The Stimulus Package
The city of Lilburn Georgia has announce an annexation strategy that will more than double the land mass of the city and basically double the residents of the city. The current approximately 6.5 square miles would increase to approximately 14.5 square miles and the population would grow from approximately 12,000 to approximately 24,000. I guess you could say this is City Government proposing its own stimulus package.
How Does It Happen?
The City of Lilburn is holding an informational meeting this Saturday, Jan 31 at 10 a.m. at Lilburn City Hall. This will also be discussed at the Monday, Feb. 9 at the 7:30 p.m. Lilburn City Council meeting. Legislation will be introduced in the Georgia General Assembly by the end of February 2009 and the effective date of the annexation will be December 1, 2009. Prior to the introduction of the legislation for annexation being introduced there is to be a public information meeting that will be held. The date and time of this meeting are yet to be determined.
Why is it Needed?
Let’s examine why the annexation is needed. Some of the best schools in the state are located in the Lilburn area of Gwinnett County. That’s probably not it. The Gwinnett County Parks were just named best in the nation. That’s probably not it. The public services would remain the same with the exception of police and Gwinnett County has one of the best police departments in the entire Atlanta area. That’s probably not it. Oh wait a minute this may be the reason, Lilburn want to build a new 30,000 + square foot city hall and they would like to have the additional tax revenue. Yep that’s it. That has to be it. Nothing else makes sense.
Join The Real World
With the current economic situation in this country, is this the right time to build an $8,500,000.00 building that probably is not needed? What are your thoughts? To contact your local representatives:
Your GA State House Representative is Clay Cox. clay.cox@house.ga.gov
Your GA State Senator is Don Balfour. don.balfour@senate.ga.gov
Your County Commissioner is Bert Nasuti. Bert.Nasuti@gwinnettcounty.com
Your County Board of Commissioners Chairman is Charles Bannister. Charles.Bannister@gwinnettcounty.com
Let your feelings be known. Don’t wait until after it’s done. Get involved now!
View the Annexation Area Map.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Why is this needed? If this is simply to raise $..the Lilburn City officials need to be more inventive instead of annexation! I did not vote for any of these people in office, yet I will now be forced into following their nonsense rules (i.e., No karaoke or Texas hold’em in restaurants?) and pay DOUBLE THE TAXES!! I don’t want to be part of Lilburn. The leadership of this town does not represent my interest. I went to the park in downtown Lilburn one time in 5 years and was asked to leave because my son and I were playing ball. Leave us alone!
Looks like a land grab to me. They will raise you taxes and still you will have to use gwinnett services. Why not just let the people vote…..
Here is an interesting article on the Lilburn Annexation topic from yesterdays AJC:
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2009/02/04/lilburn_annexation_plan.html
Just maybe Lilburn City Government is listening, it doesn’t mean they won’t try again but or now…
I will make a few calls to attempt to confirm the story but for now there is no reason to doubt it.
Here is the Gwinnett Daily Article:
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/main.asp?SectionID=6&SubSectionID=84&ArticleID=55866
what is the need of annexation? is it a voluntary annexation or is it gone be decided by referendum? is the municipal mill rate is higher than the Gwinnett county mill rate.? If the mill rate of lilburn city is higher than the County mill rate , does it not mean that my property tax will increase? there is a saying , “If it is not broken don’t fix it”. I am satisfied with the service and mill rate of the gwinnett county except the recent change in garbage and recycling issue.
I live in un incorporated Gwinnett and am perfectly content with the level of government as it now stands. Obviously, we who do not want to be part of Lilburn weren’t able to vote these stooges in.
Eddie Price is a real piece of work. He needs to mind his own business and keep his slum lord policies out of our business.
Eddie Price was caught claiming an illegal homestead exemption on rental property he owns in un incorporated Lilburn. This rental property was kept in his wife’s name hoping that it would fly under the radar. He’s now been billed for over $1,700 in back property taxes owned the county of Gwinnett.
http://by20ounds.blogspot.com/2009/02/tax-woes-for-lilburn-city-councilman.html
Price isn’t fit to hold office – he should resign. If he doesn’t understand the rules for homestead exemptions with his long history on Lilburn’s planning boards then what makes him fit to be responsible for setting property tax rates?
Mack,
The city is only putting off the residential annexation until next years legilative session.
According to the AJC article “As for the residential areas, Johnsa said a proposal to incorporate those areas could be pitched next legislative session.”
If you read the minutes of the February Downtown Development Authority the general consensus is the “size of the annexation” is a major factot in determining the size of the new city hall they want to build.
My take is the city council still wants to build the TEN MILLION dollar shelter and the excuse that the funds are available doesn’t add up. Even if there’s SPOLST money available and even if there’s money in savings, at some point it is reasonable to see where the city will try and replace the money spent from savings through more taxes.
The whole idea that recommending a much larger government in a down economy should serve as a lesson for voters to show up at the polls and turn all of these out.
I’m sick of all these politicians who think that getting elected entitles them to an ATM card for my bank account.