7 replies to this topic

[Newnan]

The support for creating a new Milton county out of North Fulton is growing stronger every day as residents grow increasingly weary of high taxes and what they see as an incompetent county commission who doesn't seem to care about them. Do you think North Fulton will break away and if so, how soon?




PS. There was an editorial about this in this Sunday's AJC. It would be great if anybody could find this and post it.

[Andrea]

Newnan, on Dec 10 2006, 04:27 PM, said:

The support for creating a new Milton county out of North Fulton is growing stronger every day as residents grow increasingly weary of high taxes and what they see as an incompetent county commission who doesn't seem to care about them. Do you think North Fulton will break away and if so, how soon?

Although the legislation will be introduced in January, I think there are still possibilities for compromise.  However, the rhetoric in the closing days of this year's county commission election was pretty much a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to many voters in the city as well as in north Fulton.  

Georgia is possibly the reddest state in the union, so if the legislature wants to carve up the Atlanta area ever further they probably can.

[davidals]

Is the max number of counties in GA still in the state constitution?

I also wonder if Atlanta would be able to consolidate with whatever remained of Fulton, or if the remainder of the unincorporated county would try to incorporate as something.  Given that Sandy Springs, and whatever the other two are called, have incorporated all of whatever Milton would be, it seems redundant.

There's a similar effort - though with substantially less momentum - out west, to break up Maricopa Co in AZ into 2 or 3 counties...which would also require legislation or constitutional changes.

[AubieTurtle]

davidals, on Dec 11 2006, 07:57 AM, said:

Is the max number of counties in GA still in the state constitution?

I also wonder if Atlanta would be able to consolidate with whatever remained of Fulton, or if the remainder of the unincorporated county would try to incorporate as something.  Given that Sandy Springs, and whatever the other two are called, have incorporated all of whatever Milton would be, it seems redundant.

There's a similar effort - though with substantially less momentum - out west, to break up Maricopa Co in AZ into 2 or 3 counties...which would also require legislation or constitutional changes.

Yes, the county limit is still in effect.  There was talk of trying to get two rural counties to merge so Milton could be created.  I expect those counties would need a lot of incentives before the local power brokers would be willing to merge with another county in which they would have to share power.  If they do go the county merger route, I hope they make it an incentive law that will result in many county mergers across the state rather than just one to enable Milton.

[davidals]

AubieTurtle, on Dec 11 2006, 06:25 PM, said:

Yes, the county limit is still in effect.  There was talk of trying to get two rural counties to merge so Milton could be created.  I expect those counties would need a lot of incentives before the local power brokers would be willing to merge with another county in which they would have to share power.  If they do go the county merger route, I hope they make it an incentive law that will result in many county mergers across the state rather than just one to enable Milton.

Either that, or adopt the combination of consolidation and independent cities you see in a few VA cites:  consolidate city and county, and reconstitute those places as independent cities, and do away with a redundant 2 layers of govt in the city/county; in such a scenario places like Athens/Clarke, Augusta/Richmond or Columbus/Muscogee would just become the "City of..." and the old county designation would become extinct, like Princess Anne County (City of Virgina Beach), Nansemond County (City of Suffolk), etc.

[Pillsbury]

Andrea, on Dec 10 2006, 08:59 PM, said:

Although the legislation will be introduced in January, I think there are still possibilities for compromise.  However, the rhetoric in the closing days of this year's county commission election was pretty much a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to many voters in the city as well as in north Fulton.

Indeed.  I don't normally vote for Republican candidates, but I couldn't help but be disgusted by what the Mayor and John Lewis said.   Especially considering the guy seemed a pretty moderate likeable guy.

[ironchapman]

I hope it doesn't become one, another county is the last thing we need.

However, Fulton is in a very delicate situation with it's declining tax base for the unincorporated areas as more and more areas are either annexed or incorporate themselves. If we can't find a workable solution (and I don't think we've tried enough yet), then I will support the creation of Milton County.

The way I see it, there are a few possible solutions. Here are a couple I have toyed around with:

• At approximately halfway through the county (from the Northern to the Southern borders), draw a line creating two tax districts for the unincorporated areas. Taxes collected in the Southern district will be used there and taxes collected in the Norhtern district will be used in that district.
  However, this essentially creates two counties united as one.
  
• Have Atlanta annex the entire county to unite all lands under one entity. (My favorite)
  However, the cities in Fulton aren't very likely going to support this.
  
• Have each city and unincorporated land become a "borough" united under a single government (the Fulton County government). Atlanta will still be a city like it is now, but it will be under the Fulton County government. This may require having a few laws about incorporation and city governments changed, though.
  
• Have all lands annexed into the nearest city. or incoporate into their own community.
  However, the need for a Fulton County as an entity for anything but traditional purposes would be eliminated as the county government wouldn't serve anyone.
  
• Re-form Milton County
  
• Leave it as it is.

[AubieTurtle]

ironchapman, on Dec 21 2006, 04:29 PM, said:

[*]At approximately halfway through the county (from the Northern to the Southern borders), draw a line creating two tax districts for the unincorporated areas. Taxes collected in the Southern district will be used there and taxes collected in the Norhtern district will be used in that district.
However, this essentially creates two counties united as one.

Wasn't this part of the Sandy Springs law?  They messed it up and accidently created something like 30 tax districts in which funds collected in one area couldn't be spent in another but they fixed it.  I think the problem was that they wrote the law in such a way that it said that taxes collected in one unincorporated area of the county could not be spent in another incorporated area of the county that was unconnected. The idea was that the city of Atlanta seperated north and south but they didn't notice that Roswell and Alpharetta created lots of islands of unincorporated Fulton county.  There was an article in the AJC a year or so ago when it was first discovered and they interviewed a guy who was in his own tax service area and was going to have to come up with the money to provide his own fire and police services since money from the rest of the county couldn't be spent in his island of unincorporated Fulton county.  Whatever change was needed in the law happened quickly and no one actually ended up with thier own personal police department but it was a funny situation.

Given that north Fulton is about to be 100% municipalized, the taxes and services for that area will be greatly reduced.  If all of south Fulton does the same, the role of Fulton county will be greatly reduced and the tax service area law will be mostly irrelivant.  South Fulton is booming and if there truely was money from the north being spent in the south (which I'm not sure is the case since the north fulton folks liked to quote only residential property tax figures while leaving everything else out), the difference won't be that big of a deal now.

I suspect we are going to see municipalization spread to other counties and this is a good thing.  Counties are not set up to properly govern urban and suburban areas.  These areas are cities, even if they aren't cities in name.  I certainly would prefer that they join existing cities so as to make cooperation easier and gain economies of scale.  The ironic thing is that if demographic trends continue, many of these areas that have gone through lots of trouble to sever financial ties to the central city are going to find themselves poor while the central city gets richer and richer.  As weird as it sounds, I suspect that in a decade or so it will be the suburbs that are screaming for consolidation and it will be the city that is against it.