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Video and text submitted by the office of U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson:
In his 45-year public service career spanning from the Georgia general assembly to the U.S. Senate, U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., has made a lasting impact on countless areas of public policy. As he prepares to leave the Senate on Dec. 31, much of Isakson’s Senate legacy is highlighted in a video released today focusing on his impact on veterans, federal and state business policy, foreign policy and global leadership, education, and health care and how he has served more effectively by living his compassionate, bridge-building conservative values daily.
Isakson holds the distinction of being the only Georgian ever to have been elected to the state House, state Senate, U.S. House and U.S. Senate. In addition, in 2016 he became the first Georgia Republican ever to be elected to a third term in the U.S. Senate.
“Every day since I was first sworn in to the U.S. Senate on Jan. 4, 2005, it has been a privilege to serve Georgia in this role. I’ve done my very best to make sure Georgians’ best interests are reflected in my votes and policy work,” said Isakson. “Traveling our beautiful state and working with Georgians from Rabun Gap to Tybee Light to represent commonsense, conservative values and deliver meaningful results has been a joy, regardless of the political climate or season.
“I thank Georgians who have trusted me and the colleagues who have worked with me from the bottom of my heart. I thank my wife Dianne, and my family, my staff and many friends for their support. Without them, none of this would have been possible.
“I also thank our service members, veterans and their families for protecting the United States. It has been an honor to pay my gratitude through policy and constituent service work, which I hope has improved their lives.
“I look forward to remaining as active as possible in Georgia after my retirement from the U.S. Senate on Dec. 31.”
Veterans
Isakson, a veteran himself, served in the Georgia Air National Guard from 1966-1972. Isakson has been a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs since he joined the Senate in 2005.
Isakson became chairman of the Senate VA Committee in January 2015. From 2015 to 2019, under Isakson’s leadership, the Senate passed 63 pieces of legislation, and 57 of which have become law. These include significant reforms to improve accountability at the VA, expand VA education benefits, modernize the process for veterans’ appeals of benefit determinations, and overhaul the VA’s community care programs.
For a full list of Isakson’s accomplishments for veterans, click here.
Businessman
Applying the lessons learned throughout his 33-year real estate career, Isakson has aided Georgia communities during his 45 years in public service through planned development and by protecting Georgia’s transportation, energy and water interests, as well as job creators and employees.
For a full list of Isakson’s business-related accomplishments, click here.
Values
Isakson has earned a reputation as a compassionate, honest and bridge-building public servant throughout his long political career. Isakson’s faith has guided his entire life. He taught sixth-grade Sunday school at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia, for more than 30 years. Isakson has been a regular attendee at the weekly Senate prayer breakfast with Senate Chaplain Barry Black and served as co-chair of the National Prayer Breakfast in 2010.
For additional information about Isakson’s lifetime commitment to his values, click here.
Global Leadership and Foreign Policy
Isakson, who previously served as the top Republican on the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs, has been a long-term member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. The U.S. Global Leadership Coalition recently honored Isakson with its Lifetime Achievement Award for his longstanding commitment to advocating for a strong U.S. foreign policy and strengthening America’s development and diplomacy tools across the globe.
For a full list of Isakson’s foreign policy-related accomplishments, click here.
Education
Isakson has served as chairman of the Georgia Board of Education and on the education committees in the Georgia general assembly and in Congress. He has helped write some of the most significant federal education policies in recent history and has always focused on bettering the lives of future generations through quality education.
Once in Congress, Isakson brought his experience to the U.S. House education committee, where he took part in writing the No Child Left Behind Act – comprehensive education reform enacted in 2002 to strengthen America’s public schools. In the Senate, Isakson became a member of the Senate education committee, and more a decade after No Child Left Behind was enacted, Isakson played a key role in the rewrite of the law to bring about much-needed updates to the country’s education policies.
For a full list of Isakson’s education-related accomplishments, click here.
Health Care
Isakson has sought common ground to improve the health of Americans and people throughout the world. Isakson’s efforts come amid his own challenges with Parkinson’s disease – a diagnosis that has not slowed down his commitment to helping others.
Isakson serves on two committees with jurisdiction over Americans’ health care: the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. During his Senate career, Isakson has worked tirelessly on bipartisan legislation to improve health care for veterans and for seniors with chronic conditions, fund research for rare diseases and combat the opioid epidemic – all while fighting his own battle with Parkinson’s disease.
For a full list of Isakson’s health care-related accomplishments, click here.
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After more than 40 years in business, Life Grocery and Cafe will be closing shortly after the first of the year.
The organic foods store, located at 1453 Roswell Road in the New London Shopping Center, announced on Dec. 26 that it would be closing in January because of “declining sales due to increased competition and increasing costs” and not being able to make improvements at its facility. The following also was on the store’s Facebook page:
“Additionally, our primary distributor has been unable to consistently provide us with quality products that our customers deserve, as they prioritize fulfilling orders for the bigger stores. It has become clear that with these dynamics, along with changing market conditions and shopping culture, we cannot continue to operate our business profitably.”
The store has begun a going out of business sale that continues all through this week, with a 10 percent discount for all customers and 15 percent for store members. The hours this week are as follows.
Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday 10-6;
Tuesday 10-5;
Wednesday closed;
Sunday 12-4.
All sales are final and no checks will be accepted. Life Grocery and Cafe was founded by Life Chiropractic College students in 1976 seeking healthy eating alternatives, long before Whole Foods and other supermarkets began offering organic products.
On Sunday night, Life ownership followed up with this message:
“The kind comments on social media and in the store have been heart-warming. We have received so many stories of how we have impacted lives and even saved lives through the years. One of our sweet customers suggested that we video customers in the store with their stories. We love the idea, but the tears that go with that are just too much to bear. We have already gone through enough boxes of tissues! If you feel so inclined, we’d love you send us a video or audio clip to lifegroceryandcafe@gmail.com and let us know what Life has meant to you.”
The store was able to end its lease two years early and also is selling equipment and fixtures. For inquiries call Ronnie Hudson at 770-977-9583 ext. 124 or email lifegroceryandcafe@gmail.com.
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The Battery Atlanta will celebrate the New Year in style with our third annual New Year’s Eve Bash presented by Xfinity. Braves in-game host & Star 94.1 Atlanta on-air celebrity Mark Owens will emcee the entire evening of free programming.
The early innings, for those wishing to ring in the New Year early, will start at 6 p.m. in the Plaza. The Heavy Hitters and BLOOPER will be on hand as well as David Garibaldi, a performance painter who transforms blank canvas in minutes to music. At 8 p.m., balloon baseballs will drop in celebration of the New Year.
The late innings festivities start at 9 p.m., with the 12 South Band and David Garibaldi providing the entertainment from the Georgia Power Pavilion Stage. The midnight countdown will include pyrotechnics and 2020 will begin with a confetti and aerial fireworks display.
Frequently Asked Questions: Q. Where can I get tickets / How much are tickets? A. No tickets required, this is a FREE event.
Q. Can kids attend Late Innings? A. Absolutely! All events throughout the evening are family friendly.
Q. Is Parking Free? A. Parking in the public decks (Red, Green, Purple) is free for the event.
Q. What is included? A. All entertainment listed is free for the public. Food & Beverage is available for purchase at any of our restaurants, and mobile beverage carts will be in the Plaza area.
Q. Where is this taking place?/Where is the Plaza? A. All of the entertainment will take place in the Plaza, which is the open area in front of SunTrust Park by the Omni/Comcast Building.
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Submitted information from Cobb County government:
Cobb County ordinance bans use of fireworks from 9 p.m. to 10 a.m., with several exceptions per Georgia law. The exceptions are January 1, the last Saturday and Sunday in May, July 3, July 4, the first Monday in September, and December 31 of each year. On these dates, consumer fireworks may be discharged until midnight, except on New Year’s Eve, when they may be discharged after midnight until 1 a.m. And always be considerate of your and your neighbors’ pets. Most are not fond of fireworks.
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Mindy Seger of the anti-city group East Cobb Alliance debates David Birdwell of the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb in November. (ECN photo by Wendy Parker)
After finally going public with their plans in early 2019, leaders of the East Cobb cityhood initiative announced in December they would not be pursuing legislation in 2020 that would call for a referendum.
The Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb, Inc. held or appeared at a few town hall meetings in the spring, but then didn’t come back to the public for several months, after a cityhood bill had been introduced in the Georgia legislature and as opposition grew to include a grassroots citizens’ organization.
Even after a group of financial experts reaffirmed the financial viability of the proposed city (with one dissenting view), the cityhood group faced hostile response from opponents who suspected developers’ interests behind the push.
They also contended that tax rates would go up with a new city that would add an unwanted extra layer of government.
That was certainly the sentiment at a town hall meeting at Wheeler High School in November, and at a debate the following day before the East Cobb Business Association.
By then, other local elected officials, including those serving on the Cobb Board of Commissioners and legislators, said they hadn’t been kept up to date by cityhood leaders, including seeing a revised map of the proposed city.
It was only after the cityhood legislative effort was delayed to 2021 that the cityhood group acknowledged that only an outline of a new map had been produced, and not any revised details.
In explaining the decision to hold off on legislation in the new year, cityhood leader David Birdwell said that “we want to take the time to do this right” and that better efforts to communicate and engage with the community are needed.
“We live in a special place and we’re all passionate about doing the right things for our neighborhoods. Many members of this committee—and all of the members of the Independent Finance Group—started out as skeptics of cityhood. For all of us, an objective look at the facts led to only one conclusion: Cityhood would result in an overwhelming net positive for the people of East Cobb.”
The anti-cityhood East Cobb Alliance said it will continue to maintain opposition and considers the legislation sponsored by State Rep. Matt Dollar of East Cobb active when the General Assembly session begins in January.
After debating Birdwell at the ECBA event, Alliance leader Mindy Seger acknowledged that “there’s kind of been a political awakening” in East Cobb over the cityhood issue.
“It’s gotten people engaged,” Seger said, “and that’s a good thing.”
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Families can celebrate the start of 2020 early with kid-friendly “Noon Year’s Eve” parties on Tuesday at five Cobb County Public Libraries. The free December 31st programs will feature crafts, storytime, dance and music, and more ahead of the countdowns to noon.
The countdown parties start at 11 a.m. Tuesday, except for the official 11:15 a.m. start at Gritters Library. The Cobb library events will occur as the first hours of 2020—and new decade—are celebrated several time zones away.
The countdown events will include:
Gritters Library, 880 Shaw Park Road, Marietta, 30066, starts at 11:15 a.m. 770-528-2524.
Lewis A. Ray Library, 4500 Oakdale Road, Smyrna 30080. (770) 801-5335
West Cobb Regional Library, 1750 Dennis Kemp Lane, Kennesaw 30152. 770-528-4699
Vinings Library, 4290 Paces Ferry Road, Atlanta 30339. 770-801-5330
Cobb County Libraries will close early on December 31st at 5 p.m. and will be closed January 1st. Regular hours resume January 2nd.
For information on upcoming library programs and resources, visit www.cobbcat.org.
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Jake Horne was taken off life support after being shot outside an East Cobb home in March; the homeowner, Larry Epstein, was charged with his murder.
A quiet East Cobb neighborhood became the focus of an intense law enforcement presence one afternoon in early March 2019 after two home contractors were shot in what some residents thought was an active shooter situation.
Cobb Police ordered residents to stay inside as they closed off Wellington Lane, off Johnson Ferry Road, and sent in SWAT officers and a mobile command unit.
A nearby resident told East Cobb News she’d never seen so much police concentrated in the area, a situation drawing heavy metro Atlanta media coverage as well.
A resident of Kensington, the neighborhood in question, told East Cobb News that “they have us pretty blocked in but not giving any info. They are in SWAT gear with guns drawn.”
An hour or so after police came to the scene, the standoff ended peacefully when Larry Epstein, a resident of the Wellington Lane home where the shootings occurred, surrendered.
Two electrical contractors doing work at his home were rushed to WellStar Kennestone Hospital.
One of them, Jake Horne, 21, of Kennesaw, was taken off life support and pronounced dead the following morning after being shot in the head. Gordon Montcalm, 37, of Buchanan, Ga., was listed in serious condition and faced a long recovery.
Epstein, 69, was charged with murder and he remains in the Cobb County Adult Detention Center after being denied bond.
During his probable cause hearing, police said Epstein had accused the workers of killing pet ducks at the home, although there was no evidence of those acts.
The families of the victims were left to scramble to raise funds for medical and funeral expenses, and to comprehend what had happened.
“This is a boy that would give you the shirt off of his back. He had a heart of gold,” said Lisa Godsey, Horne’s aunt, who lives in California. “He thought of everyone else before himself.”
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After years of being an eyesore, the Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center in 2019 became the target of a redevelopment proposal that energized citizens frustrated by inaction regarding the rundown retail center.
In June, those leading the Sprayberry Crossing Action Facebook group said they had been meeting with Atlantic Residential, an Atlanta-based multi-family developer interested in building a mixed-use complex.
It would have some retail but would be largely residential, with apartments and senior-living units taking up most of the property at the southeast corner of East Piedmont Road and Sandy Plains Road.
In August, some of those community representatives met with Atlantic Residential to get more details, and shared them with the public. They also were hopeful of holding a town hall meeting to go over the plans.
But that’s when some opposition began to arise, mostly due to the apartments and the density of the proposal.
By September, the Atlantic Residential revised its plans, calling for nearly 400 residential units (nearly half of them apartments, along with senior living and townhomes), 30,000 square feet of commercial space and other amenities.
Some of those critical of the apartment units started their own Facebook group and contend that kind of development isn’t suitable in an area with single-family homes.
Other opposition arose from those with family members buried in a cemetery at Sprayberry Crossing that was slated to be relocated in the Atlantic Residential proposal.
The developer said in late September the plan would be undergoing “substantial changes” that have not been detailed since then.
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After a career of public service spanning more than four decades, U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson announced in 2019 he would be retiring at the end of the year.
The Republican former real estate agency owner from East Cobb suffered continuing health issues during the year. In addition to his battle with Parkinson’s Disease, he fractured ribs during a fall at his Washington apartment.
He underwent rehabilitation at WellStar Kennestone Hospital said in August he could not complete his third term that ends in 2022.
Isakson, the first Georgian to serve in both houses of the state legislature and Congress, made bipartisanship and his role as the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman his hallmark.
Along the way, he endeared himself to colleagues in both parties, who paid tribute late in the year.
In a moving scene on the floor of the U.S. House, Democratic Congressman John Lewis of Atlanta hailed Isakson, who was sitting nearby in a wheelchair, and the two men warmly embraced.
In his final speech on the Senate floor, Isakson called his 15-year tenure in the U.S. Senate “the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
He implored his colleagues to “find a way to find common ground.” He said, “America, we have a problem,” but that “we can do anything” by dropping hard party labels. “Bipartisanship will be the way you accomplish things, the way you live.”
Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Buckhead businesswoman Kelly Loeffler, a political novice, to succeed Isakson through the elections next November. The winner of a “jungle primary” then would fill the remaining two years of Isakson’s term.
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After more than a decade, and some questions of whether it would ever come about, Mabry Park opened in 2019, a long overdue passive park addition in East Cobb.
The ribbon-cutting celebration in May included members of the Mabry family, who sold 26 acres of their historic farmland on Wesley Chapel Road to Cobb County right before the recession.
The economic downturn halted the project at that point, although a master plan was later completed to maintain the future park with a rural feel.
The Friends of Mabry Park persisted with their vision, along with Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell, and many citizens of the nearby Northeast Cobb community.
“We couldn’t have gotten here without the community,” said Peter Hortman, the current president of the Friends of Mabry Park.
In another part of Northeast Cobb, a master plan was unveiled and adopted by the Cobb Board of Commissioners for future development.
Like Mabry Park, nearly 18 acres of land of Ebenezer Road will also feature a lake as its centerpiece, but also is proposed to include recreational fishing.
What’s to be called Ebenezer Downs would still need construction funding by the commissioners, and no timetable has been outlined.
The land purchase in 2018 was made with proceeds from the 2008 Cobb Parks Bond referendum.
That same funding source was tapped for the county to acquire 22 acres of the Tritt property on Roswell Road, envisioned as an extension of adjacent East Cobb Park.
In early December, one of the leaders of the Friends for the East Cobb Park was honored as a recipient of the East Cobb Citizen of the Year Award.
Tom Bills was the park volunteer group’s first treasurer, as it scouted property and then worked to fundraise the purchase, and as the park was built for its 2003 opening.
The former Tritt property is designated as greenspace for now.
Bills is currently is a senior construction project manager for the Cobb Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs, and was involved in the Mabry Park project.
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During the first weeks of the 2019-20 Cobb County School District academic year, two East Cobb high schools went on lockdown, and a student at another school was arrested after threatening violence and attacking a teacher.
Those incidents raised concerns by school safety advocates about the district’s measures to handle such incidents.
A trespasser was quickly apprehended after walking onto the Sprayberry campus with a gun and a Wheeler student was arrested after other students alerted teachers and staff that he had carried a gun on a school bus.
At Walton High School, a student was arrested for making terroristic threats, saying he would shoot up the school when he was taken from a class for having alcohol in a water bottle. He also was charged with battery for kicking a teacher.
An East Cobb parent who helped form a Cobb schools safety group last year acknowledged that the district is taking more concerted steps to ensure safety and communicate better, but still thinks its approach is largely reactive.
She’d like to see the district invest more in mental health counseling and a “social emotional learning” program other school systems have begun.
The Walton incident wasn’t made public for a week, and then only because of news reports, while the Sprayberry and Wheeler cases were made public the day they occurred.
The district has continued to stress its safety resource effort called Cobb Shield, which contains information about its police force, emergency management procedures and code red drills, which are required each semester at all 16 high schools.
District spokesman John Floresta said Cobb schools was “batting 100 percent in the way each incident [at the East Cobb schools] was handled,” from quick actions by school officials to apprehend those posing a threat, to relaying information to the school community.
“We’re being as proactive as any school district I know,” he said.
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The two new members of the Cobb Board of Education—including one who represents the Walton and Wheeler clusters—weren’t bashful about outlining new ideas and initiatives for the Cobb County School District in 2019.
Democrats Charisse Davis and Jaha Howard narrowed the board’s Republican majority to 4-3 when they were sworn in in January, along with re-elected member David Chastain of the Kell and Sprayberry zones, who served as chairman this year.
Those three would ultimately clash in September, when Chastain made a motion to eliminate board member comments at the end of meetings.
Some of Howard’s remarks had strayed from Cobb school business into other political topics, local and national, and during a tense discussion, the Republican majority voted 4-3 to impose the ban.
That split was evident earlier in the year, when Davis and Howard voiced a desire for the board to consider making some changes, including closing loopholes, in the Cobb school senior tax exemption.
As the board began the budget process, Chastain told an East Cobb audience he was adamant nothing would happen regarding the exemption, eligible for homeowners 62 and older.
School district officials estimate that costs more than $100 million a year. Davis said she doesn’t want to eliminate the exemption, but noted that Cobb is one of only two school districts in metro Atlanta that doesn’t have any conditions to its senior tax exemption.
At a school board retreat in the fall, she and Howard raised the subject again, but it was rejected.
Davis and Howard also have publicly suggested the Cobb school district create a cabinet-level position for equity and diversity in the wake of calls by some parents and school staff in the county for Cobb schools to address what they claim are unaddressed and systemic racial biases.
In 2020, four board members will be up for re-election, including David Banks of Post 4. He’s finishing his third term representing the Pope and Lassiter districts, and has drawn two Republican opponents.
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As the final notes of “Silent Night” wafted through the sanctuary, I kept looking at the light.
The candlelight that we all held in one hand as we sang, kneeling, at the end of a lovely Christmas Eve service.
I didn’t want the light to go out, and kept the candle burning during the processional, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”
After that, the overhead lights had come on and as I exited the building, I looked back at a beautiful sight. The soft lights that radiated from the building, and the Christmas tree in front, left me in a comfortable glow.
I was filled by the warmth of a festive event, the embrace of new friends and the promise of new birth.
For the second year in a row, I attended the Christmas Eve candlelight service at St. Catherine’s Episcopal Church on Holt Road.
What was different this year is that I’ve been going there for the last few months, after many years of not being religious in any way.
Bit by bit, week by week, a little more of a light that had dimmed for me began to brighten up again.
Earlier this year I lost my mother, and finding my way out of that darkness has been rough. My first Christmas without her was going to be especially difficult.
On Monday, as I scratched off the last few items on my grocery shopping list, that sense of loss overwhelmed me, and I barely made my way out of the store without breaking down.
On the morning of Christmas Eve, that melancholy reappeared, and I wondered if I had the strength to go to church.
It was on Christmas Eve a year ago I learned my mother’s lung cancer had become so advanced, and she had gotten so weak, that she decided to forego any chemotherapy. She lived two more months, and for me that favorite of her holidays has become a bittersweet memory.
After the candlelight service Tuesday night, I drove past our old house, and noticed that the current residents had decorated a Christmas tree in the front yard, with beaming green and red lights. I smiled, knowing my mother would be delighted.
The lights of the holidays always made her happy, but she always knew how to look for the light every day of the year.
She found it, in her faith and her family and her sense of fidelity to friends and strangers, and really lived it.
It’s a lesson she taught me long ago, and that I’m trying to learn anew. The light is not always visible, and often is buried amid darkness and despair.
But it’s there, if we’re willing to let it shine.
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The year 2019 marked some dramatic change for several East Cobb faith communities, including one of its best known. Johnson Ferry Baptist Church has a new pastor, only the second its history.
Rev. Clay Smith was called from First Baptist Church in Matthews, N.C., to succeed founding pastor Rev. Bryant Wright.
Wright, who initially ministered to a tiny congregation in vacant office space in the early 1980s, shepherded the church into one with more than 8,000 members, with a sprawling campus on Johnson Ferry Road that now includes a large activities center, ball fields and a K-12 school.
In addition, Wright began the non-denominational Wright From the Heart Ministries, reaching radio and multimedia audiences, and was president of the Southern Baptist Convention as it welcomed historically black congregations.
At the end of 2018 Wright indicated his desire to step away from his Johnson Ferry duties, and will continue with Wright From the Heart.
Another long-time spiritual leader in East Cobb announced this year he will be retiring in 2020. Steven Lebow of Temple Kol Emeth became the Reform synagogue’s first full-time rabbi in 1986 and took part in community protests against an anti-gay resolution by the Cobb Board of Commissioners in the early 1990s.
Rabbi Steven Lebow of Temple Kol Emeth is retiring at the end of June 2020.
Later he took up the cause of working to exonerate Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager who was lynched near what is now Frey’s Gin Road in 1915. In the wake of 9/11, Lebow started an annual Ecumenical service the week before Thanksgiving, inviting faith leaders and worshippers from around the north metro Atlanta for music, humor and interfaith messages of unity.
Earlier this year, Eastside Baptist Church made the news when the Southern Baptist Convention had listed it for possible “defellowshipping” related to a 2017 sexual abuse case.
Newspapers in Texas had reported on allegations of abuse in the SBC, but Eastside Pastor John Hull was publicly critical of the SBC for the listing, saying the congregation on Lower Roswell Road had addressed the matter promptly.
A former Eastside youth ministry volunteer was convicted of two counts of sexual battery in 2016 and is in prison; the church took actions to improve security, strengthen background checks and increase safety as Hull was coming on board.
The SBC later removed Eastside from the list, saying no further investigation was warranted.
In September, a longtime East Cobb church announced it was closing its doors, due to declining an aging membership and financial issues.
Members of Powers Ferry United Methodist Church gathered in early December for “homecoming” as the 65-year-old congregation prepares for its final service on Dec. 29.
Also as the holidays approached, two East Cobb churches became one. Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which had been sharing space with Hope Presbyterian Church on Sandy Plains Road, merged with Christ Presbyterian.
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A good number of retail, restaurant and service businesses opened in East Cobb during 2019, but it was the handful of closures that caught many locals by surprise.
Two of them in particular drew plenty of attention later in the fall. The Fresh Market at Woodlawn Square had a markdown sale as it closed its doors in October, and Egg Harbor Cafe shuttered in December after not being able to work out a new lease.
Also closing during the past year was the Loyal Q Tavern at Parkaire Landing Shopping Center and Once and Again Books on Shallowford Road.
The year 2019 was a healthy one for new fitness center openings, including Fit Body Boot Camp and SPENGA East Cobb, among others, as well as Explore Chiropractic at Parkaire.
Other new stores include The French Table and Pineapple Porch, home decor outlet, Frenchie’s Modern Nail Care and Code Ninjas, a coding school for kids.
Carwash USA, which had been located at Roswell Road and Old Canton Road, reopened at the former Wells Fargo Bank branch on Johnson Ferry Road at East Cobb Crossing Shopping Center.
Jennifer Cortez, a former manager at the now-closed Kaminsky Jewelry store on Post Oak Tritt Road, opened Jennifer Jewelers in the same spot.
The Credit Union of Georgia opened a branch on Johnson Ferry Road, and The Solana East Cobb, a senior living facility, marked the end of its first full year in business with a grand opening in November.
New restaurants and eateries in East Cobb include Jim ‘Nicks BBQ, the first business at the new Sandy Plains MarketPlace, Clean Juice at Woodlawn Square, Roll On In at Woodlawn Commons and Duck Donuts at Merchants Walk.
Two other restaurant chains relocating to East Cobb won’t be opening until 2020. Mellow Mushroom will be taking the former Common Quarter space at Woodlawn Square, and Flying Biscuit Cafe is coming to Parkaire Landing by next spring.
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Keep Cobb Beautiful’s annual Bring One for the Chipper Christmas Tree recycling program starts Christmas Day and ends next Saturday, Jan. 4.
Starting Christmas Day and continuing through Jan. 4, you can drop off trees at the Home Depot stores at Providence Square (4101 Roswell Road) and Highland Plaza (3605 Sandy Plains Road).
On Saturday, Jan. 4, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., the following county parks in East Cobb will serve as drop-off locations:
Fullers Park (3499 Robinson Road)
Sewell Park (2055 Lower Roswell Road)
Noonday Park (489 Hawkins Store Road)
When you bring a tree you’ll get a free sapling, as long as supplies last.
No flocked trees will be accepted, and all trees must have decorations, mesh, lights, stands, strings and other items removed.
Free mulch also is available; for more information, call 770-528-1135 or visit keepcobbbeautiful.org.
An East Cobb boy scout troop is collecting trees this Saturday, Jan. 28, and next Saturday, Jan. 4, as a fundraising project.
It’s Troop 565, which meets at Eastminster Presbyterian Church, and they’ll be making curbside pickups those days starting at 8 a.m. within the Walton, Wheeler, Pope, Lassiter and Sprayberry attendance zones.
The cost for the retrieval is $25 a tree, and they’re asking that you sign up here for the service. The donations are tax-deductible and the proceeds go toward troop programs.
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GRACEPOINT School for dyslexic learners announced today their accreditation received for the school’s Orton-Gillingham program by the AOGPE (Academy of Orton Gillingham Practitioners and Educators). The Orton–Gillingham Approach is a direct, explicit, multisensory, structured, sequential, diagnostic, and prescriptive way to teach literacy when reading, writing, and spelling does not come easily to individuals, such as those with dyslexia. All academic teachers at GRACEPOINT are trained as Orton-Gillingham Classroom Educators. Training involves methods to teach and Enremediate all areas of literacy, not just reading and spelling and to provide this instruction one-on-one, in a classroom, or with any size group.
Students at GRACEPOINT receive 90 minutes of explicit Orton-Gillingham reading instruction each day.
GRACEPOINT’s instructional program is now 1 of only 16 programs in the nation to receive this accreditation.
“To have your OG instruction endorsed by the Academy is such a high honor,” shared Joy Wood, GRACEPOINT Head of School. “I am very proud of the teachers and staff at GRACEPOINT that are so dedicated to restoring hope to the brilliant dyslexic minds we serve each day. There is incredible reward in seeing realize they are not ”
This news comes in the wake of many recent initiatives and accomplishments of the company, including:
Enrollment growth from 4 to 124 students since the school’s beginning in 2012
Accreditation by the SAIS (Southern Association of Independent Schools)
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The original Mt. Bethel Community Center on Johnson Ferry Road also housed a school and was the first Cobb Police precinct location in East Cobb. (Special photo)
It’s hard to imagine the East Cobb we live in now being mostly farmland not that long ago. But going back in history turned out to a delightful departure from current news cycle for many of our readers after we published a story this summer about a family that remembered the community when it was called Mt. Bethel.
As the siblings of a prominent Mt. Bethel family told us, the changes have been rather recent: They were among the first graduates of Walton High School in the late 1970s, attending classes with suburban peers while they grew up on a farm on Lower Roswell Road at Woodlawn Drive.
Some of their cows occasionally wandered into a new planned community with a golf course that changed the area for good.
“When Indian Hills opened, that was a huge caveat to a changing community,” said Cherie Chandler, the fifth of the six Poss children. “That’s when it went from being Mt. Bethel to East Cobb.”
Her sister Gail Poss Towe saw a story we published in May about the demolition of a home near theirs belonging to Wilce Frasier, and was eager to share stories about a very different time.
We sat down with the three youngest children of Arthur and Evelyn Poss, who threw themselves into family and community life with eagerness and impact.
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)
The response from readers to this story was heartwarming: More local history, please! While we haven’t been able to do that as much as we had hoped, we’ve got some ideas along those lines heading into 2020.
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East Cobb Cityhood leader David Birdwell met a skeptical and at times hostile crowd at the group’s first public appearance in March. (ECN file photos)
The leaders of the East Cobb cityhood effort did the right thing this week by calling off their push for legislation and a referendum in 2020.
They were running out of time to get too many things done—including finalizing a map and a proposed list of services—and had stoked even more opposition, suspicion and confusion for months this spring and summer when they barely connected with the public at all.
County elected officials, including legislators, hadn’t been told what was going on.
State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick said she got a lot of negative feedback about East Cobb cityhood.
After its first town hall meeting in March, the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb had its work cut out, as citizens packed a church parish hall and demanded to know who, what and especially why this was being proposed.
A month later the cityhood group had a town hall meeting at Walton High School. Like that and future events it held, citizens could ask questions only by writing them down on a note card for a moderator to read. Or not.
This is no way to have a meaningful dialogue with the public about a dramatic change in their local government, in an initiative that would ultimately be decided by citizens.
Neither is having a cityhood bill filed in the legislature the day after that first town hall meeting, and on the next-to-last day of the General Assembly session.
At the time, I thought it smacked of another bad-faith effort on the part of the cityhood group, which paid for a financial feasibility study issued last November, but whose members remained anonymous and unwilling to meet with the public.
At one point on its website, the cityhood group explained that it wasn’t identifying its donors or others involved for fear of harassment from their “enemies” and the media.
By dodging such basic questions, and setting up a non-profit 501(c)4 “social welfare” organization to conceal donors, original cityhood leaders likely created more opponents than they ever conjured up in their paranoid imaginations.
Public suspicions were immediate, and they continue today: Development interests are behind this. Nothing but a land grab. Look at what’s happening in Sandy Springs. We don’t want that coming here.
Also: We don’t want another layer of government. My property taxes are bound to go up. The services I get from the county are just fine.
When the cityhood group finally faced the public, newly appointed cityhood leader David Birdwell didn’t stand much of a chance.
East Cobb cityhood leader Rob Eble speaks at a Wheeler HS town hall meeting in November.
I’ve found him and Rob Eble, another newcomer to the group, to be well-intentioned. But overcoming the bad start of others has been a tall order, and it’s dogged them ever since.
So has the lack of any kind of public groundswell for a City of East Cobb. When prominent civic leaders say they were blindsided by this, that’s telling.
Trying to push through legislation in two years, hiring high-profile lobbyists and keeping the public in the dark for months hurt the cityhood case even more.
Another big question: What’s the rush?
Other cityhood efforts in metro Atlanta have taken several legislative cycles. There is so much to work out, in addition to finances: Intergovernmental agreements, start-up costs, staffing even a bare-bones city hall, and that darn map.
Eble told me this week the cityhood group never finalized an expanded map to include the Pope and Lassiter school zones. It was an estimate provided by a GIS service that detailed the original map.
Ultimately, the East Cobb cityhood effort struggled from a lack of organization more than having what many consider a shadowy agenda.
Eble admitted the cityhood group made mistakes communicating with the public. As for the idea of cityhood, he said, “I still believe in it. But nobody’s trying to shove anything down anybody’s throat.”
There are many who will never believe this, of course, and they will remain ever-vigilant to stop cityhood.
Yet I’ve also talked to, and heard from, citizens who are unsure. They weren’t necessarily opposed to cityhood but wanted more information, and didn’t feel like they were getting it.
Some others roiled by an annexation spat this summer with the City of Marietta have been open to the idea of an East Cobb city, fearing the county can’t protect them.
As these last few months have transpired, I do think the idea of cityhood is worth considering. I’ve been accused of being biased, both for and against a city, but I don’t really have an opinion.
Too big to succeed?
As someone who grew up in East Cobb, I’ve seen my community become suburbanized, and now more densely developed in some areas.
This is happening all over the county, which has more than 750,000 people and is projected to have a population of one million by 2050.
Before the cityhood issue was raised, I had been wondering if Cobb County government could continue to operate as it has.
There are serious concerns about public safety staffing, the county’s growing pension obligations and addressing transportation and development concerns.
Is Cobb too big to govern the way it is, with a countywide chairman and four district commissioners serving nearly 200,000 people each? And representing communities that are distinct from one another?
Tre Hutchins and Galt Porter of the South Cobb Alliance, a pro-cityhood group in Mableton.
There are times when commissioners are squabbling during their meetings that I wonder if they can even agree on what to have for lunch.
I’ve thought a citizen-led, grassroots cityhood movement in East Cobb could gain some traction, especially around zoning, development and land use issues.
I could see a City of East Cobb providing those and other community development services, including code enforcement.
I’ve never understood why the cityhood effort centered upon providing expensive police and fire services to supplant excellent, if not fully-staffed county departments? We have the lowest crime and fire rates in Cobb County.
Why not provide something better than what exists now, in say, sanitation, where the increasingly monopolized American Disposal private hauler is the subject of many complaints?
A financial review group studying the East Cobb feasibility study recommended that option, at least to start.
A “city light” form of government could serve East Cobb much better than one worrying about how to pay for new fire trucks and police cars and trained professionals to staff them.
Transparency matters
The “pause and reset” phase for cityhood, to borrow Eble’s phrase to me, is a good time to rethink those matters, as well as to be fully forthcoming with the public before gearing up for 2021.
At the outset, the cityhood group should lay out all of its finances, including how much money has been spent, and who’s been footing the bills.
Identify everybody who’s given money to the cause, and been involved in the effort in a significant way. Everybody.
This isn’t a private business deal, but an entirely public matter that could affect the lives of more than 100,000 people.
Follow the lead of the Mableton cityhood effort, which conducted extensive town halls over a couple of years to really hear what the public thinks, without note card questions and a “here’s what we want to do” mentality.
East Cobb cityhood leader David Birdwell at an East Cobb Business Association debate in November.
Like Mableton, have a city map fully detailed, including city council districts that were indicated in the East Cobb bill but never visualized, and provide an online survey.
Better communications include regular use of social media. The East Cobb cityhood group barely updated those platforms and its website, which is absurd heading into the third decade of the 21st century.
Cityhood leaders should have regular discussions with legislators and other local elected officials, since without their support a referendum will likely never happen.
The East Cobb cityhood group certainly has serious intentions. It had the money to buy access and line up the mechanics of getting a bill passed in the legislature.
What it didn’t have was a concept of what it really takes to gather public support, and its efforts to explain its reasons for cityhood were belated and underwhelming.
Something as substantive as creating a new local government shouldn’t be accepted as easily as cityhood leaders may have thought. Nor should it be categorically rejected as the anti-city East Cobb Alliance has maintained.
For those of us who have an open mind about the issue, we’re still receptive to hearing a better case being made.
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