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:
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!
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.
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 Cobb food scores for the week of Aug. 15 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!
Tony Frese, vice president of business development, Lockheed-Martin Corp. and a Walton HS graduate.
What could be the largest package of bond and tax incentives in the history of the Development Authority of Cobb County was explained to the Cobb Board of Education Thursday.
There were a lot of “ifs” and “woulds” mentioned by officials from the Development Authority and the Lockheed Martin Corp. during a board work session.
That’s because Lockheed has only bid for a wide range of federal defense contracts that the company said could net Cobb government and schools more than $51 million in additional tax revenue over 26 years.
The proposal is codenamed “Project Mike.” Next week Lockheed will formally request the Development Authority’s approval of $1.6 billion in bonds and tax abatements, contingent upon a decision expected in the next few months by the U.S. Department of Defense.
Proposed tax abatements also come to the school board as a courtesy and don’t require a vote.
During the presentation, Tony Frese, Lockheed’s vice president of business development, told school board members that the federal projects it is seeking entail “next generation air dominance” and include classified high-tech work.
He rattled off some of the aeronautics’ giants current projects, noting that “some day they will come to an end . . . and we have to secure our future.”
Frese boasted of being a graduate of Walton High School, which gave him opportunities to attend Georgia Tech, become an aerospace engineer and work for Lockheed for 37 years.
He said that if Lockheed gets the contracts, it could add between 500 to more than 3,000 jobs by 2042.
When Frese was asked by vice chairman David Banks about the disparity in those figures, he said they depend on how many federal contracts Lockheed may receive.
The contracts would enable Lockheed, he said, “to attract the very best in aerospace engineers and talent and a wide spectrum of other high-tech opportunities.”
These opportunities, Frese said, “have been real for me, and with your support they will be real for many generations to come.”
Lockheed also would be spending more than $400 million to upgrade its Marietta plant on South Cobb Drive to accommodate the new workforce and projects.
When companies seek tax breaks from the Cobb Development Authority, they usually take place over a 10-year period.
Should Lockheed receive the contracts, those breaks would extend over 26 years, authority executive director Nelson Geter told the board.
“It’s beneficial to begin the abatement when the capital investment is to start,” Geter said, referring to the $400 million. “That’s why you’re seeing a 26-year cycle, instead of a 10-year cycle, because the last expenses associated with this project will occur 16 years after the original period [expires].
“It’s not a common but a proper process that we use when major capital investments are made over a period of time instead of one capital investment up front.”
Authority board member Clark Hungerford said the body wants to do “whatever we can do to assist [Lockheed] in setting up the bid to be as competitive as possible.”
Board chairman David Chastain, a proposal analyst for Lockheed, recused himself from the discussion.
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Carolyn Curry, the wife of former college and professional football star and coach Bill Curry, will be the featured speaker at the Cobb Library Foundation’s Sept. 20 “Booked for Lunch” fundraiser at the Atlanta Country Club in East Cobb.
The event takes place from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. at the ACC (500 Atlanta Country Club Drive) and tickets cost $40 (you can book your spot here).
Curry will discuss her latest book, “Sudden Death,” published on Aug. 2 by Mercer University Press. It’s set between 1966 and 1997 and features a woman lawyer who marries a college football coach, and how the couple handles the challenges of balancing their marriage and dealing with death threats that turn out to be realized.
The book is her debut novel. Curry is the author of a biography of Ella Clanton Thomas, the daughter and wife of Georgia planters who kept a diary during the Civil War years.
Curry received the Georgia Author of the Year Award from the Georgia Writers Association and that book was named as “One of the Books all Georgians” should read by the Georgia Center for the Book.
She also is the founder of a non-profit, Women Alone Together, that provides support, education and friendship to women who are single by death, divorce or choice.
Bill Curry starred at Georgia Tech and the for the Green Bay Packers and coached at Tech, Alabama, Kentucky and Georgia State.
The Cobb Library Foundation is an all-volunteer organization that raises money to assist activities and programs of the Cobb County Public Library System.
They include the system’s summer reading program, Girls Who Code, the podcast studio at the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center and the Bookmobile.
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In a move to address significant shortages of bus drivers, the Cobb Board of Education on Thursday approved a request for pay raises by Superintendent Chris Ragsdale.
The unanimous 7-0 vote came Thursday night, after the district presented a recruiting video featuring interviews with current drivers.
All drivers will be getting raises of $5.25 an hour, Ragsdale said, boosting the current minimum hourly wage of $19.75 to $25 per hour, and topping out at $33.32 an hour, depending on salary steps.
The $7.6 million cost for the raises is coming from revenues generated from the rising Cobb property tax digest of 11.55 percent for the Cobb school district.
At a board work session Thursday afternoon, Ragsdale said the Cobb school district—which runs nearly 900 bus routes and transports more than 72,000 students—is short 200 drivers.
“We were not as competitive as we should be with our bus driver pay,” he said at the work session, calling the raises “a potential solution to a real problem. It’s a big problem. This is pretty much the last option.”
He said the raises will go into effect Aug. 25 and the salaries will be the highest for school bus drivers in metro Atlanta. The raises will be reflected in their Sept. 16 pay checks.
Tthe recruitment video featured mostly older individuals who talked about how driving a school bus “gets in your blood” and how they enjoy interacting with students.
Ragsdale said that retention has been difficult with some drivers running double routes and being exhausted as a result.
During public comment periods, some parents also urged the board to approve the raises, noting that the double routes often resulted in their children coming home later from school in the afternoons.
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The Girls Scouts of Greater Atlanta is conducting informational meetings as a new school year is underway, and several East Cobb-based troops are beginning theirs this week.
Specific information—dates, times and school communities—is included in the flyer below.
The meetings for East Cobb schools will continue through the end of August.
More information about Girl Scout programs in metro Atlanta can be found by clicking here.
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The Cobb Board of Commissioners approved the appointment of Ioana Bovo-Nicolescu to be the new director of Cobb Senior Services Agency.
She has been with the department since 2016 and most recently served as as manager human services and previously worked with Special Needs Cobb.
Bovo-Nicolescu holds a bachelor’s degree in human services from Kennesaw State University and she is pursuing a master’s in public administration through The University of Texas.
She also has also completed certificates in gerontology at KSU and local government management with The University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government.
Her appointment comes as the senior services agency is marking its 50th anniversary. Among the upcoming special events is a Pickleball Mixer Oct. 14 at Shaw Park in Northeast Cobb.
Other upcoming senior events include the following:
Register by Aug. 24 for a day trip to Blue Ridge Georgia 9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5 for seniors 55 and up. The group will stop by Mercier Orchards for apples and their famous fried pies, then off to Southern Charm Restaurant for a delicious lunch. Afterward, you will explore all the shops in Blue Ridge. There is a fee of $61. Register from the Tim Lee Senior Center Activities page here.
Friday, Sept. 23 is Senior Day at the North Georgia State Fair for Cobb residents 55+. The free morning out includes breakfast, bingo, petting zoo and much more. Fair entry will be free starting later that day at 4:30 p.m. for all Cobb Seniors 55 and older.
For more information on senior services click here.
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Cobb DOT is repaving a 3.4-mile stretch of Johnson Ferry Road in East Cobb and will have evening and overnight lane closures.
Cobb government sent out a message Wednesday saying that the closures will take place between Roswell Road and Post Oak Tritt Road from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., Sunday—Friday.
Johnson Ferry is a four-lane road with a median, and one lane will stay open when the repaving work is underway.
The project is expected to be completed in September, but there might be delays due to weather.
You can view an interactive map of all Cobb DOT repaving projects by clicking here; more alerts, road projects and travel advisories are updated here.
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At Mabry Middle School, Leslie Ann McCoy worked to create a special class just for students to learn how to develop good study habits.
McCoy teaches a reading and study skills class designed to help students—especially those coming from elementary school—navigate the middle school landscape, with its multiple classes and teachers and other academic challenges.
She’s the current Mabry Teacher of the Year, and according to a release issued by the Cobb County School District, McCoy, a graduate of Walton High School, draws her inspiration from her own teachers, who wouldn’t let her students say “I can’t.”
“I tell the students when they come in the very first week, ‘I’m your number one cheerleader in this building, and all I want to do is set you up for success,’ ” she said in the release.
She’s truly a local product, having grown up in Marietta. After graduating from the University of Georgia, McCoy earned a master’s degree in special education at Kennesaw State University.
Before teaching at Mabry, she was a teacher at Daniell Middle School in East Cobb.
McCoy’s four children all attend Mabry and her oldest twin sons have taken her class.
Formerly a math and English language arts teacher, McCoy said she tries to see all her students through the lens of her own children.
The curriculum she has developed is very practical, focusing strongly on getting organized.
“It’s a lot to keep up with,” she said of students coming into middle school. “So, building healthy habits like writing in your agenda, having a to-do list, and binder organization is huge. Most of our students will either get assignments, and they’ll lose the assignment before they even complete it.”
Current Mabry 8th graders who took McCoy’s study skills class as sixth graders said it’s made a big difference.
“When I had her in sixth grade, it set up the rest of my years to make me better at keeping track of what I needed to do,” said one student.
Another said she’s taking what she’s learned about getting organized at Mabry into high school and college.
“I see something in each of my students, sometimes things that they don’t see themselves,” McCoy said. “My goal is to spark that fire, even if in just a handful of them, and make the same difference my teachers did for me.”
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The Cobb County School District, which has been experiencing serious shortages of bus drivers over the last two years, is proposing to boost their pay by $5.25 an hour.
That’s on the agenda for both a work session and possible action Thursday night by the Cobb Board of Education.
The work session begins at 3 p.m. and the voting session starts at 7 p.m. in the board room of the Cobb County School District central office, 514 Glover St., Marietta.
The full agendas for the meetings can be found by clicking here. An executive session follows the work session.
The open meetings will be live-streamed on the district’s BoxCast channel and on CobbEdTV, Comcast Channel 24. There will be in-person public comment sessions for both; information can be found by clicking here.
In an agenda item, the Cobb school district said the new hourly rate for bus drivers would be between $25 per hour and $33.32 an hour, depending on the salary step for a given driver.
The current pay rate starts at $19.75 an hour. Drivers are eligible for benefits and are paid year-round.
The district said funding for the pay raises would come to $7.6 million and is available due to revenues generated from the rising Cobb property tax digest.
This year that growth was 11.55 percent for Cobb school district collections, higher than the initial projections of 10.49 percent, “making this request budget neutral,” the agenda item states.
The Cobb school district employs 875 drivers and 139 bus monitors who run 870 routes daily, transporting more than 72,000 students, or roughly 70 of the enrolled students.
The evening voting session includes a number of recognitions, including the girls sports program at Lassiter High School and the boys and girls sports programs at Walton High School.
They were named recipients of the Georgia Athletic Directors Association’s Director’s Cup all-sports awards.
Employees to be recognized for 40 years of service include Chester Ransom of Blackwell Elementary School and Lona Wright of Lassiter.
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The Cobb Chamber of Commerce is accepting nominations for its 2022 Citizen of the Year Awards that are presented by its nine area councils.
Tom Bills, and advocate for East Cobb Park, and youth football coach Mack Cobb were East Cobb Citizens of the Year in 2019.
That includes the East Cobb Area Council, which unveils its award Nov. 10, in conjunction with community civic clubs and local business associations.
Nominees are those individuals who have had a significant influence on their community. They can come from business, civic and community organizations, the realms of education, athletics, the arts, religion, recreation and others.
According to the Chamber, “these outstanding citizens are chosen for their definable, exceptional deeds, with which he or she has made their community a better place to live.”
Last year’s East Cobb Citizen of the Year was former Cobb commissioner Bob Ott. Other recent recipients include the late U.S. Sen Johnny Isakson, Futren Hospitality president and CEO Mitch Rhoden and Simple Needs GA founder Brenda Rhodes.
Nominations are being accepted through Monday, Oct. 3 and can be submitted by clicking here.
For more information on Citizen of the Year Awards, contact Jani Dix at 770-859-2335 or jdix@cobbchamber.org.
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!
A delayed proposal to build a subdivision off Kinridge Court is being continued again by the Cobb Zoning Staff.
The staff also is continuing two rezoning applications for car wash facilities on Shallowford Road.
Those three cases were to have been heard Tuesday by the Cobb Board of Commissioners, but have been rescheduled for September.
In the residential application, Green Community Development requested another month’s delay due to what its representative said was “misinformation” by a neighboring homeowners association.
Christopher Hunt used similarly charged language in July when addressing community opposition to what initially was a 16-home, environmentally friendly subdivision on rocky terrain.
The revised site plan for what the developer wants to call Serenesee at Kinridge reduces the number of lots to 13.
It proposes homes of at least 3,000 square feet made of four-sided brick, stone and/or hard coat stucco.
Hunt proclaimed that the project, with rooftop gardens, “greenpaved” parking and other sustainability and LEED features, would win awards.
But the Cobb Planning Commission voted to recommend denial, and county commissioners didn’t hear the case after zoning staff continued it.
In an Aug. 9 letter to the county, Hunt referenced an opponent in a community meeting “who purposefully held the comments until the very end of meeting that was designed to create false opposition without an opportunity for me to respond properly and thoroughly.”
He didn’t elaborate, but added that “we need time for emotions to settle so clear thinking with truth will prevail. The property is zoned R-20 and no one wants what antiquated, counterproductive rules allow compared to what Serenesee is presenting.”
At the Planning Commission meeting, some residents of the surrounding neighborhoods and the East Cobb Civic Association objected to the application, citing density, traffic, stormwater runoff and site plan issues.
Hunt is seeking rezoning under an Open Space Community category, meaning the developer will set aside some of the land—roughly 28 percent, according to the revised site plan—in exchange for higher density limits.
The case is tentatively set to be heard by commissioners Sept. 20.
Plans for a car wash and convenience store at Shallowford Road and Trickum Road are being pushed back again after Southern Gas Partners, LLC asked for additional time.
The 3.1 acres at the southwest corner of the intersection has been sitting vacant, but a nearby resident complained of longstanding runoff issues stemming from previous uses of the property.
The application also will be heard by county commissioners on Sept. 20
Another car wash proposal just down the street also is being delayed for a month. WATMOR LLC is planning a car wash on a wooded lot of 0.8 acres on the north side of Shallowford and east of Trickum, adjacent to the Shallowford Crossing Shopping Center.
The parcel is currently zoned for low-density residential but is surrounded by commercial development.
Lance Watson of WATMOR did not indicate his reasons for seeking a continuance. What he’s proposing to be Rich’s Car Wash will go before the Cobb Planning Commission Sept. 6.
A request to build a cellular tower on Canton Road also is being continued until Sept. 6. Parallel Towers III, LLC is seeking a special land-use permit for 6.2 acres across from the terminus of Shallowford Road.
The land is zoned heavy industrial and currently has two cell towers and the SLUP is requesting a third to be built at 160 feet high.
The tower would serve the AT&T Mobility network and would replace a Comcast tower near the East Cobb Baseball facility.
The request has been delayed for several months and the Planning Commission will tentatively hear it on Sept. 6.
Zoning case files and related information can be found by clicking here.
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!
