Fulton County Republicans propose legislation to fix dysfunctional county

Posted in Saba Long

Date: February 18th, 2013, 10:23 pm

By Saba Long

“Fulton County is dysfunctional and overtaxed.” That sentiment has been the hook to a long song being sung by North Fulton Republicans for many years.

Three years ago, as a member of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, Lynn Riley sat in front of the county’s ethics board in response to a complaint by a few Democratic state representatives from the Fulton County Delegation. Her attorney during the case was State Representative Wendell Willard.

Now serving as the chairwoman of the Fulton County Delegation, Riley has cosponsored, with Willard and other North Fulton representatives, legislation that will enact sweeping, “burn the barn down” changes to the governmental structure of the state’s largest county and parallel legislation to allow for the re-creation of Milton County.

There is much scuttlebutt of the true intention of this series of legislation, namely is this a final attempt by North Fulton Republicans to save Fulton County as we know it.

Redistricting the Fulton County Board of Commissioners

State Representatives from Roswell, Milton, North Atlanta, Sandy Springs and Johns Creek have co-sponsored legislation to redraw the county commission maps and give more power to the county chair.

The county would move from its current format of two at-large seats and five district seats to one at-large seat — this person would be elected to serve as the chair of the board — and six district seats. This proposal shifts the power to what some say is a more equitable representation of north and south Fultonites having three commissioners each.

Republican Commissioner Liz Hausman of District 3 currently represents Alpharetta, Johns Creek, Milton Mountain Park, Roswell, and parts of Sandy Springs.

In the proposed map, her district will split in two — District 1 in which she will represent Johns Creek and part of Alpharetta and District 2 represented by a candidate from the Alpharetta, Milton or Roswell communities. District 3 will stretch from Sandy Springs, currently represented by Republican Commissioner Tom Lowe, to Midtown, Atlanta.

Districts 4, 5 and 6 encompass communities such as West and South Atlanta, Fairburn and Palmetto. Current District 6 Commissioner Joan Garner will see her seat, represented as District 5 in the new map, expand as far south as College Park. The new maps also pit veteran commissioners Bill Edwards and Emma Darnell against each other — neither seem interested in giving up their seat.

Fulton County Board of Elections

House Bill 347 modifies the appointment of the chair of the board of elections, shifting the appointment as a role of the County Commission to that of the Fulton County legislative delegation. Due to gerrymandering, Republicans hold a majority in the county’s legislative delegation with 13 Republican State Representatives to 12 Democrats and seven Republican State Senators to four Democrats.

If passed, the Board of Elections will be made up of two Democrats, two Republicans and a board chair appointed by a Republican majority county delegation. In the November 2008 and 2012 elections, President Barack Obama received 63.9 percent and 67.1 percent of the vote from Fulton County residents. The last time the county voted for a Republican presidential candidate was for incumbent President Richard Nixon in ‘72.

Tax Commissioner

Riley et al have co-sponsored House Bill 346 bill to make the Fulton County tax commissioner’s position an appointed rather than elected one.

Nominated by the board chair and approved by the commission, the four-year term for the county’s tax commissioner would begin January 1, 2017.

If passed the legislation prohibits the tax commissioner from receiving compensation “other than the salary, expense reimbursements and benefits paid to the tax commissioner by Fulton County.”

Current tax commissioner Arthur Ferdinand’s annual base salary is just under $135,000 while an antiquated personal fee system allows him to bring in more than $300,000 — more than the governor of the state.

Tax Relief

House Bill 170 hopes to provide tax relief to a county that hasn’t raised its 10.281 millage rate since 2007. Section one of the bill mandates the millage rate to stay the same until fiscal year 2015 in which a proposed change in the rate would have to receive the “yes” vote of five out of six commissioners.

The bill also asks to present a ballot measure on a modification to the homestead exemption before voters in the 2014 election cycle. The ballot language will read as follows,

“( ) YES

( ) NO

Shall the Act be approved which lowers property taxes for Fulton County homeowners by increasing the homestead exemption from Fulton County ad valorem taxes for county purposes from $30,000.00 to $60,000.00 after a two-year phase-in period?”

If the ballot measure passes, Fulton County could experience declining tax revenues just a few years from now and it will require the vote of nearly every commissioner to modify the millage rate.

Note to readers: Coincidentally, some members of the Atlanta City Council have been watching these legislative matters concerning the county closely as it could possibly effect the city — particularly as it relates to the popular Tax Allocation Districts. As a reminder, I work for the City Council.

10 comments

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Atl_res

1 Like

I used to strongly favor keeping North Fulton as part of the county, but as more time goes by, I honestly thing that the rest of the Fulton County would be served by letting them go.

Yes, we would lose some tax revenue, but I think that the dysfunction of the county would be greatly alleviated by removing a group of people who are constantly engaged in fighting against the rest of the county.

Let Milton County go, and create an Atlanta-Fulton County government to reduce duplication of services.

But I've got to say that the Republicans do have one thing right. Arthur Ferdinand has the greatest scam going ever and he needs to be given the boot.

The Last Democrat in Georgia

There are also some concerns amongst the Georgia GOP leadership that creating a new Milton County could spark some resentment amongst Republicans in South Georgia where the predominantly agricultural economy was greatly harmed by the highly-touted anti-illegal immigration law (HB 87) that was passed into law during the 2011 legislative session to pacify increasingly politically-dominant conservatives in the Metro Atlanta suburbs who were increasingly anxious over the continued effects of illegal immigration on their communities.

Georgia GOP leadership is very concerned that appearing to give affluent suburbanites their own county and government in North Metro Atlanta while many very poor counties in South Georgia continue to struggle economically, even moreso after the 2011 illegal immigration law, could possibly create some very deep rifts within the Georgia Republican Party between wealthier North Georgia Republicans and poorer South Georgia Republicans that might be enough to cause the GOP to lose some of its increasingly powerful grip on the state's political scene and provide some big openings for Georgia Democrats to revive their floundering party on at least two fronts.

The Last Democrat in Georgia

You make some excellent points that what remains of Fulton County would likely be better served by letting North Fulton go, though it would not be and it is not necessarily that simple even with what one might think would be a receptive Republican supermajority in control of the Georgia Legislature.

Some key parts of the GOP legislative leadership, most particularly Governor Deal, are not necessarily all that enthusiastic about the idea of moving forward with the re-creation of Milton County as a legislative agenda because of the potentially very-large amount of pushback that it could receive from Democrats in Fulton and DeKalb counties.

The reason why those key members of GOP legislative leadership are so concerned about the amount of pushback by Fulton and DeKalb Democrats that the process of re-creating Milton County would receive is because Governor Deal and those key GOP legislative leaders don't want to take the risk of reviving what could potentially be a sleeping giant in the Georgia Democratic Party which is virtually completely dead at the statewide level presently.

Governor Deal, who is running for re-election in 2014, particularly does not want to see the initiation of any legislative processes which could result in any long, dragged-out, knock-down nasty political fights which could result in him being seriously challenged by the ultraconservatives on his right political flank in the 2014 GOP Primary or by Democrats on his left political flank in the 2014 General Election.

The process of re-creating Milton County is one of those legislative processes which could potentially spark an improbable resurrection of what is currently a lifeless Georgia Democrat Party because of how strongly Democrats in Fulton and DeKalb counties feel about the issue which many think has a strong racial component to it.

The re-creation of Milton County concerns DeKalb County Democrats because there has been strong talk of the young North DeKalb city of Dunwoody leaving a notably-dysfunctional DeKalb County to join the newly-formed Milton County.

There is also strong talk of the boosters of a re-created of Milton County making a serious play for the highly-affluent Buckhead district in the City of Atlanta to become apart of a new Milton County along with Sandy Springs and Dunwoody (both of which were not apart of the original Milton County when it was merged into Fulton County during the Great Depression).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_County,_Georgia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1883miltoncounty.jpg

Governor Deal in particular is in no mood for a long and drawn-out political fight over the possible re-creation of Milton County because he currently has no challengers to his 2014 re-election bid from either the Republican Party on his political right or the Democrats on his political left.

There are also those in the leadership of the Georgia GOP who are worried that a big inter-party political fight during the re-creation of Milton County could also help greatly speed along the process of the eventual re-animation of the Georgia Democratic Party which is already due be aided by the state's rapidly-changing racial demographics which are already similar to that of Democrat-dominated Maryland, slightly more diverse than neighboring swing state Florida, and much more diverse than that of nearby swing states (or 'purple' states) such as Virginia and North Carolina.

Guest

Actually, Gwinnett is the State's largest county

The Last Democrat in Georgia

Actually, Ms. Long is correct that Fulton is Georgia's largest county by population.

Gwinnett is Georgia's second-largest county by population, though Gwinnett does have Georgia's largest public school district in Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS).

Fulton County, Georgia:

Population, 2011 estimate...949,599

Population, 2010 (April 1) estimates base...920,583

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/13/13121.html

Gwinnett County, Georgia:

Population, 2011 estimate...824,941

Population, 2010 (April 1) estimates base...805,321

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/13/13135.html

According to the latest numbers compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, Fulton County has about 124,658 more residents than Gwinnett County.

Burroughston Broch

@The Last Democrat in Georgia If Milton County is re-established (and I hope it is), Gwinnett County would become the most populous county, followed by DeKalb, Cobb, the reduced Fulton, and then Milton.

The population of the six cities that would become Milton was 349,000 in 2010, leaving 571,000 in the remainder of Fulton (420,000 in the City and 151,000 in South Fulton)..

The Last Democrat in Georgia

@Burroughston Broch

You are correct that Gwinnett would become the state's largest county in the event that Milton County was to be re-established.

But despite Fulton County's long and distinguished record of dysfunction in governing and the total domination of both houses of the Georgia Legislature and the Governor's office, the re-establishment of Milton County still seems like a very-heavy lift at this point, particularly as far as changing the state's constitution to allow more than 159 counties and/or especially trying to convince two poorer counties in another part of the state to merge together so that a now-very wealthy Milton County in the upscale Northern suburbs of Metro Atlanta can be resurrected.

The best that can be done for those in North Fulton wanting to secede into a new Milton County at this point and into the foreseeable future are the reforms of Fulton County government that are currently being pushed in the State Legislature.

Otherwise, Fulton County is Georgia's version of Illinois' Cook County (and California's Los Angeles County), a large urban county that is home to the state's largest city, is its state's most-populous county and has a long-time highly-dysfunctional government from which a very-wealthy section (or sections) of the county is (are) unsuccessfully continuously trying to break-off to form its own county government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_County,_Illinois#Secession_movements

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Fernando_Valley#Valley_independence_and_secession

Just like with Fulton County, Georgia in Metro Atlanta, local suburban secessionist groups on both the very-wealthy northwestside and working-class southside of Cook County, Illinois in Chicagoland have repeatedly tried to split-off from Cook County to form their own counties, mostly over issues of government competence, functionality and, of course, corruption, as anyone who is even vaguely familiar with Cook County, IL politics would know.

San Fernando Valley is also another well-known case of an heavily-populated urban district desiring and attempting to separate from Los Angeles to form its own city, but repeatedly being unsuccessful due to an uncooperative state government.

If there were ever a time for Milton County to be re-created from North Fulton County, now would be likely be the best time that it would ever be able to happen as the state's rapidly-changing demographics are not necessarily on the side over the long-term of Georgia Republicans who are likely at their height of their state legislative rule with a supermajority in the legislature and complete domination of all statewide offices.

And when I say "rapidly-changing demographics", I mean statewide demographics in the Republican-dominated state of Georgia that are ALREADY nearly completely identical to the Democrat Party-dominated state of Maryland.

(Roughly 45% of GOP-dominated Georgia's population is non-white compared to the roughly 46% of Democrat-dominated Maryland's population that is non-white.)

ScottNAtlanta

I have to say my thoughts are conflicted on this. Fulton Co is dysfunctional as it gets, and it needs fixing, but the approach being taken is just as blatantly partisan. They are always screaming about cities in Fulton being represented, but you never hear the city of East Point being included in those discussions. I am no fan of any of the commissioners. They act in their own self interests and play the race card WAY too many times to the point people are dismissive of the charge of racisim. They also did themselves no favors increasing their own budgets while cutting everything else.