The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trouble in paradise
Fulton’s tiniest city, Mountain Park, mulls dissolving in fight over public safety, taxes
t sounds unbelievable: Tucked into a valley just a mile from Ga. 92 sits a city of 583 people who live within walking distance of two lakes and no commercial properties.
It is a state-designated wildlife refuge in north Fulton where you park by the wooden rocking chairs outside City Hall, and not five minutes later can bump into the mayor pro tem walking his dog named Mosby.
The city’s biggest problem used to be beavers gnawing down too many trees by the lakes (they hired a professional trapper to solve that one).
But today, there’s new trouble in paradise.
Some in the city of Mountain Park are curious about how to dissolve the city’s charter — in essence, an anti-cityhood movement a few years short of its centennial.
When asked about Mountain Park’s prospects, House Speaker Pro Tempore Jan Jones said: “I think long-term it will be difficult for them to remain an incorporated city.”
Mayor Jim Still said it’s not uncommon for people to get
frustrated and talk about disbanding the city. It happened as recently as 2010, when folks were worried that litigation over the two lakes would bankrupt city coffers.
What’s different now, Still said, is that familiar irritation has turned into actual exploration.
Mosby’s owner and Mayor Pro Tempore Mark Murphy wants to study the consequences of dissolution. This comes after a fight over public safety and how to pay for it with a tax base that includes zero commercial properties.
The nearby city of Roswell has provided policing along with emergency services to the small burg since 1998.
Roswell earlier this year increased its bill for services by 484%, so Mountain Park residents would pay the same as actual Roswell taxpayers.
At one point, Roswell council members were afraid Mountain Park would respond by forcibly annexing itself into the larger city.
Politics in ‘The Park’ have long been along the fault line of old-timers versus newcomers. Residents started predicting that all the growth in metro Atlanta would spell doom for their quiet wooded hamlet 35 years ago.
That move would have saddled Roswell’s taxpayers with possibly tens of millions of dollars in debt and infrastructure costs.
The two cities went back and forth for months — until earlier this month, when it was agreed that Roswell would provide fire and 911 services. The smaller city is still negotiating with the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office to provide policing.
But the existential crisis for Mountain Park residents continues: Is this city viable? Are residents OK with the level of services? Is paradise worth all this trouble?
“We’ve been able to adapt for many years to the ever-changing circumstances,” Still said.
A DIY spirit
Mountain Park has never been normal.
When the city was formed in 1927, it became the only locality in Georgia to receive a charter without a legal resident.
Sculpted from about 250 acres of woods, Mountain Park became a spot for rich folks to beat the heat lakeside on the weekends.
There was no running water — residents shared a community well. Used to be, the only news that came out of Mountain Park was people on the shore laughing at a man who lost his bathing suit while water skiing.
Twenty years after incorporation, there were maybe 12 year-round residents and 241 registered voters. Nearly three-quarters of those voters were actually from Atlanta, with the rest from all over: Chicago, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania or Tennessee.
Anyone with 50-foot frontage in Mountain Park used to be able to vote until a Supreme Court decision around 1960 determined that voters must actually reside in the city.
And the city has always had a DIY spirit.
In 1952, about 15 members of the Lorelie Ladies’ Club of Atlanta decided to build a concrete block cabin. “No husbands were brought into this endeavor,” one club member told The Atlanta Constitution.
Politics in “The Park” have long been along the fault line of old-timers versus newcomers. Residents started predicting that all the growth in metro Atlanta would spell doom for their quiet wooded hamlet 35 years ago.
The current conversation of folding into Roswell is reminiscent of the brief idea from 1989 of consolidating the county’s northern area into the city North Fulton. This talk came out of the eventually successful Sandy Springs cityhood movement.
The quest for cityhood is usually mostly driven by residents wanting better services.
Roswell Mayor Lori Henry said Still approached her soon after she was elected and said Mountain Park was thinking about getting rid of its volunteer fire department, so he was curious if Roswell wanted to buy its gear and station.
She looked into the current arrangement and found that Mountain Park residents were paying less for Roswell services than actual Roswell taxpayers. So she asked for an amount based on the number of residents in the small city as opposed to the previous rate.
That change in the math meant Mountain Park would pay $374 per resident or more than $200,000 annually — a salty increase from its previous $64 per resident.
Mountain Park’s entire budget bobs around half a million dollars. That’s small enough to do the budgeting in QuickBooks.
“I don’t think they were even anticipating what the cost of public service actually is,” Henry said.
‘Survival mode’
All this annexation and taxation talk has animated 11 people to run for three open at-large council seats.
One of the current candidates is Bill Kolbrener. He said the 8.0 millage rate the City Council approved Wednesday was “a bone with no meat and very little marrow” to appease him and others who wanted an even lower rate.
Kolbrener has spent $150 on signs for his roadside home that advocate for responsible government spending.
“Until we know what we’re going to be as a city … let’s go in survival mode,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The St. Louis native moved from Roswell to Mountain Park three years ago because “it’s truly heaven in the middle of an urban sprawl.” But he’s interested in whether the community can keep it that way while reducing taxes.
Councilwoman Linda Dorough Dixon said keeping the charter will be her main campaign issue ahead of her November reelection bid. Dixon said the charter is sacred. “I think the city is absolutely in the best shape it’s ever been,” said the Rome native, who pined for her mountain life after raising children in Sandy Springs.
But whether Mountain Park is its own city or part of Roswell, the two will never be fully separate, Jones said.
“They go to church together; their kids go to school together, play on the same sports teams,” she said.
Jones would likely be the legislator to handle the dissolution.
“If the Mountain Park City Council chooses to dissolve the city charter, I have committed to both cities that I’ll work with them toward a smooth and fair integration into Roswell,” she said.
It isn’t easy to do; just ask the city of Rest Haven. The town of about 22 residents in Gwinnett County has been trying to end itself for nearly two decades.
Still said some people who move to Mountain Park from elsewhere have misconceptions about what level of services to expect from a former summer resort town.
“There’s a choice: You either pay more or you do more,” he said.