Secrecy shrouds Cobb’s parkland plan

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday, May 3, 2009, by Jeremy Redmon and Mary Lou Pickel, AJC staff writers.

Cobb County officials won’t disclose the locations of 277 properties they are eyeing for parkland, and a county committee says it will meet behind closed doors to decide which ones should be purchased with taxpayer money.

The secrecy is necessary, say county officials, to prevent land speculators from driving up prices as they prepare to spend $40 million in proceeds from a bond issue voters approved last year. Many other local governments in Georgia and other states operate similarly, citing the same concern.

Critics, however, don’t buy the county’s argument now, particularly amid a recession that is socking property values. They say publicizing the locations of the properties could encourage owners to make their prices more competitive.

“I’m not sure if I really understand all of the secrecy around this,” said Jeff Wood, who serves on the 15-member committee county commissioners appointed to evaluate the properties. “I just happen to think that it is may be a little bit shortsighted because there is so much competition for the $40 million.”

The county rejected an April 22 request from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for the list of 347 properties the public nominated for purchase. In doing so, it cited an exemption in Georgia’s Open Records Act that allows governments to withhold records related to real estate transactions “until such time as the property has been acquired” or the transaction has been abandoned.

The county’s secrecy is not new. Cobb also kept things under wraps while buying parkland with proceeds from a bond issue voters approved in 2006.

Asked about the secrecy, Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens said he is deferring to the county attorney’s office, which has recommended against releasing the information. Olens said he also doesn’t want to interfere with the work of Wood’s committee.

Olens, however, said he would direct the county to disclose the locations of the properties the committee ultimately recommends, as he did after the 2006 parks bond issue. County commissioners, Olens added, will vote on purchasing the parkland in public after giving residents an opportunity to comment.

“I can clearly see both sides of the argument,” Olens said about disclosing the locations of the properties.

Cobb isn’t keeping everything secret. Bob Ash, the county’s public services director, said the properties are from all over the county, though most are in western Cobb. They range in size from a fraction of an acre to 150 acres, Ash said.

The county solicited nominations through the news media, county water bills and newsletters. Anybody was allowed to nominate a property, even if they did not own it. Cobb officials have said they would seek to buy land only from willing sellers, so they reached out to the owners of the nominated properties. For 70 properties, the county either got no response or the owners said they were not interested in selling. So those properties were taken off the list.

Some of the property owners described their land during a public hearing April 21. Barry Allen, for example, promoted the 4.5 acres he said he owns at 5570 Old Stilesboro Road in Acworth. He said it is relatively isolated, includes a pond and is adjacent to the entrance of an existing park.

“My property is pastoral,” he told the committee. “It has some trees, a house, an outbuilding, a barn and a pool.”

Committee members, meanwhile, say they will consider 10 factors in recommending which properties the county should purchase. Price is not on the list. At the top of the list, however, is whether a given property is in an “underserved area.” That factor will weigh the most — 14.87 percent on a 100 percent scale. The county defines it simply as property “located in an area in need of additional public parks.” Cobb officials say they have not devised a quantifiable way to measure that criterion, but officials say they could look at population statistics and distances to existing parks.

The committee ranked the rest of the criteria in this order: parcel sizes, potential for long-term public use, environment, accessibility, linkages to other parks and trails, topography, hydrology, history and whether the property is in danger of imminent development.

Paul Paulson, chairman of Cobb Parks Coalition, said the last two criteria should be given more weight. And like Jeff Wood, Paulson says the locations of the properties under consideration should be publicized.

“There is absolutely no reason to cut us out, because we should know what is going on,” said Paulson, whose grass-roots coalition promoted the parks bond issues in 2006 and 2008. “We want to be part of the process just like we have from the beginning. We voted for this.”

But John Pape, the committee’s chairman, said his panel doesn’t want to irritate property owners.

“Last time around in 2006 or 2007 there were people — whose properties were publicized — who were not happy about it,” Pape said of the county’s efforts to buy parkland after the 2006 bond issue. “And that did impact negotiations.”