Believe me - I am all over the power of the various taxing authorities here - I'm an Atlanta-in-DeKalb resident.
I had no idea that South Fulton was calling the shots now. Where was "Queen Emma Darnell" from, and is she still on the county commission? I haven't been concerned with ATL/FTY politics since I moved out of Fulton to Cobb in 1993. But long ago, back in the late 70s, I was an Atlanta-in-DeKalb resident. That is an uncomfortable place to be.
We lived in a ratty old apartment house just south of the intersection of Virginia and Briarcliff. Not the ones with the columns, the old cheap yellow brick ones (I went by there the other day and they've been all tarted up and painted. I bet they rent for a lot more than 140/month including hot water, now!)
But I well remember when the dumpster in our parking lot had a fire in it one afternoon and I tried to get the fire department out to tend to it. DeKalb told me to call City of Atlanta, and Atlanta dispatcher told me to call DeKalb. Meanwhile, my husband and a couple of other guys had hooked up all the garden hoses they could find and put the darned thing out themselves. By the time the firemen arrived (it was the City that ultimately showed up) it was out and the guys fussed at them a little bit (although we knew it wasn't the fault of the men on the trucks, just the dispatchers). I called and wrote my then state senator, Pierre Howard, about the problem. I never heard back from him at ALL. (That's why I could never support him in his Lt. gov race or his abortive race for governor. He didn't even look after his few constituents when he was a mere state senator, so why should he give a !@#$#$% when he got to be governor.)