Tuesday, November 4, 2025

-Bill Crane-

Settled back in 1892, Tucker was a prosperous town, in east central DeKalb County. Along the main rail line heading east out of Atlanta, it had a Main Street, prominent local businesses in the same family for generations like Cofer Brothers and Matthews Cafeteria, and its own High School and Middle Schools named for the town.

The Tucker Tigers were a regional high school powerhouse, and without much of a plan, the unincorporated community steadily grew.

In Georgia, by the early 2000s, initially over concerns about the quality of service delivery by several urban metro Atlanta counties, a land rush of sorts began, to create new cities to assert more local control over functions like public safety, planning & zoning, parks & recreation, roads & public works, etc…

Sandy Springs, in north Fulton was first, followed by a practical Gold Rush of communities racing through the rigors of campaigns and later referendums to create and charter new municipalities, primarily in Fulton, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties.

Tucker, Georgia, though long viewed by many as already being a city, began efforts to make that a reality in 2013– and two plus years as well as hundreds of volunteers and civic meetings later, the residents of Tucker chose to become a new Georgia city by a margin of 74 percent. And with some not long after annexations, the borders of Tucker would reach well beyond the unincorporated town to the retail and office district surrounding Northlake Mall, east to the affluent subdivision of Smokerise, and DeKalb’s eastern border with Gwinnett County.

There have been more than a dozen of those new cities over roughly the same span of time, yet all of their successes are not equal. Tucker is a standout. Low taxes, only modest increases in millage rates, and higher service levels city-wide.

YET NONE OF THIS happens by accident, it requires a plan and strong community leaders. Frank Auman, the founding Mayor of Tucker, has spent a decade working with the Tucker City Council, administration and thousands of Tucker residents in ‘place-making’ as well as creating a depth of purpose in building out the City of Tucker.

New and improved parks are now accessed by a multi-use trail system. Abandoned or under-utilized parcels and buildings have been redeveloped. A Community Improvement District on the city’s northeast side was renamed and reinvigorated as the Tucker Northlake Community Improvement District. The aging Northlake Mall was repurposed as a major back office employment center for the non-medical personnel of Emory Healthcare.

New parks dot the landscape on each side of the downtown and along that railroad spine, and while Tucker Days are still one of the premier community celebrations each year, dozens of more community events mark the calendar year round.

Tucker isn’t a perfect Shangri-La, but citizen satisfaction there appears high…from a neighboring community perspective, it appears that only the newly popular sport of Pickle Ball has the local government in any kind of vexing ongoing ‘pickle.’

Mayor Auman has said, time and again, that he wanted to build a strong foundation for a city where “One can live, work, play and pray for the length and breadth of one’s whole life.” Having known Frank since our college days, I will admit to being a trifle biased, but I have to say that he and his talented team have done precisely that…and then some.

Recently, the city celebrated the 10th anniversary of the referendum which allowed the municipality to charter and form. The Tucker Together celebration on Saturday, November 1, was well attended, and visited by multiple local dignitaries—from the DeKalb County government and School Board, to members of the Georgia General Assembly as well as leaders from other neighboring cities. A brief ceremony was followed by a Georgia/Florida game watch party and still later by a live concert by artist Michelle Malone, in one of the city’s newer parks.

Throughout the day, young children, older couples, singles and seniors of a wide variety of demographics, visited, mixed and mingled all celebrating their community. Any other city would be proud to create or celebrate a day like that one.

And that First Family of Tucker, the Aumans…must have a City Planner or two in the bloodline. Youngest daughter Grace postponed her wedding plans until after the Mayor (her Dad) finished his second term in office…she has known her fiance since childhood, yet these nuptials were not planned until decades later… And this fine young man’s name is —Tucker.

You done good Frank…you done real Good.