placed in a municipality. It is absolutely hypocritical for them to advocate being in the City of South Fulton yet continue to use "Atlanta, GA" as their address.

[jero23]

Deal vetoed the referendum vote. Also the majority of the county residents (especially the ones in Atlanta property) are not going to support voting for South Fulton to get the tax revenue from a district that is 50% owned by the City of Atlanta. You can say NO all the way to the ballot.

The idea of Fulton County relinquishing municipal services is and always will be asinine in my opinion. It's clear it was always a plot by the GOP racist wing to dilute the majority black county commission's authority.

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by David1502

Vinings will not be annexed by the City of Atlanta - this would lead to a substantial increase in their property taxes. Why do that when they can include all of the commercial property around Cumberland Mall and the Galleria in forming their own municipality?


The Vinings Homeowners Association doesn't want to be annexed or even become a city. The reason being that at the present time, the wealthy homeowners have a say in whatever gets built in their immediate area - the Cobb County Commissioner for District 2 will not approve anything without their blessing. However, if there were a city with elected officials, the Vinings owners would be a minority when you take in all of the apartments and condos and in a more democratic system, their influence would be diminished.


Even more so would they have a diminished influence in the City of Atlanta with a population of approaching 475,000, their 8,000 residents would be small potatoes.


The Vinings Owners Association is going to do what they think is best to:
1. Have as much political control over zoning and development in their immediate area.
2. Keep a quality level of services (police and fire) at the most reasonable cost.


Being annexed by the City of Atlanta will lead to less control over zoning and higher taxes with most likely longer response times from the Atlanta Police than what they now experience from Cobb County.

As much as the City of Smyrna would like to annex Vinings, this will never happen because the U.S. Justice Department will intervene. Presently, Smyrna is a majority minority city - according to the Census Bureau, Smyrna is 31% white, 46% black and 15% Hispanic. Annexing Vinings, a majority white area, would be seen as an attempt to dilute minority voting strength and I would not be surprised if a suit would be filed to stop it.

Agreed that really the only 2 future possibilities for unincorporated Atlanta, GA 30339, is for us to form our own city, or to remain unincorporated Cobb County forever. We'll definitely never join Smyrna- heck, even the slightly OTP area between Smyrna and Vinings, with a Smyrna 30080 address, has no interest in joining Smyrna. Let alone any of the Atlanta-address Cumberland or Vinings. So that will never happen.

There was one proposal a couple years ago for Atlanta to annex just the I-75 corridor out to SunTrust Park, but even that will probably never happen. I doubt Atlanta proper will ever cross the river into Cobb.

Most likely Cobb will remain a mostly-unincorporated county for a long time, and then if that ever changes, it would be in the form of the creation of new cities. Also, by that time, maybe Georgia will have some other type of municipality besides a city, such as a town or a village or something like that. Because I could definitely see Vinings becoming that.

[Saintmarks]

It's about time counties got out of the city services business. Its ridiculous that Georgia counties ever got in the municipal services business in the first place. Let cities provide city services and counties be counties. This is your extra layer of government. Not cities.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

It's about time counties got out of the city services business. Its ridiculous that Georgia counties ever got in the municipal services business in the first place. Let cities provide city services and counties be counties. This is your extra layer of government. Not cities.

Agreed.

There was nothing more ridiculous than the situation about 5 years ago where Gwinnett County and its cities were suing each other over the cost of services. Taxpayers were paying two entities to use their tax dollars to fight over control of the tax dollars.

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

It's about time counties got out of the city services business. Its ridiculous that Georgia counties ever got in the municipal services business in the first place. Let cities provide city services and counties be counties. This is your extra layer of government. Not cities.

Um, there's really no extra layer of government at all. I don't live in a city. And, I like it that way. Any public services are provided by Cobb County.

And if I lived in Marietta city limits, that wouldn't be bad either. Because as I understand it, it's mostly the same thing except they have benefits like trash and recycling services that are better and a better deal than unincorporated. And they have their own school system and police.

Fulton County is getting out of the services business, because all of the county's unincorporated area became suddenly incorporated into pretend "cities" since 2005. Before that year, at least half the county was unincorporated. Fulton's provision of services up until recently was completely necessary, not an "extra layer".

Now, the only area that I'm confused, is if for example you live in Marietta proper, do your taxes go to Cobb County schools or police, since you don't use them?

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

It's about time counties got out of the city services business. Its ridiculous that Georgia counties ever got in the municipal services business in the first place. Let cities provide city services and counties be counties. This is your extra layer of government. Not cities.

Counties got into providing services because in many places cities simply couldn't afford it. Generally speaking, I think most counties would be delighted to shuck those burdens -- I know Fulton certainly would.

Now that we've become more urban cities can take on more of the cost.

However, I agree with primaltech that there's no "extra layer" involved (unless you've got a bunch of total dummies running the city). Once an area incorporates it should tote its own load, unless it's cheaper to contract with the county.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people living in unincorporated areas who are perfectly fine getting their services from the county. If the county government is efficient and responsive, there's no reason they can't do as well or better than a city.