Cobb Bond Decision

The Cobb Superior Court decision in favor of the Braves Stadium Bonds suggests that under Georgia law, municipalities can borrow and spend whatever they want without voter approval.  Government shouldn’t be in the recreation business.

Georgia law caps municipal debt to 10% of the value of all property on their tax registry.  This is the first Georgia Law that needs to be reined in to make sense.  It should limit municipal borrowing to 100% of the municipality’s assets and not be leveraged to include citizen’s assets as it currently does.  Borrowing should include all bond sales and bank loans.

The next Georgia law that needs to be revisited is to ensure that any municipal borrowing, bond sales and tax holidays require voter approval.

Development, Redevelopment and CID powers should be reviewed to ensure that expenses, debt and losses from failed projects do not flow back to taxpayers.

The use of costly bond sales by government entities should be discouraged in favor of accrual accounts, there government entities would be expected to budget in advance for large expenditures. Government must be given incentives to drive down the cost of their services.  They are all paying crony vendors double what they should.  Government shouldn’t be in any business that can be done by the private sector without government subsidies. 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader