​New Buckhead Cityhood Bills Attempted Ahead Of Crossover Day

ATLANTA, GA – Amid the run-up to Crossover Day traffic Tuesday under the Gold Dome a pair of bills set around a divisive issue long thought dead for this session briefly reared their heads.

With one bill, a pro-Buckhead cityhood lawmaker from outside Atlanta tried to make an incremental change to a major sticking point in the proposal to split off the city’s most affluent precinct – schools. The second piece of legislation sought to do what its predecessor could not – charter a City of Buckhead.

On Friday, Cornelia Republican and Senate Rules Committee Chair Jeff Mullis filed SB 617 and SB 618 with little fanfare seeking to amend the law limiting Atlanta Public School’s jurisdiction to the City of Atlanta, and establishing all of the legal frameworks for a new city.

SB 617 proposed an amendment that would change the APS boundaries to “provide educational services to both the City of Atlanta and the City of Buckhead City,” the bill reads. SB 618 mimicked the language of SB 324, which was scuttled to the Democrat-led Senate Urban Affairs committee to die.

State Rep. Betsy Holland (D-Atlanta), whose54th district includes part of Buckhead, told Patch that the two new bills met similar fates in the Urban Affairs committee.

“I don't think it's likely that Sen. (Lester) Jackson who chairs that committee will support movement on those bills,” Holland said. “Secondly, there's just no time for these bills to advance - today is Crossover Day, and there's just no real opportunity for those bills to pass out of committee for a vote today, especially since Lt. Governor (Geoff) Duncan has previously made known that he has no interest in calling a Buckhead City bill for a vote this session.”

After Duncan declined to call for a vote on Buckhead, House Speaker David Ralston soon followed suit, killing the existing bills for cityhood.

Mullis did not return requests for comment.

But Bill White, the bombastic leader of the Buckhead city movement, demanded that Gov. Brian Kemp take the nuclear option reverse Duncan’s decision.

“Duncan is dishonoring his oath of office to protect us,” White said, citing unflattering Atlatna Police crime records for Buckhead. “We call upon Gov. Kemp, Sen. Butch Miller, and Majority Leader Mike Dugan to step in, remove Geoff Duncan of his powers and give Buckhead City its right to vote this year just as they have for four other cities in Cobb County.”

Holland said she suspects the two latest bills were efforts to plant seeds for future cityhood campaigns.

“All I can imagine is that this lays groundwork for another attempt to de-annex Buckhead in 2023 or creates language for potentially stripping or amending a bill before Sine Die,” she said. “But, again, given the opposition from leadership in the Senate, the latter seems like a long shot.”