By Ashu Ebot-Tabi

Acworth’s Board of Aldermen convened for a remarkably brief city council meeting Thursday evening at Acworth City Hall.

This meeting, which started at 7 p.m. and lasted just over 15 minutes, saw the board approve city initiatives, make a few presentations, and comment on a few matters.

The meeting began with a call to order and invocation prayer, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Official business started with a review of the National Day of Prayer event held earlier that morning. Hosted in front of Acworth City Hall and featuring worship led by North Cobb Christian School, the board noted how heavy the turnout was.

Following that, a presentation was made in recognition of National Boating Safety Week. Besides recognizing it, the city noted that it would begin a year-round effort to promote boating safety, starting with tomorrow’s Dragon Boat Festival. Coast Guard Auxiliary member Greg Fonzino was also present, discussing some of his duties & responsibilities in promoting boating safety.

“What we do is support public education, safety on the water”, Fonzino said. “ We do a lot of the programs for the recreation boating safety sections of the Coast Guard. We have an auxiliary unit [at Lake Allatoona] & we have one at Lake Lanier”.

Upon the presentation’s conclusion, the board reviewed its consent agenda & the items within. Consent agendas are used to combine multiple non-controversial agenda items, allowing several decisions to be made in much less time. All of the aldermen unanimously voted to approve each item, contributing to the meeting’s short length. 

One key item was approval to submit an estimated rollback rate of 8.325 mills. Mill rates refer to the amount of tax payable for each dollar of a property’s value; rollback rates refer to how property tax rates change over time in relation to a property’s value. According to Georgia’s Department of Revenue, “A tax rate of one mill represents a tax liability of one dollar per $1,000 of assessed value”. One board member discussed the topic more simply for Acworth residents.

“City staff will be proposing a budget that keeps the mileage rate at the same 8.95 mils as it was last year”, City Manager James Albright said. “The estimated rollback would be the best estimate we could provide that would keep our total collected property taxes the same as it was last year.  If the mileage rate is approved as proposed, there would be no increase in the rate at which property owners pay taxes.”

More information about the Board of Aldermen can be found on the city’s website. Details about state millage rate, including breakdowns by county, can be found on the Georgia Department of Revenue website.

Ashu Ebot-Tabi is a senior at Kennesaw State University, where he’s currently pursuing studies in Journalism and Emerging Media. With seven years of writing experience with the North Cobb Chant and Kennesaw State Sentinel, his coverage spans both local community events and significant cultural trends.