Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 25, 2014
This article is reprinted from the AJC, January 25, 2014, addressing the issue of race and politics within the new cities in north Fulton and DeKalb Counties. A response to the AJC article from Oliver Porter follows.
New cities reignite debate over race
Updated: 10:01 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 25,
2014 | Posted: 12:00 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 25, 2014
BY JOHNNY
EDWARDS AND BILL TORPY - THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
Advocates
urging the Legislature to allow new cities in DeKalb County point to the
success of those recently created in bringing government closer to the people
and lowering taxes.
But one
impact of new cities in metro Atlanta has gone largely unspoken: all have led
to elected governments that are alost entirely white in counties where whites
are no longer a majority.
The
incorporation of new cities in metro Atlanta has had one impact that has gone
largely unspoken: all have led to elected governments that are almost entirely
white in counties where whites are no longer a majority.
Almost a
decade since Sandy Springs set the incorporation template, seven cities in
Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties have been created. Today, 45 of the 46
elected officials in those cities are white, the lone exception being a
Hispanic councilman in Johns Creek who steps down next week.
And in the
history of those cities, of the 66 people elected since their inception, just
one was black, a councilwoman, also in Johns Creek.
Almost no
one involved with the incorporations would say race is a factor in the cities’
creation. But the stark results give new ammunition to opponents’ claims that
the cities were a plan to erect new racial barriers and siphon revenue from
areas that have a limited tax base for public services.
Those left
behind in unincorporated Fulton and DeKalb have seen taxes rise as county
governments struggle to keep up services. And city governments lacking
diversity have been accused of trampling minorities’ rights in their quests to
demolish apartments.
It’s sparked
costly litigation for Dunwoody, which faces a federal lawsuit alleging it
violated the Fair Housing Act by trying to force more than 2,000
mostly-Hispanic residents out of two complexes so it can build a park.
Such
entanglements might be avoided if city councils had members tuned in to
minorities’ needs, said Jerry Gonzalez, head of the Georgia Association of
Latino Elected Officials.
“Having
communities isolated,” Gonzalez said, “doesn’t make sense in the country we’re
living in, and it doesn’t make sense in the Georgia we’re living in.”
This year,
residents in the proposed cities of Lakeside, Briarcliff and Tucker in
north-central DeKalb are wrangling before the Legislature to set their
boundaries. All would be largely white but with minority populations all in the
30-plus percent range.
Former state
legislator Kevin Levitas, a leader in the Lakeside city effort, said the
elective numbers in cities already created don’t indicate anything other than
“a reflection of the geography. Areas that are majority white, you have
majority Caucasian representatives. Areas that are majority black have majority
black representatives.
“When people
classify this as some kind of re-segregation or racism, I find that offensive;
that’s an enormous leap in logic,” he said.
He said
Lakeside would have a similar makeup to Briarcliff and would help DeKalb by
drawing more people and business into the city and, ultimately, the county.
“They’re
carving those cities out of black-controlled counties,” countered state Sen.
Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur), who during the 2012 debate about the creation of
Brookhaven called that city a “racially gerrymandered” entity.
“Is that a
surprise to anybody?” he added. “Numbers don’t lie. Look at who has been
elected. They’ve created white cities.”
Later in the
interview, Jones softened — a bit — on the race angle. “It’s more than
re-segregation. It has a little more class to it. They’re taking the nice communities
and leaving the have-nots.”
It’s been
decades since integration battles raged, but race still seeps into many facets
of life. Interviews with officials and active citizens in the new and proposed
cities bring forth a myriad of reasons why the numbers are what they are: Few
willing minority candidates, limited numbers of registered minority voters,
dispersed and transient minority populations.
But they are
largely united in their insistence that racial motivations are not high in the
minds of voters nor were they the reasons those cities were created.
“We’ve come
to a time and place where I don’t think the people of Brookhaven think race is
an important factor,” said Brookhaven Mayor Max Davis, who made his point
referencing a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. “Engaging in race counting is
focusing on the color of their skin, not on the content of their character.
It’s old thinking. I’m the mayor of a new city.”
Michael
Kang, an Emory University law professor who studies election law, said race is
no longer a simple issue to calculate.
“Clearly,
race is intertwined with politics,” he said. “Race, party and ideology all link
up together here. It’s not surprising.”
Running
and losing
Rusty Paul,
who is Sandy Springs’ second mayor and came to office this month, said the lack
of minority success in elections in the new cities, particularly his, is not
for a lack of trying. In Sandy Springs’s first election in 2005, Paul was
campaign manager for Oz Hill, a retired Army officer who is black and came
close to winning in a runoff.
“We’ve
reached out to minority candidates but you can’t elect people who aren’t on the
ballot,” said Paul, whose city’s population is about 20 percent black and
roughly 40 percent minority. “In the last election, we ended up with seven
white guys. That’s why it’s even more important we reflect the diversity of our
city in our opportunities.”
Paul said he
is seeking “racial and gender diversity” in the four city court judges who will
be appointed and for local committees and boards. Getting more minorities
involved, he said, ultimately brings more diverse candidates.
Hill said he
did not notice a racial component in his campaign, saying he got 46 percent in
the runoff and then served on the zoning board. “If you got in front of people
and articulated your platform, then you have a shot,” Hill said.
Minority
candidates have also run and lost races for seats in the new more rural cities
at the south and north ends of Fulton, Chattahoochee Hills and Milton,
respectively. Milton is about 9 percent black and three quarters white. Mayor
Joe Lockwood said the statistics on the new cities’ councils were eye opening.
“The good
news about that is, I’ve never thought about that,” Lockwood said. “I don’t
think about black or white.”
Don
Broussard, who is working to incorporate the city of Briarcliff, north of
Decatur, was surprised at the totals. “Those numbers are pretty daunting,” he
said. “I don’t want to say damning.”
He said
Briarcliff would be one-third minority and there is an effort to carve out
eight elective districts to create a majority minority district near Scottdale.
He rejects the notion that race is a major factor in cityhood.
“Most whites
moved to DeKalb County knowing it was a majority black county,” he said. But,
he said, a factor fueling the cityhood movement is “many black officials have
tilted toward (mainly serving) their communities.”
Also,
corruption cases in DeKalb’s school and county leadership has fanned the
incorporation flames. “Serial felony indictments is not a governing strategy,”
he said.
Bob
Lundsten, a Dunwoody resident and blogger who works for DeKalb County’s sole
Republican commissioner, Elaine Boyer, chuckled when hearing the elective
totals, saying “Forgive me if I don’t sound shocked.”
He said the
Dunwoody Homeowners Association, a leader in the movement, is almost all white.
“There’s an easy trap when creating a city (to say) ‘We want people to look
like us,’ I honest to God don’t think it’s a conscious decision. The people who
founded these cities are arrogant, rich white guys. That’s who they know.”
Dunwoody’s
population is about a third minority, many who live in apartments. “Minorities
historically aren’t voting in these cities,” Lundsten said. “The apartment
folks don’t (care) about Dunwoody or whatever. They live near the interstate
and are not politically active.”
Against
the grain
The only
exceptions to the rule of these cities’ elections have been in Johns Creek,
whose population is both upwardly mobile and 40 percent minority, with almost a
quarter of the residents Asian. In 2006, in the city’s first election, voters
chose Karen Richardson, who is black, and Ivan Figueroa, who is of Puerto Rican
descent.
Richardson
lost her seat in a runoff last year, and Figueroa is stepping down later this
month to move to St. Simons.
Figueroa is
one of about eight Hispanic elected officials statewide. He’s tried to recruit
more minorities to run in Johns Creek, but said not everyone can muster what it
takes to run a successful campaign, such as a political war chest and support
of family and their employer. He said he never felt out of place about being a
minority on the City Council, or in north Fulton in general. The cityhood
movement wasn’t racially motivated, he said, even if the makeup of the seven
new cities’ councils might seem that way.
“I
understand the perspective,” he said. “I don’t know that I would necessarily
agree with it.”
Richardson
disagrees. “I don’t think race played a large part in my election (loss), but
there were undertones,” she said. “People like to vote for people who look like
themselves.”
She said her
support of an investigation of Mayor Mike Bodker concerning
conflict-of-interest allegations hurt her campaign. But she said a flier went
out in the election calling her out as a Democrat (she said she has voted for
all parties and has been a Libertarian) and then a telephone poll asking
residents about her campaign questioned voters what race they were.
“That’s
racial politics at its worst,” she said. “It plants a seed that there are
differences in people that they weren’t necessarily thinking about.”
Richardson
was an early supporter of Johns Creek incorporation but said the crowds coming
to meetings have increasingly been more “visceral” and partisan, tying local
government to national issues.
“I think
it’s disingenuous that people want to ignore the conversation around race and
politics,” she said. The incorporations were “not purely about taxes. There is
racial politics. You can’t get around that. I have to be honest.”
An effort is
brewing to form yet another city that would buck the trend, with a
majority-black governing body. Unincorporated south Fulton County, which is
about 80 percent black, overwhelmingly rejected cityhood in 2007 and has since
missed out on millions of dollars in sales tax proceeds.
State Rep.
Roger Bruce, D-Atlanta, who lives there, is pushing for another vote in May. If
successful, the City of South Fulton would elect its leaders in November.
South Fulton
County Commissioner Bill Edwards opposed cityhood in 2007, but said he isn’t
taking a position this time. One reason the last measure failed, he said, was
that black voters aren’t as eager to shed black leaders.
“If you want
to get away from a majority-black government, you’ll cut your throat to do it,”
Edwards said. “They didn’t have that problem down here. They thought the county
was working well for them.”
The
incorporation of Sandy Springs in North Fulton County as a municipality in 2005
unleashed a wave of votes, resulting in the following cities.
Johns Creek,
created in 2006, North Fulton County
Milton,
created in 2006, North Fulton County
Chattahoochee
Hills, created in 2007, South Fulton County
Dunwoody,
created in 2008, North DeKalb County
Peachtree
Corners, created in 2012, Gwinnett County
Brookhaven,
created in 2012, North-Central DeKalb County
Response to Article by Oliver Porter
Race isn't a
factor in new cities movement
Shame on The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Your
article, "New Cities Ignite Debate About Race" (Jan. 27), is
race-baiting at its worst. The article does
not question the actions or results of elected officials, only their race. By your standard, the importance of bringing
government close to the people and having fair elections does not matter. It is only about Race! Get off of it.
I served for
years on the committee seeking to incorporate Sandy Springs, and served as the
volunteer interim city manager and as chairman of the governor's
commission. i can attest that race was
never the issue. The issue was better
government, closer to the citizens. For
Johns Creek, Milton, Chattahoochee Hills and Dunwoody, I served as the
principle adviser, and race was not an issue.
the key issues were gaining local control of our zoning, and public
safety. Currently, I have been advising
the leadership of the effort to incorporate Stonecrest, a predominately black
community. Their issues are the same.
The AJC opposed the formation of the new cities from
the beginning and appears still anxious to do a hatchet job on them.
Oliver Porter is a Sandy Springs resident and expert on the formation of new cities, who has been a critical consultant to Sandy Springs, Dunwoody and other new cities at their early formation. He is the author of the book Creating the New City of Sandy Springs: The 21st Century Paradigm. The website for his firm, PPP Associates, LLC, can be found here. PPP stands for Public Private Partnership.
In his response, "Race isn't a factor in new cities movement," Mr. Porter accuses the AJC of "race-baiting." I disagree. Perhaps it is human nature, but too often – across the political and racial spectra – we seem quick to call foul and claim media bias when objective news reporting does not tilt in favor of our own views. Race relations, much improved in the six decades of my life, remains an issue that merits a great deal more open and honest discussion than it receives. The January 25 AJC article, "New cities reignite debate over race", offers a balanced look at the issue of race – and clearly many are concerned with whether race is a factor in the new cities movement. Given the history of our great nation and the state of Georgia, such concerns cannot be unexpected or ignored. As one whose life experiences have produced no dearth of views on race relations, I continue to value the crucial role of dialogue in our moving forward as a society – as surely we must. That said, I thank both the AJC and Mr. Porter for their respective contributions to stimulating open and honest dialogue on the issue.
ReplyDeleteJB Brown
Briarcliff-Lakeside-Tucker Area, DeKalb County