A liar, a bully, a lush, a hypocrite, a puppet and an adulterer. This is how the Snellville mayor and some City Council members describe one another.

So it's not surprising that politics here have been contentious for years with no sign of a truce in sight.

What's at stake are critical issues for the largely middle-class citizens of the small city sandwiched between Stone Mountain and Loganville. The estimated 19,000 residents are battling urban sprawl and facing a possible tax hike.

Yet those issues felt far from the front during a recent council meeting where insults were hurled around the room like arrows.

At one point, Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer whipped his head around to face Mayor Pro Tem Warren Auld, belting out:

"Are you calling me a liar?"

Their debate stemmed from a controversy over the city not having a city manager in place even though it's budget season. Auld has accused the mayor of overstepping his authority and directing city employees, which is supposed to be the responsibility of a city manager.

In a work session with council members Monday night, the mayor insisted he wasn't doing both jobs and he didn't seem willing to nominate an interim to step in while the national search for a city manager wraps up.

But, minutes later, in a video-recorded public forum, he surprised some council members by nominating the former mayor, Brett Harrell, for the position. City Councilman Tod Warner also lobbied for Harrell, who is now director of the Evermore Community Improvement District, a formation of businesses along Ga. 78.

Some residents in the audience scoffed loudly, others laughed.

The mayor banged on his gavel in frustration.

Auld, a civil attorney, said Harrell would have a conflict of interest with development issues.

He and two others voted against Harrell's nomination, which failed by 3-3. So, the city still has no city manager to guide them through what is expected to be a tight budget year with more requests for money than the estimated $18 million budget will allow.

City Councilwoman Kelly Kautz, a local lawyer, said she felt the mayor was trying to bring his crony on board. "I've lost a lot of respect for people on this council tonight," she said. "At this point and time, I'm ashamed to be sitting up here. We're worse than Lithonia."

Resident Dennis Lawton urged the mayor and five-member council to find a way to get along.

"Extend an olive branch to one another," he urged.

That's not likely to happy anytime soon.

"They hate me," the mayor said of Auld, Jenkins and Kautz.

Oberholtzer, from Allentown, Pa., said he has never truly fit in because he's not from Snellville or the South —and he's a Catholic on Southern Baptist turf.

A resident for 24 years, he said he has worked hard so Snellville will be viewed as more than miles of continuous strip malls bordering Ga. 78.

He is pushing for his vision of a downtown —complete with trendy restaurants, coffee shops and condos. The current downtown is so subtle— a modest offering of services such as tanning, banking, tax preparation and medical offices —you can drive through it and miss it.

The mayor believes the facelift for downtown won't be possible without liquor-by-the-drink sales on Sundays, a measure which was recently defeated.

"Robert Jenkins vilified me as a moral degenerate for my stance on liquor," the mayor said.

Jenkins, upon hearing the mayor's allegations, declined to address them but laughed.

"I have nothing against Jerry personally, but his behavior as an elected official and a colleague on the council is reprehensible. If he wants to do something and anybody opposes him, he attacks them personally and politically."

Someone, it appears, is fighting back.

A civil engineer based in Athens, Oberholtzer said he was recently demoted after someone sent an anonymous E-mail to a client accusing him of working double-duty at City Hall in the absence of a city manager. Oberholtzer refuted the allegations but was striped of his administrative duties.

The mayor said he is also targeted for pushing through the building of a lavish City Hall and large senior citizen center.

"I take it better than I used to," said the mayor, who was elected to a second term by a narrow margin in November.

Randy Simpson, a Snellville resident for 47 years, said the mayor is not the victim.

He called Oberholtzer, Warner and Councilwoman Barbara Bender "school yard bullies" who often vote together for controversial issues, including developments that encroach on upscale subdivisions.

"You can't reason with this bunch," Simpson said. "They're elitist and act like they're above the law. If they don't like what you've got to say, they want to shut you down and rap the gavel."

Auld, a civil attorney, said he didn't want to discuss his opinions of the mayor.

"I'm weary of the contentiousness," Auld said. "The city of Snellville deserves to have a City Council that acts professionally."