The exact borders of a new city, though, are unclear - and the whole vote may be up in the air. But over the years, she said, annexation has shrunk the area. Donzella James said, she would also love to stay in unincorporated Fulton County. “I just want to stay the way I am and be left alone.” So he thinks another layer of government won’t provide solutions. And issues he cares about, like economic development, were never broached. New city leaders couldn’t do anything to improve the area’s schools, he said. Steve Littles plans to vote against the city. The pitch didn’t work for everyone, though. “I think cityhood would be good,” she said. She lives right on the edge of Atlanta, she said, and would rather be in the City of South Fulton than be annexed in. Pamela Freeman, who attended the forum, said she’s probably going to vote for the new city. Now, the area is governed by the seven Fulton County commissioners who are elected by districts throughout the county. She said she’d like to have “tighter control on a new start-up” government. Amy McCoy, who said coming to the meeting helped her decide to vote for the City of South Fulton. Roger Bruce, D-Atlanta, who sponsored the bill to form the new city, said a shift in Atlanta’s population means South Fulton could be a new base for black prosperity. She urged residents to vote for it “to control the future of our growth.” Rep. “It means the tax burden is going to fall on homeowners.”īut a feasibility study for the new city - completed in January 2014 - shows that the City of South Fulton is “more viable” than it would have been in 2007, when the first vote failed, accountant Kevin Bryan Grimes said at a pro-new city community meeting Tuesday.Ĭamilla Moore, who has been championing the City of South Fulton, told the gathered residents that they have the chance to create a majority-black city that would be one of the largest cities in Georgia. “I have very serious concerns about the fact that there’s no real commercial tax base in the proposed area,” he said. Without that, Coleman said, he worries that the new city would be too dependent on residential taxes. The Fulton Industrial District - an area of about 4,800 acres in the county's southwest edge, with potential contributions of $18 million to $19 million in taxes - cannot be part of the City of South Fulton, or any city, unless a law preventing its incorporation is changed. “It’s scaring voters.”Ĭoleman's main concern when it comes to cityhood, he said, is the tax base. “It’s absolutely misleading to suggest to people,” he said. To South Fulton resident Michael Coleman, that’s just fear-mongering. They say it's likely that the entire area will be divided into its neighboring cities. Proponents of cityhood claim that the annexations will continue if the vote fails, and the creation of a new city is a way to control their own destiny. In the months leading up to the election, Atlanta, Chattahoochee Hills, Union City and College Park all annexed parts of the unincorporated area.
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