In search of an off-ramp, city of Mableton opponents pack town hall

MABLETON — More than two months after voters cast ballots to create a new city of Mableton, hundreds of residents turned out to continue the fight against cityhood with a single-minded purpose.

They want out.

A standing-room-only audience of hundreds packed the Cobb County Police Academy on Wednesday night, demanding an exit ramp from the first Cobb city to be incorporated in more than 100 years.

Some said they’d never known they were in the city limits until they showed up to vote. Others, like Donna Georgiana, had simply assumed the proposal would fail like its counterparts in East Cobb, Lost Mountain, and Vinings — until it didn’t.

Georgiana told the MDJ she wasn’t mixed up in the debate before the election, because “I really never thought it would pass, ever.”

She added, “If I’m going to be annexed into a city, I’d rather Smyrna come on over. At least you’ve got services with Smyrna. What are you getting from this besides an increase in city taxes? And for what? Trash service?”

Through the town hall, pacing the stage was state Rep. David Wilkerson, D-Powder Springs, who derided the 78,000-strong Mableton as “the largest H.O.A. in Cobb County.”

Wilkerson has emerged as one of Mableton’s fiercest critics since the city’s referendum passed in November with 53% of the vote. Highlighting what he called “open questions” that remain after the referendum, he plans to introduce legislation this year to de-annex from the new city several precincts that voted “no” in the referendum.

But the loudest voices Wednesday came from the audience, who wanted above all the answer to this question: what can we do?

“Why are we moving so fast with this?” boomed one. “We don’t know anything — that’s why we’re here,” called out another.

Wilkerson said for now, their best bet is with lawmakers under the Gold Dome. But the key, he said, will be persuading the entire Cobb County Legislative Delegation to get on board with the proposal, and he encouraged attendees to lobby their representatives hard in the coming months.

Options on the table could include a “surgical” de-annexation of areas that voted against cityhood (predominantly in the city’s northeast), or a do-over of the election entirely. That latter option got some of the most spirited cheers of the night.

Christie Lynn, an anti-cityhood organizer, said nearly 2,800 people have signed a petition favoring de-annexation. Some residents, she added, didn’t know they were in the city limits until she knocked on their door after the election.

But state Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-east Cobb, told the MDJ Thursday that lawmakers will likely want to hear from both sides of the issue before jumping to a legislative fix.

“People did vote for it. There were maps, there was time for people to oppose it. I just think it’s up for a lot more discussion before anybody down here could say whether the House would go along,” she said. “…The people in that area have spoken, and just because you lose doesn’t mean that you should be able to take away what the majority of the people over there have decided.”

Michael Murphy, who has declared his candidacy for mayor of the new city, acknowledged the de-annexation movement would be a force he’d have to reckon with if he is victorious in the March elections.

“That would be something that I would certainly have an ear to, and … respect their desires,” he told the MDJ. “I don’t believe that people should be forced to be somewhere they don’t want to be. But it would be my effort to help them see their advantage. The people who say they don’t see anything in it for them — it would be my goal to help them see.”

State Rep. Teri Anulewicz, D-Smyrna, echoed Cooper in saying she’ll need to see exactly what’s proposed down at the Capitol. She went on to wonder whether fighting to keep the dissidents in the city was worth the effort.

“Everything that council does — everything, everything, everything — will be undermined by the persistent efforts of the folks who do not want to be a part of the city of Mableton,” Anulewicz told the MDJ on Thursday. “Something I would really consider is, is it even worth it? Because when you’re building a new city, there’s so much you need to do. Is the highest and best use of your time fighting for people who do not want to be a part of you?”

‘Sausage getting made’

Among the points Wilkerson hit on, meanwhile, was the question of who will pay for the March 21 municipal elections. Other cities in Cobb have traditionally reimbursed the county for running their elections for them, but the bill creating Mableton specified no such arrangement, potentially leaving the county on the hook.

Wilkerson added he would be glad to write a bill fixing that provision, but said county officials have blown him off. He also took full-bore shots at the Cobb Board of Elections for the various issues that cropped up in the run-up to the referendum.

“This is inexcusable,” he said to sustained applause. “No county official called me to say we need to get this fixed. Nobody called the Board of Elections. Y’all called, I called, but the Board of Elections thought this was OK.

“I don’t think you guys have heard how the sausage gets made. You are now hearing sausage getting made,” Wilkerson added.

That prompted a rebuttal from south Cobb Commissioner Monique Sheffield, who disputed Wilkerson’s claims that the county won’t discuss the issue of who pays for the election.

“It’s a lot of moving parts right now, and as a county, we are meeting weekly to ensure that everything has a smooth transition,” Sheffield said. “…The county had no say on who would pay for (the election). But since it was not identified, to your point, the county becomes the superintendent for the election, because it has to happen. So we’re stepping in to ensure that it will happen.”

Sheffield added that she fully expects the county to try and negotiate for a reimbursement down the road.

“I’m just unclear about what the county has not been responsive on, because we’ve been very responsive,” Sheffield told the MDJ after the meeting.