The Flying Biscuit Cafe at Parkaire Landing has been closed since mid-August due to what the company is saying is an ownership and management change.
The new proprietors have been hiring staff and have been off-site for training, according to a Flying Biscuit social media post.
They have announced a reopening date of Sept. 12. We’ve contacted the company for more information on what’s behind the changes and what customers can expect when they return.
This is Flying Biscuit’s second stint in the East Cobb area. The 3,000-square-foot Parkaire location opened in March 2021 in the former La Vida Massage space after a delay of more than a year due to COVID-19.
Flying Biscuit left East Cobb in 2010 in a freestanding space at Woodlawn Commons now occupied by Chase Bank.
The Atlanta-based breakfast and lunch chain has 12 restaurants in metro Atlanta and another in Athens, five in North Carolina, four in South Carolina, two each in Alabama and Florida and one in Texas.
Cobb Foodie Week set
Several East Cobb restaurants are taking part in Cobb Foodie Week, a promotion of Cobb Travel & Tourism that takes place from Sept. 10-17.
The restaurants establish their own specials, discounts and menu options. The East Cobb participants include the following:
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Cobb commissioner Jerica Richardson’s latest “Community Huddle”—a virtual meeting for constituents to discuss county government issues—concerns proposed code amendments.
Cobb code amendments are updated twice a year, and the current proposals cover 10 areas of the ordinance.
The Cobb Community Development Agency is coming back to commissioners to attempt to regulate AirBNB short-term rentals, especially AirBNBs (Chapter 78).
The proposed amendment would require a short-term rental certificate from the county business license office, a local agent to be available 24 hours a day and following occupancy and vehicle limits.
The county also is proposing to expand its authority in the inspection of multi-family rental housing units (Chapter 18) to include a required occupational tax for apartment complex owners and inspection of a quarter of a complex’ units every year.
Commissioners will hold specific public hearings on the code amendments on Sept. 13 and Sept. 27, before voting on them on the latter date.
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The Jason Cunningham Charitable Foundation, a non-profit that assists children with hearing loss, is holding a golf fundraiser in the fall.
The Jason Cunningham Charity Golf Classic takes place Oct. 17 at Horseshoe Bend Country Club (2100 Steeplechase Lane, Roswell) and includes prizes and other activities.
Cunningham, a 1999 graduate of Wheeler High School, suffered from hearing loss as a child, and he ultimately received hearing aids. But as an adult his communications issues led to depression, and he died in 2015 at the age of 34.
His friends and family began the foundation to raise funds and awareness for children who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Since its inception six years ago, the JCCF has raised more than $400,000 to provide financial assistance for education, advanced hearing technology and medical care to more than 60 families and more than 300 children.
For information about the foundation and to sign up for the golf event, click here.
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The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration recently moved to new offices on Roswell Street near the Big Chicken.
There’s an Open House scheduled for next Saturday, Sept. 10 that also will include a job fair to fill positions for the November general elections.
The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the new facility, 995 Roswell Street, Marietta.
The agency recently moved there from offices on Whitlock Avenue. The Cobb elections board voted earlier this month to relocate early voting to the headquarters, which features expanded and more secure space.
The ribbon cutting takes place at 11 a.m., and the job fair starts at 12 noon.
Representatives from every department within the elections office will be available to speak with job candidates about the open positions, which include poll workers, warehouse prep and more.
For more information about Cobb Elections, click here.
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The Cobb County Public Library System said Monday that Sunday hours at its main branch and three regional libraries will resume starting Sept. 11.
Those locations include the Mountain View Regional Library (3320 Sandy Plains Road), as well as the main Switzer Library in downtown Marietta, the South Cobb Regional Library in Mableton and the West Cobb Regional Library in Kennesaw.
According to a release sent by the library system, they’re the largest libraries in the system.
The hours will be what they were before the pandemic—1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
For more on the services at the Mountain View Regional Library, click here. The phone number is 770-509-2725.
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!
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East Cobb News reader Bob violated two tenets of online commenting: Typing in all caps—signifying yelling—and venturing off the topic. Don’t be like Bob.
Ever since I made the switch to online journalism nearly 20 years ago (how time flies!), I’ve constantly wrestled with how to handle reader comments.
The immediacy and engagement can be beneficial components to building a thriving audience for community news.
And yet the instant availability of digital technology to cause mayhem and spread toxic messages often overwhelms those more noble aspirations.
Even before the age of blogs, social media and smartphones, online communication was an open sewer for mischief, threats, insults and worse.
If you remember the “alt” message boards of the late 1980s-early 1990s, you know what I’m talking about. Compared to today’s performative Twitter mobs, they truly resembled the Wild Wild West.
There were no moderators, almost everyone was anonymous and good luck getting anything taken down that was truly distasteful or even slanderous.
Perhaps I’ve become a bit numb, and even jaded, by what I read online to understand how this atmosphere can strike a nerve with readers today.
At more than 27K pageviews and counting, it’s the most visited post on East Cobb News in our 5+ years of publication.
Stories like that tend to generate plenty of reader comments, and this one certainly did.
For the most part, readers were civil, if irate.
Then somebody hit the CAPS LOCK BUTTON and didn’t turn it off for a good while.
That was a response to another reader complaining about having fled a “police state” in Cobb County that’s led by “Commie Democrats.”
And so on it went like this for a brief sequence, running a bit afoul of our Comments Policy.
Another reader noticed all this, and e-mailed me. He said he appreciates reading about local news and issues at East Cobb News, but “I’m not sure what benefit your comment section brings to your news organization. It’s kind of a dumpster fire and I’ve never seen a productive conversation happen on it. Literally just people calling each other ‘commie’ and other names.”
He makes good points, and I replied that for the most part, readers here don’t get that far off the chains. We’ve had a fairly respectful environment for community conversation in spite of the limitations on online platforms, not just on the site but our social media channels as well.
Shortly after our exchange, I shut off reader comments for that post, linked to our policy and revised it to include the following:
Before posting a comment, ask yourself this: Would I say this to someone in person or over the phone? Also, read through your comments for spelling, grammar, etc.;
In other words, behave like an adult on this platform.
When I was an online editor at the AJC, I had to moderate comments during the sordid saga of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, as he faced charges of being involved in a dogfighting ring.
For weeks before and then after he was hauled off to federal prison, his football career destroyed, I waded through some nauseating comments, chucking more into the “unapproved” bin than I ever imagined.
What Vick copped to was indeed reprehensible, but after my moderating shift was over, I felt like I needed to take a shower.
We all need a place to vent and rant, but online forums unfortunately have become havens for increasingly vile, putrid expressions.
Frankly, I expected East Cobb News coverage of the Tokyo Valentino adult store and the controversy at Mt. Bethel Church to generate some red-flag comments (sex and religion!).
While they certainly prompted some racy reactions to the former and some biblically-inspired pronouncements to the latter, it was nothing that couldn’t be managed.
It is possible to express strong views without boiling over.
In our increasingly overheated times, many media outlets have decided to dispense with allowing comments at all, and not just major corporations.
Another local independent online news publisher here in Cobb County just switched the off button, for many of the same reasons others have.
For the time being, I’m going to leave them on and keep them going. I still think there’s an opportunity to have civil exchanges on important topics.
Most of you do that; it’s always a small handful that ruins it for everyone else.
I may come to regret this, and there likely are trolls out there waiting to lick their chops.
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State Rep. Mitch Kaye (directly under the Star of David) and State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick (standing at his right), both of East Cobb, are part of the 16-member Georgia-Israel Legislative Caucus delegation.
State Rep. Mitch Kay and State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick of East Cobb are part of a bipartisan legislative delegation from Georgia currently traveling in Israel.
Members of the Georgia-Israel Legislative Caucus arrived in Tel Aviv on Monday, meeting with members of the Israeli Knesset, as well as representatives from the country’s military, diplomatic, business and legal communities.
The legislators also met with Major General (Ret.) Alon Levavi to learn more about the Georgia Israel Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE).
“This trip is about strengthening the deep bonds of friendship and shared values between Georgia and Israel,” Kaye, a Republican from House District 45, said in a release issued by the Georgia House of Representatives.
“I am already encouraged by the warm welcome we received upon arriving in Tel Aviv, and I look forward to expanding our understanding of this incredible nation over the next several days.”
Kaye was the first Jewish Republican elected to the Georgia legislature in the 1990s and earlier this year won a special election to fill the unexpired term of former State Rep. Matt Dollar through the end of the year.
Other legislators and their families making the trip include House members Debra Bazemore (D-South Fulton), Micah Gravley (R-Douglasville), Debbie Buckner (D-Junction City), Karen Bennett (D-Stone Mountain), Barry Fleming (R-Harlem) and Darlene Taylor (R-Thomasville).
The release said the Gov. Brian Kemp issued a commendation recognizing the trip, noting that Georgia exported more than $280 million worth of goods to Israel and imported $652 million worth of goods from Israel in 2021.
His commendation “also also commended the launch of the Georgia-Israel Legislative Caucus, the expansion of direct flights between Atlanta and Tel Aviv starting next year and the GILEE program with Israel,” according to the release.
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The Cobb County Public Library System announced this week that starting Sept. 6, citizens can obtain passports at two of its branches.
They include the Mountain View Regional Library (3320 Sandy Plains Road) in East Cobb and the West Cobb Regional Library (1750 Dennis Kemp Lane, Kennesaw).
They have been approved as Passport Acceptance Facilities by the U.S. State Department and library staff have been trained to process passport applications.
The library system said in a release earlier this week that passport services at those branches will be available via appointment only Monday—Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Thursday—Saturday from 12-3 p.m.
But the applications will be limited to first-time adult applicants, age 16 and older, and children under 16.
Renewals will not be processed at the libraries, and passport photo services will not be provided.
The costs are a passport application fee determined by the State Department and a $35 acceptance fee, each payable by check, money order or cashier’s check.
Starting Sept. 6 the library system will begin accepting appointments online or by calling the library branches directly.
For information on passport services at Cobb libraries visit cobbcat.org or call 770-528-2326.
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East Cobb resident John Swierenga, owner of Trash Taxi, addressing commissioners Tuesday.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners and the leadership of the county’s solid waste department have scheduled a “summit” next week with private trash disposal companies.
Cobb government said in a release on Friday that the meeting will take place on Wednesday, Aug. 31, at 2 p.m. at the Cobb Civic Center (548 S. Marietta Parkway).
The county release said trash company leaders are being summoned “to address a history of complaints by residents in Cobb County of missed pickups, poor customer service, and lack of recycling services.”
The meeting comes several days after commissioners heard a proposed code amendment change that would limit trash pickup services to one private hauler for each of the four commission districts.
But at Tuesday’s commission meeting, Jonathan Jenkins, Director of the Cobb Sustainability, Waste, and Beautification Department, said he had not met with trash companies since 2019, and did not seek their input before proposing the code amendment changes.
“About 20 haulers in Cobb County could be put out of business,” said John Swierenga, an East Cobb resident and owner of Trash Taxi, during a public comment period.
“Large capital [would be] needed to bid on these contracts,” he said. “We face restrictions because there’s no disposal capability we have.”
Swierenga and his brothers started Trash Taxi in 2004, and the company serves around 16,000 customers, mostly in northwest Cobb. Trash Taxi recently expanded into some areas of East Cobb.
He estimated that between 90,000 to 100,000 Cobb citizens get their trash service from small haulers, and that big companies are struggling.
One them, Swierenga said, called him to ask if he could send Trash Taxi trucks to Gwinnett County to help pick up their garbage.
Jenkins said he got the idea for dedicated haulers for a particular area of the county from Gwinnett, which recently implemented that ordinance.
“This proposal, if enacted,” Swierenga said of the Cobb proposal, “could be a colossal failure.”
Citizen complaints have focused strongly on American Disposal, one of the bigger haulers that has bought up smaller competitors to consolidate its market position.
“Just stop,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
Earlier Tuesday, at a work session on code amendments, Commissioner JoAnn Birrell of Northeast Cobb wanted the trash proposal to be tabled until January.
She and fellow Republican Commissioner Keli Gambrill said they do not support eliminating competition in trash service, and other commissioners expressed concern about the proposal.
But Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said there would be enough time to modify the proposal before a scheduled vote Sept. 27.
Wednesday’s meeting is being billed as a work session. It is open to the public, but there will be no public comment period.
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Amid the sounds of tinkling champagne classes and a jazz band, East Cobbers, local dignitaries and shop owners at The Avenue East Cobb gathered Thursday afternoon to kick off a new era for the major retail center.
As an honorary wrecking ball—signed by many of the attendees—slammed into a window of the former Bravura store, and green and white confetti rained down on what will be a public plaza.
Guests were shown renderings of what will be the The Avenue East Cobb’s public plaza and other redevelopment features.
Cobb commissioners in June approved a site plan change at The Avenue, which is being managed by North American Properties, developer of Avalon and redeveloper of Atlantic Station and Colony Square.
East Cobb-area representatives Jerica Richardson and JoAnn Birrell spoke, and were given the honors of taking sledgehammers to the windows.
Commissioners Jerica Richardson and JoAnn Birrell with representatives of North American Properties, including CEO Tim Perry (center).
The Avenue East Cobb opened in 1999, and much like its other projects, NAP wants it to become a “destination” location, not just for shopping, but dining, entertainment and congregating with friends and family.
The redevelopment is expected to be complete by early next year.
Serving champagne on stilts.Signing the wrecking ball.
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The following Cobb food scores for the week of Aug. 22 have been compiled by the Cobb & Douglas Department of Public Health. Click the link under each listing for inspection details:
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In a split party-line vote, the Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved a request to spend $1.45 million to hire an outside consultant to develop a strategic plan for county government.
The board’s three Democrats voted to approve a contract with Accenture LLP to prepare a long-term “guiding document,” in the words of Deputy County Manager Jimmy Gisi, to pull together a number of service issues and objectives.
“A world-wide pandemic, justice reform, affordable housing, and employee retention are just a few of these challenges. The strategic plan will be the primary strategy to lead the on-going vision and priorities of Cobb County. The plan will include measurable objectives to help improve the County’s responsiveness to the public, to adapt to changes in the economy, to remain competitive, to welcome tourists, to sustain the County’s assets, and to recommend a unified vision for years to come.”
Republicans JoAnn Birrell and Keli Gambrill voted against, objecting to the cost and questioning the need for such a study.
“I know there is a need for a strategic plan,” Birrell said, “but to spend $1.4 million with all the other studies that we have going on. A million here, a million there. I cannot support it.”
Gisi told her the county negotiated down the cost with Accenture, whose initial bid was $1.8 million. The process is expected to take through the end of the year and will include public engagement, produce a long-range vision (10-20 years) and and five-year plan from 2023-2027.
Accenture, a management and professional services consulting firm, would employ eight of its staffers on the Cobb strategic plan project and would need space for up to five of its staffers at county government offices as well as parking.
Gambrill said the county hasn’t taken any steps to implement a five-year plan that was laid out by former Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce in 2017.
“I can’t support this and I don’t expect a rebuttal,” she said.
But County Manager Jackie McMorris told her that was simply about restoring county services to pre-recession levels.
“We’ve never done a five-year financial plan,” McMorris said, referencing Boyce’s aspirations for what he called providing services for a “five-star county.”
Chairwoman Lisa Cupid was eager to approve the contract, saying “we finally have something we can say will help provide guidance” on establishing long-term objectives.
During a public comment period, East Cobb resident Leroy Emkin blasted the spending proposal, saying such a study should be conducted by county department heads.
Cupid responded by saying that “while we have competent employees at Cobb County, this project is outside their area of expertise.”
Commissioner Jerica Richardson of District 2 said before the vote that “it’s vital that this is truly strategic and comprehensive.”
Accenture’s statement of work calls for public engagement sessions in October, and long-range vision document by the end of October, a five-year strategic draft in November and the finalized five-year document by December.
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The ground along Sewell Mill Creek at the front of East Cobb Park has been raised into a slight crest to reduce flooding. ECN photos
Heavy flooding last September in the East Cobb area caused significant damage to the homes and properties of residents who are still dealing with stormwater-related issues nearly a year later.
The rains also caused Sewell Mill Creek to swell over, as it has done before, onto the low-lying East Cobb Park and Fullers Park.
After several months, the streambank area was reworked to produce a crest between the creek and the walking path and front quad. A park bench was relocated to the front, close to a small “free library” box.
Similarly, Cobb Parks and Recreation wants to restore and stabilize a portion of Sewell Mill Creek downstream at nearby Fullers Park that also was affected by those floods.
Doing so, according to an agenda item presented to Cobb commissioners, “will stop further erosion and deterioration of the streambank and enhance the visual experience of those walking in the park.”
On Tuesday, that request was approved unanimously, with funding coming from the new 2022 Cobb SPLOST.
The lowest bidder, Integrated Construction and Nobility, Inc. offered a cost of $199,700 in bidding that took place last fall. Bids went as high as $556,000, but even the lowest bid was more than what county officials estimated for the project.
So they negotiated with the contractor to reduce the project cost to $104,500. The funding source specifically is the Countyside Parks Subsurface Infrastructure account, which is earmarked for $1.5 million over the next six years.
That was one of several individual infrastructure contracts approved Tuesday by commissioners.
Commissioners also ratified a previous decision by Cobb County Manager Jackie McMorris to authorize emergency drainage repairs on Turtle Cove Court in the Somerset subdivision of East Cobb.
Cobb DOT replaced 120 feet of a 36-inch corrugated metal pipe that had failed and caused a sinkhole, threatening the safety of the street. The curb and gutter were also replaced, as were two catch basins and some pavement.
The repairs were completed in July and cost $308,550, with the funding coming from the 2022 Cobb SPLOST Transportation Improvements Plan.
Commissioners also voted to approve sidewalk construction in two areas of Northeast Cobb. One is a half-mile stretch on the north side of Davis Road, between Williams Road and Shallowford Road, for $726,727.
The contractor is Glosson Enterprises and the funding is coming from the 2016 Cobb SPLOST ($568K) and another $129.7K from the Capital Projects Fund Commission District 3 Sidewalk Development.
Glosson also was awarded a $476.7K contract to build a sidewalk on the east side of Shaw Road between Piedmont Road and Woodrush Road. That’s a third of a mile, with $250K coming from the 2016 SPLOST and $204K from the same Capital Projects Fund account.
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After receiving a $27 million bond issue from the Development Authority of Cobb County, the fragrance and flavor company Arylessence announced Tuesday it’s expanding its campus in Northeast Cobb.
The bonds—and nearly $1.5 million in tax abatements over the next decade—were approved after Arylessence announced the construction of a new 54.000-square-foot building.
According to a release issued by the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, the new facility will include greater manufacturing capacity, a receiving facility, office spaces and other amenities.
The project will create an additional 30 jobs for Arylessence, which moved to its present facility at 1091 Lake Drive—near the intersection of Canton Road and Jamerson Road—in 1986, after starting out in Smyrna in the late 1970s.
Arylessence “creates and manufactures custom fragrances and flavors for products in the personal care, pharmaceutical, home fragrance, food and beverage and industrial and institutional markets,” according to the Chamber, selling products in 57 countries.
Arylessence last expanded in 2018 with the opening of its Fragrance Research and Development Center.
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Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell asked Cobb solid waste officials Tuesday to explore other options to a proposal to dramatically alter how private trash haulers operate in the county.
During a work session, Birrell said she was opposed to a proposal by Cobb Sustainability, Waste and Beautification director Jonathan Jenkins to designate a sole trash hauler to provide pickup and recycling services in each of four areas of the county.
“I’m in favor of an open market and people choosing who they want,” Birrell told Jenkins. “Restricting it to one hauler per district is not the solution to the problem.”
She wanted to have the matter pulled and held until the county next considers code amendments in January, “to meet with the haulers and the public.”
Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said at a later meeting Thursday night that none of her colleagues are in favor of reducing service to one hauler per district, but that there is plenty of time before next month’s public hearings on code amendments.
“We’ve been dealing with this for years now,” Cupid said. “Residents have been dealing with this for far too long. This is our best opportunity to do something.”
The work session was for presentation purposes only; commissioners will hold public hearings on the code amendments on Sept. 13 and Sept. 27, before voting on them on the latter date.
Birrell, a three-term Republican from Northeast Cobb who is seeking re-election in November, is a former consultant for Waste Management, and disclosed that she has not been employed in the industry in a decade.
She said that if the county would put trash services out for bid, she would recuse herself, but that she would want to be involved with other possible ordinance changes.
Cobb County Attorney Bill Rowling said that the proposed code amendment, as written, would allow only four trash haulers in the county, in each of the four commission districts.
“I don’t know if there are four haulers that could take on the magnitude of that kind of lift, to gear up” to provide such an expanded level of service, he said.
He added that while those “are policy issues,” there are “a lot of legal obligations” the county would have to meet.
Birrell acknowledged longstanding complaints about trash service, but said Tuesday after the new proposal was submitted, she’s heard from many citizens who are happy with their service.
“This needs to be looked at some more,” Birrell said. “There are other options we can look at.”
Jonathan Jenkins, Cobb Sustainability, Waste and Beautification director
Citizens and businesses in unincorporated Cobb contract with private trash services. There have been numerous complaints about one provider in particular, American Disposal, which has bought up a number of other smaller haulers in recent years.
Commissioner Monique Sheffield of South Cobb said that she has supported revoking the license of “one company in particular” that she did not name and would not want to penalize other service providers for the acts of “one bad apple.”
Jenkins said that performance issues have increased in particular since the recession.
More than 60 haulers once provided those services, he said, but that number dropped by a half by the time of the recession; Cobb customers are currently served by 18-20 trash providers.
Republican commissioner Keli Gambrill of North Cobb called the trash proposal an issue of government stepping in far beyond what it should be doing.
She said she hasn’t received many complaints about trash services from her constituents in District 1 since the pandemic; Jenkins said he’s heard most from residents in Districts 2 and 3 in East Cobb.
Gambrill also was upset that Jenkins hadn’t met with her before crafting the ordinance change; he replied that he had discussed the issue with her in a virtual meeting.
When Gambrill asked Jenkins if he had met with any haulers, he said his last meeting with them was in the fall of 2019.
Cupid—who earlier in the work session admonished Gambrill for questioning Jenkins in what she thought was an adversarial tone—pointed out that other proposed ordinance changes haven’t always involved discussions with those in various industries and professions.
When Cobb was changing the code regarding massage parlors, Cupid said, “we didn’t talk to masseuses,” and she rattled off several other similar examples.
But Gambrill said such a proposal—to have the county assign private trash haulers—”has not been on the books. This is completely new. . . . When they’re new they go through an extensive community process” before being voted on.
Cupid replied that “this is not completely new or it would be completely underlined.”
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A portion of Gordy Parkway near a busy traffic area of Northeast Cobb was closed Monday afternoon for drainage repairs.
Cobb County government said Monday afternoon that Gordy Parkway is closed between Shallowford Road and Edenbourgh Place, right behind the Home Depot store at the Highland Plaza Shopping Center.
The closures are in both directions and there is no through-traffic on Gordy Parkway, but streets surrounding the closure are open via a temporary detour.
The Cobb government message said work crews were repairing an 84-foot drainage pipe and was unsure how long the closures would last.
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The issue affected some businesses in the area. The Paradise Grill restaurant closed for business Monday and on Tuesday the Chick-Fil-A Lassiter on Shallowford Road was selling bottled beverages and milkshakes and not tea, coffee, lemonade and soft drinks.
ORIGINAL STORY:
The Cobb County Water System has issued a water boiling advisory for parts of Northeast Cobb after a water outage occurred Monday morning.
The advisory is expected to continue throughout Monday afternoon for the Sweat Mountain area, as well as along Sandy Plains Road to Davis Road and Shallowford Road to Wesley Chapel Road.
The advisory urges residents as well as businesses in the area to boil drinking water for at least a minute.
Cobb County government said in a release that the outage was due to a level sensor failure at the Sweat Mountain Water Storage Tank, causing “water pressure in parts of the water system to drop to low levels for a period.
“When this occurs a potential health hazard may exist in these areas of zero pressure from backflow and/or back-siphonage of water of unknown quality into the water distribution system.”
While water service has been restored to the disaffected areas, sampling continues to take place, and consumers should continue to follow the advisory before using water for drinking, cooking or preparing baby food.
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!
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!
Several private trash haulers currently serve the East Cobb area.
A plan to assign trash haulers to specific parts of Cobb County will be presented to the Cobb Board of Commissioners Tuesday, as they begin dig into proposed code amendment changes to county ordinances.
The work session will take place at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).
The full agenda can be found by clicking here; the meeting also will be live-streamed on the county’s website, cable TV channel (Channel 24 on Comcast) and Youtube page. Visit cobbcounty.org/CobbTV for other streaming options.
Commissioners have already been hearing from citizens about the trash pickup proposal, which is designed to alleviate collection issues that have existed in Cobb for several years.
Under the proposed trash pickup amendment, four trash pickup zones would be created, and each would be designated a single hauler. Other haulers would not be allowed to service that zone.
Citizens organizing against that change, proposed by the head of the Cobb Sustainability, Waste and Beautification Department (click here to read), don’t like not having a choice and say their trash bills will go up.
A reader opposed to the change told East Cobb News that “many of us are happy with our small business haulers and don’t want the inefficient county to take over and make such demands to destroy free market competitive solutions.”
A website called Save My Cobb Trash Collector has been launched to fight the proposal. It was created by East Cobb resident Hill Wright, who said he’s heard from a number of citizens who also are upset by the proposal.
He said he’s spoken to trash haulers and they’re not happy either, with some of the smaller ones fearful they’ll be put out of business.
The website claims that Cobb is planning to charge customers an 18 percent additional fee to their trash bill.
That information isn’t in the proposed code amendment, but Wright told East Cobb News he’s heard that figure from speaking with county staffers.
The fee would be used in part to create a call center to handle citizen issues with trash pickup service.
The trash pickup change “would cause the service to get much worse,” he said. “They’re trying to solve the problem by creating a monopoly” that would be the lowest bidder.
“The lowest bidder will likely be a large company which is already not able to provide consistent service.”
American Disposal has been the dominant hauler in the Cobb area, buying up smaller competitors in recent years. But it’s also been the subject of numerous customer complaints.
Wright said some of the feedback he’s received on his website is from citizens who’ve told him they’ve left American and wouldn’t want to be forced to use them again.
Wright has used Hugh’s Garbage Service for years, and says he’s very happy with it. When he traveled frequently on business, he arranged for his trash to be picked up inside his home.
“It cost a little more, but it was worth it,” he said.
Wright said he understands the intent of the code amendment but wishes the county had been informing and working with the trash haulers.
“It’s going to hurt some people and destroy some small businesses,” he said.
Cobb code amendments are updated twice a year, and the current proposals cover 10 areas of the ordinance:
Administration; building regulations; fire prevention and protection; licenses, permits and businesses; nuisances; parks and recreation; solid waste; streets, sidewalks and public places and zoning.
The Cobb Community Development Agency is coming back to commissioners to attempt to regulate AirBNB short-term rentals, especially AirBNBs (Chapter 78).
The proposed amendment would require a short-term rental certificate from the county business license office, a local agent to be available 24 hours a day and following occupancy and vehicle limits.
The county also is proposing to expand its authority in the inspection of multi-family rental housing units (Chapter 18) to include a required occupational tax for apartment complex owners and inspection of a portion of a complex’ units every year.
Commissioners will hold specific public hearings on the code amendments on Sept. 13 and Sept. 27, before voting on them on the latter date.
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