Month: January 2022

Sprayberry Crossing barber shop relocating to Town Center area

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Sprayberry Crossing barber shop relocating

As we noted in our year-end 2021 roundup, the demolition of the Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center slated for redevelopment is tentatively scheduled for the first quarter of 2022.

That means that businesses located there now have been asked to vacate.

Among them is Ricardos Martin, who opened the Cut-N-Sports Music and Barber Shop at Sprayberry Crossing in 2005.

His last day of business there was on Friday, Dec. 31, but he’s not going out of business.

Instead, Martin is moving his barber shop to the Town Center area (425 Ernest W Barrett Parkway NW, Loft 18, Kennesaw), and it will reopen this Friday, Jan. 7.

Cuts-N-Sports has been his first stab at being a small business owner.

“Serving the East Cobb community for 16-1/2 years has been a great experience,” Martin Martin said “I am so thankful for this community and am going to miss my neighbors and the uniqueness of the area and space.”

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Cobb schools to begin spring semester in-person on Wednesday

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While some school districts in metro Atlanta are resuming classes in a virtual setting due to rising COVID-19 cases, Cobb will begin its spring semester on Wednesday with in-person instruction.Campbell High School lockdown

In a letter that went out to parents Sunday evening, the district said it “remains committed to providing our students with an internationally competitive education, ensuring a safe instructional environment, and prioritizing our community’s overwhelming preference for in-person learning.”

The Cobb school district urged parents to keep their children home if they are sick or have symptoms, which in the message included a fever of 100.4 degrees without medications, or if a student has a positive or pending COVID-19 test.

“If a student has a cough, shortness of breath or recent changes to taste/smell, we recommend you contact your health professional for guidance,” the Cobb message said.

Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid issued a declaration of emergency through Jan. 22 that includes a mask mandate in county buildings, but it has no bearing on the schools.

The Cobb school district message comes after Marietta City Schools also announced it would be holding in-person classes when its spring semester begins this week.

Atlanta, Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton and Rockdale schools announced that they will have online-only classes this week.

Cobb schools were in-person for the fall semester, except for fifth grade students at East Side Elementary School in East Cobb for a 10-day period in August after an outbreak near the start of the school year.

That was as the Delta variant of COVID-19 was spreading.

The Omicron variant, which is more transmissable but has primarily yielded milder symptoms, has prompted some of the highest case figures in Cobb and metro Atlanta since the pandemic was declared in March 2020.

As of Friday, the 14-day case rate in Cobb was 1,505 per 100,000 people. A rate of 100 per 100,000 is considered high community transmission, and local health officials are bracing for more as schools resume this week.

Cobb reported 2,368 cases on Dec. 30, a single-day record in the date of report category, and closed out 2021 with multiple days of reporting 1,000 cases or more.

Those figures dwarf the numbers that started 2021, after three educators in the Cobb school district died from COVID-19.

Teachers, students and parents pleaded with Cobb school officials then to consider remote learning, but classes remained in-person.

Cobb and Marietta schools also are among the handful in metro Atlanta that do not have mask mandates.

The Cobb school district is being sued by the parents of four medically fragile students, who are claiming that under the federal Americans With Disabilities Act their children are not able to get a proper in-person education.

They’re demanding that Cobb follow CDC school guidance, including mask mandates, but a judge in October denied their request for a temporary injunction.

In its message to parents Sunday, the Cobb school district referred them to its latest COVID-19 protocols.

In early December, the district revised its quarantine policy to allow asymptomatic students identified as close contacts of someone with the virus to return to school immediately if the parent chooses.

That was as the Omicron variant was first identified. As the fall semester ended, only two schools in the 112-school Cobb district reported double-figure cases in the final week, including 13 at Walton High School.

The Cobb school district message Sunday concluded by saying that “ensuring sick children are not sent to school helps control virus spread and keeps our schools open.”

The district’s latest protocols can be found by clicking here.

 

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Cobb included in winter weather advisory through Monday morning

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Cobb winter weather advisory
For more NWS details, click here.

The National Weather Service in Atlanta has expanded a winter weather advisory for northwest Georgia that includes all of Cobb County.

The NWS updated the advisory shortly before 4 p.m. Sunday to include Cobb, Douglas and Carroll counties (in purple), and it’s to continue until 9 a.m. Monday.

The forecast includes wet snow with light snow accumulations and a dusting up to an inch. Winds could gust as much as 35 mph, and Cobb also is included in a wind advisory from midnight Monday to noon Monday.

The forecast includes the possibility of slippery road conditions that could impact the Monday morning commute.

Cobb County government said Sunday afternoon that Cobb DOT has called in some crews overnight to respond to trouble spots on the roads.

Temperatures will be plummeting Sunday night to 32 degrees with a 90 percent chance of rain.

The chance of rain Monday morning is 10 percent, but the highs are expected to be only in the mid 40s, and the lows Monday night in the high 20s.

Sunny weather is returning on Tuesday with a little warmer highs, in the high 40s, and into the mid-50s by Wednesday.

 

 

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Searching for silver linings as 2022 begins

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East Cobb Park

I took the photo above at East Cobb Park back in November, on my birthday.

It was a nice treat to take a little time away from work and enjoy a warm-enough day that glistened with sunshine as the autumn colors emerged.

I’ve always felt fortunate to be able to celebrate the renewal of my birth (I turned 29 again!) as the season of hibernation approaches.

I enjoy immersing myself in what passes for the four seasons here in Georgia, although this fall took later than usual to arrive.

They’re timeless opportunities to reflect on what they signify for a particular moment in time, and for the last two years we have undoubtedly been living in momentous times.

As I write this, on New Year’s Day 2022, the temperatures are in the low 70s, and the sun is breaking through after a wet New Year’s Eve that included a tornado warning.

Luckily, the East Cobb area dodged that bullet, but the year that was 2021 clearly was determined to leave on a bizarre note.

This time a year ago, I was like so many others, glad to see the backside of 2020, which visited upon us a pandemic, closures, chaos and uncertainty.

Far too many people in our community experienced illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19, as well as the destruction of work, schooling, civic, religious and social life caused by the shutdowns and restrictions.

The year 2021 had to be better, I thought, knowing that the changing of a calendar year was mostly symbolic.

But after the champagne toasts were made and the final chords of Auld Lang Syne faded away, 2021 roared on like it was still 2020.

Three educators in the Cobb County School District had died over the holidays, and in January the Cobb school board heard an earful from the public—teachers, students and parents—afraid and wondering what would be done during a massive surge in infections.

As I wrote then, their concerns were met with silence.

At the same time, the first COVID-19 vaccines became available, but the local health department website designed to book appointments crashed, and vaccine supplies were limited.

Older people called and left messages with me, mistaking this publication for the health department. Their voices were desperate and frantic; some just wanted to talk to a human on the telephone in an age of being forced to do so many things online.

It was absolutely harrowing to hear, as I felt utterly helpless.

A month later, people close to me were getting infected, one seriously enough to be hospitalized for several weeks.

It was touch and go for a while, and while I’m not terribly religious, I prayed for him to recover, and he thankfully has done that.

Throughout these last 20 months or so, I’ve tried to find silver linings, both personally and as the publisher of East Cobb News.

Warnings to avoid large gatherings indoors prompted many people to get outside.

I’ve spent many outings at East Cobb Park and the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, but they took on a new importance in the pandemic.

People offer a smile, faces uncovered, as they walk their dogs, and on occasion stop to chat. A woman who brings her feisty Pomeranian to East Cobb Park on Sunday afternoons has become a new acquaintance.

There’s a friendliness that’s not only refreshing, but restorative to one’s well-being.

When I’ve felt the depths of posting continuously grim stories about the virus—we’re now on our third surge in the last year—readers have helped pull me through.

It’s been gratifying to get messages of appreciation for the information—related to COVID-19 or otherwise—that’s important to the community.

Our traffic figures reflect some of that, but the calls, text messages and e-mails you send me are like a shot in the arm—no pun intended.

I can’t tell you how much your kind words, support and encouragement have meant to me.

And I want to keep hearing from you as 2022 is here.

Perhaps I’m more hopeful than I should be, but I really am starting to see more than just a few silver linings as we approach two years of the COVID-19 era.

We’re not out of the woods yet, but when I hear from friends and family members who live in other parts of the country where crippling government shutdowns and mandates are still in effect, I feel grateful to live where I do, and to have the opportunity to serve the citizens of this community.

Before the pandemic began, I surveyed readers on what they would like to see from East Cobb News in 2020.

Little did any of us know what was to transpire, and for how long. Shortly I will be sending out a new survey to solicit public feedback on how this publication can better serve you, in these very altered times.

Please look for that in the next couple of weeks, and as always, feel free to reach out: wendy@eastcobbnews.com and 404-219-4278.

Happy New Year East Cobb!

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