Mountain View UMC in East Cobb is one of the plaintiffs suing the North Georgia Conference.
A Cobb Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that nearly 200 congregations in the United Methodist Church’s North Georgia Conference can proceed with disaffiliation votes.
The ruling by Judge Stephen Shuster came after an emergency hearing in a packed courtroom.
A total of 186 member churches of the North Georgia Conference filed a lawsuit in March against the denomination’s regional body after it initiated a “pause” on the disaffiliation process.
More than 70 North Georgia Conference churches left the UMC last summer after going through the disaffiliation process, following a high-profile legal dispute with Mt. Bethel Church that led to the East Cobb congregation’s departure in a $13.1 million settlement.
The North Georgia Conference said the pause was needed to quell “misinformation” about the disaffiliation process.
The United Methodist Church has been roiling in division for several years on a number of social and cultural issues, including human sexuality and other theological issues.
The plaintiffs filed for the emergency hearing due to the North Georgia Conference’s upcoming annual convention, June 1-3, at which disaffiliation is expected to be a major topic.
The conference has 800 congregations, including several in East Cobb.
One of the plaintiffs, Mountain View UMC, located at Jamerson Road and Trickum Road, had requested a disaffiliation vote after holding a discernment period last fall, with church members hearing the pros and cons of leaving the denomination.
But the church said that vote was denied by Bishop Robin Dease, who succeeded former Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson, who issued the pause before leaving in December for another UMC post in Virginia.
East Cobb News has left a message with Mountain View UMC seeking comment.
The North Georgia Conference said Wednesday that it “is exploring our opportunity to appeal” and was still waiting to receive Shuster’s full court order before deciding further action.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The Cobb Board of Education will hold a final public hearing on the proposed fiscal year 2024 operating budget Thursday before voting on adoption later in the evening.
A public budget forum will be held at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the board room of the CCSD central office (514 Glover St., Marietta), followed by a vote at the board’s voting meeting at 7 p.m.
Last month Cobb County School District Chris Ragsdale proposed a $1.4 billion budget (detailed numbers here) that includes a slight millage rate decrease, from 18.9 mills to 18.7 mills, due to rising property tax assessments.
Full-time employees would receive salary increases between 7.5 percent and 12.1 percent, and the Cobb school district would hire an additional 11 officers for its police department, which currently has 70 officers.
If approved, the millage rate reduction would be the first change in the general fund property tax rate for the Cobb school district in nearly 15 years.
The 2024 fiscal year begins July 1.
The school board will meet at 2 p.m. in a work session that includes an update on the Cobb school district’s demographics.
An executive session follows the work session. Agendas for the public meetings can be found by clicking here.
At the evening session, the recognitions will include the boys soccer team at Lassiter High School, which won the Georgia High School Association Class 6A state championship.
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!
Most subdivisions in East Cobb were developed on property that allows only single-family residential use. ECN file.
The draft of the Cobb County Five-Year Strategic Plan was released last week, and the second of two public hearings before the Cobb Board of Commissioners is scheduled for May 23.
The plan, which will help set county government policy and goals from 2023-2028, recommends strategies “for achieving success indicators,” as the study’s consultants have phrased it, that for the most part are not very controversial.
But one of those recommendations under the housing category could prove to become a subject of interest as the county continues to gather feedback.
The plan’s three “success indicators” for housing include aiming for an “adequate quantity and availability of housing types.”
One of the recommended strategies under that section is to develop a process to “evaluate and adapt land use policies that promote exclusionary zoning and inhibit a variety of housing options across the County.”
Exclusionary zoning is the practice of allowing only certain kinds of zoning categories in certain areas, and has come up frequently in communities across the country—especially suburban ones—in regard to affordable housing in recent years.
Shortly after the Biden Administration took office the White House issued comments about exclusionary zoning along similar lines, saying that such practices “drive up housing prices, poorer families are kept out of wealthier, high-opportunity neighborhoods. This, in turn, leads to worse outcomes for children, including lower standardized test scores, and greater social inequalities over time.”
Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid has mentioned affordable housing frequently, including at a contentious town hall meeting last summer in East Cobb when she said that “people who work here should be able to afford to live here.”
In recent years, a number of local and state governments have acted to limit or ban exclusionary zoning, as it has been described by some activists as racially and economically discriminatory.
Such bans have been approved in California, and there’s a proposal in New York state to do the same. Similar measures also have been adopted in Minneapolis and Arlington, Va.
There’s no such language suggesting or proposing a ban in the Cobb strategic plan draft, which goes onto to recommend that other strategies to address affordable housing include setting a countywide housing mix goal, and to ensure that a proposed Unified Development Code, should that be approved, “enable a variety of housing types.”
Atlanta became the first city in Georgia to ban exclusionary zoning in 2017, and a year later Brookhaven created an “inclusionary” zoning code and outlawed short-term rentals.
Housing data included in the strategic plan draft indicates that Cobb has a median gross rent of $1,367 a month and a nedian home value of $263,150.
The strategic plan draft was prepared by Accenture LLP, which the county is paying $1.45 million. A proposal to provide another $285,000 and a time extension was dropped last month by commissioners, who said they would hold extra meetings and feedback sessions instead.
The plan is designed to give policy makers a long-term (10- to 20-year) vision for meeting those future service needs, in addition to the more immediate 5-year range.
The draft submitted by Accenture includes seven topic, or “strategic outcome” areas—community development, economic development, governance, housing, infrastructure, mobility and transportation and public safety.
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!
Attorney Parks Huff asked for the withdrawal in a letter dated May 12 to the Cobb Zoning Office, but didn’t specify a reason, other than referring to “issues raised during the pendency of the application.”
East Cobb News has left a message with Huff seeking more information.
A request by Kenneth B. Clary, the landowner, to rezone 13.38 acres at 4701 Post Oak Tritt Road near McPherson Road for homes adjacent to the Clary Lakes subdivision was first made last fall, but didn’t get a first hearing until April.
The Cobb Planning Commission voted for a continuance then, after Clary sought rezoning from R-30 to R-15, and with nearby residents concerned about responsibility for repairing two dams on the lake.
The Cobb Zoning office recommended an R-20 designation, which would allow 18 homes.
But historic preservation activists also had issues with the rezoning. The site includes the Power-Jackson Cabin, one of the last one-room log structures left in Cobb County.
It dates back to the 1840s, and the Cobb Landmarks Society wanted the applicant to pay for relocation expenses to the Hyde Farm property in East Cobb.
Also at the April hearing, preservationists mentioned a cemetery on the site that Clary’s representatives said they weren’t aware of.
At the May 2 Planning Commission hearing, Jimi Richards of the Cobb Cemetery Preservation Commission cited a book about the early history of Cobb County (up to 1932), indicating a young mother, part of the Power family, died there nearly 140 years ago giving birth, and she is buried there with her baby twins.
He asked for the delay for the applicant to hire an archaeologist, per county code, to conduct a survey to discover if, and where, they may be resting.
Joe Ovbey, who lives in an adjacent home on Post Oak Tritt, said his family has known the Clarys for decades.
“I’ve been shown where those graves are for many years,” he said earlier this month.
The planning commission motion to hold the case included provisions for a community meeting between the applicant and nearby residents, a third-party analysis of the possible graves and further addressing dam and stormwater issues.
When an zoning applicant withdraws a request without prejudice, it can refile at any time. Cases that are denied or that are withdrawn with prejudice cannot be refiled for at least a year.
The nearly 14 acres owned by Kenneth B. Clary at Post Oak Tritt and McPherson roads (inside the blue lines) is located just east of Tritt Elementary School.
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!
An East Cobb man who engaged with a standoff with police and shot at officers and neighbors in a 2020 incident was given a 35-year sentence, the Cobb District Attorney’s office said Tuesday.
The DA’s office said Donald Terry Welborn, Jr., must serve the first 18 of those years in prison in a sentence handed down by Cobb Superior Court Judge Ann Harris.
In a news release, the DA’s office said Welborn, now 60, pleaded guilty to nine counts of aggravated assault on police officers, three counts of aggravated assault on civilians and one count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Welborn was arrested by Cobb Police on Sept. 22, 2020, at a home on Kingsley Drive in the New Castle neighborhood off Post Oak Tritt Road after a standoff lasting several hours.
According to police, Welborn’s wife and daughter reported that Welborn began shooting inside the home around 5:30 a.m., saying he was intoxicated, and struck a ceiling fan and a ceiling.
Police arrived and closed off the neighborhood. They said said the women escaped the home unharmed, but Welborn remained inside, firing at two nearby homes.
When police reached the home, according to the DA’s office, officers tried to talk him into coming outside, but he initially refused, and began shooting at them “with multiple firearms over a short period of time.
“Officers had to duck behind vehicles as projectiles whizzed by their heads, striking treetops, the asphalt roadway, and houses,” the DA’s office release said.
The Cobb Police SWAT team took over the scene and Welborn surrendered peacefully after several hours.
The DA’s office said the investigation also determined that one of neighbors, a family with two parents and two children, “hid in a closet, terrified, for hours during the standoff.
“One bullet from a high-powered rifle struck their aquarium located in their living room, killing the fish and flooding the area. In total, detectives located 68 spent shell casings of various calibers, 32 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition.”
Welborn was indicted in May 2021 by a Cobb grand jury after his attorney unsuccessfully tried to get him transferred to a mental health court.
Cobb court records indicate that one of the women, Susan Welborn, was Welborn’s wife, but they had been separated. She filed for divorce in Cobb Superior Court on the same day of the shootings.
Court records show that those proceedings are continuing.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Laura Judge, the parent of two Cobb County School District students and a local political activist, said Friday she will formally announce her campaign for the Cobb Board of Education next week.
Judge, a Democrat, issued a release late Friday saying that the official kickoff event will take place next Wednesday at Tin Lizzie’s Cantina at The Avenue East Cobb.
She’s running for the Post 5 seat currently held by four-term Republican David Banks, and that includes the Walton, Wheeler and Pope high school clusters.
As we reported last month, Judge filed a declaration of intent to run form with the Cobb Board of Elections, but that doesn’t obligate her to launch a campaign.
“I’m excited to announce my candidacy for the Cobb County School Board,” Judge said in her release on Friday.
“While our East Cobb schools are some of the best in not only the county, but the state and nation, community members still have questions regarding financial decisions, literacy concerns, school safety, and discipline issues.”
She said that “while I appreciate that the incumbent Mr. Banks has dedicated close to 16 years of service, it is time for a change that will bring in a knowledgeable and dedicated parent that represents the community.”
Banks told East Cobb News last month he hasn’t decided on whether to seek another term.
Judge, who’s also a parent in the Walton cluster, has been a visible figure at Cobb school board meetings over the last two years, speaking at public comment sessions, primarily about school safety and financial issues.
She’s a member of Watching the Funds-Cobb, a citizen group that has been critical of Cobb school district spending decisions, as well as Moms Demand Action, which advocates for gun safety. Judge is an education adviser in the “cabinet” of Cobb District 2 Commissioner Jerica Richardson.
Judge and her husband run a digital content marketing company.
Banks is part of 4-3 Republican majority on the school board. Three of those GOP seats will be on the ballot in 2024.
The primaries are scheduled for next May.
Judge’s kickoff takes place next Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Tin Lizzy’s (4475 Roswell Road, Suite 1510).
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 revised site plan for a 77-home subdivision on Johnson Ferry Road at Waterfront Drive. For a larger version click here.
The developer of a residential subdivision included in the East Cobb Church rezoning in 2021 will ask Cobb commissioners Tuesday to raise the threshold for impervious surfaces for that development.
It’s included as an Other Business item at the commission’s monthly zoning hearing, and it was continued from last month at the request of the applicant (agenda item here).
Johnson Ferry Road LLC attorney Kevin Moore asked last month for additional time. He represented North Point Ministries, which will be building the East Cobb Church facility at the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford intersection.
Below that, and below a declared flood plain as well, Ashwood Atlanta will be building 77 single-family detached homes on 19 acres zoned RA-5.
The residential portion of the rezoning case was the most contentious, with some in the community insisting the density proposed at the time (44 townhomes and 51 detached homes) was too much, for traffic and stormwater reasons.
Zoning approval included limiting impervious surfaces in the subdivision to 40 percent. Moore will be asking to raise it to 45 percent with the additional runoff “designed into the retention area,” and that “would help to accommodate development consistent with the area,” but there was no further elaboration.
Citizens serving on a plan review committee said they wanted the final plan to get as close to the 40 percent stipulation as possible.
Initial clearing and grading work has been underway at the site for a few weeks, including the relocation of Waterfront Drive.
The zoning hearing hearing begins at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta), you can view the full agenda and individual case filesby clicking here.
You also can watch on the county’s website and YouTube channels and on Cobb TV 23 on Comcast Cable.
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!
Improving third-grade reading proficiency in Georgia has been a major factor in revising English and Language Arts standards.
The Georgia Department of Education has approved new standards for the teaching of English and language arts that remove what’s left of Common Core standards.
For the next two years, K-12 teachers in ELA will be trained to teach to the new standards, which will formally go into effect by 2025 and will be incorporated into Milestones testing.
According to a Georgia DOE release, the standards “are intentionally designed to provide a strong literacy foundation beginning in the early grades, including the addition of a specific Foundations domain throughout the K-5 standards.”
They’re built around a concept called the “science of reading” and emphasize phonics in the earlier grades.
In 2022, only one-third of Georgia third-graders were regarded as proficient or better in Milestones testing.
In the Cobb County School District, more than 73 percent of third-graders were reading at or above grade level in the Milestones results.
Some elementary schools in East Cobb had among the highest percentages of third-graders surpassing proficiency levels of reading, at 90 percent or higher. But others struggled, including Sedalia Park (65.9 percent), Powers Ferry (62 percent) and Brumby (52 percent).
The standards come four years after an initiative was announced by Woods and Gov. Brian Kemp to phase out Common Core standards that have been in place since 2015.
The release said the new standards were developed with a broad base of input from educators, parents, business leaders, and others, and “feature built-in learning progressions across grade spans and within grade-level concepts, allowing teachers to remediate or accelerate learning as needed.”
The Georgia DOE issues a survey (results here) and began accepting public feedback on the ELA standards in November and issued another public response period in March.
“Knowing that early literacy is essential to all future learning, the standards place a strong emphasis on the fundamentals in the early grades,” Woods said in the release.
For more information on Georgia DOE curriculum standards, click 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!
Cobb commissioners on Tuesday approved a design contract for Ebenezer Downs Park.
By a 5-0 vote, they approved spending $238,450 for Pond & Company, an architectural and engineering firm in Peachtree Corners, to do the work.
“Long time coming, we’re all excited,” commissioner JoAnn Birrell said in making the motion to approve the contract. “Let’s get started.”
Pond & Company recreational projects include the Mableton Town Square, the West End BeltLine Trail in Atlanta and Atlanta BeltLine Corridor design.
Ebenezer Downs Park sits on 18 acres on Ebenezer Road near Canton Road and includes a lake, which has been used for recreational fishing, including Cobb PARKS fishing rodeos.
The park’s master plan for a passive park also include a lakeside pavilion, walking trails, a playground and a 30-space parking lot. One of the former homes on the site would be used for small events, including wedding receptions and private parties, and public restroom facilities would be built.
Included in the design contract are cost estimating, bidding assistance and construction administration services.
The county purchased the property in 2018 with proceeds from the 2008 Cobb Parks Bond referendum.
Funding for the design and construction comes from the 2022 Cobb SPLOST (Special Local-Option Sales Tax), with a cap of $3 million.
A construction timeline hasn’t been announced; a contract for construction will require separate approval by commissioners.
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 related factor in determining the assessment of a home is the relative value of home sales in a neighborhood or area.
In an interview with Cobb government public information officer Ross Cavitt (video below), White said those assessments are going out by the end of this week and early next week.
Of more than 240,000 residential properties his office has assessed, White said around 180,000 of them will have higher assessments than 2022, when Cobb had a record tax digest of $50 billion.
Since 2018, White said the average home sale in Cobb has grown by around 50K a year, from $289K to $453K in 2022.
“The market has been really, really hot, so the increases can be rather large,” White said.
He encouraged homeowners to go to the Cobb Tax Asessor’s website to look at home sales in their area, “and that will help you feel if our value is appropriate or not.”
The assessments are valued at what the assessor’s office thinks a home could have been sold for on Jan. 1, 2023.
“The value you’re receiving for your assessment in May, we’re looking at sales that occurred in the 2022 calendar year,” White said.
Some home sales have tapered off in early 2023, and the state is offering some tax relief in the form of a one-time reduction in assessment value of $18,000 for most tax levies.
Cobb Tax Commissioner Carla Jackson said that’s called the Property Tax Relief Grant, and for property owners in unincorporated Cobb that grant would be applied to what they would pay for the county general fund and fire fund and Cobb County School District taxes.
The school millage rate produces the largest portion of a Cobb homeowners’ property tax bill, and those age 62 and over (except in the city of Marietta) can apply for a senior exemption from paying school taxes.
White said homeowners who wish to appeal their assessments have 45 days to do so from the mailing date, and the deadline to do so is included in their assessment.
He said around 1-2 percent of homeowners appeal their assessments.
Those appeals are reviewed by his office, which issues a recommendation to the Cobb Board of Tax Assessors, an appointed body that decides those appeals should be changed or not.
“If they’re still unhappy, they can go to the Board of Equalization, which would be later on in the year,” White said of the citizen-appointed body that is the ultimate venue for property tax determinations. It is separate from the tax assessor’s office and members are chosen by members of a Cobb grand jury.
Property tax bills will be mailed in October, after appeals are determined and when the Cobb County fiscal year 2024 budget has gone into effect.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
The Atlanta Country Club in East Cobb is once again the venue for the Cobb Library Foundation’s annual “Booked for the Evening” fundraising gala.
It’s set for Friday, June 9, and the guest speaker is author Patti Callahan Henry, the author of 16 historical and contemporary novels, and a podcast host featuring her novels.
She is the recipient of The Christy Award Book of the Year, The Harper Lee Distinguished Writer of the Year and the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year.
A resident of the Birmingham area, her latest novel, “The Secret Book of Flora Lea,” was recently published, and is a New York Times bestseller.
It’s the story of a woman who discovers a rare book that has connections to her past, long-held secrets about her missing sister and their childhood spent in the English countryside during World War II.
The subjects of some of her previous novels include Florence Nightingale, C.S. Lewis and the 1838 shipwreck of the Pulaski off the coast of Savannah
The honorary chairman of the event is Gary Miller, CEO and President of Greystone Power.
The gala takes place from 6:30-10 p.m. on June 9 and tickets may be purchased by clicking here.
The Cobb Library Foundation provides support for the Cobb County Public Library System. For information e-mail: cobblibraryfoundation@gmail.com.
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!
With Mother’s Day coming on Sunday the East Cobb bookstore Bookmiser will hold a launch event for a mom-oriented novel.
Jennifer Golden is the author of “Anonymous Mom Posts,”and on Saturday she’ll be at at Bookmiser (3822 Roswell Road) from 1:30-3 p.m.
Mimosas and treats will be served, and you can click here to register.
Goldin is a Miami native and an audiologist by training and has done some writing on the side. Now a Dunwoody resident, this is Goldin’s first novel. Here’s what the story is about:
“Laura Perry is fed up with the snarky attitudes of the moms who post on the Hamilton Beach Moms’ social media page. She hopes the new anonymous posting feature will remind this community they are here to support each other. She enlists her friend, Gabriella, to be a co-moderator. While Gabriella is intrigued by the page, she wonders if the virtual interactions are doing more harm than good. She and Laura hatch a plan to organize an in-person fundraising event, hoping to help the moms connect in real life.
“But, as the moms start to reveal their secrets anonymously, irreverent comments pour in, and the page ignites with controversy. With the in-person event approaching, will one mom’s plan for revenge bring the entire community to the brink?!”
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!
“I feel bad for those who think this is Cobb County,” Cupid said in reference to certain public commenters who speak at Board of Commissioners meetings.
Continuing tensions between Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid and some public commenters who have been speaking at public meetings boiled over again this week, following her remarks delivered at her annual State of Cobb address.
Near the end of that speech last Thursday (you can watch the video replay below; her speech begins around the one-hour mark), Cupid took aim at citizens who have been critical of her tenure, as well as media coverage.
“I’ve got more important things to do than to sit here and read a gossip column about what people think the BOC is doing,” she said. “Or to get my panties in a bunch when people come and criticize us during public comment. We have lives to help, we have a county to move forward, we have agencies to run.”
Those comments came after several references to what she said was political polarization in Cobb since she and a black female Democratic majority on the five-member commission was elected in 2020, claiming that “I have never seen boards of commissioners treated the way we are.”
Cupid said that “what happens if someone comes to Cobb and opens up the paper? Or goes to a BOC meeting? They might think we’re bass-ackwards. I’m serious! That’s not who we are.”
She encouraged citizens who agree with her “All in Cobb” theme to sign up to comment at meetings.
But some of the frequent commenters she’s sparred with had their own response at Tuesday’s commission meeting.
East Cobb realtor Pam Reardon said that “I wish that we could get away from calling people racists, which unfortunately the chair did.”
Reardon, who’s been active in Cobb Republican politics and supported East Cobb cityhood, argued that what Cupid is objecting to are political differences.
“When we come to this podium and talk, we are adamant about our values and the way we want our government to run,” said Reardon, who has been a critic of county budget, tax and spending priorities, as well as high-density zoning.
Pam Reardon
“We are not racists. We are just having a different point of view. . . . We cannot be ‘One Cobb’ if we have a commissioner who is dividing us.”
She also opposes a 30-year transit tax referendum next year that Cupid is floating, saying “we do not want MARTA in Cobb” because crime will increase.
Another regular to that podium, Leroy Emkin, read from a blistering column in Spotlight South Cobb News that called Cupid’s speech a ‘State of Contention Address.’
That publication was founded Shelia Edwards, a black Democrat who lost to current Post 4 commissioner Monique Sheffield in 2020 in the campaign to succeed Cupid.
Edwards, who has been highly critical of Cupid on a regular basis, said in the column about the State of Cobb address that “an evening with Cupid would not be complete unless she introduced race to defend or complain about whatever is going on with her. This time it was credited for the unfair criticism she gets on her leadership. The chairwoman said the attacks on her administration were unprecedented and implied they were racially motivated.”
After hearing Emkin read those remarks, Cupid said that “I’m trying to think when I mentioned race at all. I find it odd to be impugned as a racist by those who bring up race more than I do.”
The political insider column in the Marietta Daily Journal concluded Wednesday by saying that “We don’t know if Chairwoman Cupid’s reference to ‘gossip column’ was directed at Around Town, but we can admit that over the years we’ve been called much worse.”
Cupid is scheduled to appear in East Cobb later this month, as the featured speaker at the May 31 meeting of the East Cobb Civic Association.
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!
Jack Xu, a senior at Walton High School, is one of four students from Georgia and among 161 nationwide to be named a U.S. Presidential Scholar.
The Georgia Department of Education Wednesday announced the news of the 59th such class, which is chosen by the U.S. Department of Education.
Students are selected for “their accomplishments in academics, the arts, and career and technical education fields.”
Xu is an honor student at Walton and this year was named a STAR Student by the Professional Association of Georgia Educators.
He was a varsity swimmer and also participated in a number of academic and other extracurricular organizations at Walton, including the East Cobb chapter of AYLUS, or The Alliance of Youth Leaders in the U.S., of which he is a former president.
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 National Merit Scholarship Corporation is continuing to announce recipients of its 2023 scholarship program this spring, this time for $2,500 scholarships from its own funds.
Three of the students from East Cobb attend Wheeler High School, two are from Walton High School and one each are seniors at Lassiter High School and Kell High School:
Erin E. Cooney, Lassiter. Probable career field: Landscape Architecture
Gavin J. Du, Walton. Probable career field: Consulting
Rithu A. Hegde, Wheeler. Probable career field: Computer Science
Shaunak R. Karnik, Pope. Probable career field: Computer Science
Kabir A. Maindarkar, Wheeler. Probable career field: Chemical Engineering
Lakshmi Valliyappan, Wheeler. Probable career field: Medicine
Chaitanya Sri Yetukuri, Walton. Probable career field: Business Administration
According to the NMSC, they are among the 2,500 students chosen nationwide for this particular scholarship, from a field of 15,000 finalists.
They are “judged to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills, and potential for success in rigorous college studies. The number of winners named in each state is proportional to the state’s percentage of the nation’s graduating high school seniors.”
The criteria includes their academic record, including difficulty level of subjects studied and grades earned; scores from the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test; contributions and leadership in school and community activities; an essay; and a recommendation written by a high school official.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Cobb commissioners on Tuesday upheld the reversal of an initial denial of a beer and wine license to the Cleaver and Cork retail butcher shop in East Cobb.
Commissioners voted to uphold the Cobb License Review Board’s reversal on their consent agenda, and it’s a process we’ve written about before.
There are requirements in the Cobb County Code for alcohol-serving businesses located within certain distances of residential neighborhoods, public/government buildings and houses of religious, unless they appeal.
In this case, Cleaver and Cork, located in the Shops at Woodlawn (1062 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 162-D), is less than 300 feet from homes and less than 600 feet from a church or school (Johnson Ferry Baptist Church and Johnson Ferry Christian Academy).
The Cobb Business License Division’s denial was appealed to the License Review Board, which voted to reverse that decision on April 27. The appeals are given final consideration by commissioners.
There was no known community opposition to Cleaver and Cork’s request for a beer and wine license.
Other businesses in the same retail center that have been granted alcohol licenses are the Publix store and the newly opened First Watch restaurant.
Cleaver and Cork, which opened last November, said it wants to sell craft beer and boutique wines as part of the store’s offering of gourmet meats, specialty cheeses, breads, charcuterie boards, pasta and desserts.
Audrey Stine, the Cleaver and Cork owner, said during the appeal hearing that “every customer will be required to present a government issued ID to purchase alcohol. Ms. Stine stated the consequence for an underage sale will be immediate termination.”
All of the alcoholic beverages sold there will be for off-premises consumption, she said, adding that employees found to have sold beer or wine to underage customers will be terminated.
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!
Not long after Cobb commissioners approved a site plan change last month to allow for a King’s Hawaiian restaurant in Northeast Cobb, the California-based company decided it would not go ahead with those plans.
Jason Linscott, a principal at Stein Investment Group, which owns the property at Gordy Parkway and Shallowford Road where the eatery was proposed, said King’s Hawaiian made the decision a week after the zoning hearing.
He said the reason was that the conditions included in the approval “weren’t going to make it work.”
In particular, Linscott cited a required 40-foot buffer between the back of the property and the adjacent Harrison Park tennis courts.
Stein had applied to reduce that buffer to just four feet for parking and drivethru access. But Commissioner JoAnn Birrell referred to a 1980s stipulation when the land was previously rezoned about a 40-foot buffer, saying reducing it “would set a precedent. It was put in place for a reason.”
During the hearing, Garvis Sams, Stein’s attorney, said not being able to reduce the buffer would cause “a considerable re-engineering” of the restaurant.
Linscott said that after the vote Stein “tried really hard” to keep King’s Hawaiian on board, but to no avail.
“It’s a little deflating,” Linscott told East Cobb News, saying he’s not sure what kind of development his company can get approved for that land.
East Cobb News has contacted King’s Hawaiian seeking more information.
It’s uncommon, but not unprecedented, for zoning applicants to pull out of projects after they’re approved. In another Northeast Cobb case in 2021, Pulte Homes withdrew from developing a 92-home subdivision on 50 acres on Ebenezer Road near Blackewell Road.
Linscott said there were other conditions that were approved at the request of the Gordy Architectural Control Committee and the East Cobb Civic Association that also were “not going to work” for King’s Hawaiian.
There also was some opposition from nearby residents about traffic issues, similar to those that prompted commissioners to reject plans for a Lidl grocery store at that intersection.
The land proposed for the King’s Hawaiian restaurant (with the gold star) sits at a busy intersection near Lassiter High School.
Birrell suggested in her motion to approve that Stein purchase adjacent county-owned land to address the buffer issues, but Linscott said that involved a complicated process involving title searches and other factors that also proved to be difficult to pull off.
“We tried to find other ways to do it,” Linscott said, but ultimately, King’s Hawaiian “felt they had given a lot of things” to open the company’s first restaurant outside of its southern California base.
“They said they didn’t feel like they were welcome,” he said.
King’s Hawaiian first filed for a site plan amendment in mid-2022, but didn’t get a hearing before commissioners in March.
The 1.14 acres on which the restaurant was to have gone is shaped like a wedge, next to the self-storage facility that Stein built after getting rezoning in 2021 to convert the former GTC Cobb Park 12 movie theater.
“We’re basically starting over,” Linscott said, saying “it’s not feasible to do a restaurant without getting into that buffer.”
Linscott said “we’ll do something there. I hate that it couldn’t have been something like this.”
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!
