By Paul Kaplan

As the filing of the bill to create the new city of Riverside draws nearer, the debate over what is best for the residents of the Newtown community got more intense and perplexing this past week.

A planned debate sponsored by the Newtown Community Coalition between leaders of the competing incorporation and annexation efforts fell apart when the leading advocate of the new city in northeast Fulton County declined to participate or to send anyone from his organization.

That left Roswell Mayor Jere Wood alone before an audience of about 100 Newtown residents who were hungry for information about where all this is headed.

Wood said the incorporation leaders have put out misleading or incorrect information on everything from the cost of starting and operating a city to the potential of the new city to freeze taxes at the current county level.

And he criticized those leaders for failing to inform the public about a significant finding in a new draft report from the Carl Vinson Institute at the University of Georgia. The new draft reversed an earlier finding that had said the new city could provide a level of service similar to Roswell's without raising taxes. The new draft says it would have to raise taxes.

"If that lower tax was a myth, it might have changed people's minds," Wood said.

Mike Bodker, who heads the incorporation effort, said in an interview after the non-debate that he had informed the coalition's leader via e-mail that he could not attend the meeting. He said other members of his organization did not attend because "the volunteers are all busy, focused on a lot of the other work we have to get done."

Bodker said he had not discussed the findings of the second Vinson Institute report because it's only a draft.

"It's like commenting on a budget as it goes through its phases," he said. "The only budget worth commenting on is the one that's completed."

Dale Nesbit, president of the Newtown Community Coalition, an umbrella group of neighborhoods in Newtown, released updated numbers from the group's survey of residents: 603 favor annexation into Roswell; 396 prefer incorporation into the new city of Riverside; and 257 are undecided.

But Sen. Dan Moody (R-Alpharetta) and Rep. Wendell Willard (R-Sandy Springs) both said that most people who have contacted them so far want to be part of the new city.

"There is a huge interest in creating something from scratch," Moody said, adding that he couldn't explain the discrepancy in what he's hearing and what the Newtown Coalition is finding in its survey.

"We [in the Legislature] don't have a process, unfortunately, to poll or screen or have some quickie ballot," Moody said.

Willard said he's concerned about the "divisive undertones" in the dispute, and both he and Moody said they're not completely comfortable relying on the data being tossed at them from all sides.

"I can't totally trust anybody's numbers," Moody said, adding that no final decisions have been made about how to divide Newtown.

"I won't say that this thing is over by any means," he said.