Atlanta Update -
July 14, 2007
Atlanta, GA versus South
Fulton, GA
Atlanta’s investment in the single most
important economic catalyst in the region, the airport, happens to be on the
Southside. Last year alone the economic impact of the airport exceeds $20
billion and over 50,000 people are employed.
The city - not any other local government
or the state has invested as a much in the Southside economy. Imagine the
Southside without the airport? One could reasonably ask our county
officials, how much money has unincorporated Fulton County
spent to improve economic health of the Southside.
Imagine Fulton County
or the state of GA without a wildly financially successful airport designed,
financed and backed by the City of Atlanta for 80 years?
Atlanta’s mayors have fought hard to keep
Atlanta’s economy strong through years of disinvestment in the city and when
areas like North Fulton
County received the lion’s share of new business investment.
Each struggled to bring as much
investment to the city and SW as possible. No city in history has been
healthy and vibrant without a healthy economic core, usually the downtown or
central city.
Investments in center city and the core
industries (logistics, higher education, healthcare and hospitality) have
benefits for all city residents and all those who live outside the city
benefit from the health of the economy.
Atlanta is actively promoting new
investments along several Southside commercial corridors as part of the New
Century Economic Development Plan and the city is undertaking a
comprehensive review of the Comprehensive Development Plan that guides our
zoning and land use. The City Council most recently approved the
Campbellton Road Redevelopment Plan to continue its commitment to SW.
Where do you see huge projects like
Atlantic Station, the Georgia Aquarium, Philips Arena and so on coming, to
South Fulton or Atlanta?
For this reason most Sandtown residents
will tell out of towners they live in Atlanta – not SW Fulton County. Well
get ready if some have they way because you didn’t come out on September 18, 2007
to vote against the a new city, your mailing address will be South Fulton,
GA not Atlanta, GA.
A New City of South Fulton? Why you want to vote
against it on June 19th
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Open Letter to those who
signed the Petition for Annexation into Atlanta:
Since June of 2006 the
Sandtown Community Association has collected hundreds of signatures from folks
like you in support of annexation into the city of Atlanta. Since then the
communities of Horseshoe and Midwest Cascade
(including Guilford Forrest, Reunion Place,
Regency Park subdivisions, portions of Cascade Knolls, and a number of
residents on Cascade, Danforth and New Hope Roads)
prevailed in their petition to
join Atlanta.
Atlanta continues to process annexation
requests for communities in South West Fulton and will do so until June 2007.
Most recently Atlanta welcomed the Regency and Huntington Community
Subdivisions into their border.
Fulton officials believe more
than 13,000 acres of the
proposed city of South Fulton will annex into existing South Fulton cities
instead.
As we’ve pursued community
support in joining the city we realized that there were some residents and
politicians who want to form a new city by any means necessary. As a result
our communications to our supporters by necessity have not been as frequent
and open as we would have liked. We are taking this occasion to bring you up
to speed on where and why we are where we are.
As background there are three
requirements that all must be met for a petition to successfully annex into a
city under annexation law in Georgia using the 60% method. 60% of registered
voters must sign the petition in the area to be annexed, AND 60% of the
landowners must sign (residents, developers, etc.). Additionally 1/8 of the
circumference of annexing area must be contiguous or touching the city line.
Sandtown is contiguous to
Atlanta on Enon Road with the area touching the city line equaling
approximately 5,250 feet. The one-eighth rule’s formula determines the
maximum circumference of an area that can be annexed. In this case the
maximum circumference of Sandtown that could be annexed is eight times the
area touching Atlanta or 42,000 ft.
Because of this restriction
as much as we wanted to, it was legally impossible to annex all of Sandtown
with one annexation petition. As a result some communities by necessity were
left out of the boundary of the revised map because of this rule. Our desire
ultimately is to include all of Sandtown, however for phase one the intent of
the petition was to get as much of Sandtown annexed which would have expanded
the borders of Atlanta and give other communities an opportunity to annex
separately under subsequent phases because the contiguous lines to Atlanta
would have been expanded. Unfortunately after analysis and validation of the
Sandtown petition by the city of Atlanta, it was determined that the most
recent petition we submitted only had 52% of the voters and 50% of the land
requirement.
The key reason the petition
did not meet the requirements was not a lack of people signing the petition to
annex, but a large number of people who signed the petition were not
registered voters – hence their signature did not count toward the 60% voter
requirement. Also, many developers who had projects in progress refused to
sign the petition because they don't want to go through Atlanta's permitting
policy which they perceive as lengthy.
Some landowner approvals
because of their location were particularly important to the annexation
petition. An example is John Wieland's development on Enon Road. Even though
we could not persuade him to sign the petition, his property had to be
included within the boundaries of the annexing boundary to form a continuous
path to Atlanta. Since that development is about 200 acres however, we had to
get signatures of landowners elsewhere to cover his 200 acres. Sadly we
actually had one of our elected officials calling developers telling then not
to sign the petitions. When you have several developers with large land tracts
take that position, it becomes very difficult to get offsetting residential
signatures above what is required in order to meet the 60% landownership
requirement.
The voter registration issue
is critical as we see votes to split Fulton County north and south on the
horizon. In today's political environment, everyone in our community should
be registered to vote. If we want to pursue joining Atlanta through the
option of a referendum, and do not want to form a new city in the June 2007
vote, residents must be registered to vote to voice their preference.
The organized special
interest group whose “Annexation – No Thanks” signs litter our community is
based far south of Sandtown and funded by developers. They waged a fierce and
underhanded campaign to defeat annexation. They benefited from the support of
some our elected officials and Fulton School Officials whose interests are not
necessarily what’s best for Sandtown. The group hired high priced lawyers and
filed suit to try and overturn the tens of thousands of annexations since
April that have destroyed any hope of a new city being financially viable.
They are now going door to door asking for donations to pay their lawyers and
continue to ask folks to remove their signatures from petitions. With the cooperation and support of Fulton Schools they launched a
disinformation campaign particularly playing on the fears of parents who have
the false notion that South Fulton Schools are better than Atlanta Schools.
Don’t forget that last year
we were only presented the option of remaining unincorporated or forming a new
city of South Fulton. Our elected officials failed to point out the third
option of joining an established city - annexation. Since the election one of
the proponents of the new city now wants to remain unincorporated. Others
continue to do whatever they can to remain in power.
The Sandtown Community
Association continues to believe that joining Atlanta is the best option for
the residents of Sandtown. We continue to move forward with a number of
strategies to join the City of Atlanta, because we believe in choices and
since so many of you signed the petition expressing your choice to join
Atlanta also.
We look forward to your active
participation in our monthly meetings the 1st Thursday of the month at Owl
Rock United Methodist Church
(5880 Campbellton Rd SW – Campbellton
between Camp Creek and Union Road on the left).
Update: September 29, 2006
A new beginning has
dawned for several SW Fulton County communities.
The Atlanta
City Council welcomed the Midwest Cascade and Horseshoe communities into
their city today at a special city council meeting. We congratulate these
areas for achieving the goal; we in Sandtown continue to work towards
annexation. The annexation efforts are about choice for those of us in
Southwest. There are other efforts to annex to other cities, but the unique
efforts in SW include annexation by petition. Those residents who have
signed the Sandtown and Cascade Glen petitions we thank you and encourage
you to join us in our campaign to get other residents to sign.
It
is important to understand that opponents to annexation earlier this week
filed a civil action to cut off your personal right to choose what is best
for each of us. Since they could not persuade folks not to choose
annexation, they are now trying to use the courts to nullify the
constitutional choices the majority of those communities made. The authors
of Senate bill 552 have publicly stated that the cities are able to annex up
to October 30, 2006. Yet, in the civil action filed by the Citizens of South
Fulton, they contend that "any proposed and purported annexations by the
Defendants occurring after April 28, 2006 are ultra vires and void because
they impermissibly impair the operation of Senate Bill 552 by changing the
municipal boundaries for the city of South Fulton as established by the
General Assembly".
Clearly
there is an attempt to prevent any of the individual communities, such as
Sandtown and the Cascades from exercising their right of choice. When you
look further at Senate Bill 552, under Section 6.02 on page 35, it
referenced effective dates. Item "(b) A period of time will be needed for
an orderly transition of various government functions from
Fulton County to the
city of South Fulton. Accordingly, there shall be a transition period
beginning on October 30, 2006, and ending midnight of the last day of the
twenty-fourth month following such date".
The
Sandtown Community Association remains committed to annexation and it is
time more of you to get involved to help us reach our goal. The fears of
parents are being panned to by the opposition and they are fanning the
flames of negative perceptions of
Atlanta to fuel their campaign. We call
on those of you who have reservations to wake up and express your
resignation at the usurping intrusion on your constitutional rights.
We
respect the rights of the opposition to press for their position, whether it
is incorporation or staying as we are. But understand that to continue to
maintain confusion, press for resolution of issues that are premature and to
mislead residents will only come back to haunt you during the healing
process.
The next Sandtown
meeting is Thursday, November 2nd at the
Owl Rock Church, 5880 Campbellton Road at
6:30pm. We call on many of you regardless of your position to come out and
join us in our march to a new day for us in Southwest Fulton County. This
is a joyous celebration
and moment to reflect
upon, because our efforts lead to safe passage of one of our family members
towards a new beginning.
John
A. Davis, President
www.sandtown.org
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