Letter to the Editor: Mayor Michael Owens Responds to Mableton Police Contract Coverage

Editor’s Note: Following last week's newsletter, Mableton Mayor Michael Owens reached out to discuss our coverage of the IGA standoff. When asked directly how he wanted his stance represented in this issue, he provided a deeper look at the legal and jurisdictional framework guiding his decisions. To keep our community fully informed, his full response to The Mableton Common is shared below.

The fundamental issue is local governance and equal treatment under the law.

Mableton was created by its residents to govern local matters within its city limits. Like every other city in Cobb County, we established a municipal court pursuant to Georgia law and our City Charter. We appointed a municipal judge, solicitor, and court staff, and invested significant resources in building the governmental infrastructure necessary to carry out the responsibilities assigned to municipalities by the State of Georgia.

This is not unique to Mableton. Cities such as Powder Springs, Austell, Marietta, Smyrna, Kennesaw, and Acworth all operate municipal courts and hear qualifying cases that occur within their city limits. When a driver receives a citation in those cities for many common traffic offenses, the case is typically heard in that city's municipal court.

Mableton was simply seeking the same authority and treatment afforded to every other city. We were not asking for special treatment, new powers, or anything beyond what Georgia law already permits municipalities to do. We were seeking to exercise the same authority that other municipalities routinely exercise every day.

At its core, this issue is about whether Mableton will be allowed to fully function as the city our residents voted to create and govern the matters that state law places within municipal authority. That is the principle we have been advocating for from the very beginning and why when doing our due diligence the city didnt agree to the IGA as the county had written it.

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For those interested in the exact legal framework, the Mayor pointed to Georgia code sections 40-13-21, 40-13-29, 36-32-6, and 36-32-9 as reference points for his position.