Politics & Government

State Reps at Sandy Springs Town Hall Pt. 2: Milton County

State Reps. Edward Lindsey, Wendall Willard and Joe Wilkinson were at the meeting hosted by City Council member Karen Meinzen McEnerny at Holy Spirit Preparatory School.

The Three State Representatives at Tuesday’s town hall meeting agree with many Sandy Springs residents - Fulton County is broken.

They don’t completely agree on a possible Milton County as a solution.

“I agree with the complaints that I’ve heard in terms of waste and abuse in Fulton County,” said State Rep. Edward Lindsey. “I don’t believe that Buckhead [90 percent of his district] should be left behind holding the bill.”

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Linsdey, Reps. Wendall Willard and Joe Wilkinson were at the meeting hosted by City Council member Karen Meinzen McEnerny at Holy Spirit Preparatory School.

Instead of Milton County, Lindsey is pushing a bill in the General Assembly that would institute reforms in Fulton County and limit its powers to activities mandated by the state, such as the courthouse, sheriff’s department, etc. 

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“All other services that they do by discretion, they have to turn those over to the local government. Let Sandy Springs decide, for instance, whether or not they want to support the arts,” he said.

Fulton County is so dysfunctional, Willard said, that such solutions would be temporary “band-aids” and the county commissioners would find loopholes.

Willard, who is also attorney for the City of Sandy Springs, said the by the Georgia Black Legislative Caucus, in March, that seeks to dissolve the charters of Sandy Springs and several northern cities, was a frivolous preemptive strike against the formation of Milton County. 

Milton County requires a constitutional amendment and two-thirds votes in both the House and Senate to be on the ballot, Willard said.

“We’ll keep pursuing that. Those of us that represent the county north of Atlanta are 100 percent supportive of that change,” he said.

At about 20 votes shy, Wilkinson believes the amendment will eventually pass, but emphasized that Georgia has 159 counties.

“A lot of other counties are asking what happens if we go forward with this,” Wilkinson said.

A reader posted a comment to the saying that Sandy Springs residents are “begging to be relieved of the tyranny of Fulton County and wanting to form Milton [County].  

Where do you stand on the issue?


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