The South Fulton City Council on Tuesday night unanimously approved a financing plan to build two public safety facilities without raising or eliminating the city’s millage rate cap.
City officials credited residents for pushing them to find a solution for financing the $55.8 million police headquarters and the $58 million fire headquarters without raising or removing the cap. Some residents feared the action — recommended by the city’s financial adviser — would have paved the way for eventual tax hikes.
“This time we stopped and listened, and we let the people lead,” said Mayor khalid “Kobi” kamau (who lowercases the spelling of his name) at the council meeting. “I want to thank the citizens of South Fulton for imagining what we could not imagine. There is not a person up on this dais, myself included, that thought we could get this money without eliminating the cap or raising the cap.
“Thank you for pushing us to this most equitable, cost-effective and efficient solution,” kamau added.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
The financing plan involves the city paying $20 million from its reserves and issuing bonds to secure $96.29 million at an annual interest rate of 4.25%.
City officials said last week they were only considering raising or removing the millage rate cap because doing so would help the city get a better interest rate. They emphasized that they had no intention of raising taxes.
The city’s financial adviser had said the 4.25% interest rate was contingent on the city eliminating its millage rate cap or raising it to 18 mills from the current rate of 12.399. The current cap is 13.469.
Then last week, about 150 people attended a public forum to discuss the plan with city officials, with several of them saying they only supported the new facilities if the cap remained in place.
City Manager Sharon Subadan said the public outcry prompted her to ask the financial adviser, Ed Wall, to “go back to the bank one last time” to negotiate.
It worked.
“We were able to get the same terms and the same low interest rate underneath your millage rate cap,” Wall told council members at an earlier meeting on Tuesday.
Credit: City of South Fulton
Credit: City of South Fulton
District 4 council member Jaceey Sebastian called the effort to renegotiate the financing agreement “a Hail Mary that worked.”
“Some people may say, ‘Why didn’t you just do that in the first place?’” Subadan said. “Well, it’s easy to Monday morning quarterback.”
Mike Johnson is one of the South Fulton property owners who had pushed city officials to find a way to finance the facilities without raising the cap. Johnson said Wednesday he is glad the city ultimately found a way to keep the cap in place, but added, “They could have got here without all the pressure.”
“At the meeting last night, they stated that it was not easy to get there,” Johnson said in an interview. “But I personally believe if they had tried harder in the beginning — without raising the millage rate or removing the cap — I believe they could have got here.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
District 3 council member Helen Willis acknowledged city leadership could have done a better job rolling out their plans to finance the buildings.
“I will, as your leader, one of your leaders, take responsibility because I do think there should have been a better marketing and public relations plan around this,” she said at Tuesday’s meeting. “We all bear responsibility in that.”
“For me,” she added, “the most important thing is our public safety officers are going to get the proper working conditions and the adequate equipment they need to do their jobs.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
The 75,000-square-foot police headquarters would sit on 9 acres at Old National Highway and Jonesboro Road, and include an indoor pistol range, a real-time crime center and an upgraded detention area, officials said.
The other facility, in the 3000 block of Cascade Palmetto Highway, is an administrative fire headquarters and training center for police and firefighters. The 50,000-square-foot headquarters on 51 acres also would house a 911 center, a specialized vehicle extraction training area, an auditorium and an emergency vehicle training course.
Credit: City of South Fulton
Credit: City of South Fulton
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