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Look What the Non Elected, Interchangeable Leaders of LaVista Hills Have Done NOW!


The children in the homes on one side of this street are zoned for Livsey Elementary.  The children on the other side of the street are zoned for a Gwinnett County school, yet their front yards are located in DeKalb County.  They get some services from one county and some from the other.  Since the Tucker zip code and Tucker community has spanned both counties, these folks (on both sides of the street) have ALL been a part of the TUCKER community, without any question or doubt.... until now.

With the city groups and their newly redesigned maps that do not reflect our current community, these folks are being completely written off.  The city of Tucker map takes in the entire area up to the DeKalb / Gwinnett Line, but the new LaVista Hills map stopped right in the middle of the road, exactly matching the school attendance zone.  So, did the petition drive itself map out the attendance zone and seek out signatures in that manner?

It's hard to imagine them walking down a road and only asking the people on one side of a single residential street if they were interested in voting for a city of Lavista Hills.  It's hard to imagine anyone would sign as a means to agree to an effort that would leave their street faced with TWO different police forces and TWO different response times as a result.  The rumor mill is that some of the school buildings acquired by the new city would be repurposed into police stations.  So, Livsey Elementary would be potential sites for the city police, but the people living on the other side of this street would still have to rely on DeKalb's police in its likely reduced form that would result from the city boundaries.

The people on one side of Henderson Park would have to wait for calls to route from LaVista Hills police to the DeKalb police if it involves anything that needs a helicopter search or a SWAT team, while the other side of the park would still have access to all the services that the DeKalb police offer now without that lag time in re-routing of calls by 911.  The incident that happened recently with a shooting of a 12 year old holding a play gun in a park in Cleveland is just one example of what can happen when a message is relayed to more than one responder in an area.  Other incidents locally have involved arguments among police trying to respond to a call for a stolen vehicle while the suspect drives away and  police are unsure exactly who should be allowed to follow.

And, everyone in this portion of the map will now face the fact that they could live in a city called Lavista Hills while their children attend school in a Tucker feeder pattern and their address says they live in Tucker.  They also shop at a mall called Northlake and attend a middle school called Henderson, the father of the current town of Tucker.   His old home is on a lake... one of very few in the area  that originally sought to be called Lakeside.  

Q:  HOW is THIS a BETTER WAY?  

Q:  How does THIS impact sense of place or identity?

As: It's not; and It will bring it harm, not help.

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