LCA Wraps Up Information Meetings

The Lakeside City Alliance has wrapped up the last of its approximately 70 informational meetings as it awaits the results of a feasibility study on its plan for cityhood.

The last LCA meeting was held Tuesday night at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Annunciation, with the blustery weather obviously keeping attendance down. However, the small crowd did not hesitate to pose direct questions to leaders Mary Kay Woodworth and Kevin Levitas.

A quick summary of some of those audience questions and LCA's answers Tuesday night:

Why Lakeside over other cityhood plans?  Levitas touted Lakeside as the best alternative for cityhood, with the most support in the Legislature and pointed out that LCA has had twice the meetings of Briarcliff and Tucker combined. He said that one area Briarcliff and LCA do agree on is Lakeside. Levitas expressed concerns over divisions between the groups that "play into the hands of people who don't want you to vote for a new city." He said the Legislature would be in a hurry to get cityhood out of the way in the next session. "The two words the Legislature hates are DeKalb and Fulton," Levitas said, referring to pushes for new cities coming from the two counties.

Why was my area excluded? A Midvale Elementary area resident asked why her area was removed from the Lakeside map. Levitas said state Sen. Fran Millar, whose district includes the Tucker area, was under pressure to take that area out of the map because he had a deadline to file LCA's placeholder bill in March while Tucker was in the early stages of working on its own cityhood plans. The status of that area remains up in the air after local petition efforts to become part of Lakeside were launched. Levitas urged residents to contact state senators, representatives and county commissioners because the final determination of boundaries of any new city rests with the Legislature.

Why is North DeKalb Mall not part of the map? LCA did not want to include an area Decatur has long sought to annex, both speakers said.

Is cityhood taking away resources from South DeKalb? A questioner wanted to know if DeKalb cityhood efforts were similar to the movement in north Fulton County to become a separate county. That movement in Fulton led to debate over whether such moves were harmful to the other end of the county. "It's not about escaping from DeKalb County; it's about local control and making an area stronger," Woodworth said. Woodworth and Levitas pointed out the efforts to form a new city of Stonecrest are similarly not based upon race or politics. "People want local control," Levitas said.

Running for office. One audience member asked if board members of all cityhood groups would pledge to not run for election or seek "personal gain" from their efforts. Levitas repeated his often-stated stance that he will not run for mayor or city council. Woodworth said such a pledge would not be fair to board members, adding that no one in the cityhood effort is in it for personal gain. Don Broussard, a board member of the City of Briarcliff Initiative (COBI) who attended the meeting, told the crowd that he would not run for office in a city of Briarcliff. However, he said he reserved the right to run for office should the Lakeside proposal prevail in the Legislature.

LCA expects to receive the study from the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute in the next two or three weeks. Should the study find the Lakeside proposal feasible, LCA will wind down and dissolve. LCA, which is currently an educational group, would be replaced by an advocacy group.

LCA's next public activity is a fundraiser set for Dec. 9 at Napoleon's, according to its Facebook page.