Now, onward with the taxpayer-supported, taxpayer-approved, taxpayer-funded community redevelopment!

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.

Get a life, dude!

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.

The only turd here is John 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.

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.