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Opinion Talk

Bring back Milton County?

9:58 am March 3, 2009, by AJC Opinion

Advocates for re-creating Milton County in the suburbs north of Atlanta are celebrating their first legislative victory. Recently, the House State Planning and Community Affairs Committee’s voted to pass House Resolution 21. For the previous two years, the bill, which would authorize a statewide vote on the issue, remained bottled up in committee without a vote.

Many steps remain. Georgia’s Constitution allows for only 159 counties, so to create Milton, the constitution would have to be amended through HR21. That would take a two-thirds vote by both the House and Senate. Then, it would be up to voters statewide in November 2010. If the idea passes those hurdles, the General Assembly would still have to come back and write legislation dividing up Fulton and get voters of the proposed new county to approve it.

In an opinion column for the AJC, Rep. Mark Burkhalter (R-Johns Creek) argues for the new county (read his column). John H. Eaves, chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, argues against it (read his column).

What do you think? Should Fulton County be divided into Fulton and Milton counties?

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6 comments Add your comment

Sammie Brown

March 3rd, 2009
10:48 am

It is about time that we bring back Old Milton – I support this totally!

Jeremy

March 3rd, 2009
11:07 am

I think the last thing this dysfunctional region needs is another government to fight a cohesive approach to growth and transportation. The Atlanta Region has 22 counties, 157 cities, and at least 4 (as many as 6 depending on how you count it) agencies that supposedly work to coordinate transportation plans. Is it any wonder that we get very little done? I would advocate for the Fulton-Atlanta merger, as well as a MARTA, GDOT, SRTA, CCT, and GCT merger. Make Cobb pay into MARTA, and any other county that uses the system without paying for it. The recent Beltline – GDOT right of way conflict is a perfect example of how ineffective our splintered system is. More splintering can’t be helpful. I think we should focus on improving what we have rather that resorting to factions.

Ben

March 3rd, 2009
12:49 pm

Commenter Jeremy ignores the context of this situation. All the money to pay for all that wonderful stuff you like comes from north Fulton, and most of it goes elsewhere. And the north Fulton people, quite understandably, want their tax dollars to be spent in their area. If you live in north Fulton, just about the only reason to head to south Fulton is to go to the airport. Local governments should govern the people in their area, yet north Fulton folks are at the mercy of people who live as much as 100 miles away. That kills the concept of local government. Why not just get rid of counties and let the state make all decisions?

Dan Foster

March 3rd, 2009
12:58 pm

Absolutely NOT!! This is clearly an attempt to segregate Fulton County along political lines.

Erik

March 3rd, 2009
1:31 pm

I think the state already has an over abundance of counties. Instead of creating a new county why don’t they just split up the cities into existing counties. Like Roswell/Mountain Park to Cobb, Milton to Cherokee, Alpharetta/John’s Creek to Forsyth/Gwinnett etc. If you want to keep going you can do the same in South Fulton diving it between Carroll, Douglas, Fayette, and Coweta counties. That would leave a compact Fulton County that consists of Atlanta, Sandy Springs, East Point, College Park, and Hapeville and you could just consolidate the Fulton County Commision with Atlanta City Council. You could have a relationship between the cities similair to Jacksonville and the Jacksonville Beach cities in Duval County in Florida.

Citizen of the World

March 4th, 2009
2:02 pm

Georgia has more counties than any other state in the union besides Texas, and Texas is huge!

We are fractured enough as it is, especially in the metro area, where we share the same issues but are seldom able to come together to find and implement a solution due to power struggles and territorialism.

If anything, we should be further consolidating Georgia’s counties, eliminate some of these Barney-fiefdoms and start realizing some economies of scale.