Skip to main content

Rep. Howard Mosby Answers Questions From Save Tucker!

Rep. Howard Mosby
The following are questions that Save Tucker! recently posed to Rep. Howard Mosby (D - Atlanta) who is a member of the House Governmental Affairs Committee.  Mosby was appointed to the Tucker/LaVista Hills (Lakeside) Boundary subcommittee that recently defined borders between the two city advocacy groups.


Q:  What is the requirement for feasibility reports with these new borders?

A:  Great question.  It is my understanding that the feasibility reports will take at least 3 months to complete and therefore may not be available for the committee to consider before voting on them.  Therefore, those requirements may be (more likely probably) suspended in order to vote on those boundaries.


Q:  What is the rule for the two year mandatory process?  Has an exception been made for these groups only, or has the rule been changed for future groups as well?  Where can the public view the actual rules if they have questions?

A:  The rule is that incorporation bills must be presented in the first year of the biennial legislative session and voted on in the second year.  Again, in order for there to be a vote in 2015, there would need to be an exception to this rule.  I personally have not seen these rules in writing, however I have been told that this is a matter of practice.  They may be introduced this session with the caveats around the decisions concerning Tucker and LaVista Hills.  The chair would have to release those rules to the public.


Q:  The borders are said to be set in stone, but what if the feasibility reports are no longer favorable?  Can the proposed city advocates alter the boundaries in order to make them smaller, for example?  

A:  It is my understanding that if the decision is made to suspend the rules, then only those boundaries set by the committee will be accepted.  Any changes would trigger using the existing rules and start the “two-year" incorporation process.


Q:  Rep. Tom Taylor and others have mentioned proposed city charter documents.   We have personally asked many times to see the proposed charter for a city of Tucker.   When will the public be able to actually see something in writing about the type of local government that the groups are proposing? 

A:  I don’t know when the charter documents will be available for review.


Rep. Mosby also added, "I wish we were not at this point where the legislature has taken the position of “resolving" this matter.  Specifically, we did not ask for this; and the rush to draw boundaries for a vote in 2015 will not produce, in my opinion, the best for the citizens of the affected areas and by extension, DeKalb County."

Thank you, Rep. Mosby, for responding to our questions!  
 





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tweak us out of LaVista Hills

This is a letter shared with the "Dekalb Strong" group.  You can join the conversation at https://www.facebook.com/groups/DeKalbStrong . We didn't realize how easy tweaking was. “Tweak” and just like that, 2000 people are moved from one city proposal to another. (“LaVista Hills, Tucker border tweaked in Senate,” News, March 20). Our home is in Toco Hills on the southern edge of the proposed LaVista Hills and we’d like to be tweaked out of it.   North and north central DeKalb County residents have become pawns in the misguided ambitions of a few. With all the changes made by the Senate and House, it’s vital the feasibility of these proposals be revisited. The LaVista Hills boundaries have bled commercial property to the Tucker proposal and Brookhaven’s annexation of Executive Park. As reconfigured, LaVista Hills is almost entirely residential. Even including Toco Hills shopping center and Northlake mall, there appears to be insufficient commercial or ind...

DeKalb County School Board Member's Emails Show Support for Annexation

Here are just a few highlights of this investigative piece that was reported by Jeff Chirico, CBS Atlanta. Marshall Orson, a seated board member in DeKalb County, has to answer to some angry parents about his emails with supporters for "Together in Atlanta," a group pushing for annexation into the city of Atlanta. The annexation would take a DeKalb icon, the Druid Hills High School, and at least two elementary schools into the city limits of Atlanta, while still the residents would still technically reside in DeKalb County.  The Fernbank Science Center and Museum, Callenwalde Fine Arts Center and other parts of DeKalb County would also become new residents of "Atlanta in DeKalb."   State Rep. Karla Drenner (D - Avondale Estates) says she is shocked to learn that a school board member would seemingly favor something that could 'decimate' the school system. Annexation opponent Dawn Forman said Orson, as an elected board member, should be opposed t...

Do These Families Feel "Welcomed" at DeKalb County's Schools?

Georgia counties where 50 or more unaccompanied minors were released from Jan. 1 through July, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services Administration for Children & Families. Cherokee County 65 Cobb County 138 DeKalb County 347 Fulton County 64 Gwinnett County 266 Hall County 85 WHO knows the truth about what is happening in our schools and how quickly are they acting to protect their own neighborhoods, drawing their own borders and leaving everyone else holding the education tab for the immigrant population THEY helped bring here?    Do the new city proponents claim to know anything about a city - school connection?  Or do they do the typical  political  double speak and merely deny, deny, deny?  WHAT do they know that they are not telling the rest of us?  WHO do they know and HOW will they benefit?  If you do not know the answers then you are probably on the losing end of...