Upstart mayoral challenger tests Marietta’s old guard

24-year-old IT systems engineer Sam Foster’s challenge to four-term Marietta Mayor Steve “Thunder” Tumlin, 78, is a contest over how the city should grow — and whom it should serve. If elected, Foster would be Marietta’s first Black mayor and its youngest. 

The recent Kennesaw State University graduate is pitching a different approach to Marietta’s challenges, familiar across the metro region: traffic congestion, housing affordability, homelessness, and managing growth. 

He’s advocating for greater housing density and expanding public transit – changes that Tumlin opposes, Instead Tumlin, the mayor since 2008, emphasizes preserving Marietta’s existing character.

But Foster is not proposing that change be radical. Instead, his pitch to voters is to start small and demonstrate that these policies can work. For instance, Foster is advocating for expanding rapid bus transit to make Marietta more convenient and liveable. But last year Cobb County voters rejected a proposed 1% sales tax increase for 30 years to fund public transit. 

That’s why Tumlin is skeptical that it is something Marietta residents want. “I’m not looking for a transit system in the immediate future, because I don’t think it’s going to pass,” he told Atlanta Civic Circle at a candidate forum last week. 

Foster thinks you’ve got to show people something works at a smaller local level, before scaling up, especially if it’s new. “We were asking people to give us money for things that they’ve never seen,” Foster said of the failed transit referendum. 

“A thing that I’m a fan of is incremental change, showing people how something can work before you go for that big thing,” he told Atlanta Civic Circle during a campaign stop earlier this month at iLounge, a Haitian restaurant on the city’s east side. 

Foster: Convenience, not density

Foster frames his approach to handling growth as improving convenience, not increasing density. “When we talk about density or development, people think we’re trying to crowd things,” he said. “But really, what we’re talking about is convenience. Having your pharmacy, your work, your restaurants five or ten minutes away — that’s what makes life easier.”

To Foster, Marietta’s sprawling development is threatening its small-town charm. The city pays a price for that, he said, arguing that sprawling subdivisions increase the cost of providing new infrastructure like roads and sewage, as well as police and fire services. Instead, he said, existing properties that are vacant or underused could be redeveloped to increase the city’s tax base.

“The results of the development pattern we’ve done in the past are costing us money,” Foster said. “As the municipal budget starts to feel more strain, we cannot keep up the same amount of service.”

Under Tumlin’s tenure as mayor, Foster said, revitalization initiatives have displaced low income and minority residents, without providing housing alternatives. He cited the city’s $65 million acquisition and demolition of a low-income, 1,300-unit apartment complex on Franklin Road in 2015 to combat blight and crime. The city replaced the 32-acre apartment complex with the training facility for Atlanta United.   

“They’re focused on appearances,” Foster said. “But their idea of appearances means that they are not interested in fixing the underlying issues. They’re interested in getting rid of homelessness, but not in a way where we’re dealing with homelessness.”

In Marietta, the mayor  holds the tie-breaking vote on the seven-member city council and can veto legislation, so Foster is hoping to shift the balance of power for the council, which shapes land-use, budget, and transportation decisions. To do that, he has allied with progressive city council candidates, such as Anthony McCalla, who is challenging incumbent Cheryl Richardson in Ward 1, and Akella Clore, who is running for an open seat in Ward 2. 

Tumlin: Experience, not change 

Tumlin’s pitch to voters is to trust his experience at the helm. “I don’t like to make promises I can’t keep,” he said.

Denser growth, such as apartment housing, Tumlin said, should not come at the expense of neighborhoods. “To tear down beautiful homes, put up concrete here, there — I think being a community is more important,” Tumlin said. “I want us to retain our community.”

The mayor also expressed concern about how well apartment complexes are maintained over time. He pointed to the city of Mableton, which is trying to crack down on negligent apartment landlords, as a cautionary tale. “The controversy over apartments has been that one guy builds it, keeps it for two years and sells it,” he said. “In 10 years, when it turns, the slumlords move in. Do we need more of that?”

Different campaigns 

Foster and his campaign team have been knocking on thousands of doors.  Many are friends and colleagues from A Better Cobb, the nonprofit advocacy group he co-founded.  

He’s also raised his profile with voters through sharp and witty social media posts, which often feature him riding his bike around the city. (Foster didn’t own a car until he started campaigning.) In one post, he takes MARTA and a bus from downtown Atlanta to Marietta, saying “It’s actually pretty awesome to avoid all the traffic. Transit isn’t charity, it’s convenience.” In one post he shows the controversial vote where Tumlin vetoed the city’s recognition of Juneteenth as a holiday. 

By contrast, Tumlin has a bare-bones campaign website and isn’t posting about his reelection campaign on Instagram or Facebook, except for one post marking the start of early voting. A candidate forum earlier this month at an upscale townhome near Marietta Square was his first public campaign appearance, as well as the first time he and Foster were in the same room together.

 “You can have a good idea, be a bright, charismatic person,” Tumlin said of his opponent, “but you kinda gotta know how the city runs.” Voters should stick with his proven steady management and experience, he told Atlanta Civic Circle at the forum.

If campaign finances are an indicator, Tumlin is banking on his reputation and 16 years in office to win a fifth term, not on spending money campaigning. The Marietta mayor reported raising just $8,550,with about $3,500 cash on hand, for the three-month period through Sept. 30. Foster, by comparison, has reported raising nearly $43,000, with $27,000 to spend before Election Day. 

Tumlin doesn’t deny issues like traffic congestion, or blighted vacant lots that Foster’s campaign is highlighting, but hopes residents will continue to trust his ability to address them, without changing too much.

“It’s kind of like the movie Pleasantville — nothing is as simple as black and white,” Tumlin said, referencing the 1998 film where two modern-day siblings are magically transported into a black-and-white 1950s sitcom, then introduce color and change into the idyllic, but repressed town. “You can’t have a perfect city, but you try for it,” Tumlin said.

Foster argues that change is already upon Marietta — and the question is whether the city is going to plan for it effectively. To win the race, he aims to activate voters in the city’s lower income neighborhoods, which he says the city has neglected through a policy of disinvestment – particularly on Marietta’s east side.

“The idea that we have to sprawl out and annex more land — that’s costing us. We can make Marietta more productive with what we already have,” he said.

The mayor’s office and all seven council seats are on the ballot in Marietta. Early voting runs through Oct. 31. Election Day is Nov. 4.