Elena Parent on City of Brookhaven Proposal: We Can Take Our Time

Among a plethora of state and county employees and politicians, State Rep. Elena Parent (D-81) told the audience at Wednesday night's Brookhaven cityhood meeting that there was “no rush” in forming a conclusion on the idea of incorporation.

“We’ve been an unincorporated community since 1965, there’s no reason to get freaked out and rush to any conclusions now. We can take our time,” Parent said.

Parent said she believes she set a ‘slightly different tone’ with her meeting by starting at the ‘very beginning’ educating the community in a comprehensive way.

“Because [Rep. Mike Jacobs] sponsored the legislation, he tends to hear more from people who are gung ho about it. I tend to hear from both,” Parent said. “I think that I really wanted to spend that time on the education piece and start right at the beginning with what do cities do and what do counties do.”

The meeting Wednesday night at ’s Lupton Hall was Parent’s first forum on the topic and the community’s third. In addition to presentations from Jim Grubiak, of the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia and Lamar Norton of the Georgia Municipal Association, Parent asked government officials and county commissioners, including County Police Chief William O’Brien, Fire Chief Edward O'Brien, Public Safety Director William “Wiz” Miller,  Ed Venson, Acting Deputy Director, Park Services, to attend the meeting in the event municipal questions arose that they could help answer.

Presentations introduced new considerations as well as reintroduced mainstay concepts. For example, Parent emphasized that the study being commissioned by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at Georgia State University would answer questions about whether the local tax base would support such a venture. She also outlined the pros and cons of city formation including the ability for more local control and empowerment, more local representation, but also noted that those advantages would weaken DeKalb County's tax base.

Grubiak, General Counsel of the Association County Commissioners of Georgia, however, presented the idea of working within existing government to improve communications with elected officials.

Another idea Grubiak introduced was the possible formation of land use planning commissions that could be designed to address the specific needs of a specific community.

While Grubiak didn’t advocate for or against the idea of incorporation, he said that incorporation was a “big undertaking” and all options should be considered before a decision was made.

Norton’s presentation focused on outlining various types of government, the policy and administrative role of those governments, revenue powers, and service delivery.

"I'm not here to convince you to vote for or against a city," Norton said. "As much as I like to see cities, they have to be sustainable."

Additionally, Ashford Park Civic Association Vice President Jim Eyre presented a break-down of county services and a comparison of services that the  newly formed Dunwoody receives from the county and Chamblee receives and how services effects the property tax bill.

Public comments following the presentations ranged from the strong opposition to the curious, to the frustrated.

Lindly Jones, of Cambridge Park and a member of the group Citizens for North DeKalb - the non-profit group tasked with raising funds to pay for the feasibility study - encouraged neighbors to, “keep an open mind.”

“I’m sure that some of the people involved have individual and probably some personal and private motivations for this.  For me, I just wanted to learn more about whether it was a good idea,” Jones said. I think a feasibility study and exploring more options is always a good idea, and letting people vote on it is always a good idea. We do want to raise money and get the information and take it for there.”

State Rep. Mike Jacobs (R-80) Jacobs introduced the HB 636 in March, a hopper bill "to incorporate the City of Brookhaven in DeKalb County; to provide for a charter for the City of Brookhaven; to provide for incorporation, boundaries, and powers of the city; to provide for general powers and limitations on powers."

The idea of turning Brookhaven into its own city is a years-old conversation that until this year, never advanced further than neighborhood talk.  In 2008, Jacobs proposed similar legislation to incorporate Brookhaven, though it never materialized.

Jacobs, who publicly complimented Parent at last night's meeting, hosted two information town hall forums on the topic  and is credited with resurrecting the issue of cityhood after he said received several emails from residents in the Murphy Candler and Silver Lake communities in the area commonly referred to as North Brookhaven.

The projected completion date of the feasibility study is October 2011.