East Point Mayor Earnestine Pittman had called the town meeting Thursday to talk about her proposed property tax increase to offset a rollback in utility rates.
Apparently both subjects get the blood boiling
Within two hours, police had ejected four belligerents, and an elderly man had dared a middle-age man to fisticuffs.
Pittman told the crowd in the Jefferson Park Recreation Center her proposed tax increase of just over one mil would cost homeowners less than $25 a year, assuming their house wasn't worth more than $149,000.
She said few would be hit that hard because the average property appraisal had fallen from $86,300 to $38,800 in three years.
Many in the crowd of a few hundred people, divided between anti- and pro-Pittman camps, weren't buying it.
The doubters didn't trust the mayor's calculations because she didn't produce any numbers on whether her proposed tax increase would be able to close the multi-million-dollar deficit that would result from the rollback in utility rates.
Two newly elected City Council members -- backed by Pittman -- had campaigned on the promise of reduced utility rates. The council is expected to act on them Monday.
The mayor, whose opponents had control of the council last year, now holds the swing vote on a council that often deadlocks on issues 4-4.
"Turn down your thermostat," shouted Dustin Drabot, who said he fears the mayor will remove the current 15-mill cap on property taxes.
Pittman acknowledged that she didn't know how much the 15- mill rate would raise for the general fund, but she refused to engage further with Drabot. The man who took his seat but ended up in a shouting match with a Pittman supporter.
Police quickly encircled them. The supporter and her husband left. Several officers physically removed Drabot.
Pittman, who had promised to take opponents questions, then halted the meeting.
"I don't answer to you. I don't answer to hooligans. I don't answer to disrespect," Pittman said. "Madam Mayor is gone."
Stephen Zink was left standing at the lectern. He said he found the mayor's departure frustrating because she had refused to answer his emailed questions, saying she would address them at the meeting.
Zink noted that the monthly base rate for water would drop from $48 to only $32 to $40 under the mayor's proposal; it was less than $20 a year ago. To Zink, the rollback didn't justify a tax increase, which he feared would run into the hundreds of dollars for homeowners annually.
"We're really getting a doubling of our utility rates and an increase in taxes," he said, "and we don't know if we're reducing the deficit."
Councilman Myron Cook acknowledged after the meeting that the council was still tussling with how much to roll back utility rates because of the deficit and tax questions.
Two constituents urged him to keep the mayor accountable.
"Please do not back everything the mayor says," Patricia Hailes said. "We want you to look at it with a critical eye."
Ruby Barber said the night's events had been disheartening and unnerving. Politicians and the public, she said, needed to come together to create a sound policy for the city.
"My point is people should work as a team for the people of East Point," she said. "We don't need all this confrontation."
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