Cobb and Marietta schools begin a new academic year on Thursday, and the school districts as well as local police are reminding motorists of what they’ve got to obey when the buses are out on the roads, picking up and dropping off students.
A few school zone driving safety tips from Cobb Police:
• Be on the lookout for school zone signals and ALWAYS obey the speed limits. • When entering a school zone, be sure to slow down and obey all traffic laws. • Always stop for school busses that are loading or unloading children. • Watch out for school crossing guards and obey their signals. • Be aware of and watch out for children near schools, bus stops, sidewalks, in the streets, in school parking lots, etc. • Never pass other vehicles while driving in a school zone. • Never change lanes while driving in a school zone. • Never make U-Turns while driving in a school zone. • Never text while driving in a school zone. • Avoid using a cell phone, unless it is completely hands-free, while driving in a school zone. • Unless licensed to do so, never use handicap or emergency vehicle lanes or spaces to drop off or pick up children at school.
And more about the Georgia stop-arm law, which was changed by the legislature earlier this year. Click here for a larger version of the graphic above, which is summarized below:
On a two-lane roadway: ALL traffic from both directions must stop when a school bus stops for passengers. Once the bus starts flashing its red lights and its stop signs have extended from the side, it is unlawful for any vehicle to pass the stopped school bus while it is loading or unloading passengers.
On a two-lane roadway with a center turning lane: ALL traffic from both directions must stop when a school bus stops for passengers. Once the bus starts flashing its red lights and its stop signs have extended from the side, it is unlawful for any vehicle to pass the stopped school bus while it is loading or unloading passengers.
On a four-lane roadway without a median separation: ALL traffic from both directions must stop when a school bus stops for passengers. Once the bus starts flashing its red lights and its stop signs have extended from the side, it is unlawful for any vehicle to pass the stopped school bus while it is loading or unloading passengers.
On a roadway with four or more lanes and a center turning lane: Previously: ALL traffic from both directions must stop when a school bus stops for passengers. After July 1, if there’s either a concrete or grass median, or a turn lane, drivers traveling in the opposite direction do not have to stop for buses that are loading and unloading passengers.
On a divided highway of four lanes or more with a median separation: Only traffic following the bus must stop when a school bus stops for passengers. According to the new state law, if there’s either a concrete or grass median, or a turn lane, drivers traveling in the opposite direction do not have to stop for buses that are loading and unloading passengers.
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The following East Cobb food scores from July 22-Aug. 2 have been compiled by the Cobb & Douglas Department of Public Health. Click the link under each listing to view details of the inspection:
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Four schools in East Cobb will have new principals in the 2019-20 school year. One of them—Peter Giles of Kell—is staying within the community, having moved over from Wheeler.
Over the summer the Cobb County School District compiled profile information that is highlighted below, with links to full excerpts.
Dr. Patricia Alford, Dodgen Middle School
“I have worked exclusively with middle school students for my entire career. I love this age! Dodgen is an outstanding school, and I’m excited to serve the students and staff in the community where I live! My goal as a leader is to continue and extend that academic success by providing the very best education and academic environment for our students.”
Dr. Shannon McGill, Timber Ridge Elementary School
“It is such a privilege to return to a school community that played a large part in shaping me into the leader I am today. Timber Ridge holds a special place in my heart and serving the students and staff is an opportunity to say thank you and give back to such an amazing school community. As principal, I want the community to view Timber Ridge as a welcoming and friendly school where visitors can’t help but feel the excitement and know that great things are happening!”
“Having been in CCSD for 13 years, I have seen first-hand the amazing things that Wheeler has accomplished in regards to their STEM and STEAM initiatives. This would not have been possible without the support of the Wheeler community. What I have witnessed reminds me of where I grew up in Northern Arkansas where the entire community surrounded and supported the school. I see this at Wheeler and can’t wait to jump in as the newest community member.”
“Coming to Kell High School is an opportunity for me to come back home to the Longhorn Nation. I previously served as an Assistant Principal from 2010-2013 and loved the sense of family our school and community displayed for all of our students and schools. I am also excited about knowing so many students and families due to my years of serving as the Principal at Palmer and Assistant Principal here at Kell. Having such a warm welcome from the students and families has really made my homecoming exciting!”
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The 2019-20 Cobb school year gets underway on Thursday, and leading up to that point we’ll be posting some preview information, starting with the calendar and transportation details.
As has been in recent years, Cobb schools begin on Aug. 1, one of the earliest starting dates in metro Atlanta.
That’s because the district employs numerous breaks during the academic year, especially around holidays.
There are a total of 180 instructional days, as required by state law, and in five of the 10 months are full-week breaks or longer. Graduations and the last day of school take place during the week of May 18-22, 2020.
Calendar legend:
BLACK BOXES: first and last days of school
GRAY BOXES: Holiday, school closed
YELLOW BOXES: student holiday/staff day
WHITE BOXES: ES/MS conference week; early release
PENTAGON: Early release day all levels
Getting around
The Cobb County School District has around 1,000 buses that run daily on a similar number of routes and travel around 13 million miles during the school year. About 70 percent of the district’s nearly 112,000 students ride the bus.
Last year the district rolled out an app called Here Comes the Bus that allows parents to track their child’s bus in real-time on a map.
The district also has a link on its websites with bus route informationthat you can find here.
During the months of August and September, students will be allowed to bring water in containers with a screw-on lid on school buses.
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From left, Gail Poss Towe, Mark Poss and Cherie Poss Chandler, the youngest children of Arthur and Evelyn Poss. (East Cobb News photo by Wendy Parker)
As a girl in the early 1960s, Gail Poss Towe would sit in front of her family home and count the number of cars passing by on what was called South Roswell Road, or Route 3.
“There was nothing going on,” she recalls of a much slower pace of life.
During those days, the Posses lived in a community that was called Mt. Bethel, named after the Methodist church then located on Johnson Ferry Road, and a school, community center and baseball field across the road.
Gail’s younger sister, Cherie Poss Chandler, remembers cows from the family farm wandering down what had become known as Lower Roswell Road, and into a new development of homes and a golf course called Indian Hills.
By then, the early 1970s, the name “East Cobb” was rolling off the tongues of newcomers moving into a rapidly suburbanizing part of metro Atlanta.
The Posses still called their surroundings Mt. Bethel, but they could see what was coming. While they welcomed newer schools and more conveniences, they also knew that their community would never be the same.
“When Indian Hills opened, that was a huge caveat to a changing community,” said Chandler, the fifth of the Poss children.
“That’s when it went from being Mt. Bethel to East Cobb.”
The Poss home at 4608 Lower Roswell Road, where the Mt. Bethel Community Center stands today at Woodlawn Drive. (Poss family photo)
Memories of another time
Gail and Cherie and their brother Mark, the youngest of six children of Arthur and Evelyn Poss, were childhood witnesses to a stunning transformation of a community that went from rural to suburban within the space of a generation.
Although the Posses never moved, their children went to three different high schools. The oldest, Betty Poss Smith, Linda Poss Webster and Marion Arthur Poss Jr. earned diplomas from Sprayberry, when it was still located on the current campus of The Walker School on Cobb Parkway at Allgood Road.
Gail graduated from Wheeler, and Cherie and Mark from Walton.
Unlike the suburban kids who were becoming their schoolmates, they fed chickens and did other farm chores before school.
Believe it not, they played kickball in Johnson Ferry Road, and walked down the corner of Johnson Ferry and Lower Roswell to the Johnny Perkins and Fred Sauls stores, both country groceries, to spend their allowance money on gum and candy.
Betty was a lifeguard at the private pool at the Parkaire airfield. Cherie recalls a fire station on the current site of the Chick-fil-A on Johnson Ferry. What’s now Merchants Walk Shopping Center was the Porter farm, run by an influential family.
In those days, the intersection of Johnson Ferry and what was called Upper Roswell Road was dubbed Five Points.
“I can’t remember what the fifth road was called,” Towe said.
When the Posses were kids, there wasn’t a nearby police station. In 1980, the old Mt. Bethel Community Center—originally built as Mt. Bethel Elementary School—became the first home for Cobb Police Precinct 4, opened by the county at Arthur Poss’ urging.
The first captain there, Bob Hightower, was good friends with Arthur Poss and later would become Cobb’s first public safety director. The center was the hub of local life, the spot for turkey shoots in the fall, cake walks and Friday community suppers.
Further down Woodlawn Drive was another farm owned by a prosperous businessman, Atlanta car dealer Walter Boomershine, who retired there to raise cows and Tennessee walking horses.
An aerial photo of the Poss farmstead on 10 acres at Lower Roswell Road and Woodlawn Drive. (Poss family photo)
The Posses lived on 10 acres at what is now the southwest intersection of Lower Roswell and Woodlawn Drive. Behind the home, where the current Mt. Bethel Community Center stands, were chicken coops. Black Angus and white Hereford cows roamed in the back, as did quail and bird dogs.
Off to the side was an area called “the onion bed” where vegetables and fruits were grown, and included a grapevine lush with muscadines. Arthur Poss also kept honeybees.
“He came from a long line of farmers,” Chandler says of her father. “He farmed because he loved the land, and he wanted us to learn to grow things.”
Their closest neighbor was Wilce Frasier, who lived on the opposite corner Lower Roswell and Woodlawn in a family home dating back to the late 1890s, where he cultivated a small garden.
“He was just so sweet,” Chandler said.
“His house was fabulous,” added Towe. “There were antiques and flowers everywhere.”
Coming back home to Mt. Bethel
Marion Arthur Poss Sr. was raised on another farm in Mt. Bethel. His grandparents, David and Nancy Poss, settled on some land on what is now known as Johnson Ferry Road, near Post Oak Tritt Road, after the Civil War.
His parents also had land on Johnson Ferry, on the current site of the River Hill subdivision, then moved to the present location of the Johnson Ferry Animal Hospital below Lower Roswell.
That’s where Arthur grew up before living in Brookhaven as a young man. When he returned to Mt. Bethel in the early 1940s, he brought with him his bride Evelyn Barfield Poss, a city girl from Atlanta. In 1947, they moved to a house he built at 4608 South Roswell/Route 3—then a dirt road—and raised their family.
At the time, they used coal to heat the house—there was no natural gas—and Propane tanks to keep the chicken houses warm. Their water supply came from a well.
Newlyweds Arthur and Evelyn Poss in the early 1940s. (Poss family photo)
Arthur made his living as a master plumber, traveling around Atlanta on jobs that included Crawford Long Hospital, as well as businesses and other institutions.
In his soul, however, he was a farmer, and in his spare time he ran a 50-acre spread on South Roswell. In the 1950s, Cobb County government wanted most of his land to build a wastewater treatment plant, and condemned 40 acres.
That’s where the James E. Quarles Water Treatment Plant, completed in 1952 as the first facility of the Cobb County-Marietta Water Authority, sits today.
In the 1980s, the land fronting the plant on Lower Roswell became the site for the East Cobb Government Service Center, including the current headquarters for Precinct 4 and Cobb Fire Station 21.
As their children were growing up, Arthur and Evelyn were heavily involved in community life. He served as president of the Mt. Bethel Community Center for 16 years and after retiring as a plumber was a court bailiff.
Another of Arthur’s good friends was former Cobb Sheriff Bill Hutson, and they were regular hunting companions.
Evelyn served on PTA boards at Mt. Bethel Elementary and East Side Elementary and was a devoted member and president of the Sope Creek Garden Club, winning ribbons at the Cobb County Fair for her hydrangeas and other flowers she tended at home.
“She was sweetest lady ever,” Chandler said of her mother.
A building at Lower Roswell and Johnson Ferry Road that housed the original Mt. Bethel Elementary School, Mt. Bethel Community Center and Cobb Police Precinct 4 stood until 2000. (Poss family photo)
Subdivided and suburbanized
By the time the Poss children were grown, most markers of the old Mt. Bethel community had been swept away.
The community center was torn down in 2000, when Johnson Ferry was widened to six lanes, and the church was relocated years before across from the East Cobb government center.
While the church cemetery still lines Johnson Ferry near the new Northside medical complex, Perkins and Sauls were replaced by the likes of CVS, Zaxby’s and Tijuana Joe’s. The Parkaire airport gave way to what is now Parkaire Landing Shopping and the Marietta Ice Center.
The U.S. Postal Service wanted to buy the Poss land, prizing the location at the Lower Roswell-Woodlawn intersection.
“Dad turned it down,” Towe said. “He just wouldn’t sell. That’s why the post office (located just down Lower Roswell next to Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church) is where it is now.”
Arthur Poss died in 1990; Evelyn Poss stayed in the home until her death in 1999. The house and the property were sold in 2001.
The current Mt. Bethel Community Center is the home to Aloha to Aging, a non-profit senior services agency, and counseling services provided by Mt. Bethel UMC.
Chandler said that some years before, her father wanted to build a subdivision on the back of the land and have streets named after each of his children, “but Cobb County had a different idea.”
Today, what was the Poss farmstead is now the Whitehall subdivision (below).
The Poss children scattered into adulthood, but not too far away. Betty and Linda, both retired, are still in East Cobb. Cherie lives in Roswell and is a substitute teacher at Roswell High School. Gail and Mark reside in Woodstock. Their brother Marion, who settled in Douglasville, died in 2014 at the age of 68.
Cherie says when she comes back through East Cobb with her son, she’ll find herself pointing to a development and say “that was a pasture,” and offering other such recollections.
The Poss siblings say these things without passing judgment, understanding the nature of the changes they experienced. They did sound bittersweet upon learning of the demolition of the Frasier home earlier this year (previous East Cobb News story here), realizing that truly was the last standing memory of the world they had known as Mt. Bethel.
They were also thinking about what their father thought of what had come to be known as East Cobb, and how it’s growing still.
“For him to see the land turned into buildings, that was just sad to him,” Chandler said.
“He loved the land, and he just loved the Mt. Bethel community.”
A 2005 photo of the Poss siblings, from left: Mark Poss, Cherie Poss Chandler, Gail Poss Towe, Linda Poss Webster, the late Marion Arthur Poss Jr. and Betty Poss Smith. (Poss family photo)
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After less than a week in physical rehabilitation at WellStar Kennestone Hospital, U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson is recuperating at his home in East Cobb.
His office said he was discharged Friday after undergoing physical therapy. He fractured four ribs in a fall at his apartment in Washington.
The Republican, Georgia’s senior senator who is 74 years old, said the following in a statement issued by his office:
“I am doing much better thanks to the excellent medical care and rehabilitation services I have received. I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and will remain focused on making a full recovery so I can get back to work. All of the thoughtful messages of support have kept my spirits high, and I thank everyone who has lifted me up during this time.”
His spokeswoman said Isakson is expected to return to Washington in August, after a Congressional recess that includes work and appearances around the state.
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If you live along the Mabry Road area, or use it, brace yourselves for the next eight months. The long-awaited water main replacement project is beginning in early August.
It’s going to replace most of the existing aging line along Mabry, starting around 500 feet below Woodstock Road and all the way down to Shallowford Road, except for a small stretch of Mabry between Loch Highland Parkway and Outpost Court (as noted by the red star; see the map inset below).
A new line has already gone in there, and it will soon be connected by replacement lines totalling 13,600 feet. An eight-inch pipe will run from Shallowford to Loch Highland Parkway, and a new six-inch line will be installed from Huntridge Drive to 4540 Mabry Road.
Commissioner Bob Ott’s office sent out word Friday that construction south of the dam at Loch Highland will be on the west side of Mabry, in the shoulder and turn lanes.
North of the dam, the work will be on the east side under the sidewalk. At times, that sidewalk will be closed as the new lines are installed.
No pipes will be laid in the travel lanes along Mabry, but there will be occasional lane closures. Those generally will take place Monday-Friday from 9-4 or as otherwise publicized.
Ott’s office also said there may be some brief water outages in subdivision along or served by the Mabry lines and that he will put out notices and have signs in the area with details when that happens.
The work is tentatively scheduled for completion by the end of February 2020.
The $2.575 million project (fact sheet here) is being funded out of Cobb Water System Agency revenues. The contractor is Wade Coots Co. of Hiram.
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The Top 10 highest-performing schools in the Cobb County School District on the 2019 Georgia Milestones tests all come from East Cobb.
That’s the word from the district, which on Friday released Milestones figures for the previous 2018-19 academic year.
The assessment scores, which measure learning proficiency in grades 3-12, are collected by the Georgia Department of Education and distributed by public school districts in late July.
Students are categorized in one of four levels: Level 1 is Beginning Learner, Level 2 is a Developing Learner, Level 3 is a Proficient Learner and Level 4 is Distinguished Learner.
The evaluations are based on End of Grade (EOG) tests at the elementary and middle school levels, and End of Course (EOC) tests at the high school level.
In Cobb, 84 percent of the 82,600 students who took a total of 195,655 Milestone tests achieved Level 2 or higher. That reflected a range of between 7.4 and 9.4 percentage points higher than other Georgia students in all subject areas.
For the second year in a row, Timber Ridge Elementary School in East Cobb led the district, with 98.8 percent of students taking the Milestones achieving Level 2 proficiency or higher.
The others in the Top 10 are also from East Cobb:
Murdock ES (98.3 percent);
Dodgen MS (98.0 percent);
Mountain View ES (97.6 percent);
Dickerson MS (97.4 percent);
Walton HS (97.2 percent);
Mt. Bethel ES (97.0 percent);
Tritt ES (97.0 percent);
Hightower Trail (96.8 percent);
Lassiter HS (96.8 percent).
Students in grades 3-8 are given an End of Grade test in English Language Arts and math. Student in grades 5-8 are also tested for science and social students. The high school End of Course tests cover eight subjects in English Language arts, math, science, and social studies.
(Here’s more of a breakdown on the Milestones assessment from the Georgia DOE.)
Across Georgia, 76 percent of students were rated at Level 2 or higher on the Milestones. The state said that scores were steady or increased in 25 of the 26 assessments.
The scores of Cobb students rose in all four subject areas from 2018, and the district said 90 percent of students improved their Milestones scores from three years ago.
The district also tracks school-wide improvement, and East Cobb’s Daniell Middle School had one of the biggest boosts from 2018. A total of 84.7 percent of its students scored at Level 2 or higher, an increase of 7.3 percent.
In 3-year trend improvements, schools in the South Cobb area enjoyed double-digit improvements in Level 2 or higher percentage points since 2016.
In a statement issued by the Cobb district, Murdock principal Lynn Hamblett credited three reasons for student results at her school: engaged parents, students prepared to learn and a dedicated staff.
“It is this winning combination and partnership that allows our students to perform at their highest levels,” she said.
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Lassiter teachers Hilary and Chris Minich with their children Harrison and Emily as she was named the 2019 Cobb County School District high school teacher of the year. (CCSD photo)
Hilary Minich is an English teacher like her mother, and teaches at Lassiter High School with her husband Chris. What the reigning Lassiter teacher of the year couldn’t have imagined on Wednesday was being singled out for what she’s done in the classroom in such grand fashion.
During a back-to-school meeting with her fellow teachers, Minich got a surprise when Cobb County School District Superintendent Chris Ragsdale arrived to tell her that she was the district’s high school teacher of the year.
Minich, who has taught 11th and 12 graders at Lassiter for the last five years, figures her mother Hilda Wilkins—who taught at Walton High School—probably knew about the announcement. “But they kept my husband in the dark,” which, if school officials truly wanted to keep a secret, she figured, “is a good thing.”
Minich’s work at Lassiter, and for 11 years at Kell High School before that, has been obvious to those who’ve been observing her rapport and success with students, both in composition and literature courses.
“It doesn’t matter the level [of a students’ ability in English], she’s highly successful,” Lassiter principal Chris Richie said. “She constantly challenges and engages kids. She’s able to get out of them what they may not have thought what they had in them.”
Minich said student success begins “on the front end” before classes begin, and is strengthened as the school year goes along.
“It’s a matter of making personal connections with kids,” she said.
Building strong relationships with students from the outset—including understanding what subject matter interests them and how they learn the best—is vital.
That includes introducing them to good things to read, so they’ll be interested in writing.
“I consider myself a writing teacher first and foremost,” she said.
English isn’t every student’s favorite subject, but Minich said she likes to tell them when they enter her classroom that “I’m going to give you the gift of unplugging.”
By that she means disconnecting, from electronic gadgets that today’s students have grown up with. That’s one of the biggest differences in education Minich said she’s seen since she first started. Getting students who are eager to switch off their phones and open up a book to read the words of acclaimed novelists and writers is becoming a bigger challenge.
“I see kids who feel that they’re not allowed to disengage,” Minich said. “We teachers really have our work cut out for us.”
Minich’s academic activities at Lassiter also coordinating the school’s Advanced Placement Capstone program. It goes beyond the teaching of AP courses to include research, writing, public speaking and teamwork for college-bound students.
Minich teaches an AP class in literature and research, and her husband teaches an AP world history course.
“We’re trying to teach the value of academic research,” she said. “When reading comes easy, it empowers learning.”
Minich is one of three finalists for the Cobb overall teacher of the year, along with Cindy Wadsworth of Kemp Elementary School and Casey Taylor of Pine Mountain Middle School.
All three will drive a car free for a year donated by the Ed Voyles Automotive Group.
The winner will be announced in October.
Hilary Minich with Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale (at left) and Lassiter principal Chris Richie (CCSD photo).
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High school football teams will be starting preseason practices soon, and four East Cobb booster clubs have scheduled fundraising events.
The first comes tomorrow, Friday, Jan. 26, the Lassiter Trojan Golf Classic, which has a shotgun start at 8 a.m. at Bradshaw Farms Golf Club in Woodstock. The cost is $125 per player or $500 per team, and there will be a closest-to-the-pin competition, as well as awards and a luncheon.
On Monday, the Walton Touchdown Club is holding its annual golf outing at Indian Hills Country Club. That gets underway with a shotgun scramble at 10 a.m., and the day-long event concludes with a happy hour and silent auction, as well as prizes and awards. The cost is $150/person or $500/team.
The Kell Touchdown Club is holding a Casino Night fundraiser on Saturday, Aug. 17, from 7-10 p.m. at Transfiguration Catholic Church. This is the second year for the event, which costs $25 a person and is limited to adults 18 years old and older. The ticket price includes hors d’oeuvres, drink tickets and prizes, and raffle tickets also will be available for purchase at the event.
The Pope Touchdown Club is holding its annual pancake breakfast and team picture day on Aug. 3 at the school (3001 Hembree Road).
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Send calendar events, stories, photos, etc., to: editor@eastcobbnews.com and we’ll post it!
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Commissioner JoAnn Birrell’s office is getting out word today that water service will be out for a portion of the Sandy Plains Road area between Ebenezer Road and East Piedmont Road late Thursday night and into early Friday morning for water main repairs.
That’s the area where road construction work has been underway for some months.
From 11 p.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Friday, water service will be shut off on the east side of Sandy Plains (indicated by the blue line in the map) for crews to install a new valve on the existing water main in front of the McDonald’s (at the intersection of Sandy Plains and Post Oak Tritt Road).
Most of that area is commercial or institutional entities, most of which will be closed by then.
At the same time, according to the message sent out today, northbound lane closures on Sandy Plains will be in effect. The best alternates if you’re out and about during that time are Canton Road and Holly Springs Road.
The $4.4 million Sandy Plains construction project approved by commissioners in 2017 includes a raised median, new crosswalks and pedestrian signals and resurfacing.
Back in May the Sandy Plains-Ebenezer intersection was shut down for hours after a water main break that required emergency repairs. An East Cobb News reader said she saw a truck involved in the construction work striking a hydrant.
The project is expected to be completed by the fall.
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A rendering of the Akers Mill Road ramp to the I-75 managed lanes, via the Cumberland Community Improvement District.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is providing the final $5 million in funding to construct a ramp connecting Akers Mill Road to the Northwest Corridor Express Lanes.
The $5 million grant is from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Infrastructure for Rebuilding America’s Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects (INFRA) program, and is the final funding component of the nearly $44 million project.
That money has come from state, local and other federal funding sources as well as the nearby Cumberland Community Improvement District
The 29.7-mile express lanes opened late last summer along I-75 between an area just north of Akers Mill and Hickory Grove Road in north Cobb, and along I-575 in Cobb to Sixes Road in Cherokee County.
Georgia DOT estimates nearly 4.2 million trips along the toll lanes have been taken since they opened.
Drivers in the Akers Mill area who wish to use the managed lanes have had to travel several miles to reach access points, in particular at Terrell Mill Road.
The 24-foot reversible ramp will allow motorists to bypass congested local roads. Traffic estimates in the Cumberland area are around 100,000 trips a day.
The grant was hailed by county and Cumberland CID leaders, as well as U.S. senators Johnny Isakson and David Perdue, Congressman Barry Lowdermilk and Congresswoman Lucy McBath.
Construction on the Akers Mill Road ramp is expected to begin in 2021 and be completed by 2023.
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For the second year in a row, Cobb commissioners are divided on the county budget. By a 3-2 vote, they adopted a $475 million fiscal year 2020 general fund spending plan on Tuesday that holds the line on the millage rate but takes in $21 million more in revenue.
The budget includes a pay raise for county employees (and a bigger one for many public safety employees), eliminates non-profit spending and reduces transfer revenues from the county water department.
While East Cobb’s two commissioners voted against last year’s budget, they split their votes this time around. Bob Ott of District 2 once again voted against the new budget, referring to long-term problems over public safety staffing, pensions and transportation in prepared remarks.
“I am deeply concerned that nothing is being done to address these issues,” Ott said. “I cannot in good conscience vote for this budget.”
Last year, he was joined by District 3’s JoAnn Birrell, who said she couldn’t support the FY 2019 budget because the property tax hike of 1.7 mills didn’t come with any significant spending cuts.
This year, she said, there have been some cuts. “Overall, this is a good budget,” she said in her prepared comments before the vote. “It’s not a perfect budget.”
JoAnn Birrell.
Birrell said that public safety “is our number one priority and it’s high time we do something about it.”
She voted for budget adoption this year with commissioner Lisa Cupid of South Cobb and chairman Mike Boyce of East Cobb, who said he was happy with what he called a compromise budget.
The extra revenue is due to growth in the Cobb tax digest, projected to be a record $39 billion for 2019.
County employees who get favorable performance reviews will be getting a four-percent pay increase. Likewise, police officers, firefighters and sheriff’s deputies—who received a one-time bonus this summer to address what many have called a “crisis” in public safety staffing, morale and retention issues—will be getting a seven-percent raise.
Membership fees to use county senior centers—a hot topic in last year’s budget—have been eliminated. An additional $400,000 for the public library system will be used to meet what county spokesman Ross Cavitt said were “critical needs,” including its materials collections.
“This year was all about increased compensation for public safety, and this budget delivers it,” Boyce said moments before calling the question.
Also voting against the budget was Keli Gambrill, newly elected from North Cobb, who questioned the amount of contingency funds in the budget, among other concerns. In his comments, Ott urged county budget officials to indicate the original source of spending when bringing items up for contingency funding.
Mike Boyce
More emphatically, he said that 95 percent of Cobb DOT funding comes from SPLOST receipts, and worries about how “devastating” it would be for road maintenance and repair should a sales-tax referendum ever be defeated. The next likely SPLOST vote could take place in 2020.
“Opening the libraries an extra day does no good” if the roads patrons depend on to get there are in disrepair, Ott said.
He also noted that county pension obligations continue to mount. In 1997, 95 percent of those obligations were funded, but that figure is only 52 percent today.
While he supports better pay for public safety, Ott also is concerned this year’s seven-percent raise may make it difficult to implement a step-and-grade compensation system that could result next year.
“I want to see that this is going to be worked on starting tomorrow,” Ott said.
Although board members may appear to be on seemingly different tracks about the budget, Boyce praised his colleagues, including those who voted against the budget.
“This board is honest to a fault,” he said before the vote. “How much is that of value to you?”
The commissioners also set the millage rates for the various county budget funds:
General Fund, 8.46 mills;
Fire Fund, 2.86 mills;
Debt Service (Bond Fund), 0.13 mills;
Cumberland Special Services District II, 2.45 mills;
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With a new school year a little more than a week away, Walton High School is improvising its orientation sessions next Monday.
Instead of taking place on campus, those sessions will happen instead at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church (955 Johnson Ferry Road); see schedule below.
Construction work is nearing completion on a $31.7 million gym and performing arts building (where the original classroom building once stood). While it’s expected to be done by first day of school, next Thursday, Aug. 1, the delays prompted the orientation change.
“Walton is planning a theater opening event in September,” a Cobb County School District spokesperson told East Cobb News. “Although they may still be completing some final details, they are planning to use the building on the first day of school.”
School officials didn’t give a reason for the delay. Last December a fire broke out in the new building but according to Cobb Fire, it was quickly contained and didn’t cause major damage.
The new facility is the second component of the Walton rebuild and will be completed two years after a $48 million classroom building was opened.
Here’s what Walton officials are sharing with the community about next week’s orientation, where students will get their schedules and pick up prepaid PTSA and Walton items.
All sessions will take place in the Magnolia Room at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church.
Monday, July 29 9th grade:
8:30-9:15 am: Last names A-K
9:15-10:00 am: Last names L-Z
12th grade:
10:00 am-10:45 am: Last names A-K
10:45-11:30 am: Last names L-Z
11th grade:
11:30-12:15 pm: Last names A-K
12:15-1:00 pm: Last names L-Z
10th grade:
1:00-1:45 pm: Last names A-K
1:45-2:30 pm: Last names L-Z
If you’ve got a freshman, the walkthrough takes place on next Wednesday, July 31, from 2-3 p.m. at the school (1590 Bill Murdock Road). Here are the details about that:
“There will also be an opportunity for parents to become familiar with Walton and to learn what they can do to help their students in the transition.
“For students: Students will meet Walton Ambassadors in the Rotunda and be escorted to homeroom. Ambassadors will take the students on a school tour with their schedules so they can locate all their classrooms.
“For parents: While your child is meeting with the Ambassadors, the school principal and support staff will conduct a meeting in the dining hall to orient you to Walton.”
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After working to get a new member of the Cobb Board of Education elected last year, East Cobb resident Jerica Richardson has decided to run for public office in 2020.
Richardson, who lives in the Delk Road area, is a candidate for the District 2 Cobb Board of Commissioners seat held by 11-year incumbent Bob Ott.
She said she’s formally launching her campaign in August (her campaign website is here) and is running “because it is time that the community has a seat at the table.”
On her personal website, Richardson describes herself as a “hacktivist” who’s writing a book on the subject. In it, she urges those who are “tired of being ignored” to “pick up those dreams again and inch closer to being who you were meant to be.”
In an interview with East Cobb News, Richardson didn’t offer many specifics about what her priorities would be for now. She admits to being a “firebrand” who dates her interest in politics to the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, which took place when she was 12.
“Running for office has always been something that’s been in the back of my mind,” she said. “The impact our elected representatives have can serve as an empowerment tool for the community.”
Richardson, who works in an enterprise transformation unit at Equifax, serves on the Facilities and Technologies Committee, a SPLOST advisory board, for the Cobb County School District. She was appointed by school board member Jaha Howard, whose campaign she worked on and who was elected last year to represent the Osborne and Campbell clusters.
Richardson, who’s running as a Democrat in what’s been long-held Republican territory, is the only declared candidate thus far in District 2. It includes most of East Cobb below Sandy Plains Road, as well as the Cumberland-Vinings area and portions of Smyrna.
(story continues below the map)
Map via Cobb Elections. For enlarged map click here.
Ott, a Republican and the dean of the five-member Cobb Board of Commissioners, has not yet indicated whether he’s running for a fourth term. He’s also downplayed speculation he’s interested in running for commission chairman, or possibly mayor of a proposed City of East Cobb should such a referendum be on next year’s ballot.
Current chairman Mike Boyce and South Cobb commissioner Lisa Cupid have announced their candidacies for chairman next year.
Richardson and her family moved to Atlanta from New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Her brothers attended Walton High School. She graduated from the North Springs arts and sciences charter school in Fulton County and earned a biomedical engineering degree from Georgia Tech.
She said that community “disconnections” between citizens and their elected officials promoted her to consider running. Who are those individuals?
“People who live and work here and who want to see Cobb grow,” she said.
As for specific issues, Richardson said “I’m keeping my finger on that. I want to be very careful how I look at these issues.
“It’s not about me being any kind of savior,” she said. “It’s about bringing people together. I want to be a real representative.”
Richardson declined to comment on what she thinks of Ott’s record, saying that “my campaign is fresh, and he hasn’t made a decision.”
Among the challenges she sees are those the commissioners are dealing with now, including getting a long-term handle on budgeting, taxes and public safety.
She said she will have more detailed comments on policy issues when she unveils her campaign next month.
“There’s a lot there,” Richardson said. “How to articulate what direction we need to go is very important to me. Words matter.”
In mid-June Richardson filed a campaign declaration form with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission. Since then, she said her campaign has raised around $10,000 (the current reporting period must be filed by the end of September).
Ott’s latest campaign disclosure form, dated July 1, indicates he raised $55,000 in the second quarter of 2019, and lists the office being “held or sought” as District 2.
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If you’re in the vicinity of the Windy Hill-Terrell-Mill-Powers Ferry area this week and see smoke, please note that the chances are it’s part of a live fire experiment being conducted by the Cobb Fire and Emergency Services Department.
The live burns will take place at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. every day through Friday at the Arlington Park at Wildwood Apartments, 1972 Kimberly Village Lane (noted by the blue star).
The apartments have been condemned for the construction of the Windy Hill-Terrell Mill connector.
Cobb fire and other nearby fire departments will be working with the Underwriters Firefighter Safety Research Institute on the experiments, with the county saying the results “will be used to improve firefighting tactics, fire ground safety, fire dynamics knowledge, and to improve firefighter standard operating procedures.”
The county followed up with this message this morning:
“It is not an invitation to watch the live burn. The event is not open to the public. It is a heads up to area residents and to prevent additional calls to our busy E-911 center.”
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Angela Kirby of Cheerscape—which offers instruction in the artistry and chereography of cheer—writes in to say that her studio will be opening in September at the Xdrenaline trampoline park and kids’ fun center (1611 Roswell Road).
What is Cheerscape? Kirby says “we focus on cheers, chants, basic positions while building on core strength, flexibility, coordination, balance and memory skills while incorporating movement and dance concepts.”
Just as important, she notes, what it’s NOT: “No stunts, no tumbles, and no competitive spirit.”
Cheerscape will offer classes based on age/grade range, with groups ranging from K-2, 3-5 and 6-8. A 12-week session includes an hour of practice weekly in cheer bow, spirit poms and megaphone.
For information e-mail: cheerscape@gmail.com or call 678-478-3002.
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After being released from a Washington hospital on Saturday, U.S. Sen. Johny Isakson will continue his recovery close to home.
That what the East Cobb Republican’s spokeswoman said Saturday afternoon. Isakson, who fractured four ribs in a fall in his D.C. apartment, will enter an inpatient rehabilitation program at Kennestone.
Isakson, 74, will receive “an intensive physical therapy program” to help regain stamina and mobility, according to his spokeswoman, Amanda Maddox.
“Part of the challenge that Isakson will face is the coupling of his injury with the symptoms of his Parkinson’s disease, which could lead to a longer recovery process,” according to her statement. “He is in good spirits and is determined to face this challenge head on so he can return to doing what he loves: representing Georgians in the Senate.”
Said Isakson:
“I’m on the mend and looking forward to fully healing my fractured ribs through intensive rehabilitation. I thank everyone who has lifted me up through prayer and well-wishes.”
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The leaders of several Cobb non-profits who’ve received county funding in the past are asking commissioners continue the practice, although there’s no money at all for them in the proposed fiscal year 2020 budget.
Irene Barton, Cobb Collaborative
At a budget hearing earlier this week, representatives of some of the 15 community organizations who’ve received a total of $850,000 in the current FY 2019 budget said the small figures they receive from Cobb government enable them to get matching funds that are vital to the work that they do.
“Non-profits are working together to address critical issues,” said Irene Barton, an East Cobb resident who is the executive director of the Cobb Collaborative.
It’s an umbrella organization that received $42,500 this year to help coordinate grant funding of around $3.1 million.
The critical needs include addressing those who are homeless and ex-offenders, those in family poverty situations and for health and wellness issues.
Those were the four criteria Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce proposed last year for organizations to receive county founding. But after commissioners approved the FY 2019 budget, Boyce acknowledged there wasn’t the political support (commissioners Bob Ott and JoAnn Birrell of East Cobb have been opposed) to continue the funding.
The Center for Family Resources, which focuses on homelessness issues, is getting $141,000 this year, the largest amount of county spending, followed by the Davis Direction Association ($120,000), which fights drug and opioid addiction.
SafePath Children’s Advocacy Center receives $81,000, the Atlanta Community Food Bank $70,000, MUST Ministries $53,000 and the Tommy Nobis Center $45,000.
Barton said in her remarks to the commissioners that the non-profits have worked with government agencies, other non-profits and faith communities, but “no one group can fund this alone.
“Some may feel that that taxpayers’ dollars should not fund these agencies. If these services are not funded, who will provide them?”
As she did last week, State Rep. Mary Frances Williams, a Marietta Democrat who represents part of East Cobb, also urged commissioners to provide non-profit funding.
“I really worry that your minds are already made up,” she said. “Once this money is gone, it’s hard to get a chunk of money like this back in the process.”
A Cobb resident at Tuesday’s budget hearing disagreed. Patricia Hay argued that “it’s not government’s job to take care of people. It’s just not.”
The Cobb commissioners will hold a final budget hearing at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, prior to final adoption. The meeting takes place in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building, 100 Cherokee St., in downtown Marietta.
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On Monday, the Walton Touchdown Club is holding 
