City of Kennesaw Elections-Part 2
by PV
Mark Mathews is the current mayor of Kennesaw, and is running for reelection this Tuesday, November 8th.
First elected as mayor in 2007, he started his term in January 2008.
According to his reelection Website, he states the following as part of his business resume:
“1989-2009: Mathews Carpet Company – a company started by his parents in 1974. In 2001 MR Mathews, Inc. was created to purchase the business, Mathews Abbey Flooring, providing all types of flooring products and services to the residential, commercial, and new construction markets. Forced to close business due to economic downturn.”
A more accurate statement (and, truthful one at that) with regards to being “Forced to close business due to economic downturn” would have been “Filed bankruptcy in 2009 as a result of economic downturn.”
See, Ladies and Gentlemen, there is a difference between merely “closing a business” and a business filing Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. One denotes the act of merely ceasing operations after settling all debts…while the other one denotes a legal filing to a federal court to officially tell 44 some-odd creditors “Hey…ummm…sorry, we ain’t gonna pay you what we owe” to “close” the business.
So, if he’s not accurate in his description of what actually happened to his business, one might wonder if it really went bankrupt due solely to an “economic downturn” OR…could it be because Mathews was spending too much of his time playing mayor and dealing in the “fun” of politics rather than keeping his eye on his business enterprise?
Also in 2009, Mathews and his wife had to personally file for bankruptcy. (We are not in any way implying or inferring anything negative with regards to the character of Mark Mathews or his wife.)
HOWEVER…in referencing the actual filing (a 23 Megabyte PDF file should you choose to open or download it), there are significant instances of the taxpayers of several government jurisdictions being left on the hook for Mathews’ tax debt.
Specifically:
– City of Marietta: $2286.53 (Page 31 of 83 in PDF)
– City of Marietta Section 8 Housing Authority: $2003.43 (Page 39 of 83 in PDF)
– Cobb County Tax Commissioner: $626.00 (Page 40 of 83)
– Cobb County Tax Commissioner: $1553.32 (Page 40 of 83)
All told, Mark Mathews (via himself and MR Mathews, Inc) has left several Cobb County-based municipalities $6,469.28 in the red and OTHER taxpayers having to foot his tax bills (by having to pay higher taxes on their tax bills owed)
Now, the 2nd-term seeking mayoral candidate just happens to be one of the big, Big, BIG proponents of next year’s T-SPLOST. You know, that little vote that will require all Kennesaw inhabitants the additional responsibility of paying 1% more in sales tax on everything they buy in Cobb. Yeah. Mathews is in favor of you paying more taxes so that he can have a hand in spending on your behalf.
Councilman Tim Killingsworth, Post 2 is running for reelection to the Kennesaw City Council. He is also known to be a tight ally of Mark Mathews.
On October 24th, there was a candidate forum held by the Kennesaw Patch (an online local news site that is owned by Huffington-Post).
Here is a link to a PDF version of the transcript.
It is interesting to us that Councilman Killingsworth, at Time Marker 7:32 states “We haven’t raised your taxes, and we don’t plan to do that anytime soon.”
Then…at Time Marker 7:45, Killingsworth answers the question of whether he supports the T-SPLOST vote next year by saying “I would have to say I do support it.”
So, for Killingsworth’s mind, maybe there’s a distinction in his mind of what constitutes “anytime soon” and intending to push (along with Mathews coordinating) for passage of next year’s T-SPLOST vote to…do what? Oh, yeah. RAISE TAXES.
PV’s Conclusion: Frankly, in our opinion, the existence of Mathews’ two bankruptcies (personal and business defaults) are not the direct issues here.
What should be important in this case is the following:
1) Mathews had an obligation to be truthful as to why his business “closed.” It’s easy to blame the downturn…but, not everyone has gone out of business due to the downturn. AND, filing a bankruptcy is NOT the same thing as “closing a business.”
2) The failure to pay nearly $6500 in various taxes to the City of Marietta (hey, Thunder has deep pockets to cover this default, right, Thunder?) and the Cobb County Tax Commissioner’s office (hey, Tim Lee and Helen Goreham will cover for Mathews in a heartbeat…they’ll just raise the rest of our millages, right?).
No, defaulting on taxes should immediately disqualify anyone from “serving” the people. We hope that come the Election Night of November 8, the voters of Kennesaw disqualify the reelection of Mark Mathews.
