Over the next several months, we will present information on issues that impact almost every County homeowner.
- History
Over the last 5 years, $9,000,000 per year of extra sales tax proceeds was given to the City of Cumming and its 5,400 residents. These funds rightfully belong to all 175,500 Forsyth County residents - - $148 of potential tax relief per county household.
SPLOST is a 5 or 6 year 1% sales tax whose proceeds can be used for capital things. LOST is a 1% sales tax whose proceeds are primarily intended to lower or at least maintain property taxes. See information about these in County Payments to City.
We ask residents to understand the facts. If you want to learn more, click on any of the five items below. We recommend viewing them in sequence. You can also get to these pages using the menu on the left.
- Stop the Giveaway (content from county-wide email)
- City County Leadership
- County Support to City
- County Payments to City
- Miscellaneous Giveaway Musings
- SPLOST VII List
The Forsyth Board of Commissioners has sent their recommendation for SPLOST VII to the City of Cumming. The plan contains both County projects and City designated projects.
Understand that it is the county’s proposal to the city. It is not final and will likely change! The good news is that a 12.5% split is proposed as opposed to the 15% split used in the last SPLOST. The bad news is that it should be 3.2%, the population ratio!!
We ask residents to understand the facts. If you want to learn more, click here to visit our discussion of the Proposed SPLOST Split and List of County and City Projects.
- T-SPLOST -- an initial explanation
The State of Georgia has established a multi-regional Special Purpose Option Sales Tax program aimed at improving transportation by adding a new 1% sales tax. 12 regions are identified and Forsyth County is part of the 13 county Georgia Mountain Region that will share in the sales tax to improve region, county, and municipal roads.
Citizens will vote YES or No in July 2012 (tentative date) with votes tallied by County and Region. If a Region or a County votes NO, the state will apply certain constraints on state road funds applied for. Remember, taxes on fuel are also used for transportation.
Assuming that Forsyth County voters extend the current SPLOST VI to become SPLOST VII in mid-2013, and also approve T-SPLOST, then the total sales tax in Forsyth County will increase from 7% to 8%. A comment from several citizens has been the desire to assess and compare the transportation plans in each SPLOST program together.
Who We Are
Forsyth Citizens for Responsible Growth is a homeowner’s organization with a mission to support responsible growth in residential, business/commercial, and, quality of life development in Forsyth County.
ForsythCRG (FCRG) builds on the 1,300 homeowners in District 3 (D-3) who came together to fight an un-popular re-zoning and then concluded we needed our district commissioner to be responsive to the wishes and needs of the existing residents. Our committee investigated several potential candidates and picked Todd Levent as the best. We supported Todd in the primary and primary run-off where he received 67% of the vote versus the incumbent’s 33%. Todd became our district commissioner this January.
FCRG supports local citizen needs and actions that arise from homeowners and HOA’s closest to the concerning issue. It always more effective for those closest to the problem to take the lead or at least be active in its resolution. FCRG will support each effort by helping develop an overall plan, and use of facilities on our website for email campaigns, flyers, and meetings with county officials.
County-Wide Expansion
Citizens from other districts have asked FCRG to expand to allow homeowners from other districts to duplicate what District 3 homeowners now have. The premise of these requests is to eventually have 5 commissioners totally responsive to the county’s homeowners versus to special interests who over much of the last 20 years have tended to steer the country into a rapid and uncontrolled growth mode with little concern for the existing homeowners.
To expand FCRG county wide (FCRG-CW) we conceptually envision 4 more district committees created by citizens in each district. All 5 district committees will contribute 2 or 3 members to form a county-wide steering committee for FCRG-CW. The existing FCRG web site would be expanded to accommodate both county-wide topics as well district news/needs.
It is critical that each District group within FCRG-CW be responsible for its growth, support, and communications within its district and take the lead on issues unique to that district. FCRG-CW will fully support that district’s effort on its local issues.
Goals for next 18 months
Through summer 2011: Start FCRG in other districts. The next election primary’s for commissioners in Districts 2, 4, and 5 occur in July 2012. For homeowners in these three districts to have a solid chance for a responsive commissioner (as District 3 homeowners now do), it is time to start organizing a base of citizens who will help drive the enrollment process by communicating district and countywide issues to citizens in their district. Important to this enrollment is to create “committee members” - - - homeowners whose name will be listed at the end of all communications.
Committee members from District 3 will show members in the new districts the techniques we have used to build an email list of homeowner supporters. A crucial element for success is the absolute truthfulness of our messages - - - - all the time!!
Late 2011 - February 2012: Select Commissioner Candidates. The starting point each district should be assess their current commissioner and his responsiveness to the needs of the district homeowners as well as the county overall. This process should start in 4th quarter of 2011 and continue until final registration of candidates in February 2012.
If you are not on FCRG's information mailing list, please click here to visit our contact page.
For the committee: Tony DeMaria & Lee Cohn