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If they try the “back end” approach, it’ll get ugly.
Unfortunately, the backers of Buckhead cityhood don’t seem to care if things get ugly.
Ugly is pretty much what the supporters of Buckhead cityhood seem to be actively seeking for all parties involved with the severe financial and economic consequences that the City of Atlanta, metro Atlanta and the State of Georgia as a whole would suffer in the aftermath of a successful Buckhead de-annexation and cityhood vote.
The good thing from a financial and economic standpoint is that, after the strong objections to Buckhead de-annexation and cityhood on financial and economic grounds by Governor Kemp’s legal counsel, there currently appears to be a minuscule chance of any Buckhead de-annexation legislation passing out of this session of the Georgia General Assembly.
And another good thing seems to be that after it failed by 10 votes in the deeply conservative Georgia state Senate where the Buckhead cityhood legislation had the most support, legislative leadership (including first-year Lt. Governor Burt Jones, Governor Kemp’s Senate floor leaders, first-year House Speaker Jon Burns and Governor Kemp himself) can always point to this stunning failure of the Buckhead cityhood legislation in the more conservative Georgia state Senate and use it as a legitimate reason not to push forward anymore legislation on this issue in the future.
Though, I will continue to strongly warn that we could always be but just one particularly gruesome and/or tragic violent crime incident, involving a Black person killing a white person in Buckhead, from the Buckhead de-annexation/cityhood issue being actively revived by its supporters and coming back with a vengeance in such a way that potentially could be much more difficult to stop in the future.
As they often say in the Georgia General Assembly, no issue really is dead until the sound of the gavel adjourns the legislative session for the season at Sine Die.
The opposition to the Buckhead cityhood movement can take much solace in the situation that the Buckhead cityhood legislation is mostly dead for the session, but not totally and completely dead for the session.
They should just start an initiative to raise funds with memberships all across Buckhead for an overlay police force/public safety/ quality of life service that offers good pay for patrolling the entire district.
Patrolling could include many modes, cars, horses, segway, on foot. Uniforms could be a unique color and branding that the public associates with the overlay force.
Buckhead's "brand" that now includes the remade Peachtree "Blvd" by the malls could share in this unique uniform color, yellow-orange-mustard brown, (think UPS brown only a little lighter and brighter).
If there was enough money to run an independent city with its own required agencies/services, surely enough could be raised from all business and property owners to run a laser-focused public safety organization.
They should just start an initiative to raise funds with memberships all across Buckhead for an overlay police force/public safety/ quality of life service that offers good pay for patrolling the entire district.
Patrolling could include many modes, cars, horses, segway, on foot. Uniforms could be a unique color and branding that the public associates with the overlay force.
Buckhead's "brand" that now includes the remade Peachtree "Blvd" by the malls could share in this unique uniform color, yellow-orange-mustard brown, (think UPS brown only a little lighter and brighter).
If there was enough money to run an independent city with its own required agencies/services, surely enough could be raised from all business and property owners to run a laser-focused public safety organization.
I’ve heard the idea that you are suggesting come up multiple times.
The problem politically with what you are suggesting is that almost everyone who opposes Buckhead cityhood and supports Buckhead remaining part of the City of Atlanta seems to be afraid to publicly push the idea of raising funds from memberships to implement and operate an overlay police force/public safety/quality-of-life service to patrol the entire Buckhead district for fear that pushing an idea may unintentionally undermine the argument for continued Buckhead/City of Atlanta unity and fuel momentum for the Buckhead cityhood movement.
That’s because if Buckhead interests (residents and businesses) were all collectively to pay extra costs for increased security patrols in the district on top of the taxes that they’re already paying to the City of Atlanta for APD/Atlanta Police Department patrols, the fear from those who support Buckhead remaining part of the CoA is that Buckhead interests will eventually (if not quickly) come to the conclusion that they should be paying for their own municipal government services instead of paying twice (once for current APD patrols and once for increased Buckhead district security patrols) for a level of police service that they might figure they should already be getting from APD.
Pushing for Buckhead interests to collectively pay for an additional layer of security patrols district-wide likely would only serve to strengthen the argument for Buckhead cityhood and likely would provide an opportunity for moving forward with Buckhead cityhood that would quickly be seized upon by Buckhead cityhood supporters.
… Which is why, with even as good of a suggestion as it may be, we may not be very likely to hear that idea for widespread security patrols in Buckhead be pushed publicly by any of the numerous powerful interests that support Buckhead remaining part of the CoA, because (even though it may do so unintentionally) it seems to play directly into the hands of those exurban and rural Georgia interests and national interests who strongly support Buckhead de-annexating from the City of Atlanta to form its own municipal government.
Instead, the approach that is likely to continue is for at least some individual neighborhoods within Buckhead to pay for their own increased security patrols.
I did a more detailed read of the legislation, and the ramifications could be bigger than anyone can imagine. Lines 275-278 could affect more than just Cop City.
Everyone is talking about what this means for Cop City and the forest, and then I started thinking about the 10,000 acre Dawson Forest tract near Cumming the city purchased in 1971 where a second airport may go one day. Would the city be forced to sell that property? Who benefits from that? Are the sponsors of this bill the same people who keep trying to take over the airport?
As we all know, most of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport does not sit within the city limits of Atlanta. It's mostly unincorporated Clayton County, College Park and Hapeville. Could this force a sale of the airport assets? The airport is worth about $25 billion, and the only buyer that could handle it would be the State of Georgia. Buckhead would walk away with billions to set up their new city government, and Atlanta is left without one of the biggest tax revenue sources it has. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks it rather convenient that after all these years of trying to take control of the airport away from the city, these people have possibly found another way to do it.
When I read up on the renewed secession effort and how assets would be handled, it became clear as day that the Confede--, I mean pro-secessionists, are going to use this as a smokescreen for the grand prize: a state takeover of the airport. And I'm thoroughly convinced that a financially ruined city of Atlanta is a cost they'd be more than happy to pay.
Unfortunately, the backers of Buckhead cityhood don’t seem to care if things get ugly.
Ugly is pretty much what the supporters of Buckhead cityhood seem to be actively seeking for all parties involved with the severe financial and economic consequences that the City of Atlanta, metro Atlanta and the State of Georgia as a whole would suffer in the aftermath of a successful Buckhead de-annexation and cityhood vote.
The good thing from a financial and economic standpoint is that, after the strong objections to Buckhead de-annexation and cityhood on financial and economic grounds by Governor Kemp’s legal counsel, there currently appears to be a minuscule chance of any Buckhead de-annexation legislation passing out of this session of the Georgia General Assembly.
And another good thing seems to be that after it failed by 10 votes in the deeply conservative Georgia state Senate where the Buckhead cityhood legislation had the most support, legislative leadership (including first-year Lt. Governor Burt Jones, Governor Kemp’s Senate floor leaders, first-year House Speaker Jon Burns and Governor Kemp himself) can always point to this stunning failure of the Buckhead cityhood legislation in the more conservative Georgia state Senate and use it as a legitimate reason not to push forward anymore legislation on this issue in the future.
Though, I will continue to strongly warn that we could always be but just one particularly gruesome and/or tragic violent crime incident, involving a Black person killing a white person in Buckhead, from the Buckhead de-annexation/cityhood issue being actively revived by its supporters and coming back with a vengeance in such a way that potentially could be much more difficult to stop in the future.
As they often say in the Georgia General Assembly, no issue really is dead until the sound of the gavel adjourns the legislative session for the season at Sine Die.
The opposition to the Buckhead cityhood movement can take much solace in the situation that the Buckhead cityhood legislation is mostly dead for the session, but not totally and completely dead for the session.
I think the biggest trigger so far was the random shooting of a Black child in a car driving in front of Lennox Mall. Don't falsely make this a race thing. Its the random uncontrolled violence that is a lot scarier than members of drug gangs shooting each other.
I think the biggest trigger so far was the random shooting of a Black child in a car driving in front of Lennox Mall. Don't falsely make this a race thing. Its the random uncontrolled violence that is a lot scarier than members of drug gangs shooting each other.
That’s a good point that one of the major motivations for the Buckhead cityhood movement was the violent crime incident involving the random shooting of the Black child in front of Lenox Square Mall that you are referring to… Along with the sometimes-violent protests and riots during the summer of 2020, including deadly random shooting of 8-year-old Secoriea Turner near the burnt-out Wendy’s in South Atlanta back in 2020 that was specifically referenced during speeches by pro-Buckhead cityhood state Senators during recent debate on the issue in the Georgia state Senate.
Though this year’s edition of the Buckhead cityhood movement (which despite being defeated by 10 votes in the Georgia state Senate, has gotten farther in the legislative process than any other version of it had gotten in the past) really seemed to flare back up after the deadly stabbing of an 77-year-old white grandmother inside her home inside a Buckhead gated community by a teenage Black criminal during an apparent carjacking attempt in December 2022.
You make a very good point that it is the increase in random uncontrolled violent crime in the City of Atlanta over the past 3 years that is the main reason that many are supporting Buckhead de-annexation and cityhood.
But the reality is that the Buckhead cityhood movement has much appeal nationally by many white nationalists for its perceived racial optics of a predominantly white and conservative suburban community in Buckhead seceding from a very high-profile majority Black and liberal/progressive urban city in Atlanta.
The perceived racial optics on the issue is what has driven much of the fundraising on the issue by Bill White and the BCC/Buckhead City Committee, reportedly from numerous sources both outside of Buckhead and the state of Georgia.
The perceived racial optics on the issue is also what has caused many white state and community leaders (including the Buckhead, Atlanta and Georgia corporate and business communities, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, and Georgia state House leadership) to strongly oppose Buckhead de-annexation and cityhood on the grounds that it would be exceedingly negative for Georgia’s positive national and international image as an increasingly diverse place to relocate, operate, grow and expand a successful business.
Last edited by Born 2 Roll; 03-08-2023 at 01:13 AM..
As I said, I just don't see how they get past the Voting Rights Act given the differences in demographics between Buckhead and the rest of Atlanta.
Are the demographics of Buckhead different from the rest of the city of Atlanta? I would imagine Buckhead is more diverse than Virginia Highland, Ansley, Druid Hills, Morningside and other white areas on the east side of the city.
As I said, I just don't see how they get past the Voting Rights Act given the differences in demographics between Buckhead and the rest of Atlanta.
That’s a good question which very likely would have been answered by the federal courts after the blizzard of lawsuits that most assuredly would been filed in the seemingly highly unlikely event that the Buckhead cityhood legislation would have passed out of the Georgia Legislature, been signed into law by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and been approved by a majority of Buckhead voters in a cityhood referendum.
Though, any concerns about how Buckhead cityhood would have fared against the VRA are null-and-void because the legislation (which seemed slated to at least pass through the Georgia state Senate before the damaging memo by Governor Kemp’s legal counsel injected a massive dose of reality into the equation) went down in flames even before being decisively defeated in a vote on the floor of the Georgia state Senate.
Which, even if the Buckhead cityhood legislation would have passed through the Georgia Senate (like it seemed to be slated to do before the release of the memo by Kemp’s legal counsel), it very likely would have still been doomed in the Georgia House just because of the massive mountain of financial, legal and constitutional issues that come with attempting to create a new city by de-annexating such a significant piece of incorporated territory from the state’s largest municipality.
Are the demographics of Buckhead different from the rest of the city of Atlanta? I would imagine Buckhead is more diverse than Virginia Highland, Ansley, Druid Hills, Morningside and other white areas on the east side of the city.
I think that bu2 was talking about the difference in demographics between Buckhead and the rest of the City of Atlanta proper as a whole, and not the difference in demographics between Buckhead and individual neighborhoods in the rest of the City of Atlanta proper.
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