Who's Leading Mediation Between the County and Cities?

MARIETTA — After about nine hours of mediation Wednesday, Cobb County and six of its cities resumed negotiating a Service Delivery Strategy agreement Thursday morning at the Hilton Hotel in Marietta.

The county and cities are at odds over their SDS (or 489) agreement, which outlines what services the county and the cities provide to their respective residents in order to avoid “double taxation” of citizens.

According to a presentation given Wednesday by Ken Jarrard, the attorney representing the county in the mediation, the cities said the current tax inequity is $31,239,954. The county found that number to be negative $3,550,955.

“In plain speech that means that (the cities) maintain that there is $31 million of payment that they shouldn’t have to pay,” he said. “Whereas, according to the county’s SDS report, it’s actually a swing the other way … meaning the county’s unincorporated (citizens) are subsidizing county wide services. ... We have some work to do today.”

This is the first time the county and the cities have had to enter formal mediation over SDS agreements, which must be made every 10 years.

The first agreement in 2004 had the county paying the cities $2.5 million each year, and the second agreement made in 2014 had the county paying the cities $5 million each year, according to Acworth Mayor Tommy Allegood.

How mediation works

Cobb Superior Court Senior Judge Grant Brantley is the mediator. His job is to float between the private conference rooms of the county and the cities, facilitating discussion between Jarrard and Andrew Welch, the lawyer representing the cities.

The county and the cities each have “decision makers” in the conference room, along with their legal representation.

It is their job to try and come to a tentative agreement, which will not be ready for submission to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs until all six city councils and the Board of Commissioners publicly vote to approve it.

Who are the decision makers?

In the county’s court, the entire Cobb Board of Commissioners — Lisa Cupid, Monique Sheffield, Jerica Richardson, Keli Gambrill and JoAnn Birrell — are in on discussions.

County Manager Jackie McMorris, Chief Financial Officer Bill Volckmann and Communications Director Ross Cavitt are also in the room, along with several lawyers on the county’s payroll.

In the cities’ room, it’s all six mayors, the five city managers (Austell has no city manager) and all city attorneys, as well as several consultants.

For Marietta, that’s Mayor Steve Tumlin, City Manager Bill Bruton and Assistant City Manager Daniel Cummings. Austell has Mayor Ollie Clemons and city attorney Scott Kimbrough. Acworth has tapped Mayor Tommy Allegood, Alderman Tim Houston and City Manager James Albright.

Powder Springs has Mayor Al Thurman and City Manager Pam Conner. Kennesaw brought Mayor Derek Easterling and City Manager Jeff Drobney and representing the Jonquil City is Smyrna Mayor Derek Norton and Smyrna City Administrator Joe Bennett.

Attorneys in the cities’ room include Doug Haynie and Daniel White, who represent Marietta and Acworth, Scott Cochran who is with the city of Smyrna and Julie Livingston who represents Powder Springs.

Since Cobb’s newest city is still in its transitional phase, Mableton city attorney Emilia Walker-Ashby, City Manager Bill Tanks and Mayor Michael Owens are not able to enter the closed-door discussions.

Mableton will need to be incorporated into the SDS agreement by the end of its transitional phase in June 2025.

Deal or no deal

State law requires Cobb to have an SDS agreement approved by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs by Oct. 31. According to the DCA’s website, it takes between 60 to 90 days to review and approve SDS agreements, making Cobb’s real deadline to reach an agreement Sept. 1.

If no deal is reached, all parties risk state sanctions which would prevent them from being able to receive state grants and permits for things like road improvements, water and sewer systems, community development projects and even police radars.

All state and federal funding for public safety, housing, parks and recreation, code and zoning enforcement, infrastructure and transportation, water and sewer service would be cut off.

“These sanctions are automatic. The law says that they start the next day (after a failed deadline),” Welch said.

The county has pointed out that a judge could issue an order holding state sanctions, as has been done in Fulton County for several years. But, Welch said, this is not something the cities would support.

The county could also elect to create special service districts in lieu of an agreement, which would carve out the cities and use unincorporated residents’ property taxes, insurance premium taxes, assessments or user fees levied on unincorporated citizens to fund services provided to those residents.

Welch warned that by his team’s calculations, this would bring a net tax increase of two mills to the county’s unincorporated residents.

Mediation was scheduled to end at 5 p.m. Thursday. On Wednesday, the decision makers mediated until about 8 p.m., indicating discussions could extend into Thursday evening.

As of 5:45 p.m. Thursday, the parties were still in mediation.

If no agreement is reached, Brantley will make a written report that details the failures of the mediation, which will be made public.