The Chopt sign has gone up at one end of Pine Straw Plaza (4250 Roswell Road) where the California Pizza Kitchen used to be.
But a timeline for the opening of the salad concept location in East Cobb has still to be announced.
A public relations representative for Chopt Creative Salad Co. told East Cobb News in response to that question only that the opening will be taking place “later this year.”
The fast casual chain specializes in offering several dozen salad varieties that customers can customize for themselves, along with wraps, sandwiches, salads and bowls.
Chopt announced it would be coming to East Cobb earlier this year. It will be the fifth location in metro Atlanta, along with Perimeter Center, Buckhead, Ansley Mall and Toco Hills.
Chopt, founded in 2001, is heavily concentrated on the East Coast, in the New York City and Washington D.C. areas, as well as Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Chopt also has 21 locations in Alabama and seven in Tennessee.
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The following Cobb food scores for the week of Sept. 12 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!
Some public commenters at Cobb school board meetings wear shirts emphasizing their concerns.
The Cobb Board of Education will be asked on Thursday to adopt a policy to govern conduct by members of the public at school board meetings.
Proposals include the possibility of allowing the school board to meet in an alternate location should disruptions get out of hand and calling on law enforcement to intervene “in any potential violation of law.”
Those proposals are on the agenda for both a work session and possible action Thursday night by the school board.
The work session begins at 2 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 public meetings can be found by clicking here. An executive session follows the work session.
The agenda item (which can be found on pages 28-29) comes as local school districts in Georgia are required under a new state law to develop rules of conduct policies by Oct. 1.
The provisions of SB 588 mandate that public school districts provide public comment sessions. Cobb has been doing so for several years, but the law also calls for boards to adopt policies for those commenters.
The law states that members of the public “shall not be removed from such public meetings except for actual disruption and in accordance with rules adopted and published by the local board of education.”
Some attendees who shouted at the board to delay the vote continued their disruptions after, and chairman David Chastain called for a recess. The protests continued, with some shouting “Shame on you!” as the meeting was adjourned.
In recent months, numerous speakers have addressed the board wearing shirts declaring an advocacy group or cause, and there has been some heckling. On some occasions, disrupting citizens have been removed from the board meeting room.
Public commenters at Cobb school board meetings are notified by the school board attorney when their allotted time has expired, and if they continue, their microphones are cut off.
The issues that have sparked their ire have included those that have been roiling in school districts around the country in recent months—school safety, especially in light of the Texas school shootings; the COVID-19 response; diversity, racial and equity issues—and Cobb school district spending.
Last November, the Georgia School Boards Association broke off from the National School Boards Associationafter the latter asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate parents who protest at school board meetings.
Entitled “Rules of Attendee Conduct for Public Meetings,” the Cobb agenda item states that “the requirement that all meetings of the Board ‘shall be open to the public’ does not prevent governing bodies from maintaining order at meetings.”
The item states that because “children have access to meetings and meeting broadcasts/recordings, the public is advised that the content of these meetings should be appropriate for all ages.”
The agenda item said that existing board policy doesn’t allow use or display of “abusive, obscene, profane, vulgar, defamatory, or slanderous” language or gestures. Citizens may not block others from entering or leaving the meeting room and are not allowed to make threats and disruptive noises.
“Any attendee(s) disrupting or attempting to disrupt the meeting in any manner will be addressed,” the agenda item states. “No attendee shall endanger others by acts of violence or abusive conduct. No attendee shall cause, provoke, or engage in any physical confrontation, fight, brawl, or riotous conduct so as to endanger the life, limb, health, or property of another. Any attendee(s) with signage that blocks or may block the view of others will be addressed.”
East Cobb News has left a message with Chastain seeking comment.
The seven-step Cobb policy proposal to address public conduct starts with a verbal reminder “of the expectations” and is followed by a verbal warning and removal from the room if someone’s behavior makes “the orderly conduct of the meeting unfeasible.”
The law enforcement intervention and relocation of the board meeting would be the measures of last resort, with the latter requiring that the continuing board meeting would be available via an audio and video stream made available to the public.
“As a general rule, the Board will attempt another method or methods to resolve the issue prior to employing this action,” the agenda item states.
However, the proposed policy would allow the board, depending on the circumstances of a situation, to take actions “in any order and is not bound to follow each step chronologically.”
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The Cobb Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to table code amendment proposals pertaining to trash service.
But they disagreed on when, or even if, to bring proposals back for board consideration.
By a 4-1 vote, the commissioners approved tabling the amendments until January. Tuesday’s vote came before the first public hearing on code amendments, which will be voted on Sept. 27.
The dissenting vote was from Commissioner JoAnn Birrell of Northeast Cobb, who supported tabling the trash proposals but thinks doesn’t think they need to be brought back at all.
“I think the public has been loud and clear,” said Birrell, who’s up for re-election in November in a newly drawn District 3 that includes most of East Cobb.
“This should never have been brought to the board,” she said, without talking to the haulers and the public.”
She said she’s received 1,715 e-mails from citizens, with only two in support of a proposal that would have limited trash service to one hauler per commission district.
All five board members have publicly said that they don’t support the single-hauler provision, and held a work session Aug. 31 with private providers to hear their concerns.
There was another meeting last week with the haulers and county officials to continue hammering out solutions to trash service problems that Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said have been lingering for a decade.
“I don’t know that we need an ordinance to address this code at this time.”
Later, she said that the trash proposal “need to be removed completely. If it needs to come back, it can come back.”
Keli Gambrill of North Cobb agreed with Birrell, her fellow Republican.
“These are things that can be solved by the haulers without the county’s interference,” Gambrill said via telephone, attending the meeting remotely.
Citizens in unincorporated Cobb contract with private providers for trash service. But Cupid said the county has a role in resolving service issues some citizens have had with not getting service, or getting inconsistent service.
“This is a public health matter, when there are citizens not getting service,” Cupid said. Until now, “there has not been a prod to the private market to address these issues. There is a role for us to play in this matter.”
Commissioner Jerica Richardson of District 2 in East Cobb said that while tabling the amendments “doesn’t necessarily solve the problem” of inconsistent trash service, it’s “encouragement that the right kind of dialogue is happening to address this issue.”
After the vote, speakers at the public hearing also spoke out against the trash proposals, which included mandatory recycling.
“This amendment isn’t ready for game time,” East Cobb resident Debbie Fisher said, calling it an example of “government overreach.”
She said she found it ironic that county government is attempting to step in to dictate trash service when it “can’t mow the grass” in road medians. “That’s a problem. Limited government is always better.”
East Cobb resident Hill Wright, who started a website to galvanize opposition to the single-hauler proposal, acknowledged that while there are issues in some areas with trash service, “the county has proven that it is not the right entity to make it happen.”
Beyond the initial meetings with haulers, he said, “we need town halls,” and was critical of what he said was an initial attempt to “bypass the haulers and the public.”
One of those haulers, Brian Warren of Custom Disposal Service, thanked commissioners for tabling the code amendments. He said 75 percent of his company’s business is in Cobb, and he’s served on a task force in nearby municipality to help resolve trash issues.
He was responding to a question about how long such a process might take, and he said from previous experience that “within a six-month period we came up with a plan.”
He urged commissioners not to follow the lead of Gwinnett County, which went to a single-hauler format a decade ago, only to continue to have service problems.
“Cobb should be a county that others want to emulate,” he said. “We don’t need to emulate others with failed programs.”
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Traffic cases in Cobb State Court will be put on hold Wednesday and Thursday so court personnel can attend the funerals of two slain Cobb Sheriff’s deputies.
A message from Cobb government Monday said the traffic cases scheduled for those days will be rescheduled, and “notifications will be sent out to those affected.”
On Monday Cobb officials announced the funeral arrangements for deputies Jonathan Koleski and Marshall Ervin, who were shot and killed at a West Cobb home trying to serve a warrant to a man who had failed to appear on a theft by deception charge.
That man, Christopher Cook, 32, and the alleged shooter, Christopher Golden, 30, surrendered at the scene and are being held without bond.
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Funeral services will be held this week for the two Cobb Sheriff’s deputies who were killed Thursday in the line of duty.
Cobb government sent out a message Sunday night saying that the funeral service for Deputy Jonathan Koleski will take place Wednesday at North Star Church (3413 Blue Springs Road Kennesaw) at 12 p.m.
A visitation is from 9-11 a.m. at the church and burial will take place starting at 2:30 p.m. at the Georgia National Cemetery (1080 Veterans Cemetery Road
Canton).
Koleski, 42, had been with the Cobb Sheriff’s Office since 2007 and is a veteran of the U.S. Army.
The funeral for Deputy Marshall Ervin is scheduled for Thursday at 2 p.m. at West Ridge Church (3522 Hiram Acworth Highway, Dallas), with visitation from 12—2 p.m.
Erwin, 38, had been a deputy for the last seven years.
The Cobb Sheriff’s Office said it would be releasing information about the routes of the funeral processions for members of the public who wish to pay their respects.
Deputy Marshall Ervin
On Thursday night, Koleski and Ervin were attempting to take into custody a man who was wanted for a failure to appear on a theft by deception charge.
Another man came out of the house and into the driveway with a weapon and ignored the deputies’ demands to drop it, according to Cobb Police, who said gunfire ensued.
The deputies were both shot and died, and the two suspects eventually surrendered. On Friday they were denied bond by a Cobb Magistrate judge.
Christopher Golden, 30, has been charged with two counts of felony murder and two counts of aggravated assault.
Christopher Cook, 32, the subject of the warrant, has been charged with eight counts of theft in charges stemming from this spring.
The Cobb Sheriff’s Foundation, a non-profit organization founded last year that serves Sheriff’s Office personnel and their families, has set up a donate button for its Fallen Officer Fund on its website for the families of Koleski and Ervin.
The Sheriff’s Office has set up a memorial to the slain deputies at its headquarters visitation center at 1877 County Services Parkway, Marietta.
Koleski and Ervin also were honored with a moment of silence Sunday afternoon at Mercedes Benz Stadium during the Atlanta Falcons game with the New Orleans Saints.
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Jonathan Jenkins, Director of the Cobb Sustainability, Solid Waste and Beautification Department
Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell reiterated Friday that there will be a motion made following a public hearing on Tuesday regarding proposed code amendments to table measures related to solid waste.
In her weekly e-mail newsletter, Birrell said that after the public hearing Tuesday by the Cobb Board of Commissioners, “the Board plans to make a motion and vote to table the Solid Waste code section. It is a consensus of the BOC—none of us are in favor of the proposed one hauler per district.”
Jonathan Jenkins, Director of the Cobb Sustainability, Solid Waste and Beautification Department, had initially proposed limiting each of the four commission districts to a single hauler.
Birrell, a Republican from District 3 in Northeast Cobb who is up for re-election in November, objected, saying citizens should be free to select their own trash service.
She started her e-mail Friday by saying that “as I have stated on the record in meetings, I am in support of open market and residents being able to choose their trash provider.”
She also wanted a delay in the trash code amendments to January. Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid initially balked, saying that too many citizens have been waiting for improvements for inconsistent trash service.
But after last week’s meeting with the haulers, such a delay appears to be likely.
The code amendment proposals cover a wide range of ordinances, including major changes to the county’s short-term rental provisions, apartment inspections, smoking in public parks, and zoning.
Commissioners will also hold a second and final public hearing during their Sept. 27 business meeting at which they will vote on code amendments.
Tuesday’s public hearing comes near the beginning of the commissioners’ business meeting that starts at 9 a.m. in the 2nd floor board room of the Cobb government building, 100 Cherokee St., in downtown Marietta.
A full agenda of Tuesday’s meetingcan be found here; other items include a recognition of Cobb County government marking 25 years of having a AAA credit bond rating by Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s.
Commissioners also will be asked to finalize the appointment of a new county economic development director and to allocate more than $3.1 million in the county’s share of American Rescue Plan Act funding for workforce development, mental health training, and an infectious disease testing project.
The majority of the proposed funds, $2.1 million, would be used to purchase transport vehicles to assist those affected by COVID-19.
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The following Cobb food scores for the weeks of Aug. 29 and Sept. 5 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!
Slain deputies Jonathan Koleski, left, and Marshall Ervin Jr. Photos: Cobb Sheriff’s Office
The day after two of his deputies were shot and killed trying to serve a warrant, Cobb Sheriff Craig Owens said his department remains heartbroken by the tragedy.
At a press conference Friday afternoon, Owens identified the two slain deputies as Jonathan Koleski, 42, and Marshall Ervin Jr., 38, the latter of whom was the father of two children.
Their identities were revealed after two suspects arrested at a West Cobb home following a standoff with law enforcement had their first hearings in Cobb Magistrate Court.
Christopher Golden, 30, is being held without bond after being charged Friday with two counts of felony murder and two counts of aggravated assault.
Christopher Cook 32, has been charged with eight counts of theft. He also is being denied bond after his original bail was set at $1.230.
They were apprehended late Thursday night after the deputies attempted to serve Cook a warrant for failing to appear on a theft by deception charge.
Instead, Golden emerged from the home on Hampton Glen Court, in the Cheatham Hill area, and fired on the deputies, according to police.
“This has broken the hearts of my deputies,” Owens said at the press conference at the Cobb Sheriff’s Office, which was attended by various law enforcement officials and Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid.
“It hurts all of us.”
He said he’s spoken with the wives of both deputies, and pleaded with the media to give the families “the personal space they need” to grieve.
Cobb Police Chief Stuart VanHoozer, whose department is leading the investigation, provided limited details about the shootings, both because the evidence is still forthcoming, and out of fairness.
He said that at 7:45 p.m. Thursday, Koleski and Ervin were attempting to serve a warrant and take Cook into custody in the driveway.
VanHoozer said Golden came out of the house with a weapon and was given “clear” verbal commands to drop it, but did not. Gunfire was exchanged between Golden and the deputies, both of whom, VanHoozer said, “succumbed to their wounds.”
VanHoozer said there were no other people in the home during the incident. He did not provide a description of the weapon used to shoot the deputies.
Cobb District Attorney Flynn Broady issued a statement saying that “We extend our sincere condolences and prayers to the families of the two sheriff’s deputies killed in the line of duty, the Cobb Sheriff’s Office, and the Cobb law enforcement community.”
But he refrained from further comment due to the pending investigation.
Cobb Sheriff Craig Owens speaks, joined by (from left) Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid, Cobb Police Chief Stuart VanHoozer, GBI Director Mike Register and other law enforcement staff.
An individual named Stacy Cook is listed in Cobb tax records as the owner of the home, and Golden is listed in jail records as living at the same address.
According to court records, Cook was sentenced in 2015 to 10 years probation after pleading guilty to burglary and theft charges that were pressed in 2012.
VanHoozer declined to comment on previous incidents when asked by a reporter.
Law enforcement officers, VanHoozer added, “do this job knowing that they may have to give their lives for this job.”
They do it “to seek justice and to prevent incidents like this from happening.”
VanHoozer and Owens thanked not only other law enforcement agencies for their support, but also from citizens in the larger Cobb community and throughout the country.
“What we saw was not just a law enforcement community come together, but we saw the community come together,” VanHoozer said, noting such responses at the shooting scene and when he later went to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital.
“The sense of gratitude we saw from the community was amazing,” VanHoozer said.
Koleski joined the Cobb Sheriff’s Office in 2007, and Ervin in 2012.
According to the Officers Down Memorial Page, the Cobb Sheriff’s Office has had only one officer killed in the line of duty previously. That was Deputy Donald Terry Garrison, who died on Aug. 27, 1990 when his patrol car was struck by a speeding vehicle.
The Cobb Sheriff’s Foundation, a non-profit organization founded last year that serves Sheriff’s Office personnel and their families, has set up a donate button for its Fallen Officer Fund on its website.
“The funds that we will get will go to those families,” Foundation founder and executive director Robert Haley said at the press conference.
That includes setting up a scholarship fund for Ervin’s children, but also direct and immediate resources, including attorneys’ services.
“We are prepared to provide them with funding right now for their immediate needs,” Haley said. “We are ready to respond to this terrible, terrible tragedy.”
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Three young adults from Florida were arrested last week near the Sope Creek parking lot of the Chattahoochee National Recreation Area on loiter prowling charges after Cobb Police said they were committing car break-ins.
Arrest warrants for Manuel Orellana, Diego Rivera and Yanara Riveros, all of Kissimmee, Fla., indicate they have been charged with loiter prowling, a misdemeanor, and possession of tools for the commission of a crime, a felony.
They are all in their late 20s and were arrested on Aug. 29, the warrants state. They remain in the Cobb County Adult Detention Center on $10,000 bonds, according to Cobb Sheriff’s Office records.
The warrants stated that between 1-1:30 p.m. on Aug. 29, the three suspects were sitting in a vehicle in the Sope Creek parking lot of the Chattahoochee NRA (3726 Paper Mill Road).
The officer who took out the warrant was in a patrol car in the parking lot, and wrote that the accused were “in a place at a time or in a manner not usual for law-abiding individuals under circumstances that warranted a justifiable and reasonable alarm or immediate concern for the safety of persons and property in the vicinity.”
The vehicle the suspects were riding in began to back out of a parking space, and someone noticed the patrol car, according to the warrants.
The vehicle, identified in the warrants as a GMC Terrain with Florida plates, then pulled into a parking spot, and the individuals went for a walk, the warrants allege.
Upon returning from the walk, the Terrain left the park but was pulled over due to what police said was a failure to maintain a lane of traffic, according to the warrants.
The Sheriff’s Office booking reports indicate the arrests were made in the Paper Mill/Terrell Mill Road area.
The warrants further states that the officer searched the vehicle after detecting a marijuana odor, and found marijuana and THC vaping cartridges.
The officer also said in the warrants that screwdrivers were found in the Terrain, as was a cylinder from a vehicle door lock.
Also discovered during the search were four gift cards, “common proceeds from entering autos,” according to the warrants.
The warrants state that the suspects gave conflicting stories on where the gift cards came from and how the tools got there, but that all three said they were in the area visiting local parks and sports arenas for “tourism.”
The warrants said that one of the suspects told police they broke into a car at another park, and also had done so in Florida before coming to Georgia.
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The Cobb Sheriff’s Office said Friday afternoon that the two men arrested after the shooting deaths of two deputies Thursday night will have first hearings Friday afternoon.
Officer Jeremy Blake identified the suspects as Christopher Cook and Christopher Golden, and said their hearings will be at 4 p.m. Friday in Cobb Magistrate Court.
Golden, 30, has been charged with two counts of felony murder and two counts of aggravated assault and is being held without bond, according to the Cobb Sheriff’s Office.
Cook, 32, is being booked on at least eight charges of theft by deception and theft by receiving stolen property and is being held on a bond of $1,320.
Blake said Cobb Sheriff’s Office, Cobb Police and Georgia Bureau of Investigation officials will have a press conference after the hearing to provide more details.
The names of the two deputies have not been made public as of 2 p.m. Friday.
They were shot while serving a warrant at a home on Hampton Glen Court in West Cobb Thursday evening.
Deputies were trying to serve a warrant for failure to appear on a charge of theft by deception, but no one was home, according to the Cobb Sheriff’s Office.
A vehicle then pulled into the driveway and shots were fired, the Sheriff’s Office said. An hours-long standoff ended after midnight Friday as two men peacefully surrendered.
The deputies were only the second and third from Cobb to die in the line of duty.
Cobb tax assessor’s office records show that Cook is the owner of the Hampton Glen Court home. Golden’s home address is listed at the same location, according to jail records.
UPDATED FRIDAY 1:15 A.M.:
Cobb Sheriff Craig Owens said two suspects he said “ambushed” two of his deputies Thursday were taken into custody after an hours-long standoff at a West Cobb home.
The names of the deputies have not been released pending notification of family, and the identities of the suspects also have not been revealed.
Owens said the deputies were trying to serve a warrant for failure to appear on a charge of theft by deception at a residence on Hampton Glen Drive, but no one was home.
A vehicle pulled into the driveway and gunfire ensued, according to Owens, who said the deputies were able to call for help.
One of the suspects was arrested shortly after the shootings, he said, and the other was arrested after a standoff.
Owens held a press conference shortly after midnight Friday at the Cobb Sheriff’s Office headquarters with heads of other law enforcement agencies standing by.
Cobb Police is leading the investigation.
More to come later Friday.
ORIGINAL REPORT:
The Cobb County Sheriff’s Office announced Thursday night that two of its deputies have been killed in the line of duty.
In a social media posting at 9 p.m., the Sheriff’s Office said the deputies were at a residence serving a warrant when they died. The message said a saw suspect is being barricaded and that Cobb Police SWAT and Fugitive Apprehension Support Team personnel are on the scene.
The location is on Hampton Glen Drive, a residential street west of Marietta in the Cheatham Hill area.
It’s off Irwin Road near John Ward Road, and law enforcement from multiple agencies are responding.
“We will release additional information, including the names of the fallen deputies, as it becomes available,” the Sheriff’s Office message said.
According to the Officers Down Memorial Page, the Cobb Sheriff’s Office has had only one officer killed in the line of duty previously. That was Deputy Donald Terry Garrison, who died on Aug. 27, 1990 when his patrol car was struck by a speeding vehicle on Roswell Street in Marietta.
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Cobb Collaborative and the SAM Foundation will present Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), a two-day interactive workshop in suicide first aid, at East Cobb United Methodist Church next week.
September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and the ASIST program “teaches participants to recognize when someone may have thoughts of suicide and work with them to create a plan that will support their immediate safety,” according to a release about the workshop.
The workshop is free, and is being made possible by Cobb Collaborative, a consortium of community non-profits, and the Alabama-based SAM Foundation (Suicide Awareness Means . . . ), which raises awareness of and provides training for the prevention of suicide.
It’s named after a young man who took his own life in 2002.
The workshop takes place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. next Thursday and Friday at East Cobb UMC (2325 Roswell Road).
Participants must be at least 16 years old and don’t need any previous formal health care training to attend.
The workshop will teach participants about how to prevent suicide by recognizing signs, providing a skilled intervention, and developing a safety plan to keep someone alive.
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Bring your fishing pole (and license) to Ebenezer Downs Park Saturday morning.
There’s a good chance of rain with a number of free outdoor-oriented events scheduled in East Cobb, so check weather updates before heading out.
On Friday, another weekly Electric Avenue Concert take place at The Avenue East Cobb (4475 Roswell Road) near what’s going to become the heart of the retail center’s redevelopment. From 6-8 p.m. guitarist Jeff Gillman will be performing on stage. You can bring your own tailgate chairs but coolers and outside beverages are not allowed.
The Battery Atlanta will be the venue Saturday morning for the American Heart Association’s Greater Atlanta Heart Walk. It’s free for individuals and groups to take part (although they’re asked to register) to help raise funds and awareness for improving heart health and reducing heart disease (800 Battery Avenue).
Saturday morning recreational events are on tap, with a fishing outing on tap from 9-10:30 a.m. at Ebenezer Downs Park (4055 Ebenezer Road). It’s Fish With Your Commish, District 3 Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell’s occasional series of community meetings at the area’s newest passive park. It’s also being billed as a chance to have a “Conversation With Your Cop,” as Cobb Police personnel will be on hand to talk about public safety issues. If you’re going to bring a fishing pole, make sure to bring your license too.
The monthly Hyde Farm Walking Tours led by Cobb Parks and Recreation continue Saturday at 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., and give the public a chance to explore what life on an 1840s-era working farm was like. The 45-minute walks explore the Chattahoochee River and lowland forests, lush with orchards and wildlife. The walks are free; but you’re asked to register at the above link (721 Hyde Road).
Sunday afternoon marks the fall return of Music in the Park, sponsored by Friends for the East Cobb Park. The electic sounds of the Dark Star Brothers can be heard from 4-6, and you can bring chairs, blankets and food to quad by the concert shell. Other concerts in the series are Sept. 25 and Oct. 9 (3320 Roswell Road).
You can find our calendar listings in one handy place on our site. If you have events to share with the public, please e-mail: calendar@eastcobbnews.com and we will post them here.
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Photo Credit: Chris Savas for Georgia Symphony Orchestra
The Marietta-based Georgia Symphony Orchestra has announced what it’s calling a “Give Back” initiative to award funding to music programs in metro Atlanta, specifically in local schools.
According to a GSO release, participating programs will receive 15 percent of all ticket sales associated with their organization through the 2022-23 season.
That season begins Saturday with a “Brass Splash” event. “Give Back” participants will receive their donations at the end of the season, when ticket sales are finalized.
“We want to partner with the community to invest in local schools,” Susan Stensland, the GSO’s interim co-executive director, said in the release. “This initiative perfectly aligns with our mission to enrich our community and to instill and fulfill a lifelong appreciation for the arts.”
The GSO’s 72nd season includes nine concerts and 14 performances, including matinees, and concerts also will include the GSO Chorus and the GSO Jazz ensembles.
For more information and for music program partnership eligibility details, e-mail info@georgiasymphony.org or call 770-615-2908.
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A handful of public electric vehicle charging stations in East Cobb are primarily centered along Johnson Ferry Road.
The latest are at Parkaire Landing Shopping Center, where two free Volta charging stations have been installed in the corner of the parking lot closest to the East Cobb Library.
They provide a Level 2 charge, delivering 6.2 to 19.2 kilowatts, requiring a 208-240 Volt, 40 Amp circuit.
According to Evocharge, an EV charging station manufacturer, a Level 2 charge typically provides 32 miles of driving range per hour of charge, and takes an estimated 6-8 hours to fully charge.
Most electric vehicles are equipped with a Level 1 charge that provides a 1.2 kilowatt charge using a common household 120-volt circuit and provides typically four hours of driving range per hour of charge. The estimated time for a full charge is 11-20 hours.
Based in San Francisco, Volta has nearly 3,000 free EV charging stations across the country, including nearly 200 in metro Atlanta. Volta also has installed six chargers at Six Flags Whitewater and four at Town Center at Cobb.
Other EV charging stations in East Cobb charge customers to use their stations.
SemaConnect has installed two Level 2 stations at Woodlawn Point Shopping Center (1100 Johnson Ferry Road) that costs $1.50 an hour.
The same cost applies for two Level 2 chargers at the Koala Express Shell Station (1280 Johnson Ferry Road).
At Merchants Walk (1311 Johnson Ferry Road), there are two ChargePoint Level 2 chargers at the front entrance to the Kohl’s department store. The cost is $1.25 an hour.
The AAA Car Care Plus at 1197 Johnson Ferry Road has two EVGo Level 3 chargers. Those are considered the fastest chargers. An EVGo membership is required, and there are various levels of charging rates available.
Charge Hub, which helps EV drivers find charging stations, has created an interactive map. Other East Cobb-area EV stations include the Walgreens at 2975 Delk Road, the Franklin Gateway Sports Complex and GE Complex at Wildwood Office Park.
EV owners are encouraged to check with each charging station provider for availability, pricing and reservations before heading to the pumps.
Rivian, which received more than $1.5 billion in state tax incentives in the largest industrial project in Georgia, has drawn opposition for environmental reasons, and from locals who don’t want their rural way of life to be affected.
California recently became the first state in the country to ban the production of gasoline-fueled vehicles, by 2035, and other states could follow suit.
Georgia is not among those states that have tied state laws to federal vehicle emissions standards.
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!
Fall break in the Cobb County School District takes place from Sept. 26-30, and special arts-oriented camps have been scheduled for children during that week.
They include dance camps at The Art Place-Mountain View (3330 Sandy Plains Road) called Get It! Jazz and Hip Hop Dance Camp for children ages 6-10. There’s also the Island Adventure Musical Theater Camp for children ages 6-12. Please register online or call 770-509-2700.
At the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center (2051 Lower Roswell Road), there will be a Disney-themed Island Adventure Musical Theater Camp for children ages 5-12. Register online, in person, or over the phone at 770-509-2711.
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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!
Last year James Whitcomb, an East Cobb resident, swam 10 miles at the Mountain View Aquatic Center to help raise money for Tunnel to Towers.
He got pledges exceeding $20K, and recently let us know he’s asking for the same this year as he repeats his “Mega Swim” challenge.
This year, however, he’s extending his time in the pool to 13.1 miles—a half-marathon—when he pops into the pool at 6:30 a.m. Friday.
Tunnell to Towers is a non-profit that assists seriously injured first responders and military veterans with mortgage-free homes and other housing assistance.
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!
A participant in a 2018 town hall regarding the Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center expresses a common sentiment of our times.
In April, the journalist-turned-venture capital entrepreneur Katherine Boyle penned a widely-read essay that really lit a fire under me at the right time.
A reporter at The Washington Post when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos purchased the newspaper, Boyle has had a front-row seat at the convergence of media and technology in the early 21st century.
She’s now a general partner at Andreesen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley VC firm started by Marc Andreesen, the web browser pioneer behind Mosaic and Netscape.
Boyle has made the leap of many journalists going into something else over the last two decades, as our profession and various media industries have been in major transformation if not rapid decline.
In her piece for the Common Sense newsletter founded by Bari Weiss, a former columnist at The New York Times, Boyle concluded that American dynamism is lagging primarily because we’re just not all that serious about building for the future.
She takes aim at the massive institutional decay and warped priorities that have marked our times. Yet she strikes a tone of optimism in closing when she writes that “We do not need aging institutions to pave the way for American dynamism. But we need American will.”
I nodded my head often while reading this blunt, but hopeful argument. This paragraph from Boyle in particular I want to shoot straight into my veins:
“Building is an action, a choice, a decision to create and move. It is shovels in the dirt with a motley crew of doers who get the job done because no one else will. Building is the only certainty. The only thing we can control. When the projects we believed were Teflon strong are fraying like the history they toppled, the only thing to do is to make something new again.”
I’m among the journalists who couldn’t imagine doing anything else but the news, and that’s what prompted me to start East Cobb News. The idea was to bootstrap it for a couple of years, then ramp up the editorial and business side.
In March 2020, just as I was seeking office space and lining up freelancers, the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, and we all know what happened next. I buckled up to cover a story unlike anything else in my 40 years as a professional journalist.
Building something from scratch is hard enough, but carrying on during such a surreal time was something I never imagined.
There were days when I literally did not know what day it was, or if I would ever write something that wasn’t about COVID.
As I’ve noted previously, we got major increases in web traffic due to extensive coverage of the local COVID response, which affected people in every aspect of their daily lives.
That was a silver lining, to know how valuable your product has become to others, and I’ve tried to identify others as we appear to have put the worst of the pandemic behind us.
As another Labor Day holiday approaches, I feel very gratified to have made it this far, re-energized and grateful to the community that we’re serving.
I hear from readers frequently about how they appreciate what they read at East Cobb News, and I can’t overstate how much that means to me. I get some complaints, too, and try to address them in the same way as the compliments.
It was 14 years ago this week that I left the newspaper business, when I took a buyout at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I was taken aback this week to read that the place that nourished my career over 18 years appears to be ending daily print editions, publishing a newspaper only on the weekend.
This scenario isn’t all that surprising, and other newspapers are likely to follow suit.
The ink-stained wretches in my profession have been nostalgic about the old days for years. While I will always love what newspapers have been (for the most part), the news isn’t about a delivery system. It’s not about the feel of a newspaper in your hands with your morning coffee.
Tactile pleasures aside, it’s about the news, and the best way to provide it and deliver it to a readership. That’s why it’s imperative to keep building outlets that meet their readers and advertisers where they are.
The slogan under my masthead is “Local News for the Way You Live Today,” and that’s my the premise of my building project.
I’ve watched my own industry evaporate in front of my eyes, and chronicled the last couple years of death and loss during a pandemic, tearing and burning things down, the ripping apart of the social fabric and the public trust. All I want to do is keep building, keep making this site the best it can be for a community that nurtured me.
It’s not on a scale of the tech companies or a larger news media entity. I’ve planted a seed where I am, and want to cultivate it.
Most of all, I want to build something that will outlast me. A former colleague at Patch who started her own news site and magazine in Walton County has sold them to the local newspaper.
Her example and determination helped inspire me to start East Cobb News. Cynthia Rozzo, the founder of the EAST COBBER, recently sold the magazine to her advertising manager, Laren Brown, who is carrying the publication into its third decade.
That’s remarkable staying power, something I hope to realize some day. But there’s still a lot of building to do. I’m unpacking the results of a recent reader survey, and plotting out editorial and business objectives for the rest of the year.
For the first time in a long time, however, I’m going to take a couple days away from the screen, Sunday and Monday—barring major breaking news—and absorb the true meaning of Labor Day.
I hope you will too, and I encourage you to stay in touch.
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!
Cobb Collaborative and the SAM Foundation will present Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), a two-day interactive workshop in suicide first aid, at East Cobb United Methodist Church next week.
