The Kennesaw State University Center for the Study of the Civil War Era will host its 19th Annual Symposium History & Memory: A Tribute to James I. “Bud” Robertson & Wiley Sword on Saturday, March 19th at the KSU Center at 3333 George Busbee Parkway, Suite 400 from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm.
Dr. Robertson taught thousands of college students about the Civil War and Reconstruction during his tenure at Virginia Tech, served as President Kennedy’s Executive Director of the U.S. Civil War Centennial Commission during the Civil Rights movement and served as a consultant on documentaries and films related to the Civil War.
Mr. Sword amassed one of the nation’s most extensive private collections of Civil War memorabilia. He was nominated for the Pulitzer, Parkman, Bancroft, and Western Heritage Prizes. His collection of over one thousand soldiers’ letters & other artifacts was acquired by the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier in Petersburg, VA.
The Symposium will feature:
Mr. William C. “Jack” Davis who has authored over 40 books on the American Civil War and southern U.S. history. He is a retired Virginia Tech professor & Programs Director for the Virginia Center for Civil War Studies.
Dr. Brian Wills who is an author of numerous works relating to the American Civil War, the Director of the Center for the study of the Civil War Era and a professor of history at Kennesaw State University.
Bobby Horton who has combined his passion for music and Civil War history to record 14 volumes of authentic Civil War tunes. He is a seasoned performer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and music historian. He has toured throughout the US and Canada for over 40 years and produced and performed music scores for 16 PBS films, two A&E network films, and 21 films for the National Park Service.
There is no charge to attend the event. Donations are appreciated.
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For a larger view of the proposed East Cobb city council districts, click here.
The Georgia House on Monday adopted Senate substitute legislation to call for a referendum for a proposed City of East Cobb.
HB 841 (you can read it here) was approved by a 96-62 vote in the lower chamber without debate, and will be sent to Gov. Brian Kemp to be signed into law.
It would establish a May 24 referendum for voters in the proposed city to decide whether or not to incorporate.
The county is spending more than $40,000 for lobbyists to oppose the cityhood bills.
Cobb officials estimate the impact to the county budget would be more than $45 million a year if all four proposed cities—East Cobb, Vinings, Lost Mountain and Mableton—would come into being.
The financial estimates contend that nearly half of those revenues would come from a City of East Cobb of around 60,000 residents along the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
The county also has protested moving up the referendums in each of the four Cobb cities from November to May, saying it would put an additional burden on Cobb Elections for the general primary.
But the East Cobb Cityhood group questions the county’s financials and objected to taxpayer money being spent to fight the bills.
The Vinings and Lost Mountain bills have passed the House and are headed for the Senate; the Mableton bill is being heard by a House committee.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners is holding a special work session Tuesday at 6 p.m. to cover cityhood issues, including potential impact on county finances and services.
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The proposed Cobb Board of Education map passed by the House would remove Post 6 from East Cobb. For a larger version click here.
Mostly along party lines, the Georgia House on Monday approved Republican-sponsored bills redistricting seats on the Cobb Board of Education and the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
They now will be considered by the Senate.
The bills drew opposition from members of the Democratic majority in the Cobb legislative delegation, who accused their GOP colleagues of skirting local courtesies during reapportionment.
The House also voted 95-64 to approve a commission map drawn by GOP State Rep. John Carson of Northeast Cobb that he said would likely still maintain the current 3-2 Democratic majority.
But Democratic lawmakers objected to redrawing current Democratic District 2 Commissioner Jerica Richardson and District 3 Republican Commissioner JoAnn Birrell into the same East Cobb-based district.
Birrell and Keli Gambrill, the other GOP commissioner from District 1 in North Cobb, are both up for re-election this year.
If the commission map is approved, Richardson would have to move inside the boundaries of the new District 2 if she runs for a second term in 2024.
Although redistricting bills must be passed by the entire legislature, local delegations typically move maps forward for full House and Senate votes.
Most of East Cobb would be drawn into District 3 on the Cobb Board of Commissioners in a map approved by the Georgia House.
But in the last election cycle, Democrats became the majority on the Cobb commission, which previously had a 4-1 Republican majority.
Republicans hold a 4-3 edge on an increasingly fractious Cobb school board, with a mostly partisan split on a number of issues.
The GOP map would move Post 6—the Walton and Wheeler clusters currently represented by Democrat Charisse Davis—into the Smyrna-Vinings area.
The Walton, Wheeler and Pope clusters would be included in a new Post 5, where four-term Republican David Banks is the incumbent.
The Sprayberry, Lassiter and Kell clusters would be reformed into Post 4, whose current member is Republican David Chastain.
Chastain has indicated he will be seeking a fourth term this year. Davis, in her first term, has not said whether she’s running again in 2022.
(PLEASE NOTE: The process of redistricting elected school board posts has nothing to do with the boundaries of school attendance zones, which are drawn by school district administrative staff.)
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The Atlanta Braves will be taking the team’s 2021 World Series championship trophy around the South starting next week and continuing through the end of May.
Among the first stops is the Kennesaw State University baseball field, starting at 3 p.m. next Friday, Feb. 18.
Not only can fans have their photos taken with the trophy, but there will be entertainment-related programming put on by Braves’ staffers.
The KSU event is before a KSU baseball game, and a game ticket for that game is required for entry to the champions trophy. The Owls will be playing Morehead State at 4 p.m.
KSU’s Fred Stillwell Baseball Stadium is located at 220 Kennesaw State University Road, Kennesaw.
More than 150 stops have been scheduled for the Braves trophy tour (more details here), including Colony Square on Feb. 15, Georgia Tech’s McCamish Pavilion on Feb. 17 and the Georgia Aquarium on Feb. 19.
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Submitted by the Cobb County Public Library System:
Cobb Library Foundation presents its 11th Annual Booked for the Evening Gala featuring acclaimed children’s book author/illustrator Brian Lies and honorary chair Cynthia Rozzo, founder/publisher of East Cobber, on Thursday, March 17, 6:30 pm to 9:30 p.m., at Atlanta Country Club, Marietta.
Brian Lies has illustrated several bestselling children’s books. His books include Caldecott Honor-winning The Rough Patch, Got to Get to Bear’s! and his New York Times bestselling bat series (Bats at the Beach, Bats at the Library, Bats at the Ballgame and Bats in the Band). Lies was born in Princeton, NJ, and graduated from Brown University with a degree in British and American Literature. He attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Lies is an advocate for early literacy, and lifelong reading and learning. The Massachusetts resident has traveled across the United States to work with students and encourage them in their goals as he talks about writing and illustration – including his engaging presentations at schools and libraries in Cobb County.
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The “Month of Love” is what the Cobb Magistrate Court is calling February, and is offering special wedding appointments on selected dates.
Some of them will be taking place on Valentine’s Day on Monday, but there are other appointments on Feb. 22 as well.
Judges will be conducting group ceremonies throughout the day, and the court will be holding weddings at noon and 6 p.m. daily through February.
Newlyweds also can enjoy a photo area to capture the initial memories of their marriages.
A fun photo area for Cobb’s newlyweds to capture memories of their big day will also be available during the entire month of February.
Chief Magistrate Court Judge Brendan Murphy said in a county release that “we’re glad to welcome those wanting to tie the knot during this Month of Love while keeping the newlyweds and their guests safe and healthy!”
But because of social-distancing protocols, all ceremonies are by appointment only.
Using the Court’s new online reservation system, couples can make an appointment online at www.cobbcounty.org/magistrate or by calling the Warrant Division at 770-528-8900.
Couples must show a valid license issued by a Probate Court in Georgia, and they may invite up to four guests.
Masks are required inside the courthouse, but couples may temporarily remove them during their wedding ceremonies.
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The East Cobb cityhood group has released a map of proposed city council districts. To see a larger view, click here.
With one cityhood bill—in East Cobb—nearing passage in the Georgia legislature and three others likely to follow, Cobb County government has accelerated efforts to counter what’s been a rapid effort to put referendums before voters in those four localities in May.
The county government has published a special page it calls its Cityhood Resource Center to provide information to citizens about the potential impacts of cityhood.
Like the East Cobb legislation, bills are being considered to allow voters in proposed cities of Lost Mountain (West Cobb), Vinings and Mableton to vote in referendums on May 24, the date of the 2022 primary election.
The East Cobb bill passed the Senate Thursday but must go back to the House since a slightly different version was adopted.
But that bill could be finalized and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp into law by early next week.
County officials have protested that moving up the referendums from November to May won’t give them enough time to assess the financial and service impact, should any or all those proposed cities be formed.
A “summary impact” page prepared by the county claims an annual figure of $45.4 million would be lost in revenues if all four cities are created, with the lion’s share of that sum—$23.5 million—coming out of the area of the proposed city of East Cobb.
That’s nearly 25 square miles centered along the Johnson Ferry Road corridor, with nearly 60,000 people.
The populations of the proposed cities of Lost Mountain and Mableton would be larger than East Cobb.
But East Cobb is the only one of the four cityhood bills that would include police and fire services.
The East Cobb legislation calls for transferring the 2.86 mills in the current fire fund as the main source of city revenues.
On its cityhood page, the county said that while there will be some reduction in expenses if new cities are created, “any savings are not expected to be more than the loss of revenue to the county. This will in all likelihood not reduce the county’s general fund millage.”
In a message sent out Thursday in her official e-mail newsletter, Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said that “I am not here to thwart efforts towards determining the future of one’s community. As chairwoman of the county, I am here to ensure some sense of transparency and to better educate Cobb Citizens, more broadly, about how cityhood can impact all here.”
The county also is spending money for lobbyists, including former Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens. He’s a partner with Dentons, a large law firm, and he and another lawyer there, Daniel Baskerville, are being paid in excess of $10,000 each, according to the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission.
Other Cobb lobbyists are deputy county manager Jimmy Gisi and former State Rep. Ed Lindsey, who also is being paid more than $10,000 to oppose the cityhood bills.
But those efforts may be too late.
The Lost Mountain and Vinings bills passed the House and are being considered in the Senate. The Mableton bill is being heard by a House committee.
On Wednesday, the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood blasted the county’s lobbying efforts, saying that “we condemn the use of county taxpayer funds to mobilize paid lobbyists at the Georgia Capitol to work against passage of the cityhood bills.”
The group claimed that the lobbying decisions were made “without the consent of the Commission as a whole, and can only be interpreted as an attempt to deny citizens the right to vote for or against cityhood through a referendum.”
During a virtual information session Thursday night (you can watch a replay here), the East Cobb cityhood group reiterated its main thrust during the last year, that the citizens of the proposed city should have the right to self-determination.
During the call, cityhood leaders took issue with the county’s financial conclusions, and pointed out that the wrong map of the proposed East Cobb city was being used.
They emphasized the main reason for a revival of East Cobb cityhood—first introduced in 2019—was to preserve its suburban nature and stave off high-density development.
In addition to public safety, the other proposed services in the bill are planning and zoning, code enforcement and parks and recreation.
“Redevelopment is coming to East Cobb, one way or another,” committee member Sarah Haas said, adding that “we believe that local government is the best course to chart the future of the community.”
While Cupid said that “there is marginal voter turnout in May primaries,” Craig Chapin, the East Cobb group chairman, said this year’s primaries should be high given interest in the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races, among others.
The county also included a memo from Cobb Elections director Janine Eveler to Gisi saying that including as many as four cityhood referendums on an already-crowded primary ballot reflecting newly reapportioned seats would create “additional complications to our workload” and increases “the risk level for error and failure to meet deadlines. If you have any influence with legislators, I would respectfully ask that the cityhood referendums be held until the November election, rather than conducting them in May.”
The East Cobb bill has been sponsored by Matt Dollar, who resigned his seat in the legislature on Feb. 1. On Thursday’s virtual meeting, he said that he was told by the Cobb Elections office that Feb. 15—this coming Tuesday—would be the deadline that would be needed to run a required local notice in order for the referendum to be on the May ballot.
He didn’t address Eveler’s concerns about staffing and time compression. Her office also has to oversee a special election to fill Dollar’s term for the rest of the year and that has been called for April 5.
The desire to have a referendum in May, Dollar said, would be that if it passes, mayoral and city council elections could be held in November, and a city could be better prepared to be operational at the start of 2023.
“We get to have the city leadership onboarded when the city takes effect,” he said, adding that the transition to full cityhood is expected to take two years.
The East Cobb Cityhood group said it would be holding another virtual session and an in-person town hall, but didn’t give any dates.
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The private school, associated with Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church, was to have come back in February with revisions for its plans to upgrade athletic facilities.
But Kevin Moore, Mt. Bethel’s attorney, has requested a continuance to March. In a letter sent Tuesday to the Cobb Zoning Office, Moore said his clients need an additional month to continue working on site plan changes “in response to comments from the community.”
Nearby residents and the East Cobb Civic Association have expressed opposition to the proposed changes that would relocate a field house and add add 39 parking spaces for a total of 121.
They complained that the process is rushed, and that the athletic facilities would be placed too close to their property.
Mt. Bethel’s high school campus is located on 33.4 acres on Post Oak Tritt, near the intersection of Holly Springs Road, while the K-8 students attend classes on the main Mt. Bethel campus on Lower Roswell Road.
The full agenda for Tuesday’s hearing can be found here; it will take place at 9 a.m. in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).
The meeting is taking place in-person but there is an option to participate virtually. More details can be found here; and you can sign up to speak by clicking here.
The hearing 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.
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Gov. Brian Kemp has set April 5 as the date for a special election to fill a Georgia House seat in East Cobb.
That’s the day after the final day of the Georgia General Assembly’s 2022 session.
The vacancy in House District 45 was created when longtime State Rep. Matt Dollar, a Republican first elected in 2002, resigned his seat on Feb. 1.
He has been the chief sponsor of the East Cobb Cityhood legislation that is nearing passage in the legislature.
The special election will be held in jungle format—meaning candidates of all parties will be running together.
The successor will fill out the rest of Dollar’s term, which is through the end of the year.
During reapportionment in November, District 45 was redrawn to include both Dollar and Republican State Rep. Sharon Cooper, who has represented adjoining District 43 since 1997.
Last fall, Dollar announced he would not be seeking re-election. He stepped down shortly after the East Cobb Cityhood bill was transmitted to the Senate, saying he was taking an economic development job with the state technical college system.
The only candidate who has announced an interest in the special election thus far is Democrat Dustin McCormick.
He also said he will be running in the May 24 primary for the new District 45 seat.
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In a partisan vote, the Cobb Board of Education on Thursday approved an extension of Superintendent Chris Ragsdale’s contract another year to February 2025.
Without any discussion, the board’s four Republicans voted in favor of the extension, while the three Democrats voted against.
Ragsdale, whose contract was amended by the GOP majority in November, is receiving a base salary of $350,000 in a current contract that was to run through Feb. 10, 2024.
Any changes in the financial terms or other portions of Ragsdale’s contract were not announced at the Thursday night board business meeting.
The meeting was not available on the district’s live-streaming link or on its Comcast cable channel due to what a district spokeswoman said were technical difficulties.
She said the meeting was being recorded and would be posted on the district’s website. Board member Jaha Howard, who was participating in the meeting remotely, recorded the meeting and streamed it on his Facebook page.
The extension vote took place as the board was acting on items discussed during an executive session on Thursday afternoon.
In making his monthly remarks after the vote, Ragsdale said that “I appreciate the vote of confidence” and “look forward to serving this board and district.”
In recent years the board has typically extended the superintendent’s contract during February, and for the most part it has been uneventful.
But in 2021 the Democratic minority voted against an extension for Ragsdale, who has been superintendent since 2015.
In November, the four Republicans voted for an amended contract that gave him increased flexibility in setting the terms for any eventual departure.
He could leave his position with full pay if a special panel determines he’s been “harassed” or “embarrassed” by school board members and he would receive 90 days advance notice from the board if he is to be terminated without cause.
The contract revisions were also made as the Cobb school district received the report of a special review by its accrediting agency that outlined a plan for improvement focusing largely on fractured board relations and governance issues.
That review was sparked in part by the three board Democrats and members of the public.
Under other financial terms of his existing contract, Ragsdale gets 25 days of paid vacation per year and an automobile allowance of $1,200 a month. The board makes contributions to his retirement, Social Security, Medicare and a tax-sheltered annuity plan, and provides health insurance for him and his family.
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The Georgia Senate on Thursday adopted a bill that would establish a cityhood referendum for East Cobb, but the legislation needs further action by the House.
By a 31-18 vote, the Senate approved HB 841, which would call for a May 24 referendum.
The bill that passed the Senate was a substitute from a Senate committee that included clarifying language on residency requirements for city council candidates.
That’s why the bill has to go back to the House, since a different version was passed there.
A motion by Sen. John Albers, the Senate sponsor of the East Cobb bill, to transfer the bill to the full House passed 30-16, but it didn’t get the required two-thirds of a majority vote.
Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan referred the bill back to the lower chamber in “normal order,” meaning it has to go through the committee process.
Albers, a Republican from North Fulton whose district will include the proposed East Cobb city boundaries next year, said that voters in East Cobb deserve the right to self-determination through a referendum.
He noted that in the last 17 years, 11 cityhood bills in Georgia have been voted in, and 10 of them have passed.
“We do not create cities,” he said from the Senate well. “We only create opportunities for citizens in those areas to create them.”
Two Democratic senators spoke against the bill, mainly for the timing of the referendum.
The original East Cobb bill was to have been in November, but was moved up to May in a change made during the House committee process by former State Rep. Matt Dollar.
He was the bill’s chief sponsor before resigning after it was sent to the Senate.
Sen. Michelle Au of Johns Creek, a member of the Senate State and Local Government Operations Committee, said that while “I don’t have an objection to cityhood movements,” the May referendum is an “arbitrary deadline.
“There’s no reason that I can see that we need to rush.”
Three other Cobb cityhood bills—Lost Mountain, Vinings and Mableton—also have May referendums.
Au said more time is needed for the financial impact of those new cities, if they come to pass, on Cobb County government.
State Sen. Michael “Doc” Rhett, a Democrat from South Cobb, made the same point, and also said the May referendums would be hard for Cobb Elections to include on an already full primary ballot.
“I understand the need for autonomy,” Rhett said. “Let’s slow down.”
Voting for the East Cobb bill was Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, a Republican from East Cobb. She did not speak from the Senate floor on behalf of the bill.
Her district currently includes the proposed East Cobb area but is not under new boundaries redrawn in reapportionment.
She was opposed to the East Cobb cityhood bill when it first came up in three years ago but said recently she was supportive of letting voters decide on whether to have a city.
The East Cobb Cityhood group is having a virtual information session Thursday at 6 p.m.; you can register by clicking here.
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The following East Cobb food scores for the week of Feb. 7have 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!
For more COVID data from the Georgia Department of Public Health, click here.
COVID case rates in Cobb County have fallen by roughly a half from what they were in late December and early January at the start of the Omicron surge.
As of Wednesday, Cobb and Douglas Public Health said Tuesday that the 14-day average of cases per 100,000 people was 1,075, after peaking at nearly 2,000 around the first of the year.
“That’s definitely some good news, and we are we are heading in the right direction,” CDPH director Dr. Janet Memark told the Cobb Board of Commissioners Tuesday.
But that number, she added, “is still very high.”
The “high” community spread threshold is 100/100K.
The death rate in Cobb also is starting to fall, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health daily COVID status report.
According to date of death figures, the peak was nine deaths on Jan. 14, when the 7-day moving average was nearly five a day. Eight more deaths were reported on Jan. 19. As of Jan. 24, the 7-day moving average is 2.1 deaths per day.
There have been 1,470 confirmed COVID deaths in Cobb since the pandemic was declared in March 2020.
The positivity rate in Cobb for PCR tests also remains high at 17.3 percent (5 percent is considered the high threshold for that metric), but that figure has gone down substantially, from around 30 percent at the Omicron peak.
While Wellstar Kennestone Hospital is off its overall peak, Memark said “we still have a lot of patients in the hospital with COVID-19” and the majority of them are not unvaccinated.
She didn’t provide specifics in her briefing to the commissioners.
As she has done during the pandemic, Memark urged members of the public to wear masks (“the best fitting that you can find”) when going out in the public, and to be vaccinated and boosted.
In Cobb County, the rate for fully vaccinated people is 60 percent, with 65 percent having had one dose. Those fully vaccinated and boosted are 43 percent.
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The Committee for East Cobb Cityhood is holding what it’s calling a virtual information session Thursday, with a bill calling for a referendum nearing passage in the Georgia legislature.
The town hall starts at 6 p.m.; you can register by clicking here.
The group said the webinar will cover 45 minutes and will “present the 5 reasons why East Cobb should become a city.”
Attendees are asked to answer three optional questions at sign-up: selecting the municipal service they believe is most important for East Cobb; whether residents living in the proposed city should be able to vote in a referendum to establish a municipality; and if they’re in favor of a city of East Cobb “with local representation and local control.”
Participants can also leave questions and comments in a separate field.
The group said in an e-mail that an in-person public town hall is being planned but a date has not been set.
Cityhood group members have been visible at legislative committee meetings in recent weeks as HB 841 awaits action in the full Senate.
The legislation has been changed several times since being introduced in 2021 by former State Rep. Matt Dollar, who resigned last week after the bill was passed out of the House.
Among them are moving up a referendum from November to May, and changing the way a mayor is chosen, from having six city council members pick from among themselves to being directly elected by voters.
Those two additions to a substitute bill by Dollar required a second vote by the House Governmental Affairs Committee.
The cityhood group held several virtual town halls last year, but none since a financial feasibility study was released in November that added police and fire services.
A charter in the East Cobb bill also provides for planning and zoning and code enforcement services for a city of around 60,000 people, centered along the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
The cityhood group said it would have information sessions in January, but it has not done so since the 2022 legislative session began.
Last week, the East Cobb bill was favorably reported out of a Senate committee by a 4-3 vote.
The East Cobb bill is scheduled to be debated and voted on the Senate floor Thursday at 10 a.m. If it is approved there, the bill would become law after being signed by Gov. Brian Kemp.
Three other Cobb cityhood bills are being considered in the legislature. Lost Mountain and Vinings bills are slated for House floor action, and a bill for Mableton cityhood is also pending in the House.
Like the East Cobb bill, they would have referendums in May instead of the original November dates.
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A Democrat who twice came close to toppling one of the Georgia House’s top Republican leaders in the last two elections will be running for the State Senate in 2022.
Luisa Wakeman has announced her candidacy for District 6 in the Georgia Senate, which has been been redrawn to include some of the Mt. Bethel, Sope Creek, Sewell Mill and East Side precincts as well as the Terrell Mill, Powers Ferry and Chattahoochee precincts in East Cobb (see map here).
District 6, which also include portions of Smyrna-Vinings and Sandy Springs, is represented by Democrat Jen Jordan, who is running for lieutenant governor.
Wakeman is an East Cobb resident who lost by fewer than 500 votes in 2020 to State Rep. Sharon Cooper, an East Cobb Republican who is the House Health and Human Services chairwoman.
A former flight attendant and nurse, Wakeman registered her campaign committee last week. Her campaign website can be found by clicking here.
In a release, she said that “this is an important election and we must step up in order to continue to move the state forward. We have a majority party pushing extreme legislation that defies the values of most Georgians. While our kids continue active shooter drills in school, Republican legislators are pushing a law that allows anyone to buy weapons without a license.
“As hospitals fill to capacity and frontline healthcare workers have been pushed to exhaustion, legislators used their power to prevent lawsuits from covid-19 harm. After an election where parents, grandparents, frontline workers, waited hours in line to vote, legislators made it even more difficult for Georgians to cast a ballot, especially voters in Black and immigrant communities. We deserve representation that will listen to the people of this district.”
Other Democratic candidates for the District 6 race include Jason Esteves, the former chairman of the Atlanta Board of Education.
Qualifying begins in March for the May 24 primary.
In 2020, the District 43 State House race between Wakeman and Cooper was one of the more expensive legislative races in Georgia, with both candidates raising more than $500,000 combined.
After reapportionment, both Cooper and Wakeman were redrawn into District 45, which has a vacancy after the resignation last week of State Rep. Matt Dollar.
Dollar, the chief sponsor of the East Cobb Cityhood bill, said last fall he would not be seeking re-election.
Redistricting sliced up East Cobb into four State Senate seats. Most of it has been in District 32, which is represented by Republican State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick since 2017.
That district has been redrawn to include some of Northeast Cobb and parts of Cherokee County. Kirkpatrick is seeking re-election but has a GOP primary opponent in State Rep. Charlice Byrd of Woodstock.
District 56 will include much of the Johnson Ferry Road corridor and has been represented by State Sen. John Albers, a Republican from North Fulton who is sponsoring the East Cobb Cityhood bill in the upper chamber.
District 33 includes the East Marietta area and is represented by Democratic Sen. Michael “Doc” Rhett.”
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With the resignation of State Rep. Matt Dollar this week, his East Cobb cityhood bill is being carried by lawmakers from Acworth and North Fulton.
By this time next week, a bill calling for a referendum to create a City of East Cobb may have passed the Georgia legislature and would await with the signature of Gov. Brian Kemp.
After only 10 days of legislative action, HB 841 easily has flown through the House and a seven-member Senate committee, and likely will be acted on by the full Senate this week.
Although the East Cobb bill was submitted nearly a year ago, that the legislation has taken on dramatic and confusing new dimensions since November, and especially in the last three weeks.
After filing an initial bill with a “city light” set of proposed services—planning and zoning, code enforcement and parks and recreation—then-State Rep. Matt Dollar brought a substitute bill with him to the State Capitol when the 2022 session began.
Instead, it included police and fire services—a controversial part of the initial East Cobb cityhood bill that was abandoned in 2019—along with planning and zoning and code enforcement.
Those were services that were evaluated in a financial feasibility study conducted by Georgia State University researchers and released in November.
That was the first surprise. Cityhood leaders said at the time that there was “unilateral” support for police and fire services from citizens they surveyed over several months, but they never bothered to tell the public about it until the study was done.
So would the three other cityhood bills in Cobb County—Vinings, Lost Mountain and Mableton—that are currently before the legislature.
After the initial committee meeting, Dollar also was questioned extensively about a governance structure that would have six city council members, who would choose a mayor from among themselves every two years.
So Dollar amended his substitute bill yet again, to still have six council members—with two each living in one of three districts—and a mayor elected directly, citywide.
The House Governmental Affairs Committee also heard from Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid, who said the county was still assessing the financial impact of cityhood and that she wanted voters to have more complete information.
While the county has had more than a year to prepare for this moment, the significant change in services in East Cobb, plus additional changes since the bill has been considered in the legislature, should prompt a pause.
What’s the rush to having a referendum in May? Not just in East Cobb, but in the other three proposed cities?
They comprise more than 200,000 people, or roughly a quarter of Cobb’s population, and voters are being asked to consider significant changes to their local governance. These shouldn’t be rammed through the legislature and then onto the May 24 primary ballot.
Dollar—who abruptly resigned his seat in the legislature this week after the House transferred his bill to the Senate—said it was to avoid having a special election in early 2023 for city council elections, should an East Cobb referendum pass in November.
But Cobb taxpayers will soon be footing the bill for a special election to fill the rest of Dollar’s unexpired term, with his successor likely serving only in a caretaking role after the legislative session is over.
At a Senate committee hearing on Thursday, State Rep. Ed Setzler, an Acworth Republican who’s sponsoring the East Cobb and Lost Mountain bills, was asked if he would delay the East Cobb referendum to November.
“The consensus among the community was to get moving,” Setzler said, not bothering to explain who those community members may be.
Another committee member who wanted to see the proposed city council districts that haven’t been released in map form asked to table a motion to favorably report the bill, but that failed.
Most of those doing the questioning on Cobb cityhood bills in the legislature have been Democrats. But Republicans easily control the Georgia legislature, and since Democrats took control of the Cobb Board of Commissioners last year, GOP members of the Cobb delegation have been busy with cityhood bills (the Mableton bill has two Democratic co-sponsors, one of whom voted for the East Cobb bill).
Concerns over controlling development and growth are the focal points of those bills. When the East Cobb bill was filed last year, I thought it was a vast improvement over the 2019 effort, which never made sense with its focus on police and fire services.
The GSU feasibility study for the current bill is scant on details about how an East Cobb city of about 60,000 people could afford and fund full-service public safety services. There would be one police precinct and two fire stations, but the financials are basically line items about annual revenues and expenditures.
The main revenue source would be the 2.86 mills in the current Cobb Fire Fund.
There’s not much in the study about the true cost for salaries and benefits (including pensions) for 71 police officers and an unspecified number of firefighters. Nothing is in the study about expenses needed to train and equip them.
Those aren’t the only areas where the feasibility study conclusions just don’t add up. That’s why the East Cobb bill should be amended to push back the referendum to November.
Voters deserve the time to educate themselves about the issues and to be able to question the lawmakers and cityhood supporters who are putting this before them.
That hasn’t happened since late last summer, before public safety services were added to the financial study, and before the fast-moving event taking place now at the Gold Dome.
There should be public, in-person or hybrid town halls—not the virtual-only meetings that have taken place over the last year—for those purposes. They could be done this spring and fall, as the previous cityhood group did in 2019.
But those pushing the East Cobb bill in the legislature don’t seem to be interested in that.
(None of whom, by the way, actually live in East Cobb with Dollar departed. State Rep. Sharon Cooper is a co-sponsor of the bill and voted for it in the House, but didn’t speak during floor debate. State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick is more supportive than two years ago but she is running for re-election in a district that doesn’t have the proposed city of East Cobb and is not a sponsor of the bill.)
I agree that they do, but the feasibility study they commissioned is flawed and the legislation that is built around it has changed a lot in such a short amount of time.
It needs to be improved before those voters go to the polls.
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A Georgia House subcommittee on Monday will consider two bills submitted by Cobb Republican legislators to redistrict seats on the Cobb Board of Education and the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
A special subcommittee on redistricting and elections will meet at 3 p.m. Monday to hear HB 1028 and HB 1154.
The agenda and a live viewing link for the meeting can be found by clicking here.
The Republican bills would redraw commission and school board lines very differently than State Rep. Erick Allen, a Smyrna Democrat and the Cobb legislative delegation chairman, has proposed.
Democrats have a 3-2 edge on the current commission, after Republicans have enjoyed majorities since the 1980s. Birrell, who is a Republican, and fellow GOP commissioner Keli Gambrill voted against recommending Allen’s proposed boundaries.
Both Birrell and Gambrill are up for re-election this year. Richardson, a Democrat whose first term expires in 2024, would have to move into the new District 2if the GOP bill is approved. She recently bought a home off Post Oak Tritt Road, which would be in the new District 3 under the GOP bill.
The school board map is identical to boundaries recommended by the four members of the Cobb school board’s Republican majority.
Cobb school board member Charisse Davis
That includes shifting Post 6, which includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters, into the Smyrna-Vinings-Cumberland area.
Like the Republican legislators’ commission map, school board representation in East Cobb would be reduced to one member, Republican David Banks of Post 5, who was re-elected in 2020.
Allen has proposed a map that keeps the seven school board posts very similar to what they are now.
That includes retaining the East Cobb areas of Post 6, which is represented by first-term Democrat Charisse Davis. She lives in the Smyrna-Vinings area and is up for re-election this year, but has not announced her plans.
The Cobb legislative delegation has a one-member Democratic majority. But as is happening in Gwinnett County, Cobb Republicans are attempting an end-around the typical delegation reapportionment process.
The Cobb GOP bills are likely to pass in a Republican-dominated Georgia legislature.
At a press conference earlier this week, Allen decried the Cobb GOP bills. As he was speaking, State Rep. Ed Setzler, a Republican from Acworth and a driving force behind the GOP legislation, crashed the event, leading to some heated discussion.
On Friday, Allen, who is running for lieutenant governor, urged his supporters and other Democrats to attend Monday’s subcommittee hearing on the “inappropriate” bills.
The Cobb County Democratic Committee also decried the “gerrymandered” maps, saying “you need to stand in protest against these shameful acts” and accusing Cobb Republicans of “overthrowing an election by other means.”
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East Cobb resident Dustin McCormick has announced he’s running in a still-to-be-called special election for a Georgia State House seat vacated this week by longtime legislator Matt Dollar.
McCormick, who’s in a financial management position at McKesson Corp., said Friday he’s seeking the short-term post in District 45 and will be running for the same seat in the May primary.
McCormick had already set up a campaign committee for the 2022 elections before Dollar’s abrupt resignation on Tuesday.
Dollar, a Republican, left his office of nearly 20 years shortly after the East Cobb Cityhood bill he sponsors was submitted to the Senate for consideration.
Gov. Brian Kemp has not yet called for a special election, which must be held within the next 30 to 60 days. The successor would fill out the remainder of Dollar’s term, although he or she may not take office until after the current legislative session.
For now, District 45, which includes some of the Pope and Walton High School clusters, has no representative (here are the current boundaries).
McCormick, who lives in the Bishop’s Green neighborhood, opposes East Cobb Cityhood. The bill, which passed a Senate committee Thursday, proposes public safety, planning and zoning and code enforcement services.
McCormick said it’s adding another layer of government and taxation, and said East Cobb residents already “enjoy fantastic Police, Fire, and EMT coverage with some of the best response times in the area.”
In a release issued Friday, he said that “I’m thrilled to run to represent the community that has given me and my family so much. I believe in a responsive government that preserves our quality of life and focuses on the issues that matter to your family.”
According to his website McCormick’s other priorities would be to update the current model of state funding for public schools and to implement anti-bullying programs in schools.
He also supports hate crimes legislation and supports expanding Medicaid.
McCormick and his partner Misty, and have two children, Audrey and Finley.
He is an active member of the Bishop’s Green HOA, the East Cobb Civic Association, Rotary Club of East Cobb, Cobb County Democrats, and Cobb County Chamber of Commerce.
He earned a finance degree from Georgia Southern University and an Executive MBA from the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.
District 45 will have new boundaries for the primary and general election this year (see map).
Dollar announced his retirement in the fall, after he and State Rep. Sharon Cooper, an East Cobb Republican who represents District 43, were drawn into the same legislative seat.
The only other candidate who’s set up a campaign committee for District 45 for the primary and general election is Carminthia Moore, who is active with the Cobb GOP.
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The following East Cobb food scores for the week of Jan. 31have been compiled by the Cobb & Douglas Department of Public Health. Click the link under each listing for inspection details:
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State Rep. Ed Setzler also is a co-sponsor of the Lost Mountain Cityhood bill.
The East Cobb Cityhood bill was approved by a Georgia Senate committee on Thursday, clearing the way for possible final passage next week.
By a vote of 4-3, the Senate Local Government Operations Committee favorably reported the bill, despite concerns from some panel members and a member of a citizens group against East Cobb cityhood.
One of those concerns—a district residency requirement for city council candidates—was addressed when State Rep. Ed Setzler, a West Cobb Republican and a bill co-sponsor—added clarifying language.
The other issue—pushing back a referendum to November instead of May, as was adopted in a substitute bill in the House—Setzler was not willing to entertain.
The bill now goes to the Senate Rules Committee, which could schedule the bill for a floor debate and full passage next week (the legislature doesn’t meet on Friday).
The East Cobb Cityhood legislation is the first of four such bills in Cobb to reach the Senate during the current session.
Bills calling for referendums in Lost Mountain and Vinings were favorably reported out of a House committee on Wednesday. A Mableton cityhood bill also is pending.
Also on Wednesday, Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said the county will be pushing an “awareness campaign” about cityhood as it relates not only to county government finances, but also explaining its current delivery of services.
Setzler and State Sen. John Albers, a North Fulton Republican who is sponsoring the East Cobb bill in the upper chamber, appeared before the Senate committee Thursday.
So did several members of the Committee for East Cobb Cityhood.
Mindy Seger of the East Cobb Alliance, which opposes cityhood, pointed out that the bill passed by the House does not include language about city council residency requirements.
Under the bill, all six city council members would be elected at-large. However, there are three council districts, with each of them having two members who must reside in those districts.
The bill passed by the House requires anyone running for the city council to have been a resident of the city for at least a year (line 201 of the bill linked to above).
It doesn’t mention the district requirement, so Setzler asked for an amendment—noted in bold type—saying that “no person shall be eligible to serve as councilmember unless that person shall have been a resident of the city and the district from which he/she is elected for 12 months prior to the date of the election of members of the city council.”
Seger also said the May referendum date should be pushed back, a suggestion that some committee members also made.
Setzler said it would be ideal for a referendum in May, and if passed, with mayor and city council elections in November as preparations begin to start up a city in early 2023.
After the amendment passed, State Sen. Michelle Au, a Democrat from Johns Creek, asked if that’s “a real deadline.”
If it’s on the November ballot, Au asked, couldn’t a startup date be decided in the future.
Setzler said that a “consensus” of community feedback during virtual town halls conducted over the last year was “to get moving” early in the next year.
Another Democratic committee member, Sen. Emanuel Jones of Decatur, moved to table the bill because no demographic or district boundaries were provided, among other information he said was incomplete.
That motion failed before the committee voted to favorably report the bill.
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