Incorporation back on table

Residents could still vote to form metro’s newest city.

South Fulton residents might get to decide after all whether they want to live in a city of their own making.

A bill that would allow Fulton County’s last unincorporated area to vote on whether it wants to be a city was resurrected Tuesday a week after was defeated in committee.

And in resurrection, it was approved unanimously by members of the Senate’s State and Local Governmental Operations committee. Its next hurdle is the Senate, then it must return to the House for approval. Its outcome is still uncertain.

Even this much progress, though, was exciting for Rep. Roger Bruce, D-Atlanta, who sponsored HB 514.

“They just did the right thing,” he said. “It restores your faith in the democratic process.”

If approved, the proposal would allow all of south Fulton’s residents to decide whether they wanted to incorporate into a single city. The measure was stopped two years ago, and again earlier this session. Last week, a competing proposal to annex all of the unincorporated area into neighboring cities was shot down by the Fulton County delegation. The bill to allow a single city of South Fulton resurfaced this week.

When the measure was defeated along partisan lines last week, residents said they were disappointed that they would not get a chance to vote on cityhood. Since then, Bruce and others have been talking to committee members in an effort to convince them that a city of South Fulton is viable.

For a decade, Bruce said, the area has essentially had its own police and fire departments, administered through the county. A feasibility study showed it would have a surplus in the millions of dollars.

Those arguments and others seem to have swayed the committee members who on Tuesday passed a version of the bill that was altered only to allow the potential city to regulate environmental matters that were not originally spelled out.

“It’s always good when the will of the people has a chance to move forward,” said Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, the committee’s chairman.

Residents defeated a cityhood proposal when they last voted in 2007. Rafer Johnson, of the cityhood advocacy group South Fulton Now, said attitudes have changed since that proposal was defeated.

The bill still faces challenges. Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, has been vocal in his opposition, saying neighboring cities would suffer a loss of tax revenue if a new city were to be formed. It died last year before it got a vote, largely a result of his efforts.