Eva Galambos: Mother of Sandy Springs

Lyrics

The lamp is on. It’s late again.
The kitchen table is covered in columns of figures.
Fulton County budgets, spread out like a map of somewhere no one wants to go.

Eva, you came here from Budapest.
You saw the world in numbers, in systems.
You saw the waste. The disregard.
The long drive downtown for a permit they’d just lose.
So you sharpened your pencil, a Ph.D. from Georgia State.
Your weapon was a ledger book.
Your battleground was this kitchen table, night after night.

For thirty years, you built a city on paper.
Line by line, you proved that it could work.
A city run like a business, not a kingdom.
A city that answered its own phone.
You just wanted to do it your way.
And the numbers, they always said you were right.

And the years went by. The seventies, the eighties.
The handmade signs started blooming on the lawns.
'We're Our Own City, Dammit!'
They were the heart, but you were the mind.
The quiet engine, the economist who knew the cost of everything.
You gave them the words: a 'contract city'.
A new idea for an old problem.

For thirty years, you built a city on paper.
Line by line, you proved that it could work.
A city run like a business, not a kingdom.
A city that answered its own phone.
You just wanted to do it your way.
And the numbers, they always said you were right.

Then came the autumn of two thousand and five.
December first. The vote came in.
And the sound wasn't a spreadsheet, it was a cheer that shook the windows.
Eighty-four percent.
They didn't just want a city.
They wanted you.
The Mother of Sandy Springs.
From the kitchen table to the mayor's chair.

Now there’s a park with your name on it.
A place for quiet afternoons.
The city you drew on napkins and legal pads is real.
It’s breathing.
Eva Galambos, we remember.