The ink isn’t even dry on the incorporation charter for the new City of Mableton in Georgia, and already there’s a sizable faction that is trying to secede from it.
Residents of Atlanta’s unincorporated Cobb County suburbs voted in November to establish a diverse new city of roughly 71,000 residents called Mableton. That city isn’t even today-years-old — it won’t become a working municipality until leaders are elected in March — but there is already a sizeable faction vying to de-annex, or secede, from it.
Hundreds of would-be Mableton city residents flooded the Cobb County Police Training Center auditorium on Jan. 18 to voice their dissent at a town hall hosted by Georgia state Representative David Wilkerson, who is also against the incorporation of Mableton in its current form. The discussion centered around how people could legally carve their residential areas out of the Mableton city boundaries. Wilkerson said a bill was in the works that would allow them to de-annex, but that they would have to pressure state lawmakers in their local delegation.
Bloomberg CityLab
By Brentin Mock
January 24, 2023