When we stopped by Westfield Tavern on Monday, managing partner Erik Tierney was giddy about his latest restaurant opening.
“It’s going to be this week,” he said as employees moved about the 4.200-square-foot space at Shallowford Corners Shopping Center (4401 Shallowford Road, Suite 138).
On Thursday morning, he announced that the “family-friendly community tavern” was open for business.
As for now, the hours are limited as they ramp up staffing and get the word out. Lunch is served from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., and dinner service is from 6-9 p.m.
“As we adjust, we will stay open longer and later,” Tierney said in an Instagram message to East Cobb News.
This is the third such tavern for Tierney, an Irish native who’s the proprietor behind Whitehall Tavern in Buckhead and Creatwood Tavern in the city of Smyrna.
We spoke with him in January when he was hopeful of opening in “a couple of weeks,” but permitting, licensing, hiring an remodeling prompted some delays.
On Monday, he pointed to a flat screen TV and said Direct TV needed to be installed.
“It’s March Madness,” Tierney said, referencing the NCAA college basketball tournaments that are in progress.
Work also was finishing on an enclosed patio area on our Monday visit.
The interior looks very similar to the short-lived East Cobb Tavern and the Keegan’s Public House that occupied the same space.
But it’s been freshly painted, and the kitchen was completely remodeled to serve a wide variety of tavern fare.
“We’re all about the neighborhood, all about the family,” said Tierney, who named this spot after the nearby Westfield subdivision.
The clientele will be slightly different from the other places in that it is expected to be more family-oriented, “but I think we will be very successful.”
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The following food scores for the week of March 20 have been compiled by the Cobb & Douglas Department of Public Health. Click the link under each listing for inspection details:
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The Cobb Board of Education Thursday will be asked to renew the charter status of Walton High School and fund major renovations at Lassiter and Wheeler high schools.
Those agenda items will be presented for discussion at a work session that begins at 12 p.m. and will be voted on at a 7 p.m. business meeting.
An executive session follows the work session. Agendas for the public meetings can be found by clicking here.
The meetings take place in the board room at the Cobb County School District central office (514 Glover Street, Marietta).
Walton is officially a “conversion” charter school—it opened in 1975 as a traditional school, then converted to a charter school in 1998.
Charter status gives Walton more flexibility in parental governance and curriculum. Walton routinely is near the top in Georgia in standardized testing results and other academic performance metrics, and offers a wide range of Advanced Placement, honors and college preparatory courses.
Although the state of Georgia doesn’t allow conversion charter schools any longer, those that still remain must renew those charters every five years.
The school board agenda item said that this will be the fifth five-year charter for Walton, which has used that status to implement the Walton Enrichment Block program, an International Spanish Academy, a STEM Academy and other programs.
“The autonomy the charter has allowed has been most influential in the curriculum we provide,” according to the renewal application submitted by the Walton Governance Board in September (you can read it here).
“Walton has been able to expand and reorganize the state standards to best serve our students, focusing on critical thinking and deep understanding.”
The agenda item states that 99 percent of Walton’s teachers and 99 percent of parents who responded to a survey about the charter approved renewal.
Also on Thursday’s agenda is a request to spend nearly $16 million in Cobb ED-SPLOST V revenues for theatre modifications at Lassiter High School.
The Cobb school board last fall approved spending $365,000 for architectural design for the project, which includes an expansion of the present facility, along with general upgrades and renovations.
The expected completion time for the work is this December, according to an agenda item.
Another agenda item requests nearly $5 million for classroom renovations and parking improvements, also from SPLOST V collections, at Wheeler.
The renovations are slated for the school’s STEM magnet program building and are expected to be done by this July, with the parking changes slated for completion by July 2024.
At the Thursday evening board meeting, recognitions include state high school swimming champion athletes from Walton and Lassiter.
Also to be recognized is Krista Lewis of Shallowford Falls Elementary School, who was recently named the Georgia art educator of the year.
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They’re part of an organization called STARS, which stands for Structural Nucleic Acid Anticancer Research Society, which formed in 2019.
As she has informed us before, STARS student Susanna Huang, a Walton High School graduate now attending Georgia Tech, has passed along word of the 2022 winners of the Cobb County Crystal Growing Competition.
That was held recently at Dodgen Middle School with 8th grade physical science teacher Debbie Amodeo, and this Friday they’ll be honored in a special ceremony at East Cobb Park.
“Over the course of several days, we taught her students how to grow crystals, led hands-on activities for growing the crystals creatively with the students, gave them the opportunity to submit their crystals to the competition, and hosted mega Kahoots with King-sized candy bars as prizes,” Susanna tells us.
She passed along the individual winners, and there are quite a few that you can read through at this link, and we’ve attached some photos she also sent us.
The recipients of the Medals of Scientific Excellence and those given Scientific Achievement Awards will, in addition to their medals, be given crystal pendants.
Friday’s ceremony starts at 5 p.m. with a reception. There will be a raffle drawing where nine students will be chosen to take home a National Geographic Mega Crystal Growing Lab ($40) for vibrant-color crystals and real gemstone specimens.
This awards ceremony is funded by the American Crystallographic Association, which boasts more than 40 Nobel Prize Laureates and over 1,300 members from 37 countries worldwide (https://www.amercrystalassn.org/crystal-growing-contests).
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The entrance to the Robinson Farms neighborhood. ECN photo
Tuesday was the first full day of the spring season (following the vernal equinox Monday afternoon), and with it returned some warmer weather to follow a few nights of freeze warnings.
Temperatures pushed back up into the 60s and will get as high as the low 80s by the end of the week.
The weekend also will be warm, with highs in the 70s, but the forecast calls for rain from Saturday through next Tuesday.
Next week should stay warm during daytime hours, with highs ranging from the high 60s to low 70s, but lows could drop to near freezing next Wednesday.
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At their monthly zoning hearing, commissioners voted 5-0 to hold a proposed site plan amendment on Gordy Parkway near Shallowford Road to April due to community opposition.
Stein Investment Group Inc., which converted the former GTC Cobb Park 12 movie cinema into a self-storage facility, wants to build the fast casual King’s Hawaiian on a 1.1-acre portion of the property, featuring a double drive-through and 29 parking spaces (agenda item here).
But residents from the adjoining Highland Park and Highland Terrace neighborhoods objected to increased traffic and safety. In 2017, commissioners rejected a Lidl grocery store on the site for those reasons.
King’s Hawaiian wants to have opening hours from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, and possibly extending to 11 p.m.
“I walk the intersection daily, and find the area very dangerous, as drivers do not pay attention to anyone except to other drivers,” Highland Park resident Denise Fissell said.
She noted that other restaurants in the area are in shopping centers with better access and parking capacity.
“We’re not opposed to King’s Hawaiian becoming a part of the Cobb County community. However, we feel that the corner they chose creates more danger to our community,” Fissell said.
“A fast food restaurant is too intense for this small piece of property.”
The East Cobb Civic Association also was opposed, citing the reduction of a 40-foot tree buffer between the property and Harrison Park to just a few feet.
Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell said she had several issues that needed to be addressed before she could support the site plan request, which was recommended for approval by the Cobb zoning staff.
“Traffic is a concern and the storage facility is there,” Birrell told Garvis Sams, an attorney for Stein Investment Group. “What the applicant is trying to do is too intense for one acre. . . I can’t support eliminating a 40-foot buffer next to a Cobb County park.”
Sams agreed to a 30-day delay proposed by Birrell.
Commissioners also voted 5-0 to deny a request for a self-storage facility on Freeman Road, near the Johnson Ferry Road intersection (agenda item here).
Noble Storage LLC wanted to rezone an acre of wooded land from low-rise office to neighborhood retail to build a 57,668-square-foot, four-story storage building.
Adam Rozen, an attorney for the applicant, said the land has been marketed for LRO purposes for years but has not found a buyer.
It is surrounded by some commercial property, including the La Strada restaurant and a small retail center, but also is next to a residential community.
A storage facility would be too intense for the area, the Cobb zoning staff concluded in recommending denial.
Clifton Goodman, president of the Breckenridge neighborhood association, said he and his neighbors aren’t opposed to a business being built on the property.
But “you have to draw the line somewhere,” he said.
He said the Cobb land use map dictates that NRC zonings should be located in the middle of a neighborhood activity center.
The Noble Storage proposal would be on the edge of that area, and that such a usage “is completely inappropriate for that property,” Goodman said.
He noted that commissioners in 2011 rejected a rezoning request for an automotive use under NRC and approved the LRO category instead.
Goodman also said there are no three-story buildings in the vicinity (the bottom floor of the storage building would be underground), and what’s proposed would be the only commercial use in that area that wouldn’t have direct access to Johnson Ferry Road.
“Noble Storage is asking the county to pretend there is no Cobb County code,” he said.
The East Cobb Civic Association also opposed the rezoning.
Commissioner Jerica Richardson said the LRO zoning was meant to be a “step down” commercial use to protect nearby residents, and made a motion to deny.
Birrell noted the 2011 case and “many of the same people who are here” were in opposition then, when the area was in her district.
“This is too intense for the property and the impact to the neighborhood surrounding it,” she said. “It was zoned LRO for a reason.”
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L to R: Barbara Means, Ryan’s Case for Smiles; Linda Bailey, ECQG President 2022; Abbi Rabeneck, Co-chair, ECQG Community Service; Tawana Benard, Department of Family & Children Services; Andrea Rapowitz, Cobb Senior Services/Meals on Wheels.
The East Cobb Quilters’ Guild is holding a special one-day event Thursday to produce special items for various charities.
What the organization is calling a “Sewcial” takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Community Room at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Town Center (625 Big Sandy Road, Kennesaw).
A total of 18 quilters will bring their machines and materials to sew Beads of Courage bags for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta cancer patients, placemats for Meals on Wheels, pillowcase for hospitalized children through Ryan’s Case for Smiles and quilts for the Cobb Department of Family and Children Service.
Beads of Courage bags are a new addition to their outreach, 18 quilters will bring their machines, materials and dedication to sew all day to continue their commitments of community service.
Last year the Quilters’ Guild donated more than 1,300 items to local community organizations. This year they’re tracking progress toward those goals that can be found by clicking here.
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Two officials with North American Properties will be discussing the current redevelopment of The Avenue East Cobb at a Thursday breakfast meeting of the East Cobb Area Council of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce.
The breakfast starts at 7:30 a.m. at Indian Hills Country Club (4001 Clubland Drive) and admission is $30 for Chamber members and $40 for non-members. Walk-up admissions and payment cannot be granted.
The speakers are Mike Lant, a redevelopment executive with NAP, and Cayley Mullen, who leads a guest experience team for the management company.
The East Cobb Area Council holds three breakfast luncheons per year at Indian Hills.
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The addresses include ZIP Codes; subdivision names and high school attendance zones are in parenthesis:
Feb. 27
1951 River Forest Drive, 30068 (River Forest, Walton): Stephanie Loomis to Connie Loomis and Kelly Henslee; $650,000
2681 Forest Way, 30066 (Forest Chase, Lassiter): 2018-4 IH Borrower LP to Nazco Holdings LLC; $150,000
114 Vintage Club Circle, Building 3, 30066 (Vintage Club Condos, Sprayberry): Richard Kevin Pounds, executor to Richard and Janice McCullough; $405,000
3250 Casteel Road, 30062 (Normandy, Pope): Rock Solid Property Systems Inc. to Wilhelmus Schaffers and Clara Hotten; $515,000
3927 Vinyard Trace, 30062 (Arthurs Vinyard, Pope): JHB Homes LLC to Paula Yando Johnson; $432,000
2144 Coleman Street, 30062 (Sprayberry): Patricia Nickerson, administrator, to Integrity Financial Group LLC; $210,000; Integrity Financial Group LLC to Omar Hernandez Cruz; $262,000
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A home and garage were destroyed Sunday afternoon in a fire in the Northeast Cobb area that Cobb Fire officials said took 15 units to get under control.
Cobb Fire said the home was in the Jamerson Road area, and crews were called around 12:45 p.m. with reports of heavy smoke and fire.
No one was home at the time, according to Cobb Fire, which made contact with the homeowner and said there were no injuries.
“Crews were able to respond quickly to extinguish the fire spreading in the woods, preventing any further damages to other residences in the area,” Cobb Fire said in a social media message.
Another fire broke out in East Cobb on Sunday, seven miles from the other blaze, according to the Cobb Professional Firefighters Local 2563, requiring seven units.
No details were provided, and East Cobb News has contacted Cobb Fire for information about that fire.
Cobb Fire & Emergency ServicesCobb Professional Fire Fighters Local 2563
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Shaw Park pickleball enthusiasts pose with Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell (in red skirt).
A packed community center at Piedmont Church Thursday included legions of girls softball teams and a bevy of feisty pickleball enthusiasts.
Including one dressed in a pickle costume.
For nearly two hours, they and other citizens of Northeast Cobb told Cobb PARKS officials what they wanted to see in the proposed redevelopment of Shaw Park.
At a community input meeting organized by Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell, quite a few people got emotional in response to concerns about what might come next.
Initially described by county officials as a “repurposing” of the park, the project was earmarked $4 million in SPLOST (Special Local-Option Sales Tax) revenues.
That figure is likely to be closer to $2 million, after Cobb commissioners last week voted to redirect $1.2 million to relocate the Northeast Cobb Community Center in Shaw Park and have it become part of new Gritters Library branch.
More than 50 years after its opening, the multi-purpose park located next to the Gritters Library is wearing down. The second park to be built in the Cobb park system in the late 1960s, Shaw Park is heavily utilized, but needs an overhaul, county officials said emphatically to the citizens in attendance.
There are five softball fields, nine pickleball courts, two tennis courts, playgrounds, picnic pavilions and the community center.
Underground infrastructure that hasn’t been replaced in all those years is decaying, according to Cobb PARKS director Michael Brantley, and ball fields, courts and bathroom facilities need to be replaced.
“We’ve had a lot of suggestions for what people want from the community,” Brantley said.
“We don’t have a lot of money left but we want to year your ideas.”
What he, Birrell and other county parks officials heard were pleas to provide new facilities for existing activities, and a few more.
Softball parents have been fearful that removal of the softball fields at Shaw Park were a possibility.
The Sandy Plains Softball organization uses fields at Shaw Park, and they turned out in droves to plead that they not be reduced or taken away.
Shaw Park softball players urge the county to preserve their fields.
“Our constituents cannot speak for themselves,” said softball parent Darren Ross, referring to the 450 girls who signed up for Sandy Plains Softball this spring.
“We are here to protect those girls who cannot speak for themselves. Words like ‘repurpose’ scare us.”
Brantley and Birrell said several times at the meeting that removing softball fields at Shaw Park “was never on the table.”
A number of softball players did speak, echoing Woods’ comments.
They cited aging restrooms that smell bad and that “don’t work.
“It’s just horrible,” said a Sandy Plains softball player. “It’s really bad when you’re ready to play a game and you have to go to QT to go to the bathroom.”
Bret Benson, a pickleball player who grew up playing baseball at Shaw Park and later at Sprayberry High School, said he was at the park when that happened.
He said female players in his league are discouraged from walking by themselves in the evenings.
“The lighting is bad at night,” he said. “We don’t let our ladies walk to that [northern] parking lot. No one wants to show up if they don’t feel safe.”
Benson suggested that new restrooms at Shaw Park be built with safety in mind, and closer to the playing venues. Shaw Park has become one of the more popular venues in metro Atlanta for pickleball, which combines elements of tennis, badminton and ping-pong and is a fast-growing adult recreational sport.
Among his ideas for pickleball courts is to have some of them covered in the event of inclement weather.
“We’re not looking for anybody else’s space,” Benson said, in reference to the concerns of softball parents.
Pickleball player Bret Benson said safety has become a major issue at Shaw Park.
Longtime community leader Frank Wigington was a softball umpire when Shaw Park opened. The park initially had baseball fields, later converted for softball, and said repurposing is a part of the history of the park,
He’s advocating now for a special needs playground at Shaw Park.
“I hope you still have a love for this park when you reach my age,” Wigington said.
Birrell said the county will “go back to the drawing board” with the suggestions made Thursday, and future public meetings are likely when a proposal is developed.
Commissioners would have to approve a master plan before construction would begin.
“It’s just a matter of where everything is going to go and the funding we’re going to have,” she said.
Brantley said discussions have begun to explore having an all-volunteer group to work with Cobb PARKS–similar to groups at Mabry Park and East Cobb Park—and help run events.
“This is not going to be a quick process,” Brantley said of the redevelopment project, regardless of what the future plans will come to.
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The Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved a resolution for the county to submit an application for the Hyde Farm property in East Cobb to be included on the National Register of Historic Places.
What’s officially called the Power-Hyde Historic District contains 136 acres and is what’s left of an 1840s working farm on Hyde Road, located off Lower Roswell Road near the Chattahoochee River.
The national register, which is part of the U.S. National Park Service, was created in 1996 to identify, evaluate and protect historic places “worthy of preservation.”
Nominations for inclusion start with state historic preservation authorities and must include several criteria for consideration.
In addition to the publicity for earning the designation, properties on the register may be eligible for preservation grants and tax credits.
The Hyde Farm property is jointly owned and run by the county (42 acres) and the U.S. government, the latter being the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.
More than 40 acres were sold to the Trust for Public Land in the late 1980s, and 95 more acres were told to the same entity in 2004. Cobb purchased 40 acres and the rest went to the National Park Service.
JC Hyde, the last member of the Power-Hyde families to run the farmstead, died in 2008.
Cobb Parks restored the farmstead in 2013 and conducts monthly walking tours.
Cobb Parks also holds a summer fishing rodeo for kids at Hyde Farm, and the property is used for educational purposes, summer camps and classes.
Tuesday’s action means that the county will submit the application to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, Historic Preservation Division for nomination to the national register.
There are more than 40 properties in Cobb that are on the National Register of Historic Places, including the Sope Creek Ruins off Paper Mill Road.
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A spokesman for First Watch contacted us today that the restaurant “is anticipated to open April 3.”
ORIGINAL STORY:
The opening of a new First Watch restaurant on Johnson Ferry Road still doesn’t have a specific date, but the company told us earlier this week it’s “approaching quickly for this Spring.”
The standalone building at 1080 Johnson Ferry Road in the Woodlawn Point Shopping Center is nearing completion, and as we went by earlier today there were only a few construction vehicles in the parking lot.
First Watch has set up a website for the East Cobb location and “VIP Access” in which you can sign up for e-mail updates, including a special pre-opening event, opening updates and other “perks.”
We signed up and there wasn’t anything specific about the opening. The message we got from First Watch earlier this week said only that “We always hope for the best and know our development team is knocking out that punch list to stay on schedule.”
It’s the same wording they used when we inquired in January; we’ve sent another message trying to get more details.
When it opens, what the company is calling its East Cobb location will be the second in the community (the other is at Sandy Plains Marketplace) and 10th in metro Atlanta.
A Facebook page for the Johnson Ferry Road location has been created, and like the other restaurants in the chain, hours will from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. seven days a week.
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The day after a youth transgender bill advanced out of the Georgia House Public Health committee she chairs, State Rep. Sharon Cooper of East Cobb was excused from casting a floor vote on Thursday.
Along party lines, the Republican-led House voted 96-75 to pass SB 140, which would bar most medical procedures for transgender-identified minors and would strip the medical licenses of doctors who perform them.
Cooper, a Republican from District 45, was one of seven House members listed as having been excused from voting.
The bill that passed the Senate earlier in the session prohibits medical professionals from prescribing hormone-replacement therapy or performing surgery to alter sexual characteristics on minors under the age of 18.
The bill does allow for some gender-related treatment pertaining to intersex youths and those with other sexual developmental disorders, and permits transgender minors to take puberty blockers.
Minors undergoing hormone treatment by July 1 would be allowed to continue doing so under the bill.
The House committee amended the bill to allow doctors to be held criminally and civilly liable as well for violating provisions of the bill. The amended measure must be voted on by the Senate before the legislative session ends March 29.
East Cobb Republican House members John Carson (District 46) and Don Parsons (District 44) voted in favor of the bill, while Democrats Mary Frances Williams (District 34) and Solomon Adesanya (District 43) were opposed.
Those votes followed the partisan lines of the bill in the Senate, where East Cobb-area senators Kay Kirkpatrick (District 32) and John Albers (District 56) were co-sponsors and voted in favor.
State Sen. Jason Esteves, a Democrat from District 6, which includes some of East Cobb, voted against the bill.
East Cobb News has left a message with Cooper seeking comment.
According to House rules, all members “shall vote unless the member is immediately and particularly interested therein or unless the member is excused by the House.”
A member who wishes to be excused from voting must do so before the question is called to vote.
In 2019, Cooper, a retired nurse, voted against final passage of a law criminalizing abortion after six weeks, saying she opposed provisions to punish medical professionals. (Kirkpatrick, a retired orthopedic surgeon, also opposed that bill and was excused from voting to attend a funeral out of state.)
Testimony at a Wednesday House committee about the youth transgender bill got highly emotional on both sides. Teens and opponents were begging lawmakers to let children and their families make their own medical decisions and to follow the recommendations of care from professional medical associations.
Supporters of the bill said children need to be protected from the effects of irreversible medical procedures, especially if they change their minds about their gender identities as adults.
The substitute bill was favorably passed out of committee in a 12-10 vote, and Cooper admitted that there would be a lot of “soul searching” from committee members.
“I only wish there was an accompanying bill, if this one should pass, that says that we will always also stand behind transgender people and transgender children and not let you be discriminated against going forward,” she said before the vote.
After the vote, according to the Georgia Recorder, Cooper was seen embracing the tearful mother of a transgender child.
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The Cobb Police Department is inviting the public to a public safety forum on March 25 that includes representatives from other public safety agencies in the county.
The forum is from 10-3 at the Cobb Public Safety Training Center (2436 East-West Connector, Austell) and is free with lunch provided by Blue Thanksgiving.
Agencies include Cobb Police, Fire, 911, Emergency Management, the Cobb Sheriff’s Office and the police departments of all six cities in Cobb: Marietta, Kennesaw, Acworth, Smyrna, Powder Springs, and Austell.
Topics to be addressed at the forum include active shooter events, the future of policing, gun safety and current laws, public safety interaction with citizens, building trust with law enforcement in the community and more.
Tickets are limited to 250 people and are required for entry. To register, click here or use the QR code below.
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!
The following food scores for the week of March 13 have been compiled by the Cobb & Douglas Department of Public Health. Click the link under each listing for inspection details:
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!
Marietta Police said Wednesday they’ve arrested a motorist they say hit two construction workers on Roswell Road at the Interstate 75 bridge on Sunday morning.
Malik Branch, 31, of Dallas, Ga., is charged with two felony counts each of hit and run and injury by vehicle, as well as misdemeanor charges of DUI, failure to maintain lane, driving on a suspended license, driving on a suspended car registration, driving without insurance, not wearing a seatbelt and driving an unsafe vehicle.
According to Cobb Sheriff’s Office booking reports, Branch is being held without bond at the Cobb County Adult Detention Center.
Police said “old school detective work” led to the arrest.
According to an arrest warrant, Branch was seen at the nearby Marietta Sage Lounge (962 Roswell Street) earlier Sunday evening, and “was stumbling and almost falling in the parking lot with a beer bottle in his hand.”
Branch then got into his car, a gray 2019 Volkswagen Jetta, and headed eastbound on Roswell Road, the warrant states, causing the accident.
The workers were preparing for a lane closure at 1:40 a.m. Sunday when they were injured, according to the warrant, which said the Jetta left its lane of traffic and struck construction cones and a traffic message board before hitting the two men.
The warrant said that construction worker Jimmy Varraza suffered a broken right arm, a broken right leg and a broken hip and remains unconscious and in critical condition.
The other worker, Oscar Aguilar, suffered a broken right arm and swelling to his head, according to the warrant. Police said Wednesday he has been released from a hospital.
The warrant also said that the Jetta had two bald front tires, two rear tires with low inflation levels, one of them not the proper size for the vehicle.
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The prospects for the rebuilding of the Gritters Library have looked bleak in recent months, as the project faced a $2.5 million shortfall due to rising construction costs.
Cobb officials have been working to bring down the cost of the project, which had been priced at $10.5 million and included the renovation of the adjacent Northeast Cobb Commnity Center.
On Tuesday, the Cobb Board of Commissioners unanimously signed off on a $9.8 million maximum price tag, including $1 million in funding from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act.
The contract was awarded to Batson-Cook Company after county officials cobbled together a variety of funding sources to close the gap.
Last month, commissioners closed out spending the last $98 million of the county’s $147 million ARPA allotment, including $21.5 million in economic development projects.
In that funding base is $3.7 million earmarked for CobbWorks, the county’s workforce development agency, which had been planning to build a Workforce Cobb operation at the new Gritters branch.
In addition, the $1.2 million cost for work on the community center will be coming out of the 2022 SPLOST Shaw Park Repurpose project. That building will be demolished and the new community center will be included in the Gritters Library building.
More than $719,000 in savings comes from 2011 SPLOST library projects and fiscal year 2023 library system capital projects.
And District 3 Commissioner JoAnn Birrell, who couldn’t convince her colleagues last September to shore up the gap with general fund revenues, directed the remaining $112,976 of ARPA funding of her $1 million for district projects to the library/community center project.
“This has been a long time coming,” Birrell said in making a motion to approve the contract. “This is one of my 2016 SPLOST projects that is hopefully coming to fruition.”
She also thanked library advocates, including library trustees and the non-profit Cobb Library Foundation, for their persistence in urging a resolution to the funding issue.
“Team Cobb County,” chairwoman Lisa Cupid said. “There are a number of players in this room working to make this happen.”
“It was truly a team effort,” said a relieved Travis Stalcup, director of the Cobb property management office. “Everybody kicked in. Proud of everybody.”
The Gritters project was included in the 2016 Cobb SPLOST, with $6.8 million originally budgeted for the library and $1.2 million for the community center.
There was a groundbreaking event in late 2021 after Cobb received a $1.9 million capital outlay grant from the Georgia Public Library Services.
In January, the board’s three Democrats voted to seek another $1 million in state funding. It was at that meeting Birrell and Keli Gambrill, the board’s Republicans, were dismissed from the dais for not voting due to their objections over Cobb’s home rule redistricting challenge.
But on Tuesday, after the 5-0 vote was recorded, the other four commissioners applauded Birrell for her advocacy.
Gritters opened near Shaw Park in 1973. Originally plans called to renovate the library, but county officials later said a complete rebuild was necessary.
The new facility will include 15,000 square feet and in addition to providing traditional library services it will include a hub for workforce development, job skills and lifelong learning.
In addition to CobbWorks, Gritters has partnerships with the Northeast Cobb Business Association, SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) and nearby higher educational institutions.
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The Cobb Board of Ethics has dismissed a complaint filed by an East Cobb resident against Commissioner Jerica Richardson.
In a special meeting Monday, the board voted 6-0, with one member absent, to dismiss the complaint, saying it did not find “specific, substantiated evidence to support a reasonable belief” of an ethics violation.
It’s the first step under the Cobb County code to consider ethics complaints and is an “investigatory review.” If the board had voted the other way, it could have set a hearing date to formally consider whether an ethics violation occurred.
(You can watch a replay of the fill meeting below.)
Debbie Fisher, an East Cobb political activist, filed the complaint in late January, saying that Richardson was engaged in a conflict of interest due to a political action committee she formed to fight her redistricting by the Georgia legislature.
Richardson, who is part of the Cobb Board of Commissioners’ Democratic majority, voted in October in favor of the county invoking home rule powers to conduct reapportionment.
They are challenging Georgia legislative maps passed last year that would draw her out of her East Cobb home in District 2 in the middle of her term.
Richardson also created a 501(c)(4) non-profit, For Which It Stance, for the purpose of “protecting local control, empowering local voices,” and seeks financial donations, sells merchandise and offers memberships ranging from $25 to $100 a month.
Fisher, a local Republican activist who said she was representing herself, alleges that’s a conflict and at Monday’s hearing, recounted her complaints. (In addition to seeking a reprimand and/or censure of Richardson, Fisher wants to void Richardson’s votes on the maps, which would result in a 2-2 deadlock.)
“This organization creates a conflict of interest, a direct and indirect financial benefit,” Fisher told the Ethics Board members, referring to For Which It Stance.
“Its existence creates the appearance of impropriety and it is evident that Commissioner Richardson is using her position as an elected official for private gain by selling favors and merchandise and giving preferential treatment by selling access and favor to the organization’s members.”
But Justin O’Dell, a Marietta attorney representing Richardson at the hearing, noted her status as the first woman and African-American to represent District 2, and her election in 2020 was “an historic one” in that it ensured a black female Democratic majority.
“Ever since that time, there has been and continues to be an effort to undermine the results of that election, through legislative and other means,” O’Dell said.
He included various cityhood movements in Cobb (three of which failed, including East Cobb), as examples of efforts undertaken so that “individuals who don’t feel like they ought to be represented by Commissioner Richardson can have their wish despite the results of the election.”
O’Dell said elected officials have a “fundamental” right to engage in political advocacy and speech in the course of doing their jobs.
He said “what’s being attempted here is an end run” around the legal proceedings involving Cobb’s home rule challenge to the legislative maps, “and should be dismissed as such.
“They are asking you essentially to declare her actions void as a means to bypass what they have been unable to do through the courts,” O’Dell said, “by having you void these actions and undo the map.”
Most of the ethics board members said they were unpersuaded by the complaint, and that they were looking for evidence of the claims of financial benefit for Richardson going into the hearing.
“We don’t have any evidence that Ms. Richardson has profit,” ethics board member Cynthia Ann Smith said. “But we don’t have any evidence that she didn’t either.”
Board chairman Carlos Rodriguez spelled out the differences in the ethics code between compatible and incompatible employment, as they related to an elected officials’ discharging of their official duties.
The code, he said, precludes commissioners from using their office to benefit in for-profit entities, not non-profits.
“In my mind, it doesn’t really even matter whether she received some sort of compensation as a member of For Which It Stance or not,” he said, “as long as it’s not incompatible with her public duty and responsibility.”
Board member Janet Savage said “we have not seen any hardcore evidence that there was private gain” for Richardson.
The ethics board is a seven-member body appointed by the Cobb Board of Commissioners, the Cobb Tax Commissioner, the Cobb Sheriff, the Cobb Solicitor General, the chief judges of the Cobb probate and magistrate courts and the clerk of the Cobb State Court.
Fisher has 30 days to appeal the decision in Cobb Superior Court.
