Election Issue Rears its Head at Milton City Council Meeting

Milton City Councilman Alan Tart called a city consultant to task Monday night over letting two words in a report become politicized in last week's municipal elections–an election that Tart and fellow incumbent Julie Zahner Bailey lost.

Not sustainable. That's how a few experts consulted in the city's Hwy. 9 Livable Communities Initiative (LCI) study described the city's 84 percent residential to 14 percent commercial property tax digest.

Do you think this issue cost incumbents their City Council seats in Milton's municipal election? Add your thoughts at the end of this story.

Eric Bosman of Urban Collage, who heads the LCI study, was invited to to answer questions. He said the word choice was insensitive, but it was important to note that Milton's numbers are far different than other cities.

"You are not Alpharetta, you are not Johns Creek, you are not Roswell. You are dealing with a different set of numbers," he said.

Both Lance Large and Matt Kunz, who defeated Tart and Zahner Bailey respectively, used the statement from that early presentation in the LCI study in their campaigns.

Tart asked for an explanation of why sweeping statements such as the citywide property tax ratios were being included on a study that dealt with this smaller section of the city.

Bosman said a market analysis needs to consider the surrounding area, particularly for commercial development, to find out from where the dollars are coming.

Tart renewed a complaint he's had that Urban Collage is applying a boilerplate template to the analysis of the city in the LCI study.

He also said staff should not have allowed that wording to be used either, and that staff didn't agree with the consultant's assessment of sustainability.

City Counciman Joe Longoria, who said he was present at the meeting in which Bosman passed along the "not sustainable" comment, said the statement didn't strike him as earth shattering or all that important.

"I don't think two words coming out of your mouth are going to change the course of our city," said Longoria.

Longoria told Bosman the council is paying for an expert opinion, "not something we want to hear." If the study turns up a red flag, it's his duty to pass that along.

City Council member Karen Thurman said when she was looking at the question of whether Milton was sustainable or feasible before it became a city, the comparison was to the level of service (or lack of service) that Fulton County was providing.

"We were sustainable at the level of service," she said.

The question now is what level of service residents want, and what they are willing to do to get that service.

Zahner Bailey said an increased level of service doesn't have to come in exchanging residential for commercial.

While  Tart called upon Bosman to answer questions about the direction of the study, Zahner Bailey added the specter of violation of state and local open records laws. Confidentiality was promised to a group of stakeholders interviewed by a marketing team helping with the study, and Zahner Bailey questioned how a publicly funded study could keep records secret.

City Attorney Ken Jarrard said he didn't know how that could be possible, and that the records would seem to meet the definition of open records because they were funded with state and local funds. Milton is responsible for 20 percent–$20,000–of the $100,000 study cost.

Bosman said the marketing team refused to break their promise of confidentiality.

The city through Urban Collage has been given the information and comments collected from those unidentified people. That's enough for Longoria, who said the city has all of the information, just not the names. "Who exactly it came from I think is immaterial."