Tucker, Smoke Rise residents speak out against cityhood movement
The cityhood movement in DeKalb County has gained more support and momentum in the past few months since three cityhood bills failed to pass during the 2014 legislative session.
On Sept. 24, a statement was posted on the Tucker cityhood initiative’s Facebook page by the Smoke Rise Civic Association (SRCA) announcing the association’s board of directors’ unanimous endorsement of Tucker’s initiative.
In the post, Smoke Rise Community Association president Mike Huerkamp wrote, “by this time next year, the Smoke Rise area may very well be on its way toward incorporation into a city of Tucker, progressing to finalize an annexation into the city of Stone Mountain, or find itself isolated as an area of unincorporated DeKalb fully hemmed-in and excluded by an expansion of the city of Stone Mountain.”
“Seemingly, there is no perfect solution,” Huerkamp continued. “However for those of you looking to the SRCA Board of Directors for guidance, after considering all information and data known to us and in consideration of the best preservation and promotion of our residential property values, the members of the SRCA Board by unanimous vote recommend that residents back the Tucker cityhood initiative.”
While the board has joined the cityhood movement, there is at least one Smoke Rise resident and a few Tucker residents who are not on board with the cityhood movement. Robert Stamper, who lives in the Smoke Rise community, does not believe SRCA made the right decision in endorsing the city of Tucker initiative.
“That was enormously disappointing because by engaging in the political campaign for Tucker cityhood explicitly, they were eliminating any opportunity of becoming a 501c3 nonprofit,” Stamper said. “The board is doing long-term harm to what could have been and what once was an enormously positive force for my community by making it impossible to gain the advantages of becoming a 501c3 nonprofit.”
Stamper is one of many residents who believe cityhood will do more harm than good to those in central DeKalb. He said the proponents of cityhood are breaking the golden rule.
“They are behaving toward me and my neighbors in a way in which my neighbors and I would never behave toward them,” he said. “We found out that Tucker was going to become a city after two parts of unincorporated Stone Mountain had already been placed in the proposed map for the city of Tucker. There had not been any type of invitation to the broad community to consult, to become informed or to provide any type of consent about whether we wanted to be in Tucker before our homes were put in the proposed map. And that’s absolutely not OK.”
In an article printed in his community’s paper, Smoke Signal News, Stamper wrote that cityhood “separates the last majority-White areas of the county from a huge swath of territory populated largely by African Americans.”
“As a former M-to-M student of both Tucker and Towers high schools, and as the father of a fourth-generation resident of Smoke Rise, let me make clear that the obvious, and pathetic, racial element of the cityhood push is an embarrassment,” Stamper wrote. “It is in no way consistent with the family and community values with which I and my classmates were raised. Even if for no other reason, the ethnic separatism aspect of the incorporation efforts demands they be stopped.”
Tucker resident Cheryl Miller, a member the “Save Tucker!” group, said there are residents who are concerned about what the “further fracturing” of DeKalb will do to “everyone’s quality of life.”
“We feel like we are being forced to ‘pick a side’ in a north/south battle that is going to end up with our community torn to shreds,” Miller said. “We either support the city effort or get annexed somewhere else. Either way will cost us more than what we are currently paying in property tax and every development plan so far has brought huge numbers of residents into higher density housing that makes our commute time on [I-285] unbearable as it is.”
Miller said residents are not being given a choice about whether they want to be part a city.
“It isn’t a matter of cities being generically okay or not okay,” Miller said. “It is about being forced into forming a city simply as a defensive means against your own neighbors, not because you think your current services are not being delivered as well as they could be.
“Most people here are happy with DeKalb in terms of the services we receive,” Miller added. “No one is happy about the corruption, but adding more government to the mix is certainly no way to fix that.”
In December, Tucker city supporters found out that the area is financially feasible based on the study conducted by Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. According to the feasibility study, the city of Tucker will start with a surplus of approximately $3.3 million. Based on the mix of residential, commercial, industrial, institutional and public properties taxes, Tucker expects to have annual revenue of approximately $16.6 million and annual expenses of approximately $13.3 million.
Stamper said the feasibility study shows that expenses related to the city’s mayor, city council and administration could exceed “$5 million per annum.”
“And that’s not even counting costs for the only three services the city will provide—code enforcement, zoning and parks,” Stamper said. “Police service does not change. Schools do not change. Regardless of marketing to the contrary, Tucker cityhood gives this area a new layer of government administration in addition to those we already have, with millions of dollars in new fees, and with a new corps of elected officials and bureaucrats, at a total cost to taxpayers of $16.6 million per year—all while doing little or nothing to solve current issues with DeKalb government.”
Stamper said the county could fix its problems without forming new cities.
“We can work together, across DeKalb, as a community, to fix our problems,” he said. “Black and White, majority and minority, north and south, affluent and struggling, we can choose—guided by the values we work to instill in our children—to unite rather than divide, and to rebuild rather than repel.”
It’s unfortunate that the reporter for this article chose to speak to two of the three founders of the Village Idiots Society of Tucker-Smoke Rise (VISTSR), who take no shame in specious arguments, unfounded rumor mongering, circular rationalizations and fabricated ‘facts.’ These two represent a woefully tiny but occasionally vocal minority in our community, who act as their own self-appointed representatives of the anti-city movement, but actually only speak for themselves, as there are no credible anti-city groups in Tucker to speak of .
As you follow their trail of unfettered negative opinionating, you soon realize that they are largely ignorant of the issues and bring absolutely nothing to the incorporation debate. Cheryl and Angela (the third founding member) routinely delete dissenting comments and expel non-believers from their closed Facebook groups, as they and their minions engage in nauseous rounds of back-slapping group think.
But they are OUR village idiots, and while we may disagree with their words and antics, we tolerate their childish insults and unfounded accusations, and allow them to ask their vapid questions and make their soap-box proselytizations. When meeting with them directly, we try to engage them, attempt to respond to their expressed positions and teach them about the real issues regarding incorporation, but they chose to disregard those efforts. And then, sad to say, once they are out of the room, we all just roll our eyes, snicker a bit and return to the business at hand.
Your reporter was right in stating that there was at least ‘one’ Smoke Rise resident not on board with the city-hood movement, and that is Mr. Stamper. One. Resident. Not. On. Board. How that justifies an article in the county newspaper, and a forum to distribute his poorly founded opinions, simply escapes me. He is alone. No one agrees with him, even those ‘neighbors’ to whom he repeatedly attributes support.
There is no question that support for the future City of Tucker is overwhelming and unassailable.
I disagree the desire to stay with Dekalb County or join a larger city is very strong and growing stronger in Tucker. The financial feasibility is slipping away moment by moment and many of us see that clearly. You may ridicule others all you please, which apparently you do frequently, but I find their opinions helpful in the realm of all the discourse. Do not assume your position is accepted so readily.
This is your idea of promoting a desirable community?
Nothing says “unassailable” like a hissy fit on a comment board.
Jim, how do you know conclusively that ‘he is alone?’ Clearly there are residents not on board. Perhaps their voices are being muffled out?
Thank you Jim and Victoria. You are both right. Please do a better job of reporting. This really is important.
You lost credibility quoting Cheryl Miller. There are more substantial voices on this.
Victoria, what is the basis of your reasoning for the loss of credibility? What causes you to say that one voice is more substantial than another? What exactly makes you an authority on whose voice is substantial and credible? What exactly is your background and resume to put you in this authority position?
I am sensitive to the racial concerns raised by Stamper in the article. Given regional history and practice, those concerns are legitimate. Being mindful of such concerns should not offend reasonable neighbors. That said, there are African American homeowners in Tucker (like me) who DO support the Tucker city hood movement, and strongly so. Among the various city hood movements presently brewing in central/north DeKalb County, the Tucker city hood leadership has been, in my opinion, the least adversarial toward the county. Such a stance is prudent and important. The momentum of the other concurrent movement (now the Lakeside-Briarcliff city duo) NECESSITATES that Tucker stand up and embrace its autonomy NOW. Less than a week before the all groups are supposed to have agreed on the boundaries is too late to opt for a different direction. Tucker must stay the course at this point…and with as much unity as possible. Autonomy is good. And even if city hood autonomy brings a new layer of government, that layer is smaller, more localized, and in the hands of our neighbors. The city hood writing is on the wall. Let’s be courageous and embrace it.
This was published some time ago but I’ve got to reply to this comment. Mario writes, “Autonomy is good.” No, not in and of itself. The Confederate States pursued autonomy. Donetsk and Luhansk are destroying themselves in the name of autonomy. Autonomy at the expense of integrity and mutual benefit is a sad trap.
Mario’s statement that “The city hood writing is on the wall. Let’s be courageous and embrace it” is another in a long line of fatalistic, defeatist refrains I’ve heard. Because our breaking the county apart is unavoidable,and our cooperating to fix things impossible, we might as well just relent.
Giving up is many things, but it is not courageous.
I took the following article from the DeKalb Strong Facebook page. The notion of taxes increasing because of cityhood is backed up by the 3+ million dollar surplus in the Tucker feasibilty report….those feasibility reports are known to be conservative in their estimates. The article below takes actual property tax records from Dekalb and cities and compares them.
Hi, I put together a few actual examples of property taxes to effectively put to rest the notion of higher taxes within the new cities as compared to Unincorporated DeKalb. The links take you to the DeKalb County Tax Assessors Office. If you would like to do your own research, here is the County website link for property taxes on any property in DeKalb County: http://taxcommissioner.dekalbcountyga.gov/PropertyAppraisal/realSearch.asp
I chose a house in Brookhaven to use as a city example. The house in Brookhaven was valued at $425,100.00 in 2011 with a total tax bill of $5,959.63. In 2014 that same house increased in value to $484,300 with a total tax bill of $6396.66. Roughly a 14 percent increase in value over the time period from 2011-2014.(In 2011, there was no city of Brookhaven.)
I was going to find a comparable example of similar years for a
similar value, but the County has mucked around with the tax
formula so much this past year, it is nearly impossible to do.
The County decided to tax the cities at a higher rate and offset
these higher rates back to Unincorporated properties. Sure, it is
dirty pool, but hey, what can you do about it? So, just for
fun, I found a close to a Brookhaven value home in Unincorporated
DeKalb that of course did not rise in value since 2011. From the
example listed below, you will see that the total tax bill
decreased in 2014 even though there have been no tax reductions
from the County. Millage rates have been shifted around, but no
actual tax reductions. This is exactly how DeKalb County earns
your favor.
The comparable Unincorporated DeKalb property was valued at $465,800.00 in 2011 with a total tax bill of $6592.23. This same property in 2014 was valued at $465,800.00(The Same as 2011.) with a total tax bill of $6323.62. Please note the reduction in total tax amount in 2014 for a piece of property that has not changed value, and the county has not touched the millage rate. Fuzzy math does the trick every time.
Unincorporated DeKalb 2011 tax bill:
http://taxcommissioner.dekalbcountyga.gov/TaxCommissioner/TaxBills/2011/1/1335850.pdf
Unincorporated DeKalb 2014 tax bill:
http://taxcommissioner.dekalbcountyga.gov/TaxCommissioner/TaxBills/2014/1/1335850.pdf
Brookhaven House in 2011 before incorporation tax bill:
http://taxcommissioner.dekalbcountyga.gov/TaxCommissioner/TaxBills/2011/4/4271295.pdf
Brookhaven House in 2014 after Incorporation tax bill:
http://taxcommissioner.dekalbcountyga.gov/TaxCommissioner/TaxBills/2014/4/4271295.pdf
Please note: The Unincorporated property did not rise in value from 2011 to 2014, yet the property tax bill decreased with no change in the tax rate from the County.
The Brookhaven property increased in value from 2011 to 2014 to a higher amount than the Unincorporated property(@$19,000.00 higher value with a @$70.00 higher tax bill than the lower valued UnIncorporated DeKalb home.
I dug around a bit more and found some more examples:
Please note: The city example is taken from Brookhaven, and even though they have duplicated services and infrastructure, their property tax bills do come under the same comparable property in DeKalb County. Even if you factor in things like Franchise Fees, the savings on the property tax bills offset any of these “new” charges you may see on service bills if you choose to incorporate into a new city. As a second note: I could not find two identical valued properties, so I found one in Unincorporated DeKalb that was valued @ $8600.00 less—just to be
safe. It is very difficult to find identical comparable properties with the same exemptions and identical values.
Both of the examples below carry the same exemptions.
Unincorporated DeKalb house at $279,700.00 valuation for 2014 with a $3757.50 total tax bill.
http://taxcommissioner.dekalbcountyga.gov/TaxCommissioner/TaxBills/2014/1/1246741.pdf
Incorporated(Brookhaven) house at $288,300.00 valuation for 2014 with a $3708.02 total Tax Bill.
http://taxcommissioner.dekalbcountyga.gov/TaxCommissioner/TaxBills/2014/1/1304105.pdf
The tax issue is one of the few things that can be proven with real data in the cityhood debate. It is suggested that you do your own research if you are curious, the County provides the tools for you to prove this to yourself…..although it may be time consuming.
I decided to go a bit further and look at even more expensive houses….
I went ahead and added in the $750,000+ couple of tax example houses. For those that want to ask some interesting questions: Look at the bottom line on these tax bills. Pay special attention to the Line Items on each example that say “Total Property Taxes” and “Total Tax Due”. Once again, I could not find two exact comparable examples as far as value goes, but the Brookhaven one is valued at a few thousand dollars more than the Unincorporated example and somehow still manages to slide into the less expensive column. I was actually expecting a larger difference, but I think because of the default exemption amount, the lower valued homes see a bigger spread of savings.
Unincorporated House in Oak Grove area: $766,200.00 Valuation. $10,427.42 total tax bill per year. Built in 2002. Tear Down House Originally.
http://taxcommissioner.dekalbcountyga.gov/TaxCommissioner/TaxBills/2014/1/1129583.pdf
Brookhaven Incorporated House: $770,000.00 Valuation. $10,327.86 total tax bill per year. Built in 2007. Tear Down House Originally.
http://taxcommissioner.dekalbcountyga.gov/TaxCommissioner/TaxBills/2014/1/1387710.pdf