Attorneys for the new city of Mableton and residents claiming the city’s creation was unconstitutional sparred Wednesday during the first hearing in the lawsuit that was filed last year.
The plaintiffs are looking for the court to undo the city because of how the ballot question asked voters to ratify cityhood in November 2022. They say the wording was confusing and violated the state constitution’s single-subject rule, which dictates that ballot questions and legislation must only address one subject.
Credit: Bita Honarvar
Credit: Bita Honarvar
Mableton’s mayor and council hired Harold Melton, a former Georgia Supreme Court chief justice, to represent them in the case. He filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit altogether. The first hearing of the case in Cobb Superior Court Wednesday addressed that motion to dismiss but also provided a glimpse into each side’s arguments on the lawsuit itself.
Attorneys focused on whether the legislation and ballot question that created Mableton also created a separate governmental entity, called a community improvement district (CID), which can levy taxes on businesses within its boundaries and incur debt to fund infrastructure improvements. If it did actually create a CID along with the city, that would violate Georgia’s single-subject rule by creating two governmental entities in one law and ballot question, the plaintiff’s attorney Allen Lightcap argued.
Credit: Bita Honarvar
Credit: Bita Honarvar
“When we talk about legally distinct units that can take on debt completely independently from their city and can tax people completely independently from the city, that’s different. That is different enough to require separate legislation under the single-subject rule,” Lightcap said.
Melton said the bill simply authorized the city to create a CID if it so chooses, but didn’t actually create one. And even if it did, he argued, it wouldn’t violate the single-subject rule because it is related enough to the creation of the city of Mableton and is the same subject.
Credit: Bita Honarvar
Credit: Bita Honarvar
“Everything in House Bill 839 is germane to the concept of a single objective, which is the creation of the city of Mableton,” Melton said. When the Legislature wrote the law creating the city, they created a “toolbox that’s available to the city of Mableton to accomplish and provide for core critical services. That toolbox includes CIDs, and it’s not foreign to the concept of creating a city.”
Since its creation, a mayor and council have been elected, and the city has collected revenue, hired staff and taken over some services from the county.
Judge Sonja Brown indicated that a ruling on the motion to dismiss would be made toward the end of March, at the earliest.
The ongoing lawsuit is the latest manifestation of cityhood opposition in south Cobb, and the first court hearing brought several observers who have frequently found themselves on opposing sides of the issue. Mayor Michael Owens and several councilmembers also attended, and the mayor said he feels confident in the city’s defense.
Credit: Bita Honarvar
Credit: Bita Honarvar
“It’s unfortunate, though, that we’re having to spend taxpayer dollars, we’re having to spend money that could be going towards delivering services, communicating with our constituents, and instead, we are spending that money for counsel to defend something that we as citizens had nothing to do with,” Owens said. “Suing the city has always been very questionable in my book.”
Opposition to Mableton started before the vote. Once the city was approved, some residents began advocating for their neighborhoods to be de-annexed from the city, and sent thousands of petition signatures to state lawmakers.
That effort did not succeed at the state Capitol, so some opponents ran for office. Now, two councilmembers who opposed the city’s creation sit on its council, and other residents filed the lawsuit in May.
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