GTCO-ATL Standing Up Against Cities in Central DeKalb

Three cities are vying for prime properties in Central DeKalb, but GTCO-ATL followers have been following the money and know exactly who is behind all of the competing groups:  big business.  The efforts to launch a city started with a group calling themselves "Lakeside" after a high school in Atlanta.  By encroaching on a nearby community's borders and dividing well known neighborhoods based on political lines and school zones, they made a lot of people angry.  That led the community of Tucker to file their own city bill.  Now they are facing off against another group, Briarcliff, and making a mockery of the poorly run system for city formation, once thought to be the wave of the future when nearby Sandy Springs pulled it off after 30 years of planning.

But, GTCO-ATL is following this story for another reason - the dark money that may be funding all three groups and, you guessed it, telecomm contributions to the studies that were required by the legislature.  The donations came in rather quickly and have not been disclosed to the public.  Oddly enough, a person claiming to be a Tmobile employee was selected as Tucker's financial advisor even though the county residents have been strongly opposed to the practices of Tmobile in the process of trying to place cell phone towers next to schools.  Sandy Springs was started by a number of people, but one of them is a former ATT executive, Oliver Porter.  Porter said that overlapping borders are a problem and will need to be resolved.  He also suggested having a team that includes anyone who wants to volunteer, but these new groups are not taking that advice.

Some say they are ignoring the will of the people, which was initially to be left alone.  It will be interesting to see if that message is clear to the elected officials that the games played by the telecoms are obvious to the residents who have been affected by their "divide and conquer" system.  If they believe there is a true desire for cities, they may approve a voter referendum for this May.  If not, the city advocates will be forced to go back to their "virtual" drawing boards.

KPLC 7 News, Lake Charles, Louisiana