Snellville...revisited
A couple of months ago I wrote about the misadventures in Snellville, GA.
At that time a portion of the Atlanta Journal-Consititution article reported...
People are tired of games. They are weary of elected officials who poke at each other publicly or who are snide, sarcastic, unprofessional or hateful.
How are things going now? The latest news report started out...
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.
No truce in sight? Doesn't sound good, does it?
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?"
And this...
City Councilwoman Kelly Kautz, a local lawyer, said... "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."
I'm guessing that would be Lithonia, GA. (I gotta get down to Georgia sometime and take in a Council meeting or two.)
How is Mayor Oberholtzer holding up under these circumstances?
"They hate me," ... the mayor 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.
Council member Robert Jenkins disagrees.
"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."
Mayor Pro Tem Warren Auld simply stated...
"I'm weary of the contentiousness ...The city of Snellville deserves to have a City Council that acts professionally."
That shouldn't be too much to ask ... should it?
Al Arnold
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Reader Comments (1)
If wise men do not do the people's business, then others will."
Supposedly, John Adams admonished one of his sons who was balking at Government service with the above quote.
But it sort of makes you wonder when you see all those "unopposed" citiy council seats, doesn't it?
sky