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COMMUNITY
PHOTOS BY JOE EARLE
Dunwoody Charter Commission members, left to right, Mallard Holliday,
Rick Otness, Beverly Wingate, Robert Wittenstein and chairman Max
Lehmann on July 31 debate a change to the city’s founding document.
Charter Commission still hoping
to fund city fire department
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
a reduction in the fire tax for homeown
ers that would mimic the Homestead
Option Sales Tax offset provided by the
county. The commissioners said the re
duction should be based on an average
of the five years of HOST percentage re
ductions prior to the start of the city de
partment.
Some city officials have proposed
joining other north DeKalb cities to cre
ate a multi-city fire department. They
argue the cities can provide better fire
services for about the same money spent
by DeKalb. City officials say the city al
ready has the power to offer fire services.
Previously, the commission had pro
posed allowing the county’s fire tax col
lections to go directly into general city
coffers, a move some residents have criti
cized as allowing the city council to raise
taxes above the charter’s millage cap,
which prohibits the city from imposing
more than 3.04 mills in taxes without a
public vote.
Opponents have packed charter
commission meetings to argue in favor
of requiring a referendum rather than a
charter amendment to allow the city to
collect the fire millage.
“Do not take away my voting rights
on ad valorem taxes,” resident Merry
Carmichael told the commissioners on
July 31.
Ed Palmer said the commission’s pro
posal would “give [the council] authori
ty that only should be rested in the peo
ple they represent.”
But charter commission members
said the new plan would not raise tax
es. It would transfer the millage from the
county to the city, and the fire tax would
show up as a separate line item on a
homeowner’s tax bill, just as it does
now.
“I think this is still problemat
ic, but it’s better than what we did
before,” Commissioner Rick Ot
ness said before joining commission
chairman Max Lehmann in voting
against the plan. “I think when we
formed the city, there was a compact
made that the millage would not be
more than 3.04 mills. This was an
end-around.”
But Commissioner Bev Wingate
said that because the city contracts
with DeKalb for fire services, it al
ready is, in effect, collecting indirect
ly for fire services. “We are already
charging our citizens,” she said.
Wingate and Commissioners
Robert Wittenstein and Mallard
Holliday voted to approve the new
plan.
“When we started the city, it was
about taking local control,” Holliday
said. “For me, there’s not a tax in
crease [in the fire services proposal].
... To me, this aligns with having lo
cal control.”
Merry Carmichael reads a
statement to the commissioners
during the July 31 meeting.
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