This is a blog about the small town of Tucker, Georgia, which is located just outside the major metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. On March 13, 2013, the residents of Tucker learned that a small group of politically motivated individuals who lived nearby wanted to incorporate using Tucker's commercial areas and leaving many of the long-time residents on the outskirts of the new city. This is the story of how the residents have fought back to preserve history and their own community.
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Lavista Hills Election Investigated for Tampering
According to the AJC and a Channel 2 Action News Report:
Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp and the GBI opened an investigation Thursday into alleged voting irregularities – including a stray voting machine memory card – in the referendum that narrowly defeated the proposed city of LaVista Hills.
A DeKalb election supervisor alleged that he found an unsecured memory card Wednesday that contained results from the Briarlake Elementary precinct, according to Channel 2 Action News. It’s unknown whether the votes on the memory card were counted in the precinct’s totals, where voters supported LaVista Hills 378-313.
“As Secretary of State I take any allegation of elections fraud seriously,” Kemp said. “Our office has opened an official investigation of possible criminal activity during the Nov. 3 elections in DeKalb County.”
Investigators take a voting machine and a desktop computer from the DeKalb County elections office on Thursday afternoon November 5, 2015. Ben Gray / bgray@ajc.com
Leonard Piazza, the second in command at DeKalb County’s Office of Voter Registration and Elections, says there were serious irregularities regarding the LaVista vote.
Piazza says some voters were turned away at their polling place, and voter material wasn’t properly secured.
He also told Channel 2 there was a memory card that collects citizen votes loose in the office.
Kemp said he has asked the Center for Elections at Kennesaw State University and the GBI to assist in this investigation. He called in the GBI to assist due to the alleged theft of secured memory cards and fraud allegations. Once completed, the investigation will be presented to the State Elections Board.
The LaVista Hills cityhood proposal fell short Tuesday by 136 votes, less than 1 percent of all votes cast.
The election could be invalidated if a judge finds misconduct, fraud or irregularities that could change the result, according to Georgia law.
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...
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...
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...
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