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The latest rolling closure in the continuing Northwest Corridor Express Lanes Project will take place from 8 p.m. tonight to 5 a.m. Friday at the southbound North Marietta Parkway exit ramp from Interstate.
Georgia DOT says the ramp will be closed for asphalt work.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners voted 5-0 Tuesday to approve a request for a self-storage facility at the former Mountain View Elementary School site, despite opposition from some nearby residents.
The three-story building will be part of a mixed-use development on the 14-acre site on Sandy Plains Road that will include restaurants, shops and other retail businesses.
Some residents of the adjacent Cutters Gap subdivision complained that their privacy would be diminished, and there would be noise and other issues.
They also accused the developer of a “bait and switch” by not including the self-storage plans when the zoning for the full project was granted in October. However, the developer, Brooks Chadwick Capital, had to get a special land-use permit, which is required for self-storage facilities to be approved.
Kevin Moore, an attorney for Brooks Chadwick, reiterated that point, saying his clients still would have to have applied for the SLUP even if they had known at the time there was interest from a potential storage facility builder.
Additional stipulations proposed since the Cobb Planning Commission recommended approval earlier this month include a 42-foot height limit for the nearly 100,000-square-foot building, down from 45 feet.
Other restrictions include no overnight parking or vehicle idling, and limited hours for unloading, including none during overnight periods.
Brooks Chadwick also agreed to keep a 50-foot buffer between the development and nearby homes as part of the original zoning.
When some residents pointed out that there were more than a dozen storage facilities in the area, District 3 commissioner JoAnn Birrell said: “It’s free enterprise,” a subject that is “not what we’re here to consider” in a zoning matter.
The East Cobb Civic Association also spoke in favor of the SLUP, as it had for the redevelopment in general.
The commissioners agreed to hold another zoning case in Northeast Cobb, this one involving a proposal to improve a blighted property in the Canton Road corridor (previous East Cobb News coverage here) that has been delayed before.
PetroPlex ventures wants to rezone 0.87 acres at 2120 Canton Road, near the Canton Road connector, for a low-rise office building. It’s on the site of a gas station that closed in 2003 and has become increasingly deteriorated.
Tom Mitchell, an attorney for the applicant, presented revised plans for remodeling the building, including architectural and other changes recommended by the planning commission.
But Carol Brown of Canton Road Neighbors said the revised proposal doesn’t meet Cobb development standards and guidelines set forth in the Canton Road Corridor project.
Specifically, she objected that a canopy that was part of the gas station would remain, but the only proposed improvement to it would be a repainting.
The structure, she said, “needs more than a fresh coat of paint. . . . Please don’t ignore 13 years of community planning and investment” for improving what she called “one of the most blighted properties” on Canton Road.
Another contested East Cobb zoning case was withdrawn Tuesday. Robert Licata, a pediatrician, had proposed converting empty office space at Johnson Ferry Road and Lassiter Road for a restaurant, gym, medical offices and retail shops.
The planning commission recommended denial, saying that 37 proposed parking spaces wouldn’t be enough, and there was no rear loading space. Residents at the adjacent Lassiter Walk subdivision and the East Cobb Civic Association also were opposed.
A former East Cobb wrestling coach who volunteered with the Pope youth program has been sentenced to a long prison term in Pennsylvania for sexually assaulting young boys he once coached, according to news reports there.
Ron Gorman, 52, will serve 20-40 years, according to WNEP-TV. He pleaded guilty in November in Monroe County, Pa., to two counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child.
According to Monroe County prosecutors, Gorman also was required to enter a guilty plea in Georgia as part of his plea deal in Pennsylvania.
The district attorney’s office said the crimes in Pennsylvania began in 2006 in the East Stroudsburg area, where Gorman lived and coached.
He moved to the Marietta area in 2009, and was a volunteer coach with Pope Junior Wrestling, which feeds into the Pope High School program, one of the best in Georgia and a winner of several state championships. Gorman later was a coach at Life University before he was charged in Pennsylvania.
According to the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office, Gorman’s victims, now 20, accused him of a long series of abuse beginning when they were 10 years old and while they were involved in a youth wrestling program where Gorman was a volunteer coach.
Gorman was arrested at his East Cobb home in March 2017 and eventually was charged by Pennsylvania authorities with a total of 513 counts, including child rape and statutory sexual assault.
After being detained in Pennsylvania, he was held on $1 million bail. His accusers claimed Gorman subjected them to frequent and continuous assaults, sometimes on a weekly basis, for several years, including in Georgia.
News reports last March and earlier this month quoted a Cobb woman who said she became concerned about Gorman in 2011 when he she saw a crude, sexually themed Facebook message sent by him to her son, then 12, and a member of the Pope junior wrestling program.
She told the AJC she went to then-Pope principal Rick Beaulieu, whom she said told her not to go to police.
Gorman eventually was investigated in Georgia, and that probe alerted authorities in Pennsylvania, according to WFMZ-TV in Allentown, Pa.
Gorman also has been accused of other molestations in Monroe County that were reported to police there in the late 1980s, but they could not be prosecuted due to a statute of limitations, the district attorney said.
The district attorney’s office also said at the time of Gorman’s guilty plea that he will be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
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!
By a 4-1 vote, the Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday morning approved rezoning for a project in the Powers Ferry-Terrell Mill area that its developer and a nearby citizens group are hailing as a cornerstone of community redevelopment.
More than 100 citizens, many from the Powers Ferry Corridor Alliance, applauded wildly after the commission vote to rezone nearly 24 acres at the northwest corner of the Powers Ferry-Terrell Mill intersection to regional retail commercial (RRC).
The developer, Eden Rock Real Estate Partners, wants to build what it’s calling MarketPlace Terrell Mill, anchored by a Kroger superstore, restaurants and retail shops and an apartment building and self-storage facility.
Those last two components were opposed by residents of the Salem Ridge condominium adjacent to the East Cobb mixed-use development, and around 30 of them were in attendance Tuesday.
District 2 commissioner Bob Ott, who suggested the RRC category, said in his 20 years of public service, as a county commissioner and planning commissioner, “I’m not sure I’ve seen so many people come out from a community in support of a zoning.”
Those in favor cheered at that remark, which was part of Ott’s lengthy presentation about the zoning request, and the challenges of redeveloping the area.
The Powers Ferry Corridor Alliance, a citizens group formerly known as the Terrell Mill Community Association, has been vocal about the rezoning as a last chance to upgrade development in the area.
The assemblage of land currently includes Brumby Elementary School, which will be moving to Terrell Mill Road in August, as well as aging office and retail buildings, for a total of five different zoning categories.
The developer had sought planned village community (PVC) zoning. The Cobb Planning Commission recommended community retail commercial (CRC) and the multi-family RM-12 for a 298-unit apartment complex.
Ott said RRC was a better fit because of its unified provisions. Cobb zoning office director John Pedersen said RRC also would reduce the number of variances, to around five.
The number of variances bothered Northeast Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell, along with the residential density, and she was the only vote against the rezoning. The commissioners approved the storage facility 5-0 in a separate vote.
Initially the rezoning request had 21 variances, many of them vigorously opposed by Salem Ridge residents.
Amy Patricio, who spoke on behalf of them at Tuesday’s hearing, restated objections to a project that “is too much in too little space,” and claimed the area is “saturated” with apartment units and storage facilities.
She also said Salem Ridge homeowners had been kept “in the dark” about updated site plans, variance requests and stipulation letters from the developer.
But Ott disagreed, saying community input has been part of the process all along, and that Eden Rock’s many variations of the site plan have been the result of meetings with residents.
Ott pushed for a Powers Ferry Master Plan that was approved in 2011, in large part to redevelop a sense of community and attract residents to a clogged commercial corridor.
He said it has taken “years” for the community to come together to fix the area.
“It has become obvious to me that you are just opposed,” Ott said to the Salem Ridge homeowners. After 62 changes to the site plan and “months” of discussions, “we’ve pretty much reached an impasse.”
Ott then held up a thick, clipped stack of printed e-mails, saying he’s received 261 e-mails in favor and 30 opposed.
The Powers Ferry-Terrell Mill area got an initial boost in 2012, when the Terrell Mill Village Shopping Center was redeveloped, with an L.A. Fitness Center as the anchor, and with other restaurants and shops moving in.
At the time, Ott said that “I’ve always felt that if we could get something like that, we could get the whole area.”
The arrival of SunTrust Park and the Atlanta Braves also has stimulated commercial and residential development further down on Powers Ferry.
MarketPlace at Terrell Mill will include traffic signals on both Powers Ferry (opposite the entrance to the MicroCenter shopping center) and Terrell Mill (across from Terrell Mill Village).
Other traffic solutions include the opening of managed lanes along Interstate 75 later this year, including a Terrell Mill Road exit, and the construction of the Windy Hill-Terrell Mill Connector starting in 2020.
Ott said other traffic issues concerned carpool lines at Brumby Elementary School that continued out onto Powers Ferry.
Brumby will be relocated adjacent to the new location of East Cobb Middle School on Terrell Mill Road, just east of Powers Ferry. Carpool queues for both schools will be contained on school property.
“Those three things will have a major improvement on traffic” in the Powers Ferry-Terrell Mill area, Ott said.
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!
On Feb. 8 the East Cobb County Council of PTAs held its annual “Story Time Brunch” to honor teachers and classified employees of the year.
The event was held at the Holy Family Catholic Church and was organized by the Wheeler High School cluster. Cobb Board of Education members Scott Sweeney and David Banks were among those in attendance.
Thanks to Hailey Kramer, Kristy Flowers and Kimberly Webb of the ECCC PTA for the photos and information from the event.
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!
Thanks to Emily Yewell Volin for the above photo and information below about an East Cobb Robotics team that will be spending the winter break week this week getting ready for state competition on Saturday:
East Cobb Robotics FIRST Tech Challenge Team 11096 is excited to announce their advancement to the State level of competition. During a League Championship tournament, the 15-member community team, comprised of middle and high school students, earned the first place Think award, an honor to their engineering design process throughout this season.
The team was also awarded the 2nd-place Inspire award, celebrating them as ambassadors and role models for FIRST, were finalists for the Motivate, Design and Rockwell Collins Innovate awards and were the first pick for the competition’s 3rd alliance finalist round of competition.
ECR FTC 11096 will compete at the state level competition in Georgia on Saturday, February 24. The team is proudly coached by Mrs. Kimberly Clark, 6th grade math teacher at Dodgen Middle School, and Dr. Curtis Volin, Quantum Systems Division Chief at Georgia Tech Research Institute. East Cobb Robotics FTC 11096 is sponsored by General Electric.
All FIRST robotics events are free and open to the public and the State Championship will be broadcast via live feed. For more information visit: http://gafirst.org/ftc/ and http://gafirst.org/ftc/first-tech-challenge-live-stream.
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!
If you plan to attend Tuesday morning’s Cobb Board of Commissioners zoning hearing, you need to get there well in advance. The proposed Powers Ferry-Terrell Mill development is the first item on the agenda, and it’s expected to attract a full house.
Two homeowners associations on either side of the Z-12 application by SSP Blue Ridge LLC are urging their members to show up early. The hearing (agenda summary here) starts at 9 a.m. in the 2nd floor meeting room of the Cobb government building at 100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta.
After more than a year’s worth of delays since the initial filing, the proposed development by Eden Rock Real Estate Partners for what’s being called the MarketPlace at Terrell Mill may finally get a resolution.
The 24 acres at the northwest corner of Powers Ferry and Terrell Mill currently includes Brumby Elementary School and an aging office park and strip shopping center. The proposed $120 million project would include a Kroger superstore, restaurants and retail space, and the most contentious parts of the application, a 298-unit apartment complex and self-storage facility.
The Cobb Planning Commission recommended approval of the application on Feb. 6, but made some significant changes to a last-minute zoning category request by the developer. The board approved rezoning to community retail commercial (CRC) and RM-16.
The latest agenda released on Thursday, the deadline for making any formal changes, didn’t include anything new.
To the Powers Ferry Corridor Alliance, a citizens group that supports the project, the planning board “tweaks” do not make the proposal viable. The organization sent out a notice over the weekend that saying that Z-12 “is not a cinch to be approved. There is a real risk the community could lose this huge opportunity for long-overdue revitalization of its commercial core.”
The group is asking the commissioners to approve the project as the developer submitted, with a request for the planned village community (PVC) designation.
The alliance warned in its message that if the MarketPlace at Terrell Mill project is not approved, “the developers will have no choice but to walk away.”
Eden Rock partner Brandon Ashkouri said at the planning commission hearing that the latest site plan is the 61st version of the project, which has taken more than three years to put together. The relocation of Brumby to Terrell Mill Road next year was the final piece of the puzzle, and that’s where the Kroger store would be located.
The Powers Ferry Corridor Alliance is gathering at the Cool Beans coffee shop (31 Mill Street) near the Marietta Square, from 7:30-8:30 Tuesday morning before the zoning hearing.
The Salem Ridge Homeowners Association represents residents in a condominium complex next to the proposed development, and in particular the apartments and storage facility they say are too dense and too close to their homes.
They’re also urging their members to attend Tuesday’s hearing to protest a project they also say will add too much noise and traffic to a clogged intersection:
“We care and support regulated development. Redevelopment is a necessity. We only ask for the zoning commission to comply with the Powers Ferry Master Plan, established codes/statutes and laws already in force for parcels like MarketPlace at Terrell Mill.
“The developers have been cooperative, yet unless our objections and stipulations are recorded and in writing, we will not be protected.”
The storage facility request will be taken up later in the hearing, and the case number is SLUP-8. Cobb requires self-storage facility requests to be granted special land-use permits, even if they’re part of larger developments.
Another special land-use permit request for another proposed storage facility in East Cobb is on the commissioners agenda Tuesday. SLUP-3 would permit a three-story building on the site of the former Mountain View Elementary School on Sandy Plains Road.
It would be part of mixed-use development approved last fall. Despite community opposition, the self-storage facility was recommended for approval by the planning commission (previous East Cobb News post here).
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Catch up with all of the past week’s headlines and take a look at what’s coming up this week with the convenient East Cobb News weekly newsletter.
The East Cobb News Digest is delivered to your e-mail inbox every Sunday, and contains so much more, including the best calendar listings anywhere in East Cobb and convenient community information.
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This past week, our stories about Cobb school safety measures and proposed library cuts generated great interest from readers, and gave us another solid traffic week, as well as many new subscribers.
Welcome, and please stay in touch!
Martha Croom, Tim Sanders, Dipak Patel, Karen Tekenbroek, Susan Kabe, Andrew Phillips, Susan Coley, Debi Teague, Joyce Folk, Joan Bourne, Jim Sandahl, Lorraine Brown, Millie Ore, Barbara Perry, Fran Lamb, Donna Schuster, Claudia Klee, Dustin Radtke, Kristine Serkedakis, Deena LaRocca.
Rachel Gouin, Joy Power, P.W. Tsuboi, Chrissy Houky, Mary Beth Ingle, Mary Shipe, Youlanda Ficzko, Diane Kane, Pam Hicks, Martin Kruger, Larry Barton, Jane Moss, Nancy Cloyd, Save Cobb Libraries, Dee Kennedy, Will Powell, Delores Coe, Ilse Bushman, Carolyn Silzie, Donald Ewalt, Rachel Ewalt.
Michelle Grant, John Hart, Joseph Prakash, Anthony Yorio, Wyndi Kappes, Linda Raschke, Mary Scannell, Lamar Crosby, Judy Barnett, Pattie Jackson.
While mild winter weather was expected to reach into the 70s on Saturday, a couple dozen people huddled inside the Peachtree Curling Association facility in East Cobb, bundled up in jackets and pullovers.
“Sweep! Sweep!” shouted Canadian Olympic gold medalist Jamie Korab during a clinic at the club’s climate-controlled building behind the Marietta Ice Center and Parkaire Landing Shopping Center.
Inside the building, the temperatures are 45 degrees. On the nearly two inches of ice that extends over 9,000 square feet, it’s 25 degrees.
While the Winter Olympics continue in South Korea, the Peachtree club is using the occasion to spread the gospel of curling, and it’s one that several members admittedly have been soaking up in recent years.
One of them is Jessica Sammis of Lilburn, who commutes regularly to the only curling rink in Georgia. She got interested in curling after watching the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, which sparked greater interest below the Canadian border (curling became an official Olympic medal sport in 1998).
“It’s a very approachable sport,” said Sammis, a former PCA board member.
Not only are the equipment costs low, she said, “this is something that you can come out and start learning to do in a short amount of time. But it takes a lifetime to master.”
In curling, participants aim a 42-pound stone down a straight line, for a distance of 148 feet, scoring points for how close they can come to placing the stones in the center rings at the other end of the ice.
Altering the direction and the speed of the stones is where the sweeping comes in, and Saturday’s clinic broke down the fundamentals in very elementary ways.
After learning how to “throw” the stone—which is polished granite and made in Scotland, the sport’s ancestral home—participants were instructed in sweeping. While the motion looks similar to what you might do at home on your kitchen floor, the equipment isn’t something you can pick up at a retail store.
“This is the only sweeping I do,” joked Sammis.
She was among the organizers of the Peachtree Curling Association, which got started in 2015, and then got word that a youth hockey rink behind the Marietta Ice Center might be closed.
The curling group offered to turn the rink into a dedicated curling facility. After the building was donated, more than 40 volunteers worked to bring it to curling specifications.
The non-profit Peachtree Curling Association is one of 165 curling groups in 43 states, according to USA Curling, and has around 75 members. Nationwide, the national governing body claims 20,000 members.
“The vast majority of our club members started after the Olympics four years ago,” said Bob Hogan, current president of the Peachtree Curling Association. What he likes about the sport is how it draws participants of all ages, and that range was evident at Saturday’s clinic.
He’s played with his family, including daughters in their early 20s.
The U.S. has only one medal in curling, a bronze in 2006, in a sport dominated at the international level by Canada and northern European nations. Exposing youngsters to the basics is a major component of USA Curling’s outreach.
Sunday’s clinic for kids ages 11-18 will take place from 2-5 p.m. and is free.
Other adult clinics continue Saturday at 3:30 and 7 p.m., and the cost is $30 a person.
The group also offers beginner (101) and intermdiate (201) clinics during its “season,” which continues into May. The building is closed during the summer, and reopens in October.
The Peachtree Curling Assocation is located at 4880 Lower Roswell Road, Suite 910.
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!
Lassiter Band students held a mattress sale fundraiser last weekend for their 2019 appearance at the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif. Band mom volunteer Sharon Renaud sent us this photo, band vice president Richard Stinson hoisting a check for $12,000, the proceeds from the event.
She adds that fundraising efforts will continue throughout the year. Students will be raffling off 2018 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sport 4×4, donated by Ed Voyles, and the drawing will be held Nov. 17.
Tickets are $10 each and may be purchased from Lassiter Band students, parents, or by emailing JeepRaffle@lbba.org. The booster association web page can be found here.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
A special tree was planted at Skip Wells Park in Northeast Cobb on Friday to celebrate Georgia Arbor Day. While the federal holiday began in 1872, Arbor Day in Georgia was first proclaimed in 1890, and there’s been an official state designation since 1941.
From L-R: Donovan of U.S. Rep. Karen Handel’s office; Ga. State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick; Georgia Forestry Commission arborist Joe Burgess; Richard Trapanese, grandfather of Skip Wells; and Cobb commissioner JoAnn Birrell.
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 Community Development Department has sent a notice to the owners of the Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center demanding it address conditions at the decaying retail property that may run afoul of the county’s new “blight tax” provision.
The letter, delivered Thursday to Brannen Goddard, an Atlanta commercial real estate agency representing Sprayberry Crossing Partnership (PDF here), said the owners have 30 days to provide a “reasonable” plan to make improvements to the shopping center, located at the southeast corner of Sandy Plains Road and East Piedmont Road.
Sprayberry Crossing has long been the subject of complaints from nearby residents. Although several small businesses operate there, most of the shopping center is vacant and has been in deteriorating conditions for years.
The community development office conducted an inspection of the property in late January and concluded that Sprayberry Crossing met three of the conditions for designation as a blighted property: having an uninhabitable, unsafe or unsound structure; being conducive to “ill health” to those in close proximity to the property; and being the subject of repeated reports of illegal activity on the premises.
The letter included photographs from the inspection showing boarded-up windows and holes in the structures and a list of 28 reports of criminal incidents dating back to 2014.
In the letter, written by Cobb community development director Dana Johnson, the findings of the inspection include evidence of gang activity near the former bowling alley at the back of the property, no proper storm drainage provisions, vandalized mechanical equipment, utility lines laying across the parking lot and signs of repeated break-ins.
Last July the Cobb Board of Commissioners approved a code amendment called the Community Improvement Tax Incentive Program, which allows for the county to set forth several criteria for determining a blighted property. It can then conduct inspections of run-down businesses and rental properties and prompt repairs. Ultimately, the county could impose a fine of seven times the current millage rate for violators.
Blighted properties that meet compliance after that would be eligible for a millage rate reduction for up to two years.
Joe Glancy, creator of the Sprayberry Crossing Action Facebook group that’s been pushing for a solution, wrote that while the letter from the county represents “a victory for our community and another step in the right direction. . . . I’m sure most of you also know, this is hardly the end.”
The citizens’ group has been frustrated by what it has said is a lack of cooperation from the property owners. Glancy urged his group to “to turn up the heat on the ownership group and county to move this process forward.”
The group has scheduled a community meeting on March 21 at Sprayberry High School.
We’re getting in touch with the property owner and will post a response if and when we get it.
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!
Press release:
Extending Cobb students’ ability to apply to attend a school outside of their designated school zone, the Cobb County School District opened 5,800 transfer seats this year.
The online application deadline for these transfers is Wednesday, February 28. Available space at a school is based on permanent classroom space, which includes seats at each grade level.
Although parents are not required to provide reasons why they want to transfer their child to a different school, they do have to provide their own transportation if their child does transfer.
Students who are already enrolled in the program are not required to reapply every year. They only have to reapply when advancing from elementary school to middle school and middle school to high school. Those students are given priority in the school choice lottery during the reapplication process.
For more information about the school choice application and to see a list of eligible schools, please visit the 2018-19 School Choice webpage: http://www.cobbk12.org/generalinfo/transfers/schoolchoice.aspx.
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 day after a mass shooting at a south Florida high school left at least 17 people dead, Cobb County School District superintendent Chris Ragsdale said the district would be re-evaluating safety protocols and continue plans to better prepare staff and students to respond to emergency situations.
At a Cobb Board of Education work session Thursday, Ragsdale updated board members on those efforts, including what he said would be unannounced code red drills to boost preparedness. He said those drills would be “absolutely uncomfortable” for people at the schools that are selected.
Those drills would serve as preparation for the most severe level of emergencies, including active shooter situations.
“Our student and staff safety is our top priority,” Ragsdale said during the lengthy discussion, which was not initially on the board’s agenda. The topic was added after he received e-mails from parents and students in wake of the Florida tragedy, the third-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.
Yesterday a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County walked into the building and began shooting with an AR-15 rifle.
The suspect, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, was taken into custody, and at least 14 other people are hospitalized. Some of the dead include teachers and coaches who shielded students from the gunfire.
Ragsdale said all of Cobb’s 112 schools are required to have at least one code red drill per semester. Principals underwent further training in safety protocols in January.
Ragsdale also said all classroom doors in school buildings are marked from the outside for first responders, and current Cobb Ed-SPLOST V funding has been earmarked to continue efforts to improve access control measures at elementary and middle schools.
“The message to our parents, students, staff, and community is that we are not just saying that safety is our top priority, we mean it,” Ragsdale said.
He later acknowledged that “there’s no way to put parents completely at ease.”
During the presentation, which included questions from board members, Ragsdale showed a video detailing an enhanced security alert system called AlertPoint, which is being demonstrated at two schools this year, including Bells Ferry Elementary School.
That system allows teachers and staff to trigger an alert for emergencies, similar to fire alarms.
Ragsdale said high schools pose the most challenging safety issues because they have multiple points of entry. Several Cobb high schools have “buzz in” requirements, already in place in elementary and middle schools but he did not identify those high schools.
After schools have code red drills, the district’s public safety department conducts an evaluation to provide feedback. Another new “suspicious persons” measure would have plain-clothes staffers from the Cobb schools police department enter a school and see how far they can go before being noticed.
Ragsdale said Cobb schools “are doing more” than any other school district in the state to improve safety.
While it’s “impossible” to completely prevent someone from coming in a school with an attack in mind, he said that “what we have to be able to answer is: Do we have in place all the options that we can possibly have to ensure the safety and security of our staff and students?”
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The following East Cobb restaurant scores from Jan. 13-Feb. 13 have been compiled by the Cobb & Douglas Department of Public Health. Click the link under each listing to view details of the inspection:
A Tasty Touch
2111 Lower Roswell Road
February 7, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Baldinos Giant Jersey Subs
80 Powers Ferry Road, Suite 103
February 1, 2018 Score: 85, Grade: B
Basil Wraps
2800 Canton Road, Suite 1220-J
February 8, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Black Swan Tavern
1401 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 128
January 19, 2018 Score: 87, Grade: B
Blue Moon Pizza
2359 Windy Hill Road, Suite 100
January 23, 2018 Score: 98, Grade: A
California Pizza Kitchen
4250 Road, Suite 620
February 6, 2018 Score: 97, Grade: A
Captain D’s
2811 Canton Road
February 12, 2018 Score: 80, Grade: B
Carol’s Cafe
2543 Bells Ferry Road, Suite 50
January 24, 2018 Score: 89, Grade: B
Coldstone Creamery
640 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 110
January 24, 2018 Score: 85, Grade: B
Cremefina Ice Cream Parlour
4796 Canton Road, Suite 200
January 23, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Dunkin Donuts
980 East Piedmont Road
January 22, 2018 Score: 89, Grade: B
East Valley Elementary School
2570 Lower Roswell Road
February 12, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Eastside Baptist Church School
2450 Lower Roswell Road
February 8, 2018 Score: 94, Grade: A
Faith Lutheran Church & School
2111 Lower Roswell Road
February 7, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Harry’s Pizza & Subs
2150 Powers Ferry Road, Suite C
February 6, 2018 Score: 92, Grade: A
Hoboken Bread & Bagel Company
1033 Sandy Plains Road, Suite G
January 24, 2018 Score: 99, Grade: A
House of Ming
3101 Roswell Road, Suite 116
January 30, 2018 Score: 84, Grade: B
Jamba Juice
4101 Roswell Road, Suite 304
January 22, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Jimmy John’s
1337 Powers Ferry Road
February 13, 2018 Score: 94, Grade: A
Johnny’s New York Style Pizza
4880 Lower Roswell Road, Suite 155
January 31, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Krystal
2929 Canton Road
February 13, 2018 Score: 95, Grade: A
La Fiesta Grande
1199 Bells Ferry Road
January 25, 2018 Score: 84, Grade: B
Los Bravos Mexican Restaurant
1360 Powers Ferry Road, Suite B-140
February 13, 2018 Score: 83, Grade: B
Mr. Wok
1750 Bells Ferry Road, Suite B
January 29, 2018 Score: 80, Grade: B
Olde Towne Athletic Club
4950 Olde Towne Parkway
January 24, 2018 Score: 99, Grade: A
Papa John’s Pizza
1325 Powers Ferry Road
February 13, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Papa John’s Pizza
3165 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite B
January 25, 2018 Score: 93, Grade: A
Pizza Hut
2520 East Piedmont Road, Suite 124
January 26, 2018 Score: 93, Grade: A
Pizza Hut
1100 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 225
January 23, 2018 Score: 96, Grade: A
Powerfuel Juice, Java & Smoothie Bar
4400 Roswell Road, Suite 126
January 31, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Ray’s Donuts
4805 Canton Road, Suite 400
February 13, 2018 Score: 96, Grade: A
Real NY Pizza Italian Restaurant
1482 Roswell Road
February 12, 2018 Score: 93, Grade: A
Rose & Crown Tavern
1931 Powers Ferry Road
February 13, 2018 Score: 82, Grade: B
Sabor do Brazil
2800 Delk Road, Suite E
February 2, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Scooter’s Coffee
2943 Canton Road
January 22, 2018 Score: 96, Grade: A
Sedalia Park Elementary School
2230 Lower Roswell Road
February 8, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Smoothie King
2525 Shallowford Road, Suite 600
January 23, 2018 Score: 92, Grade: A
Sope Creek Elementary School
3320 Paper Mill Road
February 12, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Subway
1177 Bells Ferry Road
January 25, 2018 Score: 86, Grade: B
Ted’s Montana Grill
640 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 150
January 25, 2018 Score: 95, Grade: A
Thai Taste
4796 Canton Road, Suite 600-700
February 13, 2018 Score: 96, Grade: A
Timber Ridge Elementary School
5000 Timber Ridge Road
February 13, 2018 Score: 100, Grade: A
Waffle House
2720 Sandy Plains Road
February 2, 2018 Score: 81, Grade: B
Wildwood Cafe @ 3200
3200 Windy Hill Road, Suite 150
February 12, 2018 Score: 91, Grade: A
Wing City
1750 Bells Ferry Road, Suite E
January 29, 2018 Score: 96, Grade: A
The Wing Factory
1475 Terrell Mill Road, Suite 106
February 9, 2018 Score: 73, Grade: C
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 County School District said Tuesday that nearly half of the 8,000 teacher contracts sent out last week for the 2018-19 academic year were signed the very first day.
The district sent out out a release today saying that around 4,000 contracts distributed on Friday had been signed that day.
The decision to send out contract offers a little earlier than usual compared to last year was to reward teachers and get a head start on hiring decisions that need to be made.
Last year was the first in which Cobb schools sent out contracts electronically. Deputy superintendent John Adams said the district also saves around $40,000 in time, printing and distribution costs by making offers this way.
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Tuesday morning was the first opportunity for the public to formally comment on proposed Cobb library closings before the county board of commissioners.
Several East Cobb residents appeared during a general comment session at the board’s business meeting, and some indicated they would support a millage rate increase to keep open the East Cobb Library and other branches recommended for closure by the county library system.
Nearly $3 million in proposed cuts—a quarter of the Cobb County Public Library System budget—were made public last week, and they include closing or consolidating eight of the 17 branches.
“Nobody wants their taxes raised,” said East Cobb resident Peggy Williams, but she added that “most people in this fairly affluent county could afford to pay more taxes.”
Donald Kay of the Hampton Woods neighborhood, who supports a millage rate increase, said the East Cobb Library, located just a few minutes away from his home, “is a font of the community. It’s full of people all the time. It’s a real resource to the community.”
He said that if the East Cobb Library closed, traveling to the new Sewell Mill Library several miles away on Lower Roswell Road would be a 20-minute drive.
Matt Little of East Cobb, who took off work to speak Tuesday morning, said he “could not fathom our local library closing.”
His children have grown up spending plenty of time at the East Cobb Library, as well as playing in the East Side Baseball program at Fullers Park. Little said that the summer reading program at the library is vital, as is the branch’s role as a hub in “a very close community.”
Charles McCrary of East Cobb said that he thinks that a millage rate increase alone isn’t going to solve the county’s budget issues, but “libraries mean more than you might think.
“The way the community comes together in a library is badly needed in today’s polarized society, where people can exchange ideas and have an environment [in which] to do it,” he said.
Marietta resident Peggy Poole noted the library system’s new program that enables Cobb public school students to use their student IDs as library cards, making them “a whole new group of library patrons.”
She said that several rounds of Cobb library cuts begun in 2008, starting with the recession, have taken a toll, and asked commissioners “what is the cost?” of more.
“Please don’t close our libraries,” she said.
Commission chairman Mike Boyce said what’s on the table now is only a proposal, but he wanted “to put it out there early,” five months before the fiscal year 2019 budget is adopted.
He said while it will be a “tough budget, we’ll get there because of more public input early in the process.”
East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott has opposed closing the East Cobb Library but has been in favor of consolidating what he calls “underperforming” libraries. On March 5 he will hold a town hall meeting at the new Sewell Mill Library.
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A couple of weeks ago demolition crews began knocking down what had been a Carwash USA location at Roswell Road and Old Canton Road (3103 Roswell Road).
The car wash closed there in December after 14 years, and the owners indicated the business would reopen “nearby” in 2018, although they did not specify a new location.
One of East Cobb’s biggest bottleneck intersections has become competitive ground for a glorified gas station battle.
A nearly 5,000-square-foot RaceTrac is going up at the site, which initially was a gas station, and it’s on a catty-corner from a newly renovated and expanded Quick Trip.
This RaceTrac will include a convenience store, free Wi-Fi, frozen yogurt and a coffee selection.
When we drove by earlier today, construction crews were digging deep into the Olde Mill Shopping Center outparcel. A news report last March indicated that the new RaceTrac will open in the third quarter of this year, but it looks to be sooner than that.
RaceTrac, which is headquartered in Cobb at the Galleria, also has an East Cobb location at 2337 Canton Road.
The Gigi’s Cupcakes location at Merchants Walk (1281 Johnson Ferry Road) closed on Jan. 31, but the announcement didn’t come until today, two days before Valentine’s Day. A message posted on the store’s Facebook page said “we will miss being a part of your lives.”
Gigi’s opened in East Cobb in early 2011. A Kennesaw location, the only other Gigi’s store in Cobb, also closed the same day.
Palm Beach Tan has relocated from Market Plaza (1275 Johnson Ferry Road, adjacent to Zeal’s) to The Avenue (4475 Roswell Road). It’s located in Suite 1420, between the Barre 3 studio and Springfree Trampoline.
That’s the same location formerly occupied by Solar Dimensions, which was purchased by Palm Beach Tan in January.
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Cobb Commissioner Bob Ott announced over the weekend he’s holding a town hall meeting March 5 at the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center (2051 Lower Roswell Road).
The meeting lasts from 7-8:30 p.m. 
While the format is general in nature—he typically briefs constituents on county issues, and then fields questions from the audience—the upcoming budget process figures to be a major topic.
In particular, proposed library cuts are likely to be a high-interest subject. Ott’s last town hall meeting in August, at the East Cobb Library, came just as his fellow East Cobb commissioner, JoAnn Birrell, proposed shuttering that branch.
The East Cobb Library is on the list of proposed closures for the coming fiscal year 2019 budget, which is slated for adoption in July.
Commission chairman Mike Boyce has said he wants to hold town hall meetings related to the budget in the spring, but hasn’t announced any dates.
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I went to the East Cobb Library Saturday, and it was PACKED! With people of all ages, and from all walks of life. Yes, the weather was dreary, and yes, the few weekend hours it’s open certainly had a lot to do with the turnout.
We all know this, given how the East Cobb branch is the second-busiest in the Cobb County Public Library System. I read a few newspapers and magazines, browsed the bookshelves and did some research for this piece.
At times I wondered if all this might go away in a few months, this corner of the Parkaire Landing Shopping Center, given how the East Cobb Library is on a list of proposed closures.
I was afraid of getting too sentimental, since I grew up in East Cobb (and have written previously about my neighborhood branch, the late, great East Marietta Library).
I’ll admit I’m a bleeding heart for libraries, and this week some really bad emotions came flooding back when I saw not just the East Cobb branch on the hit list (as was suggested last year by commissioner JoAnn Birrell), and several others. Nearly half of all the county branches. A quarter of the operating budget may be slashed, and nearly half of the current operating hours.
For the second time in seven years, local elected officials are playing Cobb library politics, and this time I fear the results could be worse. In 2011, then-commission chairman Tim Lee threatened to shut down 13 of the 17 branches.
The county was in the midst of a budget crisis due to the recession, and his ploy worked. No branches were closed, but hours were cut back. Library patrons kicked up a fuss, and property taxes were raised.
As a citizen, I took a dim view of Lee’s tactics. Those of us who ardently support libraries were played, like a cheap fiddle, even though none of our branches were closed. We felt we had won a battle, but looking back, there was a larger war over our emotions that we may have conceded, and possibly for good.
As a ballyard sage famously put it, it’s déjà vu all over again. Lee’s successor, Mike Boyce, has learned very quickly in his first year in office that nobody wants their property taxes raised. He couldn’t get a 0.13-mills rate increase last year to fully fund the 2008 parks bond referendum that was part of his campaign.
For the last month or so, he’s been toting budget boards to speaking events around the county, with pie charts and lists and all kinds of dollar signs, illustrating a projected fiscal year 2019 deficit of at least $30 million.
It’s likely to be much higher, and he’s trying to get ahead of the process by repeating this message months ahead of time, preparing Cobb citizens for the worst, what he’s called “the painful truth.” Others think he’s pandering to their emotions to get a tax increase.
At a town hall meeting last month at the East Cobb Senior Center, he told seniors angry about fee increases and the imposition of a membership fee that “we’re all in this together.” Some of them groaned, but he understood the power they wield.
“You all vote,” he said. On the other hand, library patrons “may not all be voters, but if you close their libraries, they will become voters.”
There were some chuckles around the room. This was just a few weeks after the commissioners held their budget retreat, and instructed department heads to look for steep budget cuts.
This week, the library list was the first to be revealed, and nobody is laughing. These proposed cuts have stirred the emotions of library advocates, right on cue. Tuesday’s commissioners meeting will include a public comment session that figures to be the first of many occasions in which they will get an earful from citizens about libraries.
This round of Cobb library politics is complicated by two other major factors that weren’t there in 2011: the Atlanta Braves stadium, and a property tax rollback two years ago.
Boyce and East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott have been making a point recently that the $8.6 million Cobb pays annually for the bond issue to build SunTrust Park may pay off for itself this year.
However, that vote—made in haste in late 2013 following a sham of a process that lacked transparency and accountability—reflects what many, myself included, still believe to be misplaced priorities.
Ott and Birrell, East Cobb’s other commissioner, voted for the millage rollback in 2016 at the behest of Lee, right before Boyce trounced him in a runoff. Those decisions cannot be undone, but they certainly have contributed to Cobb’s financial state today.
We starve libraries in Cobb, and have for years. It’s ridiculous that I can’t go to my new neighborhood branch, the fantastic Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center, before 1 p.m. on a Saturday.
Never on a Sunday is any Cobb library branch open, except the main Switzer branch, but that’s only during the school year.
Braves stadium funding, by the way, is on the “must” list. That item, with a 30-year contract, moved to the head of the line of priorities. Libraries, must settle, as usual, for scraps, if there are any at all to have.
The public library system has a short history in Cobb. Until 1957, libraries were operated only in cities, by municipal governments in Marietta, Powder Springs and Austell. Then the Cobb-Marietta system was born, prodded by Dennis Kemp, a former library board chairman from West Cobb concerned that there were no library services for citizens in unincorporated Cobb.
The county would soon rapidly transform from farmland to suburbia. The first countywide library bond issue was in 1965, and the library system became part of Cobb County government in the 1970s.
I discovered this information in a book about the history of Cobb County by Thomas Allan Scott, a historian at Kennesaw State University. It was published in 2003 by the Cobb Landmarks and Historical Society, and it’s available in every Cobb library branch.
I may not have known this without spending a lot of time in library branches here in East Cobb. Sure, you can buy that book on Amazon, and do a lot of things online, and on your phone, that libraries still haven’t quite grasped. A book I checked out Saturday at the East Cobb Library, “BiblioTech,” argues eloquently that libraries are as vital today as ever, but they need to get their digital act together.
It’s hard to do that if you don’t have the resources, and political support when it matters the most. Sadly, libraries pop up on the Cobb political radar only when they’re threatened.
The forward-thinking Sewell Mill branch was approved via SPLOST and partially funded by the state. Weeks before opening, commissioners acted in seat-of-the-pants fashion to fund new staff positions that were known about for months.
On the list of proposed library closures revealed this week is the Kemp Memorial Library, named after Dennis Kemp. Another is the Sibley library on South Cobb Drive, named after Frances Weldon Sibley, the first licensed librarian in Cobb County, who started her 30-year-plus tenure in that role in the 1930s.
They were visionaries, well ahead of their time, who believed in the common good of libraries long before they became the third-rail political issue of today.
Whatever you think about tax increases, and the SPLOST process, it’s a shame their names could vanish into history, as well as the East Cobb Library, because elected officials might end up doing more this year than simply playing to your emotions. And mine.
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!
