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Fayette among Ga.’s last at-large holdouts

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@thecitizennews.com

Just 25 years ago, when Fayette County was home to fewer than 30,000 people, it made sense for voters countywide to elect its five commissioners.

But with an estimated 100,000-plus residents today, it’s time the county “joins the rest of Metro Atlanta” and abandon at-large voting, Steve Brown argues.

State Rep. Virgil Fludd (D-48th) agrees with the Peachtree City mayor.

“We are probably the only county in the state with 100,000 people that doesn’t have district voting,” said Fludd recently. “That works fine if you’ve got 20,000 people in the county, but if you’ve got 100,000 the value of having that kind of system is diminished.”

In fact, at least two counties larger than Fayette also elect commissioners at-large, according to the Association of County Commissioners Georgia (ACCG): Houston County, with 107,644 people, and Forsyth County, with 120,000 residents.

Rockdale County with about 70,000 residents is the only other metro county on the list.

According to information compiled in 2000 by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia, just 33 of the state’s 159 counties still elect commissioners that way.

Of those, nine have “sole commissioner” forms of government, in which a single elected official runs all the county’s affairs.

Georgia is the only state in the nation that still has “sole commissioners,” said Ross King, assistant director for the ACCG, down from 27 counties just 18 years ago.

The largest county in Georgia still governed by a lone elected official, and the only one in Metro Atlanta, is Bartow County with 75,000 people.