Kevin Levitas, a former state represenative and organizer of two recent cityhood panels in Oak Grove, declined last week to tell a reporter whether he supported cityhood in the North Druid Hills-Briarcliff area.
The former District 82 representative was quoted in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story published Saturday about DeKalb County's image problem in the wake of recent county government and school system scandals.
From the story:
Some residents are doing more than complain. Home owners in north-central DeKalb, around the Oak Grove neighborhood, are talking about incorporating their own city. And a Dunwoody legislator is pushing to change the State Constitution to empower the city to create its own school system separate from the county.
Former legislator Kevin Levitas, an Oak Grove area resident, has held panel discussions on the pros and cons of incorporating.
“People are scratching their heads asking, ‘What is going on?’ ” said Levitas, who declined to say how he leans on incorporation. “There is a concern that money is being raised in one part of the county and not being spent there.”
Levitas organized two cityhood meetings – one in November and one earlier this month – on behalf, he said, of the Briarcliff Woods East Neighborhood Association. Both meetings were held in Oak Grove United Methodist Church. Levitas also created North DeKalb Cityhood Blog.
Levitas said both meetings were held only to provide local residents information on the cityhood process after media reports last year said Sagamore Hills and North Briarcliff residents were considering incorporation. (So far, no movement has materialized.) The first meeting included legislators who had been involved and supported the creation of other DeKalb cities. After some audience members complained that the speakers seemed to be promoting cityhood, Levitas organized a second meeting that would include speakers who could speak to the negatives of cityhood.
Here is Patch's coverage of those meetings: