The May primary election is shaping into one of the most pivotal in Cobb County history.
Two more cityhood movements in the northwest Atlanta suburbs earned approval from a key legislative panel on Wednesday, barely a week after the Georgia House of Representatives voted to allow East Cobb residents to form a city of their own.
One measure would create the city of Lost Mountain in West Cobb, an area of 75,000 people that would immediately become the county’s most populous city. The other would incorporate a city government in Vinings, a tight-knit community of about 7,000 that sits between I-285 and the Chattahoochee River.
Both bills now advance to the House floor, while the East Cobb measure awaits its first hearing in the state Senate. If the measures ultimately pass both chambers and are signed into law, voters of the three areas would be asked in a May election to vote on whether the new city governments should be formed.
All three proposals have been brought by Republicans over the opposition of the county’s Democratic-led delegation, who see political motives behind the movements. A long-time Republican stronghold, Cobb County has grown more diverse in recent decades and in 2020 flipped to Democratic control.
Supporters, though, insist that these cities have been on the drawing board for years.
“This is not something that just appeared in 2021,” said state Rep. John Carson, the Vinings cityhood sponsor, at Wednesday’s hearing. “This just happens to be coming up in a year where there’s more political turbulence than ever before.”
Backers of the two movements said they want local control over issues that matter most to them: namely parks and planning and zoning.
“We want to preserve our unique historical character which is so important in our area,” Taryn Bowman, a Vinings resident who is part of the cityhood campaign, told lawmakers at a January public hearing. “And we want to preserve our suburban lifestyle.”
The proposed cities would both take over code enforcement from the county, while Lost Mountain would also have its own sanitation department.
Democrats have pushed back against the proposals, saying a May election date is too soon.
Cobb County officials say they are working on a website to educate the public about what the cityhood movements would cost residents and how services would be affected. Feasibility studies commissioned by the cityhood campaigns have found that the cities are financially viable, but they don’t account for the impact to the county government, which would lose some of its tax base in the process.
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