Forsyth County Opens $140M Building Commissioners Cannot Legally Use

Forsyth County opened a $140 million administration building, but a state law prohibits county commissioners from voting and conducting official business outside the county seat, which is the city of Cumming. The county's attempted workaround collapsed last week when Cumming's mayor made his position plain.

"You're the ones trying to get us to bail you out," said Mayor Troy Brumbalow. "So the answer is not no, it's hell no."

The county had already purchased the 40-acre site just off Georgia 400 when officials learned of the law, which dates back to the 1800s. The building is located along Freedom Parkway, just over two miles north of the Cumming city limits. The Georgia Constitution requires all official government business to be conducted in the county seat, and the new administration building is out of bounds.

The facility itself represents one of the most significant capital investments in the county's history. It houses 17 departments with about 350 employees and was built in response to the county's explosive growth. "The building that we built and moved into in 1996, we've outgrown it – fast," said County Manager David McKee. The county's population was 137,643 in 2005 and had reached 272,887 as of 2023, and is on track to break 300,000 residents within the next five years.

McKee and the county attorney had offered an intergovernmental agreement that would pay $7 million to the city for transportation projects in exchange for annexation. On March 16, the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners voted not to offer that agreement, but instead to request annexation of the property with no payment or concession made to the city. During Monday's meeting, District Five Commissioner Laura Semanson called the previous versions of the proposed intergovernmental agreements extortion. "There is no legitimate reason for an objection to us annexing into the city, and I will not be extorted for that," Semanson said.

On Tuesday night, Cumming City Council voted unanimously to reject the annexation. Brumbalow pointed the blame for the situation at the county, saying the decision to build the facility outside the city limits without discussing the annexation issue with the city first was ill-advised. "The county is trying to bribe the city into annexing their property to fix their failure," Brumbalow said. He dismissed the extortion accusation: "There's no way we're extorting them when they're the ones making the offer."

Commission Chairman Alfred John defended the project while acknowledging the governance problem it created. "We feel that we are in the right place," John said, stressing that the new building is needed for employees and services, not commissioners. He added: "I will continue to work on a spirit of cooperation between myself and the mayor and see if it will yield results, and right now I think things are a little bit tense, so let's let the dust settle a little bit."

For now, commissioners will hold their four monthly meetings, two regular meetings and two work sessions, at the old county building, which sits right across from Cumming City Hall. The county will still own the new building, which will be occupied by the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office. Georgia's County Association says there are three other counties with administration buildings outside the county seat, but their commissioners vote and conduct official business inside city limits.

Commissioners could not hold public voting meetings in the new building without either having the property annexed into the City of Cumming or being granted a legislative exemption from the Georgia code. With annexation now off the table and no legislative fix in sight, Forsyth County owns a $140 million building its own governing board cannot legally use.