City of Cumming and Forsyth County officials will soon decide whether to stay with a regional group aimed at north Georgia or one more focused on metro Atlanta.
Forsyth County Commissioners and the Cumming City Council recently held a joint meeting at the Forsyth County Administration Building, where they heard from the Atlanta Regional Commission about what the organization offers compared to the Georgia Mountains Regional Commission, the group both municipalities are currently a part of.
“I don’t what you’ll get with us versus them, I’m just trying to explain some of the things that we do have,” said Doug Hooker, executive director of ARC. “I will say that we have had the fortune and the blessing of being a larger staff and larger portfolio. That’s true not only in Georgia. We’re actually fairly unique in the nation in that very few of our peers across the nation have the breadth that we have in terms of community support roles.”
Hooker said ARC offers services including aging and independent services, arts and creative placemaking, community development, leadership building, transportation, economic development and the homeland security coordinator for Gwinnett, DeKalb, Cobb, Fulton and Clayton counties, a federal designation.
Unsurprisingly, transportation is of particular interest to officials, and county commissioners said they had been previously told they could receive extra funds from the Georgia Department of Transportation if the county was part of ARC.
On the city side, a move to the ARC would also mean Mayor Troy Brumbalow would be eligible to join the Metro Atlanta Mayors’ Association.
ARC and GMRC are among a dozen regional commissions across the state.
ARC represents Henry, Cobb, Rockdale, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Douglas, Cherokee, Fulton and Fayette counties, municipalities in those counties and the city of Atlanta.
Hooker said there had previously been concerns the larger and more urban areas of the commission could receive more attention than suburban areas but said after a recent study “the study was clear that if anything, it’s quite the opposite.”
GMRC is made up of Forsyth, Dawson, Lumpkin, Union, Towns, White, Hall, Banks, Habersham, Rabun, Stephens, Franklin and Hart counties and their cities.
During discussions after the presentation, ARC officials said those who most often ask for services are the ones who receive them. City and county officials said they do not use many of the services of GMRC.
Brumbalow said Cumming has failed to qualify for some offerings.
“We’ve ran into looking at trying to fix some problem areas in the city, it’s like we don’t qualify. It’s not blighted enough. As long as somebody will pay the rent, then it's OK,” Brumbalow said. “It’s not OK with me, but that’s kind of where we are as a community. We could have a lot worse problems than we do.”
The process to change over would involve going through the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and gaining approval by the Georgia General Assembly and would likely take a few years.
No action was taken, and another joint meeting will be held to gather information from GMRC.