Buckhead Cityhood Leaders To Launch 'Anti-Voter Suppression Team'

Buckhead GA

26 January, 2022

4:55 PM

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ATLANTA, GA – The organization driving the move to make Buckhead a city will announce the launch of a so-called "Anti-Voter Suppression Team" to lobby for the bill pending under the Gold Dome. "This new rapid response team is stacked with real Buckhead voters and actual local business owners," Buckhead City Committee CEO Bill White said. "The mission of this diverse team of Buckhead City supporters is to engage with state lawmakers and urge them to pass legislation that puts Buckhead City on the ballot." In the summer of 2020, a grassroots movement citing an alarming rise in crime, particularly in Buckhead, started a "study group" that would become the Buckhead City Committee. The committee on Monday announced a political action committee at a fundraiser aiming to lobby legislative leverage for the bills currently pending to de-annex Buckhead and start a new city. In a statement released Wednesday, Buckhead City Committee leaders cited opposition groups "who are trying unsuccessfully to slow the meteoric rise of the Buckhead cityhood movement" as a cause for the new team. Opposition includes the Committee for a United Atlanta, which just released a new poll showing a majority of Buckhead voters don't want to leave Atlanta, the Buckhead Coalition, Atlanta Public Schools, the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Buckhead Community Improvement District, the Buckhead Business Association, state senators representing Buckhead, Atlanta's new Mayor Andre Dickens, and apparently Georgia Lt. Gov Geoff Duncan. When the legislative session opened earlier this month, Duncan effectively sidelined the Buckhead City billby assigning it to the anti-cityhood, Democratic-led State Senate Urban Affairs committee. The Buckhead City Committee will introduce its new team Thursday morning at 11 a.m. at a press event.