The Buckhead neighborhood’s efforts to secede from Atlanta have cleared another hurdle, as the state Senate will convene to debate a pair of bills aimed at separating the suburb from the city during its upcoming special session.
“Bill sponsor Sen. Brandon Beach (R-Alpharetta), who has served in the state legislature’s upper chamber for ten years, told Breitbart News he has ‘never seen’ Buckhead cityhood gain so much traction before,” Breitbart reported.
The topic of an independent Buckhead has been discussed on and off for the past decade.
But with crime rates on the rise, the wealthy suburb formed the Buckhead City Committee to officially proceed.
“I’ve got Senate leadership behind it, and I’ve got a lot of really high-powered folks that are interested in making sure we get this thing moving forward,” Beach reportedly said.
The goal of the Buckhead City Committee is to get a deannexation measure on next year’s ballot. That would allow Buckhead’s residents to vote on becoming independent.
“We filed our divorce papers at the city of Atlanta, and our divorce is final,” Buckhead City Committee CEO Bill White told Fox News in mid-June.
“We’ll have our own court. We’ll have our own judge. We’ll have our own jail,” White said. “And we are going to put the smackdown on this crime once and for all here, because the people of Buckhead have had enough.”
White blamed Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) for crime spiraling out of control in the city. He said she has hamstrung the police department.
“They feel demoralized, underpaid, under-recognized,” he said. “They are being told basically not to fight crime in the way they would like to.”
Last month, Buckhead resident and 43-year-old father of three Andrew Worrell was shot twice while walking through his once-quiet neighborhood, which served as a lightning rod for the secession efforts.
White says he believes the effort to make Buckhead an independent city has about 80 percent support from residents.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Georgia Star News and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
