A Fulton flip?
Troubled county might turn into GOP stronghold
First came the city of Sandy Springs. Then up popped the nascent burgs of Milton and John’s Creek. And within the next year, we’re likely to see more changes in Fulton County as its southern end is divvied up by large-scale annexations and new municipalities.
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But to witness the next tectonic shift hit Georgia’s largest county, we may only need to wait until Nov. 7. That’s when Fulton voters could, for the first time since Reconstruction, elect a county commission with a solid Republican majority — which, in turn, could open the floodgates to an overhaul of its weak-chairman form of government.
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Big changes in Fulton County government? Let’s face it: What sane person would call that a bad thing?
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“Fulton’s government now suffers from the same problem that Atlanta’s government did under Bill Campbell,” says outgoing state Sen. Sam Zamarripa, D-Atlanta. “No one believes in it; no one has confidence in it; no one is proud of it.”
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It’s certainly no news flash that Fulton’s government is deeply dysfunctional — and not just because the commission has more than its share of spiteful, self-aggrandizing personalities. Rather, it’s arguable that the board’s egalitarian structure has helped nurture the divisiveness that has driven the government into a ditch.
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Fulton’s commission chairman has little more power than a district commissioner. In recent years, the result has been a series of ineffective Republican chairmen trying to ride herd on an increasingly hostile Democratic majority. (It didn’t help that Mitch Skandalakis was a mean-spirited crook and Mike Kenn an absentee imperialist.)
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The divisions on the board go deeper than mere partisanship. Partly due to Fulton’s ungainly geography, the seven-member commission also is split between three blacks in the south, three whites in the north and, for now, an indecisive at-large commissioner with his finger in the political wind. Stir in a set of entrenched politicians who view their districts as fiefdoms and you have a recipe for the discord and deadlock that has mired the county for much of the past two years.
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Next month’s elections could break that cycle in two ways. The first scenario has Republicans Lee Morris and Bill Loughrey capturing both the chairman’s seat and the District 2 at-large post — an outcome that would instantly shift the balance of power away from the south end of the county.
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Although District 2 incumbent Robb Pitts, a former Atlanta Council president, has strong name recognition, his dithering over Sandy Springs and other issues has alienated voters on both ends of the county. And Loughrey, a retired executive from Alpharetta, will be aided by municipal elections expected to bring swarms of North Fulton residents to the polls.
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Rusty Paul, a former Georgia GOP chairman and a Sandy Springs councilman, says his party made an effort to recruit commission candidates who were centrist and moderate enough to appeal to intown voters.
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“We realized the chairmanship doesn’t matter because there’s no inherent power there,” he explains. “What matters is having a majority.”
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Even if Pitts keeps his seat and the Democratic majority is preserved, a win by Morris, a respected ex-Atlanta councilman from Buckhead, could set into motion scenario No. 2: Leaders of the GOP-controlled state Legislature are said to favor strengthening the chairman’s position to put it more in line with Cobb and Gwinnett. A Fulton chairman with the authority to set the commission agenda, hire staff, approve spending and veto resolutions could do wonders for restoring some semblance of civility and effectiveness.
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Such changes wouldn’t come a moment too soon. The county is facing a massive downsizing as it hands duties over to the new cities. Assuming unincorporated South Fulton is claimed by municipalization, the county eventually will need to dissolve its zoning, permits, inspections, parks and recreation, roads, police and fire departments. An even more immediate crisis is the reform of a tax-assessment system so rife with incompetence it makes FEMA look good.
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The Democratic candidate for chairman is John Eaves, an educator and community leader who touts his ability to build consensus. While an Eaves victory would give Democrats a working majority on the commission, Morris would be better-positioned to mend bridges with the northern cities, as well as with the Legislature — a necessary goal if the county is ever to realize its dream of getting funding help for MARTA and Grady Hospital.
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Complicating these scenarios is a bill pre-filed last week by state Rep. Mark Burkhalter, R-John’s Creek, to recreate the old Milton County, which was folded into Fulton during the Great Depression. Despite Burkhalter’s legislative clout, most insiders believe his bill is DOA. For starters, Georgia law caps the number of counties at 159, so two counties elsewhere would need to consolidate for Milton to come into being. Next, warns Zamarripa, the cost of splitting Fulton’s bond obligations with a new county would run into the tens of millions of dollars and would still leave Milton on the hook for Grady and MARTA.
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“The opposition to creating a new county would be too great,” Paul adds. “I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”