Op-Ed: Reflections on Lakeside Cityhood Meeting

First I would like to say how proud I am that our cohesive Tucker community turned out for the meeting Monday night at Tucker Middle School dispelling the perception that Tucker is not a community. It is very unfortunate that many residents were turned away as the venue was not large enough to accommodate the crowd.   

After speaking with many neighbors and friends, as well as reading a multitude of comments online (thank you, Tucker Patch, Twitter, and Tucker Town Talk), this is what I have gleaned from our situation: there is a general feeling that Lakeside City Alliance has not begun this process as a conversation. By dropping a bill in the state legislature and not convening meetings of the Tucker community BEFORE that occurrence, the proposed annexation of the west side of Tucker is seen as a land grab of our businesses, residences, parks, and neighborhood schools. 

Moving quickly to drop this bill has NOT allowed communities to discuss various possibilities and is seen as divisive, greedy, and likely racist. While there is a group of folks who may not want to ever have another “layer” of government by the people, there is another group who is open to the idea of incorporation IF the entire Tucker community is allowed to remain intact (see the Tucker zip code map and Tucker census maps that are available online).

The situation is that as long as Tucker is unincorporated, it remains vulnerable to annexation by anybody: Lakeside, Stone Mountain, Clarkston, Chamblee, etc.  Several Tucker citizens have mentioned to me that if Tucker could remain as an ENTIRE community (including Idlewood, Brockett, Smokerise, Pleasantdale and the full Livsey Elementary communities that feed into Tucker Middle School and Tucker High School), then there are some who might be interested in incorporating.

One gentleman in the parking lot of Tucker Middle School suggested that perhaps Tucker should incorporate the current Lakeside folks as part of a Tucker municipality. Previously, out of respect to what Tucker leaders were told were originally “natural boundaries”; I-285 was the former boundary when Tucker investigated cityhood. However as that boundary is obviously not being observed or respected in Lakeside City’s plan, our neighbors to the west could possibly be included in Tucker incorporation.   

What I am hearing thus far about incorporation is:
a) There is a group who does not want to be incorporated at all.
b) Another group is happy to join Lakeside City as they feel it ensures that their kids will go to Lakeside High School and will not be in “jeopardy” of going to Tucker High School.
c) Yet another group, and perhaps one of the larger emergent groups in Tucker, feels that as long as Tucker is unincorporated, the community is vulnerable to any take-over group. They would like Tucker to consider its own incorporation again. This group values the diverse contributions of Tucker and its citizens:  rich, poor, middle-class, black, white, Indian, Asian, Latino and Latina.

They value the businesses and park services and unique groups such as Triumph Youth Soccer Association (formerly Tucker Youth Soccer Association) who have already worked together in this community very well. Some are open to considering a Tucker-Lakeside Alliance with ALL of Tucker included in that plan (not cherry-picked pieces). This group feels that Tucker as a whole must be identifiable and complete - not split off. 

They feel the current plan gleans Tucker of its higher-income residences and parks with the rest left behind (group A agrees with the previous two sentences).  

Solutions: We need an organized plan of roundtable meetings with representatives and citizens in our community. Lingering thoughts from last night’s meeting are: Tucker has been an identified community now for 121 years. Lakeside is a high school and Northlake is a mall. Tucker was here before malls existed.

Lisa Martin-Hansen
Tucker Resident

Do you agree with what Lisa is saying? Tell us in the comments below-