Joe Jerkins runs Austell. For two decades, he's been the mayor, city manager and undisputed boss man in this blue-collar town of 7,000. When a crisis hits, like the September floods, he dives into the middle of it.
His friends in the city government love Jerkins so much they’ve honored the mayor with a tribute normally reserved for those attending the big city council meeting in the sky.
A life-size bronze statue of Jerkins costing $43,000 was unveiled Thursday afternoon at the dedication of the Mayors Memorial Park. The bronzed Jerkins wears a crewneck sweater and stares ahead optimistically while thrusting one hand into his pants pocket.
Jerkins, 67, thanked others who have helped him along the way at the ceremony attended by 125 people, including political friends such as Cobb County Commission Chairman Sam Olens and former Gov. Roy Barnes. Of the statue, Jerkins noted in his West Georgia twang: "It looks just like me."
The statue was the idea of Beverly Boyd, a City Council member and friend of five decades. She said Jerkins has helped the city by cutting taxes, lowering fire insurance rates, building parks, fighting to keep the city’s post office and library from being closed and providing leadership.
She acknowledged erecting a statue to a living politician is unusual, but said, "Joe Jerkins is a very unusual man."
Jerkins' personal history is a bootstraps story. He grew up poor in Austell, started working at 12 and quit school at 15. After laying tile and building houses, he built and opened a liquor store and retired a self-made millionaire at 47.
He became mayor in 1990 and took over the city manager’s duties to save the city money. He didn’t accept a salary for the first 14 years, giving the money back for employee Christmas bonuses. As a manager, he’s literally hands-on.
“Most of the longtime employees will tell you I’ll get in the ditch with them if I need to,” Jerkins said earlier this week.
When massive floods hit Austell in September, Jerkins worked around the clock, helping evacuate residents and directing traffic at roadblocks. Many people lost their homes.
But the floods washed away some of the goodwill toward Jerkins.
Residents blamed the city, Jerkins in particular, for not telling them the area had serious floods in 2005 and for not advising them to get flood insurance. The mayor noted the flood ruined one of his houses. He testily said the city did nothing wrong and has gone out of its way to help flood victims.
“Do we want to go back to Noah’s Ark and make everybody get flood insurance?” he said at an Oct. 5 council meeting.
When asked his opinion of the mayor, resident Brian DeShong of the Cureton Woods subdivision responded in an e-mail that the mayor, or other city officials, should have stopped the park’s construction “out of respect” for the tragedy of the floods.
“The man's not even dead yet,” DeShong wrote. “Shouldn't we be waiting a few years, reflecting on any great things he's done, then commissioning a statue in his honor? ... Let’s put this statue of Joe Jerkins on Noah’s Ark and ship it out to sea where it belongs.”
Such criticism inflames Boyd. "If this was done a year ago, they wouldn't make those comments," she said.
Jerkins' name is already spread across Austell. His smiling face dominates the city Web page. Looking for City Hall? Turn down Joe Jerkins Boulevard. But the statue, Jerkins said, "was not my idea.”
“When I heard about it, I thought it shouldn’t be done,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “I feel bad about it in a way, but there’s no tax money involved. It’s an honor.”
The park and statue cost about $225,000 combined, with the money coming from interest earned by a $5 million community improvement fund. Norfolk Southern Railway put up the money as part of a settlement when the city agreed in the late 1990s to stop fighting the company’s plans to build a massive intermodal station. That was one of Jerkins’ most controversial decisions as mayor, since other local governments opposed the idea.
The city has installed storm windows and insulation on houses near the rail yard, built a fire station and park and bought a firetruck and police cars. This season, the city is giving $2,500 each to 18 churches and $500 to 80 needy families. City officials said the fund cannot be used to buy or repair flood-damaged homes.
Jerkins doesn’t vote except in case of a tie. He says he never cast a vote for or against the statue. He did, however, pose several times.
“When you first see him, he’s kind of stiff and not overly gregarious,” sculptor Bob Quinn said. “You don’t know how to take him at first, so I tried to reflect that stiffness. Once you get to know him, there’s a softness and vulnerability … that I tried to portray in his facial expression.”
The statue stares toward City Hall, across the railroad tracks that divide the town. Surrounding the pedestal are a circle of bricks bearing the names of past mayors and the dates they served as mayor. Jerkins' stone is the last one, with no end date yet.
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