Lakeside City Alliance Co-Chair Blasts Briarcliff Plan

Lakeside City Alliance co-chair Kevin Levitas, leading the group's 67th information session on possible cityhood Wednesday night, sharply contrasted LCA's proposal as superior to the City of Briarcliff Initiative (COBI).

"I'm not going to tell you whether you should or shouldn't be a city," Levitas repeatedly told the audience at Briarcliff United Methodist Church.

However, after early PowerPoint slides focused on the basics of forming a new city, the presentation moved into rejecting "false" claims he said COBI had made about both group's cityhood proposals. The former state representative went through several slides, including one titled: "COBI: Setting The Record Straight."

Levitas questioned the feasibility of the COBI proposal, saying the city of Briarcliff would simply be too big -- 93,873 people compared to 62,000 in the LCA, or Lakeside, plan.

Briarcliff, he said, would be bigger than Sandy Springs, adding that the North Fulton city's tax base is 65 percent non-residential, compared to a projected 10 percent for Briarcliff. He said 88% of COBI's revenue would come from residential taxpayers, a problem he said other new cities have encountered and which is now requiring them to look for legislative solutions.

Levitas said COBI's size would pose challenges in police protection and asked the audience whether they wanted a city centered around CDC and Emory University. And he questioned the political support for COBI, saying support comes mostly from outside the Lakeside area and that anti-cityhood residents and legislators backed the Briarcliff plan.

(Editor's Note: North Druid Hills-Briarcliff Patch welcomes comments, blog posts, letters to the editor, or articles from COBI supporters.)

The former state representative called the Lakeside proposal the "last, best chance" for cityhood. "If Lakeside doesn't make it through, cityhood is dead" in the Legislature, Levitas told the audience.

State Sen. Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody), who filed the placeholder bill for Lakeside cityhood, attended the meeting along with State Rep. Tom Taylor (R-Dunwoody) and State Rep. Michele Henson (D-Stone Mountain).

Levitas made few references to Tucker-based cityhood efforts. Millar pointed out that he was meeting Thursday with a Tucker business group. He said he would gladly introduce a bill for Tucker cityhood if that's what residents want.

Millar, who has supported creation of several new cities in the metro area, suggested the audience pose this question to legislators who have not supported the Lakeside proposal: "If you live in a city, why is it good enough for you, but not for us?"

Henson, in brief remarks, did not focus on the merits of the Lakeside proposal. She pointed out that the county's pension system would be impacted by a lower tax base if Lakeside and Stonecrest become cities. Henson said she had no solution to this issue, but she expressed concern for the impact upon pensions for public safety employees with 25 years of service.

Levitas said the name Lakeside was "not set in stone" and organizers are open to a different name, saying the current name was the "biggest mistake" LCA had made.

He gave examples of a Henderson High graduate objecting to the name Lakeside and someone from the Tucker area suggesting that it be called Nowhere, so they could say they lived "in the middle of Nowhere."

Levitas closed the presentation apologizing for "going on a tangent" regarding COBI, but stressed, "we're running out of time" on cityhood. He urged the audience to talk to friends who live in Brookhaven, Dunwoody and other areas that have incorporated and ask them if their quality of life has improved with cityhood. And he said they need to let their local legislators know where they stand.