I grew up in Sandy Springs, used to ride my go kart on the perimeter (285) when they were just grading it. It only went from Chamblee Tucker to the river at first.<\/p>\n
Fulton County has a long history of looting the northside communities of exorbitant property taxes, which are promptly distributed to political supporters in other areas. A few weeks ago I was driving through North Fulton County on roads barely changed, if at all, from when I traveled them while I was in High School in the mid-60\u2019s. This despite the current population being orders of magnitude denser and the insane attendant 24\/7 traffic jams and 100\u2019s of square miles of near to $million dollar + homes. God only knows how much tax money has been looted from North Fulton to be distributed inside the perimeter. But it wasn\u2019t spent in the interests of those who paid it.<\/p>\n
I remember Fulton Commissioner \u201cQueen\u201d Emma Darnell using Fulton tax money to buy herself a bejeweled multi-thousand dollar Mont Blank pen because she had a \u201crare disorder\u201d that allowed her to write only using such an instrument. When unincorporated Fulton started to incorporate into cities to escape the taxation, \u201cQueen\u201d Emma famously announced that the northsiders should not be allowed to escape because the southsiders \u201cowned\u201d that tax base. That really happened.<\/p>\n
All the houses that I\u2019ve owned in the area were carefully selected to not be in Fulton county. I spent my last 20 years there in the East Cobb County area where the property taxes were 45% of what they would be in Fulton and with far better roads and amenities to boot. Newt Gingrich was my congressman.<\/p>\n
So this tax-confiscation-with-no-correlating-benefit war between relatively affluent and less affluent but more populous Atlanta areas has been going on for quite some time. Atlanta has been exporting money from Buckhead and importing crime almost forever. Lenox Square opened in 1959 as the 1st Mall in the southeast; it was an incredible success, for a while. It took less than 20 years for the Mall to turn into a battle zone of shoplifting and robberies.<\/p>\n
So I\u2019d say, \u201cLet\u2019s Go Buckhead!\u201d<\/p>\n
Jason M: You commuted from Buford to Sandy Springs for 13 years? I85 south to top end perimeter to Sandy Springs or reverse twice a day x 5 days+ per week for 13 years? Whew!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I grew up in Sandy Springs, used to ride my go kart on the perimeter (285) when they were just grading it. It only went<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1489,1730],"tags":[3332,1596,1731],"class_list":["post-16468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-contributors","category-guest-contributor-tomd","tag-atlanta","tag-guest-contributors","tag-tomd"],"yoast_head":"\n