What will the Beltline look like?
April 16, 2009 at 2:59 pm by Thomas Wheatley in NewsA lot of it depends on what you want to see.
As part of its environmental study, Beltline officials are soliciting public input as to how the 22-mile loop of parks, trails and transit should take shape. A full list of meeting dates and locations is available in this post.
Officials last week released 14 short videos that show examples of the options under consideration for the project’s parks, trails and transit components, among other thing. They’re all in the player embedded below. To view the different videos, press play and move your mouse icon to the left or right along the bottom of the screen.
UPDATE: After the jump, the Beltline “fly-through” video.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Thanks for posting the vids — very cool. The urban development geek within me would be thrilled with any of the options for the Beltline happening.
I wonder if it’s possible for there to be parts with rail and parts with just trails? Surely there’s some areas that would benefit more from one than the other.
Any of the possibilities would be an improvement. I’m eager to see the yakkity-yak portion of the process come to a close and the for the diggy, buildy part to begin.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
The farce of this exercise is that this BS was supposed to have been all determined prior to the fall 2005 decision by the City of Atlanta to create the BeltLine TAD and adopt the BeltLine Redevelopment Plan.
3 1/2 years later, they are still asking what the BeltLine should look like? Oh my!
How does the BeltLine look now? A big steaming pile of bold, visionary turd.
An emerald necklace? Not exactly.
A pearl necklace? Yes.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Are you the Woodham who tried to make sure that school tax dollars are only used for school purposes? What’s your problem with giving school tax dollars to successful real estate developers? Taking school money away from education will not make any difference. With Georgia’s schools usually ranked 49th in the country, they can’t get any worse!
And in any event, you’re dead wrong again. The BeltLine is not a turd. It is a sweet-smelling gravy train…as long as you’re a Friend of Shirley and a wealthy developer.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Yes Betty, I am “that” Woodham.
Wasn’t really me though.
It was those seven folks who wear black robes at Capital Square that decided to take school tax money away from developers and give it back to schools.
Don’t blame me.
Blame the State Constitution, as interpreted by that mysterious robe-wearing band of seven.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:10 am
The idea that we could know specifically how something as complex as the Beltline would look in its infancy in back 2005 is absurd.
The only turd here is John Woodham.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Frankly?
Is that you Mayor Franklin?
Your friends at ADA have called me much worse than that.
In fact, your City Council colleagues have called your friends at ADA and ABI much worse than that, especially on February 11, 2008.
When you get caught breaking the law, blame yourself and your legal advisors, not those who caught you.
Here is a reminder of how wrong your and your “team” were, Mayor.
FINAL COPY
283 Ga. 95
S07A1309, S07A1566. WOODHAM v. CITY of ATLANTA et al.
(two cases).
Thompson, Justice.
The State of Georgia instituted a bond validation proceeding under the Georgia Revenue Bond Law, OCGA § 36-82-60 et seq., to confirm and validate the issuance of City of Atlanta Tax Allocation Bonds to finance a project known as the Atlanta BeltLine Redevelopment Plan. The Atlanta Independent School
System (“school system”), the city of Atlanta, and Fulton County (appellees herein) were named as defendants in that action.
Appellant John F. Woodham, a resident of Fulton County and the city of Atlanta, intervened under OCGA § 36-82-77 (a) and filed objections. After a
series of hearings, the trial court validated the bonds and overruled Woodham’s objections, including a claim that the BeltLine Plan proposal violates Art. VIII, Sec. VI, Par. I of the 1983 Georgia Constitution, known as the Educational
Purpose Clause. Woodham appeals in Case No. S07A1309.
On the day prior to the initiation of the bond validation action, Woodham
preemptively filed a petition for declaratory judgment challenging the issuance
of the bonds. The trial court dismissed the declaratory action based on its determination that the bond validation petition was the exclusive forum for adjudication of Woodham’s claims. Woodham appeals that ruling in Case No.
S07A1566.
For the reasons that follow, we hold that certain proposed funding for the BeltLine Plan violates the Educational Purpose Clause; therefore, we reverse in
Case No. S07A1309. We further conclude that the trial court correctly dismissed the declaratory judgment action; therefore, we affirm in Case No.
S07A1566.
Case No. S07A1309
1. By ordinance, the city of Atlanta adopted the BeltLine Redevelopment Plan (“BeltLine Plan”), a 25-year project which “proposes to combine
greenspace, trails, transit, and new development along 22 miles of historic rail segments that encircle the urban core” of Atlanta. Redevelopment Plan, § 1.
The ordinance further created the BeltLine Redevelopment Area and Tax Allocation District Number Six — BeltLine (“TAD”), authorizing the pledge of
ad valorem tax allocation derived from that TAD for the payment of or as security for the payment of the tax allocation bonds. The school system, by resolution, agreed to participate in the BeltLine Plan by consenting to pledge a
portion of tax increments derived from the educational ad valorem property taxes levied and collected within the BeltLine TAD, subject to certain
conditions.
Woodham asserts that the proposed use of school taxes to fund the BeltLine Plan violates Art. VIII, Sec. VI, Par. I (a) and (b) of the 1983 Georgia
Constitution because it contemplates the expenditure of school taxes for noneducational
purposes. Art. VIII, Sec. VI, Par. I (a) requires the board of
education of each school system to certify annually to its fiscal authority a school tax not greater than 20 mills per dollar “for the support and maintenance of education.” In accordance with that provision, a tax is levied upon the
assessed value of all taxable property within the territory served by that school
system. Id. Under Art. VIII, Sec. VI, Par. I (b), the expenditure of school tax
funds is limited, as follows:
School tax funds shall be expended only for the support
and maintenance of public schools, public vocationaltechnical schools, public education, and activities
necessary or incidental thereto, including school lunch
purposes.
It is well settled that “[w]here a constitutional provision expressly provides that funds derived from taxes levied and collected may be used only for particular purposes, such funds cannot be utilized for or diverted to any other purpose.”
Wright v. Absalom, 224 Ga. 6, 8 (159 SE2d 413) (1968).
It is without dispute that the use of school tax revenue to fund the BeltLine TAD is not an explicit expenditure for educational purposes under Par. I (b); however, the question remains whether such funding is “necessary or incidental”
to public schools or public education under that subsection. “Although we have
held that this provision ‘vests broad powers in school districts to do those things properly determined to be necessary or incidental to public education, [cit.], this power must and does have its limits.” DeKalb County School Dist. v. DeKalb
County, 263 Ga. 879, 880 (1) (440 SE2d 185) (1994).
In DeKalb County School Dist., we determined that the expenditure of school tax funds for improvements to a county public road adjacent to a DeKalb
County school “would stray too far from the [school] District’s principal task of educating young people in favor of providing a benefit to all citizens that the County generally has the duty to provide.” Id. at 881 (1). As a result, we held that the expenditure of school taxes for the road improvements was not
necessary or incidental to public education and thus violated the Educational
Purpose Clause.
If the use of school revenue to improve a county road which
provided access to a school was held to be an impermissible expenditure, it follows that school taxes cannot be used to fund the BeltLine Plan which
provides a benefit to all citizens, and which has little, if any, nexus to the actual
operation of public schools in the city of Atlanta. Although appellees assert that
the BeltLine TAD will likely produce future revenue for the school system, such
potential benefit “will not suffice where the constitutional authorization for such
expenditure is lacking.” Wright, supra at 8.
Applying the principles of DeKalb County School Dist., supra, and Wright, supra, we hold that school tax funds levied and collected by the school system cannot constitutionally be applied to benefit the BeltLine project.
2. Because we hold that the proposed use of school tax funds under the BeltLine project violates Art. VIII, Sec. VI, Par. I of the Georgia Constitution, we do not address Woodham’s other enumerations of error directed to the
alleged illegal diversion of school tax funds for non-educational purposes. See
Fowler Properties v. Dowland, 282 Ga. 76 (2) (646 SE2d 197) (2007). Any remaining enumerations of error are rendered moot by our ruling herein.
Judgment reversed in Case
No. S07A1309. All the Justices concur.
Decided February 11, 2008.
School tax funds; constitutional question. Fulton Superior Court. Before Judge Lane.
John F. Woodham, pro se.
Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Frances C. Mulderig, Assistant
Attorney General, Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Hunton & Williams,
9
Matthew J. Calvert, Douglas P. Selby, Benjamin F. Johnson IV, Holland &
Knight, Joshua I. Bosin, Charles S. Johnson III, Sarah C. Leopold, Overtis H.
Brantley, Cozen O’Connor, Samuel S. Woodhouse III, Allan R. Ramsay, Robert
L. Martin, Kilpatrick Stockton, Earle R. Taylor III, for appellees.
Greenberg Traurig, Stephen G. Weizenecker, Riddle & Schwartz, Jeffrey
L. Riddle, Alston & Bird, Karol V. Mason, Patrick N. Millsaps, Decker,
Hallman, Barber & Briggs, Robert D. Feagin, Winburn, Lewis & Stolz, Irwin
W. Stolz, Jr., amici curiae.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:58 am
I agree with Frankly. This is clearly a personal issue for Woodham. I understand the purpose of a watchdog, but Woodham has gone overboard.
Get a life, dude!
April 17th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
No S. DeKalb Voter, it’s purely legal, but it’s also fun to agitate the Kool Aid drinkers from time to time.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Dude, you are seriously crazy. Is that legal victory your crowning achievement in life? You really need to get help.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
S. Dekalb Voter.
Greatest achievment in life?
Not quite. From a legal perspective, one of the most straightforward arguments one could ever have to make.
You constant use of the term “dude”?
Scary.
Prime example why I was/am trying to ensure school tax dollars are spent only for educational purposes.
May 14th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Thank you, Mr. Woodham, for pointing out a deficiency in our state’s constitution. We The People have responded to the mysterious dark-robed band of seven. We The People, in a referendum last fall, voted to support constitutional changes allowing for the implementation of TADs like the BeltLine’s.
Now, onward with the taxpayer-supported, taxpayer-approved, taxpayer-funded community redevelopment!
July 14th, 2009 at 12:59 am
What happened to little “Woody”, I guess the reality of loss set in. All that “old south” babble!
I just hope the transit for Atlanta get built. We cannot let all of the small minds keep hiding behind the law, and twisting it all up just long enough to keep progress from our city/ country!