Cover Story: Incoming!

Given that act of passive-aggression, who knows what the legislative session itself will bring? Forehead brands for city lobbyists? A special tax for high-rise dwellers? Public floggings of Democrats?

Not yet. But Red Sea lawmakers are likely to shove a few bitter pills down the throats of Blue Island residents this year. Here are four to look out for:

Hope springs in Sandy Springs: Maynard fought it off. Andy, too. Even Bill Campbell had little trouble squelching Sandy Springs’ attempts to incorporate into Georgia’s seventh-largest city. But with the state House now GOP red, all sides agree that the city of Sandy Springs will become reality.

That’ll block Atlanta from ever annexing property-tax rich neighborhoods just inside I-285. More immediately, it means Fulton County and cities like Atlanta and Roswell, which split sales tax revenues with the county, will have to share a fair chunk of the revenue pie with the new city of 85,000 people.

Atlanta leaders want to ease their potential loss — estimated to be as much as $10 million — by pushing for a bigger percentage of the county sales tax loot, a goal shared by Fulton’s other cities.

We’ll see. In case you haven’t noticed, Mayor Shirley Franklin’s the kind of popular Democrat that Republicans find threatening; Fulton Commission Chairwoman Karen Handel is a Republican with close ties to Gov. Sonny Perdue.

What a nice airport. Can I have it?: Led by Perdue, Republicans began beating the privatization drum in 2003 for Hartsfield-Jackson. They wanted the city to lease the world’s busiest airport to a private firm and to use the profits to fund other city projects. Then, last session, Rep. Earl Ehrhart, R-Powder Springs, proposed a state airport authority that would somehow wrest control of the airport from the city.

The wolves may be backing off — temporarily. Although Ehrhart is the likely House Rules Committee chairman, he tells CL that he doesn’t intend to pursue the airport authority scheme this year. But don’t be surprised if the drumbeat gets louder in 2006. After all, it’ll be election season.

Let’s watch MARTA die: The ailing Atlanta-based bus-and-rail network always has been the neglected stepchild of Georgia’s transport grid. OTP counties are dumping more and more riders into the system, their fares subsidized by sales taxes in Fulton and DeKalb counties. But MARTA gets less state funding than any other big-city system in the country — essentially nothing. And now the system’s in a downward spiral.

Unlike an airport power grab, state control of MARTA could save a system that’s been forced to slash services to stay afloat. It’s not as if the state can give MARTA less than nada. By putting off seriously dealing with the problem, however, legislators either will make the solution more costly or will just fritter away a major asset in dealing with the region’s traffic and pollution woes.

The solution could come in the form of direct state funding or of absorbing MARTA into the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority. But it’ll apparently take near death of the system for Perdue and the GOP caucus to more evenly spread the burden of keeping MARTA afloat.

Let them eat Grady: If ever there was a year that Grady Memorial Hospital needed help, this would be it. As part of a belt-tightening strategy, the state has trimmed 45,000 kids from Georgia’s PeachCare program. Now, Perdue’s eyeing a proposal to further cut Medicaid. Every time the governor axes the health-insurance programs for the poor, more uninsured people show up at Grady’s emergency room and clinics — and they tend to be more expensive to treat because of delayed treatment.

North Fulton Republicans may side with Blue Island Democrats in pushing for state money for Grady, which is subsidized mainly by DeKalb and Fulton, even though it serves residents from much of the state. But don’t bet that their votes will be enough to overcome the rest of the Red Sea caucus. Even though Grady’s critics have been impressed by the efforts of new CEO Andrew Agwunobi to streamline the huge public health system, most OTP Republican lawmakers aren’t likely to open the wallet for an inner-city hospital.