North Fulton Today

A push by Buckhead residents for their affluent neighborhood in Atlanta to secede from the city over crime gained more interest after a jogger was shot, the Daily Mail said.

Residents in Buckhead have also been concerned and frustrated by the spike in crime this year, with aggravated assaults up 52 percent in the wealthy neighborhood compared to a citywide increase of 26 percent, according to an analysis of police data by WXIA-TV.

'We filed our divorce papers at the city of Atlanta and our divorce is final,' Bill White, the CEO of the Buckhead City Committee, told Fox News.

White, the leader of the suburb's secession campaign, released a statement on June 17 criticizing city leaders, including Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, for the increased rate of violence in the neighborhood, the Daily Mail reported.

"They are just not paying attention to the crime. The leadership vacuum is substantial,' White said, the Daily Mail reported. 

White estimates that approximately 80% of his community would vote in support of the separation from Atlanta in a referendum that may be on the ballot in 2022, the newspaper said.

A bill that authorizes the referendum has been introduced in the Georgia House of Representatives and the legislature will have the opportunity to vote on the measure during the 2022 session.

Rep. Betsy Holland and other state lawmakers have expressed their objections to the secession effort, stating that it would negatively impact a large part of the city's tax base and ultimately its budget, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

"I have a dozen concerns about the neighborhood of Buckhead seceding from Atlanta, and one of the ones at the top is where the heck will our kids go to school?" Holland asked on her Twitter page.