Cobb Police said Tuesday that an elderly man sustained serious injuries and two other people had minor injuries after a two-vehicle crash Monday on Trickum Road.
Public Information Officer Aaron Wilson said Paul Borts, 84, was taken to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital with serious injuries in the crash, which took place at 8:48 a.m. Monday on Trickum Road at Timberbrook Trace.
Police said Borts, of a Northeast Cobb address, was driving a 2016 red Chevrolet Malibu in a southbound direction on Trickum near the intersection when the vehicle was struck by a 2023 white Chevrolet Express van, which had been traveling northbound but veered into the southbound lane.
Wilson said the Malibu spun around and the Express van traveled northbound before both vehicles came to a stop on Trickum.
The two passengers in the van, driver Edward Jural, 33, of Dunwoody, and Penny Grigalanz 47, of Marietta, an occupant, also were taken to Kennestone with minor injuries, according to police, who said an investigation into the crash is ongoing.
Anyone with information is requested to contact the Cobb County Police Department at 770-499-3987.
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A new voter initiative by the presidential campaign of former President Donald Trump, Trump Force 47, opened an office in East Cobb this week.
An opening event took place Wednesday at the office, located at 2440 Sandy Plains Road, Building 10.
Trump Force 47 is a canvassing effort to mobilize volunteers to get out the vote for Trump in key battleground states. A similar field office is opening this week in Woodstock, and others are rolling out in other states where the presidential race is expected to be competitive.
The statewide Trump Force 47 effort is organized by the Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party.
The Trump Force 47 organization was created after Trump’s guilty verdict in a hush-money trial in New York last month. One estimate by the campaign claimed it raised $35 million after the conviction.
Trump has been lagging behind Biden’s campaign in fundraising, but a recent report says the Trump campaign now has more cash on hand.
The Cobb field office for Trump opens shortly after the Biden campaign opened a Cobb office near Kennestone Hospital in Marietta.
Georgia is expected to be a decisive factor in presidential voting, especially metro Atlanta suburbs that once were strongly Republican. The candidates held their first debate Wednesday in Atlanta in an event organized by CNN.
Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris has been campaigning frequently in Georgia in recent weeks, and polls released last week had Trump leading Biden 45-41 percent in the state.
Cobb has been a focal point, after being strongly Republican since the 1980s. Hillary Clinton and Biden have won the county in 2016 and 2020, with parts of East Cobb and West Cobb favoring Trump.
Biden defeated Trump in Georgia in 2020 by fewer than 12,000 votes, according to certified results. But Trump and some Georgia Republicans have disputed those figures, claiming election fraud.
Trump and other defendants have been indicted in Fulton County on charges of racketeering activities to attempt to illegally overturn the Georgia results.
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Starting July 1, the Mountain View Aquatic Center (2650 Gordy Parkway) will be closed for three months for scheduled renovations.
The work includes resurfacing pools and painting work and is part of $4.5 million in improvements to Cobb PARKS facilities in the 2022 Cobb SPLOST (Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax).
Related projects include renovations at the Cobb County Central Aquatic Center in Marietta, which is reopening July 1 after three months of renovations. The West Cobb Aquatic Center in Powder Springs also reopened in April after renovations.
The scheduled reopening for the Mountain View Aquatic Center is Oct. 1.
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Theodore Adams Thomas of East Cobb, a student at Walton High School, has earned the highest advancement award the Boy Scouts of America offers to Scouts, the Eagle Scout Award.
Thomas was recognized in ceremonies on Sunday, May 16, 5:00 pm at the Eastminster Presbyterian Church. A member of Troop 565 at Eastminster, Thomas is one of approximately 4 percent of all Scouts who attain the Eagle rank.
Each candidate must earn 21 merit badges and successfully complete a community, church, or synagogue-related service project to earn their Eagle; Thomas chose to improve the safety and quality of life of school children and neighbors in the Timber Ridge Elementary School zone by creating a path to school on Highway 120 frontage at the intersection of Highway 120 and Bishop Lake Road. Previously, the stretch of road was occupied by shrubbery behind a guardrail which prevented pedestrian traffic and forced anyone transiting the area to walk in the roadway on a very busy section of Highway 120/Roswell Road.
Thomas organized the removal of the shrubbery and laying a mulch path through coordination with the Georgia Department of Transportation, St. Anne’s Catholic Church, and 36 volunteers who assisted him in the labor. Thomas has served as Senior Patrol Leader, Chaplain’s Aid, and Scribe.
Honors he has received include Arrow of Light, Silver Explorer, 50-Miler, Gold Palm, and he holds the record for the mile swim at Camp Woodruff. Thomas joins other outstanding American citizens who have become Eagle Scouts, among them former President Gerald R. Ford, Jr., astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, cinematographer Steven Spielberg, and the head of the F.B.I., William Sessions.
Thomas is a member of Emerson Unitarian Universalist Congregation. He is Captain of Walton Swim and Dive, the defending 7A state champions, and active in the Engineering Honors Society, RPG Club, and E-Sports at Walton High School, where he is a Senior. He also swims with the Stingrays Swimming Club.
He is the son of Dominic and Elizabeth Thomas of Marietta and in interested in pursuing engineering and a career in military automotive technology.
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The following East Cobb residential real estate sales were compiled from agency reports and Cobb County property records. They include the street address, subdivision name, high school attendance zone and sales price:
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 Cobb Board of Commissioners will be asked next week to adopt a six-month moratorium on issuing licenses for health spas in order to make possible changes to county ordinances.
An agenda item for a business meeting Tuesday night referenced “a growing problem with illegal and illicit activities at health spas including various code violations, prostitution and human trafficking.”
The agenda item (you can read it here) didn’t specify any incidents, but the proposed measure comes shortly after the county fined the owner of an East Cobb health spa for several violations and a review board approved a suspension of its health spa license.
While the state oversees the licensing of massage therapists in Georgia, local governments regulate the businesses.
According to county documents, Cobb business license compliance officials, as well as an investigator from the Cobb Police Department, inspected Peace Spa at 4994 Lower Roswell Road in April after receiving a complaint from a different agency “stating the possibility of sexual activities being offered.”
A summary of a Cobb License Review Board show cause hearing in May (you can read it here) said that the business, which has a license to run a health spa with massage services, didn’t have a state-licensed therapist or designated manager on the premises during business hours, which is required by law.
The only staff person who was there when inspectors arrived was a woman who was not included on an official list of Peace Spa employees, according to the show cause summary.
The owner, Xiangnan Zhang, is a state-licensed therapist, but had gone home temporarily. The summary said she was cited for three violations, including not filing an employee list with the county, not recording treatments provided and allowing unlicensed persons to provide massage therapy services.
(You can read the county code regulations on health spas by clicking here.)
The summary said Zhang pleaded guilty to the charges in Cobb Magistrate Court and paid the fines, and that the Cobb License Review Board voted to impose a two-week suspension of Peace Spa’s health spa license.
But the report, which said Zhang took over the business from a previous owner in January, did not detail any illicit activities. It said that Zhang apologized for the violations and said she would be hiring a licensed massage therapist to help with the business.
At their June 11 meeting, commissioners were to have considered a withdrawal of a request to review the suspension.
But that matter was pulled from the consent agenda with Commissioner Jerica Richardson saying it was to come back for a hearing.
Cobb’s proposed 180-day moratorium would follow similar action by the City of Roswell, which last year twice paused issuing new health spa licenses.
Undercover police discovered what they alleged was a network of prostitution and human trafficking activities at several health spas, and the city council voted to close seven of them during the moratorium.
An AJC news report indicated the health spas in Roswell were “operating without valid licenses and had either been previously closed or changed ownership as a way to continue operating illegally.”
In the agenda item for Tuesday’s meeting, Cobb Community Services Director Jessica Guinn said that “this is a serious concern for the protection of the health, safety and welfare of the public. Community Development and Public Safety have determined that the illicit health spa establishments are evading code and law enforcement; therefore, a temporary moratorium will provide a necessary opportunity to review the Cobb County Code to enhance regulations and strengthen protections to the public by suspending any health spa applications and further reviewing this regulatory process.”
You can read the proposed resolution for the moratorium by clicking here.
The agenda item is on the commission’s consent agenda; the meeting begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).
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On a 100 degree day, 105 members of the National Charity League (NCL) of East Cobb gathered at St. Ann Catholic Church for the 2nd Annual Impact Day. The event aimed to benefit The Sandwich Project, a nonprofit fighting food insecurity in Metro Atlanta. NCL East Cobb’s mission is to foster mother-daughter relationships in a philanthropic organization committed to community service, leadership development and cultural experiences. Lexi Bretl, a 2027 Ticktocker (daughter), said the day left her with “a great feeling of giving back to our community, and it was neat seeing everybody come together to make so many sandwiches!”
After a brief membership meeting, Silke Shilling, Former VP of Philanthropy, led the group through a Roots of Hunger Activity geared toward helping the young ladies understand the concept of how the greatest difficulties with food insecurity isn’t the lack of food, but rather the inequality of distribution and accessibility. The Ticktockers were given a brown bag with a various number of snacks in them upon their arrival. At Mrs. Shilling’s direction, they opened the bags to find that they did not all get the same amount. “It felt unfair not to get the same amount of food as my neighbor,” said Brooklyn Paulin, a 2026 Ticktocker.
The 60 Ticktockers were then tasked with equitably distributing the snacks to everybody in the room. The chaos in the room, as Mrs. Shilling pointed out, is what many food programs and families face trying to get the correct amount of food into the hands of those in need. She continued with some statistics that 1 in 8 Georgians, including 500,000+ children and numerous households with veterans, are affected by food insecurity. Miss Paulin said that “the event deepened my understanding and interest in world hunger. It also helped me understand the complexities of the food distribution system and of fixing the issue of equal food distribution.”
The Sandwich Project, established in 2020 in response to the challenges posed by COVID-19, is a nonprofit organization with a network of volunteers who make and deliver fresh, homemade sandwiches to people experiencing food insecurity throughout Metro Atlanta. With over 4,000 volunteers and more than 30 collection sites, they serve over 60 charities. Since June of 2021, NCL East Cobb has contributed an impressive 46,646 sandwiches to The Sandwich Project. Additionally, fifteen of our mother-daughter duos or trios from NCL East Cobb have generously donated over 625 sandwiches each.
Finally, with the generous support of Whole Foods Merchants Walk, Publix Charities, and Costco Perimeter, the members of NCL East Cobb demonstrated their commitment by making a total of 1,645 nutritious sandwiches! This more than doubles the sandwiches made at NCL’s first Impact Day last year. In an email to the chapter, Silke Shilling confirmed that the sandwiches were distributed the following day to the Community Assistance Center and St. Vincent de Paul Society, and will most likely be all eaten by Monday the 17th!
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all NCL East Cobb members for their participation and a special thank you to the individual members who dedicated extra time to make this initiative a resounding success!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
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Nearly two years after having his murder conviction overturned in the “hot car” death of his young son, Justin Ross Harris has been released from a Georgia prison.
But he’s been transferred to the Cobb County Adult Detention Center, where he is to finish serving a sentence on other related charges.
The Georgia Department of Corrections announced that Harris, now 43, was released from the Macon State Prison on Sunday, Father’s Day.
That’s where he had been since Dec. 2016, after being convicted by a Glynn County jury for the death of his 22-month-old son, Cooper.
Harris left the boy in his vehicle in June 2014 while he worked as a web developer for Home Depot in Vinings. He said during his trial that he forgot about the child, but prosecutors allege he wanted to kill his son to get out of a troubled marriage.
The boy was pronounced dead of hypothermia after being inside of Harris’ SUV for several hours, as temperatures rose above 100 degrees.
The jury in Brunswick, in Glynn County—the trial was moved to the Georgia coast due to pretrial publicity—returned a guilty verdict, and Harris was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
He also received 12 more years for misdemeanor charges of criminal attempt to commit sexual exploitation of a minor and distributing harmful materials to minors.
During the trial, Cobb prosecutors presented evidence about Harris’ extramarital activities and sexually lewd activities and communications with girls and women.
Harris’ lawyers claimed that including that evidence was prejudicial, but Judge Mary Staley Clark rejected those objections, as well as their motion for a new trial after the conviction.
In June 2022, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned the conviction, saying that the sexual offenses should have been tried separately from the murder charge.
Last May, Cobb District Attorney Flynn Broady said his office would not retry Harris because “crucial motive evidence that was admitted at the first trial in 2016 is no longer available to the State due to the majority decision of the Supreme Court.”
Prosecutors who tried the case under former DA Vic Reynolds have been critical of Broady’s action, as has Sonya Allen, a deputy district attorney in Fulton County.
She defeated Broady in the May 21 Democratic primary and is running unopposed in the November general election.
Allen cited the Harris case as among her reasons for running and indicated that if elected she may conduct a review for a possible retrial.
According to Cobb Sheriff’s Office records, Harris was booked in the Cobb jail Sunday, on two misdemeanor counts of distribution of obscene materials to minors, a sentence that has two years remaining.
He served 10 years in state prison for a conviction of sexual exploitation of a child.
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According to final, unofficial results, Howard received 73 percent of the vote with all 37 precincts reporting.
Howard tallied 1,738 votes to 641 for Whorton, and he won 35 of the 37 precincts.
The Georgia Secretary of State’s Office has updated results at this link. They must be certified by the Cobb Board of Elections.
Howard advances to the November general election, but it is unclear what the District 2 boundaries will look like and who the Republican candidate may be.
For the primary and runoff, District 2 included a good portion of East Cobb, but the electoral maps are under a legal dispute that could change them.
There was a hearing Thursday in Cobb Superior Court before Judge Kellie Hill on that matter. Afterwards, the Cobb Board of Elections asked for a delay in the District 2 and District 4 commission general elections slated for November, until after the matter is resolved in the courts.
Democratic first-term Commissioner Jerica Richardson was drawn out of her seat during legislative reapportionment in 2022, and she and her Democratic colleagues are observing maps drawn by the Cobb delegation, citing “home rule” powers that apply to local governments.
Most of East Cobb was included in the legislative maps in District 3, which is represented by Republican JoAnn Birrell, who was re-elected to a fourth term in 2022.
Richardson opted to run for the 6th Congressional District, but was routed in the May 21 primary by incumbent Democrat Lucy McBath.
In the District 2 maps being observed by the Cobb commissioners and Cobb Elections Board, the only Republican to qualify is Pamela Reardon, a local GOP activist.
In the legislative map, Reardon lives in District 3 and could be disqualified if those boundaries change.
But another Republican, Alicia Adams of the Kennesaw area, is challenging the county-observed maps after being disqualified. She filed to run according to the District 2 legislative maps.
But East Cobb Democratic activist Mindy Seger challenged her qualification based on residency requirements, and the Cobb Elections Board concurred.
Adams has appealed that decision in Cobb Superior Court. Hill asked for oral arguments following a recent decision by the Georgia Supreme Court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by two Cobb residents against the county “home rule” maps.
Another Cobb judge, Ann Harris, ruled in January that the county maps were unconstitutional, saying only the legislature can conduct reapportionment, and that home rule powers do not include redistricting.
Near the end of its ruling, the Supreme Court did acknowledge that there are “very serious Constitutional issues” with the county commission Democrats’ adoption of the “home rule” maps.
But Adams’ legal challenge could prompt a ruling on the legal merits of the county “home rule” maps, possibly before the general election.
It’s possible the District 2 primary and runoff results could be thrown out and new elections ordered before November.
Original post:
The polls have closed in Tuesday’s runoff elections that includes the Democratic Party race for District 2 on the Board of Commissioners.
Jaha Howard and Taniesha Whorton were vying for the right to earn a spot on the November ballot.
Democrats hold a 3-2 edge on the commission. Chairwoman Lisa Cupid and Commissioner Monique Sheffield, both Democrats, are up for re-election in November.
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The Cobb Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to continue a requested site plan change by the Whataburger hamburger chain for a proposed restaurant in Northeast Cobb.
The vote was 5-0 to delay a hearing until July; the case was initially scheduled to be heard in May but was continued.
During a Tuesday zoning hearing, Cobb Zoning DivisionManager John Pederson said the applicant needs another month to work on the plans, which require changing stipulations in uses of the property where the O’Charley’s restaurant was located on Shallowford Road at Sandy Plains Road.
The stipulations include restrictions against a fast-food restaurant and anything with a drive-through service. Whataburger wants to convert the 7,000-square-foot building for a sit-in restaurant with double drive-through service.
The land was rezoned in 1999 and an Other Business approval in 2000 permitted the opening of the O’Charley’s, which closed last year. The 1.3 acres at 3550 Sandy Plains Road formerly belonged to the Gordy family.
Any changes on those former Gordy properties in the area include a review by a special architectural control committee.
That process still hasn’t taken place, and Commissioner JoAnn Birrell said Tuesday she wants that completed before the matter comes up for a hearing.
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The following East Cobb residential real estate sales were compiled from agency reports and county property records. They include the street address, subdivision name, high school attendance zone and sales price:
May 28
99 Pheasant Drive, 30067 (Fox Hills, Wheeler): $695,000
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“People still say they appreciate me,” Jaha Howard said. “Conflict is connected to real solutions.”
After turning heads—and occasionally clashing with his colleagues and school district leaders—during his single term on the Cobb Board of Education, Jaha Howard is sounding a more low-key tone as he campaigns for an open seat on the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
Howard finished first in a five-way Democratic primary with 33 percent of the vote on May 21, and will be facing first-time candidate Taniesha Whorton (previous story here) in Tuesday’s runoff election.
Both live in the Smyrna area of District 2, whose boundaries are being disputed in the courts following a reapportionment battle that drew incumbent Jerica Richardson out of her seat.
And both are actively seeking votes in East Cobb in the early hot summer amid low turnout.
Howard sees it as an opportunity to do some serious ground-level retail campaigning.
“There’s a lot of direct connection with voters who tend to vote,” he said in an interview with East Cobb News earlier this week. “We’re having the most success calling voters in East Cobb.”
He said the personal conversations have been fruitful, and his campaign has been targeting seniors with direct mail.
“People in East Cobb were paying a lot of attention over the last few years,” Howard said, referring to his school board tenure, which lasted from 2019-2022.
A precinct map shows polling stations won by Howard in Green, Whorton in brown, Allen in blue and Kevin Redmon in turquoise. Click here to see precinct details. .
“They appreciated that we were asking questions that they wanted answers to.”
Howard—whose school board campaign for Post 2 in the Smyrna area was managed by Richardson—was a central figure in a number of controversies, including demands for greater equity and diversity initiatives in the Cobb County School District, the district’s COVID response and racial disparities.
In 2021, Howard and the board’s two other Democrats, include Charisse Davis—who represented the Walton and Wheeler clusters—requested a special review from the district’s accrediting agency (which ultimately reversed its findings).
That set off several more months of open sparring during 2022, during which Howard gave up his seat and ran unsuccessfully for Georgia School Superintendent.
In reflecting on his school board tenure, Howard said that the political change that’s come to Cobb in recent years has been difficult for some.
(Republican dominance in local government since the late 1980s is now down to a single seat on the school board.)
“For people who did not want to hear honest conversations, it was divisive,” Howard said. “It depends on how you see it.”
He said that on the other hand, he’s been told that he and his Democratic school board upstarts “were a breath of fresh air. People still say that they appreciate me. Conflict is connected to real solutions.”
Howard said his campaign priorities for commissioner are public safety and economic development.
“The people who take care of us,” he said in reference to first responders, “need to be taken care of” in terms of salaries, housing and health services and related resources.
As for local small business growth, Howard—whose pediatric dentistry practice in Vinings has grown from 3 to 20 employees—said “we need to make sure entrepreneurs have what they need.”
He didn’t outline specifics for those areas, or for other hot-button issues that have galvanized citizens recently.
After leaving the school board, Howard was appointed to the Cobb Transit Advisory Board by Chairwoman Lisa Cupid.
Howard said he supports expanding transit, but was initially concerned about the 30-year length of the transit tax referendum that’s being put on the November ballot. But that length was necessary to qualify for federal funding.
“I’m a big fan of investing in our infrastructure,” he said. “What we need to have are better and clearer communications about our vision—what the projects are, and how it benefits us.”
Howard said other issues he’s stressing as he campaigns are the effects of inflation as they pertain to county employees.
“We have to be able to keep up with that,” he said, referencing the county’s challenge of hiring and retaining personnel.
“That’s going to come at a cost.”
But as citizens continue to grapple with rising property tax assessments—those bills just went out a few weeks ago—Howard acknowledged that it’s “one of the first things that comes up. It’s a shock, how rapidly” assessments have gone up over the last 2-3 years.
When asked if he favors rolling back the millage rate to offset those increases, Howard said that “we have to put all options on the table” with the objective “to put the least burden on homeowners.”
Commissioners delayed voting on a proposed stormwater tax until August after community opposition. Howard said he understands the pain taxpayers are feeling on a number of fronts, but “we’ve kicked the can down the road” for far too long to address a stormwater system that needs to be upgraded.
“At some p0int, we’re going to have to deal with it,” he said. “There’s no easy way out of a shared responsibility.”
While the partisan squabbles on the commission have taken on a different dynamic than the school board, Howard believes there’s nothing wrong with a healthy difference of opinion.
“Some people might see doom and gloom” when observing those open disputes, he said, but it’s good to “hear them out loud in a constructive way.”
But he asserts the priority should be for the board to determine “what’s right and what’s best for our county.”
Howard admitted that regardless of the issues, including housing affordability and zoning and development, that “people still want Cobb to thrive.”
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The District 2 map with precincts identified by code. For a larger view, click here.
Voters in East Cobb will help determine the Democratic Party candidate for District 2 on the Cobb Board of Commissioners in Tuesday’s runoff election.
Voters will cast ballots at their regular precincts from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. They must provide a photo or other official form of identification when they get to the polls.
The candidates are Jaha Howard, a former member of the Cobb Board of Education, and Taniesha Whorton, a former administrative assistant with the Cobb County Police Department.
They finished first and second, respectively, in a five-way primary on May 21.
Turnout has been light, with fewer than 1,000 casting votes in the advance voting period for the runoff last week.
District 2 is an open seat after current first-term Democrat Jerica Richardson decided to run for Congress.
She finished far behind current U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath in the Democratic primary for the 6th District.
Richardson was drawn out of her commission seat during reapportionment. She and the other two Democratic commissioners approved other maps that would place most of East Cobb in District 3.
It’s unclear at the moment who else will be running in District 2 in the general election in November.
Republican Alicia Adams filed to run in District 2 under the legislative maps, but was disqualified due to the map disputes.
She is challenging her disqualification in Cobb Superior Court, and a hearing is scheduled next Thursday before Judge Kellie Hill.
Cobb Republican activist Pamela Reardon qualified to run in the District 2 boundaries that are being observed for the Democratic Party.
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Juneteenth marks the ending of slavery throughout the nation at the end of the Civil War. On June 19, 1865, nearly two years after President Abraham Lincoln emancipated enslaved Africans in America, Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, with the news. More than 250,000 African Americans embraced freedom by executive decree in what became known as Juneteenth or Freedom Day.
Cobb County Government offices will be closed Wednesday, June 19, in honor of the holiday.
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An official grand opening party took place on Saturday.
“We’re stoked to be expanding into East Cobb and to serve our German-style beer for the East Cobb community.” Craig Mycoskie, CEO and head brewer at Round Trip said.
“We’ve built this brewery as a communal space in the spirit of a Bavarian beer hall with the idea that people will interact, have fun, and build meaningful relationships over delicious craft beer.”
Here’s more from what we received late Friday afternoon:
“The beer lineup across 10 taps will focus on “typical and üntypical” German-style beer–mirroring the approach at the West Midtown location–and will include favorites Straight Outta Munich Spezial Helles, Instant Krüsch Extra Pale Kölsch, Oktoberfest Märzen, Dunkel Platz, Vicarious West Coast IPA, and more. The two-vessel, five-barrel brewhouse will allow for experimentation and East Cobb beer exclusives.
“In addition to the 4,000-square-foot taproom, Round Trip East Cobb will feature fast-casual food options, an indoor/outdoor bar, a private patio, and an event space for up to 78 people. The menu features travel-inspired fare that pairs well with German-style beer, including hot dogs, bratwursts, cheesesteaks, pretzel bites, and occasional specials as well as options for vegetarians and kids.
Co-owner Amy Mycoskie, Round Trip’s director of hospitality, said there will be a Pilsener Patio Party on July 27, as well as Oktoberfest from Sept. 21-29 and other special events to be announced. Round Trip also is available for private events and those can be booked on the restaurant website, with special deals through October.
Round Trip opened in Midtown Atlanta in February 2021, and the brewery distributes three beers through Savannah Distributing all year long – Straight Outta Munich, Instant Krüsch, and Vicarious – as well as seasonally available options, including Oktoberfest Märzen starting in July.
Hours are Monday-Thursday 11am-9pm, Friday and Saturday 11am-10pm, and Sunday 12:30pm-7pm.
Round Trip Brewing Co. is located at 4475 Roswell Road, Suite 1560. | Facebook | Instagram | Tik Tok | X
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A special needs student who was left out of the main portion of Sprayberry High School’s graduation ceremony last month pleaded with Cobb Board of Education members Thursday to make sure something like that doesn’t happen to anyone else.
Ashlynn Rich, an honor student and varsity athlete at Sprayberry, spoke during a public comment period Thursday night at school board meeting.
Shortly after her remarks and those of her mother, Linda Ramirez, who had filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, Cobb County School District Superintendent Chris Ragsdale issued a formal apology.
Rich, who has Down Syndrome, was given her diploma with several other special-needs students before Sprayberry’s ceremony began. During the formal commencement, however, they waited in a hallway and were escorted out of the Kennesaw State University Convocation Center before the event had concluded.
“Graduation is a special moment and I wanted to share it with my friends, just like everyone else,” she said. “I don’t want any other student to go through what I did.”
Ragsdale said that Rich’s exclusion from Sprayberry’s commencement was “not a policy issue but a personnel issue” and he could not elaborate more. He said that “it appears to be a decision made by an individual employee, perhaps with the best intentions, that should have been made by a parent.
“On behalf of the district, I apologize to Ashlynn and her family,” Ragsdale said, as the audience broke out into applause. “What happened should not have happened.”
The Cobb school district gives parents of special-needs students options for how they want their children to participate in graduation ceremonies. Ramirez was told that Ashlynn could graduate with a small group of peers at the school, with her full class at KSU or both.
Ramirez has said she wanted her daughter to take full part in graduation at KSU, but learned about different plans right before the ceremony.
“Her exclusion was not just an oversight,” Ramirez said at Thursday’s meeting. “It was a significant and painful moment of discrimination.
“My daughter was made to feel different, separated from her peers, in a moment that she had earned. The act of segregation not only hurt Ashlynn but also sent troubling messages about how we value our students with disabilities.”
Ragsdale did say new measures were being put into place to ensure that the parents of special-needs students have input into their child’s graduation. That process will include a written agreement between school staff and parents before the ceremony.
In the aftermath of Sprayberry’s graduation, the Cobb school district initially responded to outcries on social media, saying that’s “the worst place to find accurate information about students and schools.”
But a few days later, the district acknowledged what had happened with Rich, and said that it didn’t meet the district’s standards for graduation.
During his remarks Thursday, Ragsdale said that his staff began investigating the incident following concerns from board members and the administration.
He said the new consultation process will be “ensuring there are no misunderstandings, and no employee is making a decision without the clear input of a parent or guardian of a student with an exceptionality.”
At the meeting Thursday, Ragsdale and board chairman Randy Scamihorn met with Rich and Ramirez and other supporters, who wore red in support of Rich’s favorite color.
Rich, who also operates a homemade baked goods business, intends to go to college and study culinary arts.
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The planned special events facility (in dark brown) would be located adjacent to the Cobb County School District central office in Marietta. For a larger view click here.
A citizens group that scrutinizes Cobb County School District finances on Thursday released a rendering of a planned $50 million special events center and criticized Superintendent Chris Ragsdale again for a lack of details.
In remarks at a Cobb Board of Education work session, Watching the Funds-Cobb leader Heather Tolley-Bauer said that her group has been asking for details for more than a year, to no avail.
“Now we know why they wanted to keep the details a secret,” she said in disclosing a 190,000-square-foot building near the district’s central office in Marietta that includes 148,000 square feet of space for an 8,000-seat basketball arena, as well as two hospitality suites.
Those details have not been previously acknowledged by the district.
In addition, there will be 41,000 square feet of space for conferences and banquets, and more than 1,500 parking spaces.
Watching the Funds-Cobb posted the above rendering on its Facebook page after the work session, saying it came from an unidentified “concerned citizen.”
Tolley-Bauer said the new details reveal what she claims are skewed priorities.
She said that the taxpayer-funded Macon Centreplex, which is the host of state high school basketball championships, was losing more than $2 million a year in recent years when a third-party management company was brought in, and while it’s cut some of those losses, the facility still operates in the red.
“We don’t understand why you prioritize conference rooms and suites over classrooms and labs,” Tolley-Bauer said. “Are you here to educate our kids or run an events management business? Because one has a high return on our investment and the other will cost us and our children millions in tax dollars for years to come.”
Ragsdale and the board did not respond to Tolley-Bauer’s comments during the work session—they typically don’t engage in public comment.
In response to a request from East Cobb News seeking comment, a district spokeswoman provided the following statement:
“The District is excited to share more details, once design possibilities become confirmed and construction plans and shovels hit the ground. For now, imagine possibilities like graduations with enough space for everyone, science fairs, robotics competitions, band performances, academic competitions, 5th grade graduations, sporting competitions, staff recognitions, and other events–all with enough space for student and staff families and friends.
“Whatever the final design of the facility, it won’t use classroom dollars and will be one of the best multi-purpose values in the state.”
Cobb currently holds graduations and some large-scale events such as teacher of the year luncheons by renting space from other entities.
Board member Becky Sayler of Post 2 in South Cobb pressed for details of the planned facility in March, when the board was asked to hire a construction manager, saying that “I remember getting big-picture ideas, but I still have not seen details for an expense of this magnitude.”
She voted against that hire, as well as the decision to proceed with the facility in a 2023 vote. Sayler said she wanted to see feasibility, cost savings, budget impact, maintenance and staffing costs, but Ragsdale said that ““all that information was covered.”
Watching the Funds-Cobb, which disputes the need for a facility at all, has cited information from an open records request showing that the Cobb school district spent $45,000 last year to rent the Kennesaw State University Convocation Center, where most graduations are held.
Ragsdale has said repeatedly that the KSU arena—which seats around 4,000—isn’t big enough to accommodate the people who want to attend graduations.
“For far too long, we have had families that cannot have grandparents on both sides attend a once-in-a-lifetime event,” he said in March 2023.
“I think it’s very pressing. Literally, we owe this to the parents. We have tried to find a solution for this for years.”
He initially asked for the special events center to be on a project list for the current Cobb Education SPLOST (Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax) in 2021.
Two years later, Ragsdale proposed the special events center again, with funding to come from the proceeds of property sales of former school properties, including the original campuses of Mountain View and Brumby elementary schools in East Cobb, as well as capital outlay reimbursements.
A previous board also approved spending $3 million to purchase two parcels of land next to the district’s headquarters on Glover Street in Marietta where the special events center will be located.
But Watching the Funds-Cobb also expressed concerns about traffic issues for major events. In a release sent out after the work session the group said it obtained a letter “on the condition it not be shared” that “reveals that the district plans to use shuttle buses to transport visitors to the event and conference center.”
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Walmart announced Thursday that the Walmart Neighborhood Market grocery store in East Cobb (3101 Roswell Road) will be closing on July 12.
In a release, Walmart said that the decision to close the store was made after “a careful and thoughtful review process” and that “this store hasn’t performed as well as we hoped.”
A Walmart Supercenter retail store is closing in Dunwoody the same day.
Company spokeswoman Alicia Anger said the East Cobb store’s pharmacy also is closing on July 12, and that “our pharmacy staff will work with customers to transfer prescriptions to another convenient Walmart location.”
Anger said that “this decision was based on a range of issues concerning financial performance. There is no single cause for why a store closes and these are never easy decisions. . . While our underlying business is strong, this specific store hasn’t performed as well as we hoped.”
She said the store’s 92 employees are eligible to transfer to other Walmart stores, including six in and around Marietta.
The East Cobb store, which opened in 2014, has been the anchor tenant at the Olde Mill Shopping Center (Roswell at Olde Canton Road), and has been the only Walmart Neighborhood Market in the area in recent years.
The company also had stores on Canton Road and at Sandy Plains Road that have closed in recent years. The East Cobb store is surrounded by multiple Publix locations, as well as Kroger, Whole Foods, Aldi and Lidl.
Walmart also has a grocery section in its retail store on Johnson Ferry Road.
Kroger opened its first Atlanta-area “super store” on Powers Ferry Road last summer.
There are more than 5,000 Walmart Neighborhood Market locations across the country, and the company has been expanding with larger stores that opened recently in Florida and in Vine City in Atlanta. The stores feature expanded produce sections, as well as meat, deli and bakery options.
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Cobb Commissioner Jerica Richardson recently dedicated a new park-style bench in honor of the former owner of a popular Chevron gas station in East Cobb.
Her office on Wednesday released the accompanying photos and information about a celebration last week for Cicero Leonard “Lyn” Powell, who owned the Chevron station at the northwest intersection of Roswell and Johnson Ferry roads.
It’s now the site of a Valvoline oil change shop that recently opened, and the bench is located on the southbound Johnson Ferry side.
According to Richardson’s office, “this tribute recognizes his hard work, kindness, and the positive impact he’s made in our community. His customers shared how Lyn’s station was more than just a business; it was a cornerstone of the community.
“We also want to extend a special thank you to Valvoline for generously sponsoring the bench.”
The Chevron station that opened in the 1970s closed in late 2020, and was demolished in early 2021. Commissioners approved a site plan amendment in 2022 to permit the oil change business.
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