Marietta Mayor and City Council approve Juneteenth and Veterans Day as paid city holidays

To the delight of many in Marietta, a special call meeting of the Marietta City government led to the approval of new paid holidays for City workers. This approval follows Mayor Steve “Thunder” Tumlin’s veto to make Juneteenth a paid holiday for city workers a few weeks ago after it passed the council with a 4-3 vote at its April 13 regular meeting. 

The Mayor and City Council came together to approve both Juneteenth and Veterans Day. Both holidays received unanimous approval from the council. With the addition of these new holidays, Marietta will increase the number of city holidays from 10 to 12. 

Gone were the emotional disagreements and comments from concerned citizens from three weeks earlier as members of the Marietta government thanked each other for coming together on the issue.

Marietta now joins other cities, counties, the state of Georgia, and the federal government in recognizing Juneteenth, which commemorates the ending of slavery in the U.S. in 1865.  The NAACP has held an annual Juneteenth festival on Marietta Square for more than 15 years.

Juneteenth falls on a Sunday this year, so city employees would take the following Monday as a holiday. Employees would take the Veterans Day holiday on Veterans Day itself, which falls on a Friday this year.