“The Full Citizen Head Slap” by Michael Murphy

As we head into the last four months of this auspicious year of 2025, there are some major local issues that cry out for everyone’s attention.

In case you missed it, it is quite likely the City of Austell is now much more well-known than it was at the beginning of 2025. Unfortunately, this notoriety is not a proud distinction by any means. The city proposed, proffered, and successfully passed a whopping 158% tax increase on its property owners.

Additionally, now they have mustered the temerity to recommend a pay increase for Mayor and Council.

I can recall my first notice of the tax increase in the media and thought it may have been a misprint, a “day mare or a bad dream” period. I made it a point to attend one of the town hall hearings on the matter. With just a sole voice in support, the overwhelming wave was in opposition of a tax increase of such magnitude and at this junctive with so many other increases on the kitchen table of working families and businesses.

Speaker after speaker came before Mayor and Council to share their story, stress the need for mercy, and what such an increase would do to their current struggles to buttress the price increase waves. It was a sobering experience for me.

No, it was hardly my first presence at such a meeting. Each one has its distinctions for me. I was impressed by the filled room, respectful yet visceral discourse, and grasp of the facts and city fiscal history. I can recall one resident asking the council to forgo their pay raise request. I could clearly read the lips and facial expression of a council member off to the side of the mayor that said, ‘NO WAY’.

It is clear to me that we are experiencing in real time, a double hitter. Yes, I’m talking about the kind of double hitter we used to see in major league baseball and, if you are of age, basketball too. How about it?

A college basketball double hitter at the Palestra in Philadelphia was always an enjoyable and safe event. The likes of Villanova, LaSalle, Temple and Philadelphia Textile and others made sure you got your money’s worth.

We now have the county and some cities skillfully, artfully, and boldly resisting the hue and cry from their constituents to hold up, cut back spending and recognize the severity of these times. For example, it was so obvious that the expressions of concern and dire impact on resident budgets were flying over the heads of the Austell Board like geese flying south across the sky in formation. I may hear you, but so what?

One resident gave quite an appropriate statement, “We will remember in November.” As well the voters should and beyond. It is one thing to error in judgement but to seemingly do so without even a pang of conscience, is frustrating to all of us who care about good government.

It has long been my belief that if you show the people on a regular yearly basis why you need additional funds, you have a good opportunity to get ‘buy in’ and gain their support and trust. It has long been said that a good salesman tells you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip.

Our late Cobb County Chairman Mike Boyce was a master with charts that not only told the story for the need of an increase, but showed the reason why the increase made good sense and benefitted the masses; not the classes. When most key price indexes are rising for the working-class resident, it suggests that you show the bones without any fat and very little meat, to boot.

I could not help but wonder where the Austell tax increase would rank in Ripley’s Believe it or Not, and I would bet even money it would be up there in the record of municipal tax proposals.

As the saying goes, if every voter knew what every elected official knows, there would be no apathy on election day. The most effective bullet a citizen has that will not result in a criminal charge, is their ballot on election day. I say load it, and use it every chance you get.

As in the words of George Bernard Shaw, “What price salvation?”

I am Michael Murphy….