The Atlanta Braves are playing host to the New York Mets at Truist Park this weekend in a big series that likely will determine the winner of the National League Eastern Division.
The Flying Biscuit Cafe in East Cobb is marking a big slate of events in October during its grand reopening, and has snagged one of the team’s stars to make an appearance this Sunday.
Pitcher Kyle Wright, the only player in Major League Baseball with 20 wins this season, will sign autographs and meet with fans Sunday starting at 10 a.m. at Flying Biscuit, located at Parkaire Landing Shopping Center (4880 Lower Roswell Road, Suite 70).
Wright won his 21st game Saturday as the Braves defeated the Mets 4-1 to take a one-game lead with four games remaining for each team in the regular season.
The Braves and Mets will play Sunday night at 7 p.m. in a nationally televised game on ESPN.
Flying Biscuit opened at Parkaire Landing in March 2021 but closed in August for a month to undergo training following an ownership and management change.
The restaurant kicks off a month of specials this week that include $1 and $5 meals. Gift giveaways are scheduled for next week, and the promotions are updated on its Facebook page.
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The following Cobb food scores for the week of Sept. 26 have been compiled by the Cobb & Douglas Department of Public Health. Click the link under each listing for inspection details:
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A rezoning request to convert the present Starbucks location at Paper Mill Village into a two-story coffee shop is being delayed to November.
The attorney for S&B Investments Inc. sent Cobb zoning officials a letter last week asking for the request to be removed from the agenda for a Tuesday hearing of the Cobb Planning Commission.
Garvis Sams said in the letter (you can read it here) that after holding a community meeting, “the consensus at the meeting was for S&B to avail itself of circumstances to revise the proposal in order to address expectations from area residents, members of the public and others.”
He didn’t specify what those expectations are.
S&B wants to demolish the small building on 0.73 acres at the northeast intersection of Johnson Ferry Road and Paper Mill Road. That’s housed the Starbucks for more than 25 years and a dry cleaner (a nail salon space is vacant).
The proposal calls for a 5,000-square-foot building for a new Starbucks with 25 parking spaces and a double drivethru. The new coffee shop would be open daily from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m.
In its analysis, Cobb zoning staff noted that 50 parking spaces are required under the NRC (neighborhood retail commercial) category the applicant is seeking.
The staff is recommending approval of the request (analysis here) but without a parking variance, meaning the size of the building would have to be reduced.
Two other rezoning requests in East Cobb that were to be heard Tuesday also have been continued to November.
ADP—Terrell Mill LLC is seeking community retail commercial (CRC) from low residential at 1140 and 1150 Terrell Mill Road for a self-storage facility with 47,059 square feet and 14 parking spaces. A companion special land-use permit also is required, and that request also has been continued.
The 2.55-acre parcel at the intersection of Terrell Mill and Delk roads and has an older homesite. Zoning staff has recommended denial, noting that the property is surrounded by residential areas and does not conform to the county’s comprehensive land-use plan which calls for medium-density housing in that area.
“Setback variances are proposed which demonstrate this proposal does not fit on the property,” the staff analysis concluded.
Also being delayed is a request to rezone 13.38 acres at 4701 Post Oak Tritt Road, near McPherson Road, from R-30 to R-15 for 20 single-family homes.
The Planning Commission is a five-member body appointed by the Cobb Board of Commissioners to make recommendations in zoning cases.
Final decisions are made by county commissioners, who meet on the third Tuesday of the month.
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The pedestrian bridge and trail joining East Cobb Park and Fullers Park will be closed temporarily for construction work.
The closure is expected to begin Monday and could last a month, according to information released this week by Cobb County government.
Cobb Parks and Recreation is set to restore and stabilize a portion of Sewell Mill Creek that runs between both parks and that was affected by severe flooding last September.
More recently, spring rains “caused considerable erosion to the stream bank in that area,” according to the department in an item about the project in an e-mail newsletter.
Cobb commissioners recently approved spending$104,500 from new Cobb 2022 SPLOST revenues to complete the project.
Previously, repairs along the Sewell Mill Creek stream bank at the front of East Cobb Park were made to produce a crest protecting the walking path and quad areas.
Grass was planted over Flexamat, which are “small concrete blocks locked together and embedded into high-strength geogrid.”
Flexamat also will be used in the upcoming project, the department said, to “prevent further deterioration of the stream bank and help beautify the area’s natural landscape.”
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A rendering of the proposed reconstruction of Gritters Library, which is to replace a nearly 50-year-old branch in Shaw Park.
A proposed contract to begin construction of the replacement building for Gritters Library in Northeast Cobb was pulled by Commissioner JoAnn Birrell Tuesday because she couldn’t get enough support from her colleagues.
Near the end of a five-hour meeting, Birrell said she was withdrawing a $10.5 million proposal for the new library building and a renovation of the adjacent Northeast Cobb Community Center.
That’s $2.5 million more than what was initially projected because of what county officials said were rising construction costs.
The contract proposal would have made up for the shortfall with general fund revenues, which some commissioners objected to.
“Until we can find out where an additional $2.5 million is coming from, it’s the consensus of the board that we’ll explore other avenues,” Birrell said somberly.
“It’s near and dear to my heart and it kills me not to be able to move this forward,” she said. “We’ve got some work to do, but we’ll get there.”
Both projects are earmarked in the 2016 Cobb SPLOST. The Gritters project received a $1.9 million capital outlay grant last year from Georgia Public Library Services, while the community center renovations were pegged at $1.2 million.
Last December, Cobb officials even held a groundbreaking for the new Gritters building and a new Cobb Police Precinct 6 station next to the Mountain View Aquatic Center. Work to start that latter project also has been delayed due to construction cost increases.
Before the vote, Abby Shiffman, a Cobb Library trustee board member, urged commissioners to finalize the Gritters contract.
Construction was tentatively scheduled to begin in December to rebuild Gritters, which opened at its current location in Shaw Park in 1973.
Initially the plan was to renovate the building at a cost of $2.9 million, but later it was determined that an entirely new facility was needed, at a cost of $6.8 million.
Gritters is the last of the library projects remaining in the 2016 SPLOST. That collection period funded the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center that opened in early 2018, replacing the East Marietta Library.
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Jessica Guinn, Director of Cobb Community Development Agency
For the first time, short-term rental properties in unincorporated Cobb will be regulated by the county.
But before the 4-1 vote by the Cobb Board of Commissioners Tuesday, some citizens still expressed either opposition or wanted them to delay passage and make further changes to the proposed ordinance.
While acknowledging the first-time code provision is far from perfect, Cobb Community Development Director Jessica Guinn said it’s important to get started with an enforcement mechanism.
The new ordinance will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023.
Each rental must have a designated local agent available to be contacted about parking, noise and other issues.
The regulations would allow up to one person for every 390 square feet and parking, building, health and sanitation regulations governing single-family zoning would also apply.
The rentals would be subject to hotel/motel taxes tourism fees and other local and state taxes.
The ordinance would require a separate certificate for each rental, lasting no more than 30 days.
In a major revision from the initial Sept. 13 public hearing on Cobb code amendments, only one active certificate could be in use per dwelling unit.
That was a response to concerns that single-family homes could be turned into “transient hotels,” with multiple parties occupying a residence at the same time.
But homeowners who rent out their homes said that would make it difficult for them to make ends meet, and that institutional and corporate owners of homes would benefit from the new law.
Jonathan Tremblay, a short-term rental owner, said he supports an ordinance to remove the ambiguity around the issue, but objects to the revised ordinance.
The changes, he said, “have effectively prevented homeowners from supplementing their income from short-term rentals.”
Tremblay said his attempts to speak with commissioners and county staff have been in vain.
“Without short-term rentals, me and my family will most likely have to file for bankruptcy and will likely have to relocate out of Cobb County,” he said.
Commissioner Keli Gambrill, who was the only vote against, held up a copy of a state law that the president of the Cobb Association of Realtors referred to during a public comment period.
Wendy Chambers told commissioners that state law prohibits local governments from mandating that residential rental properties be registered with the county.
“Requiring someone to register their property in any form or fashion is against Georgia law,” Marshall said, adding that current Cobb ordinances governing parking, noise and other provisions of the new code could be used.
She also said there may be constitutional issues under the Equal Protection clause, since short-term rental owners would be treated differently than those who rent out for longer periods of time.
“I’m not sure that Cobb County wants to take away the personal property rights of its residents,” she said.
When Gambrill later asked why the county didn’t draft the proposed ordinance “to supplement what the [state law] didn’t address,” she was told by Cobb County Attorney Bill Rowling that “it’s not a registration. It’s a business license.”
This is the third time Guinn has brought a proposal to commissioners, and said what she submitted is similar to provisions that exist in other local jurisdictions.
“Currently we have nothing,” Guinn said. Commissioners delayed a vote on the short-term rental proposal when it updated the code in January.
Commissioner of JoAnn Birrell of East Cobb said she didn’t see a need to delay passing an ordinance any further.
“To keep holding this when you’ve been saying all along we need to do something,” she said. “We can always change it down the road.”
Commissioners also approved new code changes that would require annual inspections of multi-family housing, require a permit from the Cobb Fire Marshal’s office for outdoor events with more than 1,000 people and ban smoking and vaping in county-owned parks, sporting complexes and recreation areas, except where designated.
A landlord would be required to hire a certified building inspector at its own expense and that is approved by the county. A quarter of a property’s units would be inspected every year. That ordinance will becoming effective Jan. 1, 2024.
In another new ordinance, developers who wish to build private streets must build them to county standards for public streets and a homeowners association is required to insure, maintain and repair them to county standards.
Also passed Tuesday was an updated code provision requiring rezoning applicants to file a traffic study at least 15 days before a request is heard by the Cobb Planning Commission.
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Walton and Wheeler students produced collective SAT scores in 2022 that are among the top 10 high schools in Georgia.
According to data released by the Georgia Department of Education, Walton’s 517 test-takers produced a combined score of 1,255, third in the state.
Wheeler, which had 296 students take the SAT this spring, had a score of 1,211, tied for 10th. Lassiter and Pope scores were right behind.
The Scholastic Aptitude Test is administered every spring for seniors. They are tested on evidence-based reading and writing and math.
The maximum score is 1,600 (achieved by a current Wheeler student in May, when he was a sophomore), with 800 scores being the limit in the two portions of the test.
The average individual SAT score is 1,068, and five of the six East Cobb high schools surpassed that in 2022.
Overall, students in the Cobb County School District produced a mean score of 1,111, according to a release issued Wednesday by the school district.
Those figures are higher than the national and statewide averages. The national mean score in 2022 is 1,028, and in Georgia it’s 1,052.
Cobb students posted a reading and writing mean score of 545 and a math mean score of 566. A total of 4,813 Cobb students took the test in May.
Although most of the 2022 scores are slightly down from 2021, an additional 1,362 Cobb students took the SAT this year, a jump of 30 percent from last year, according to the Cobb school district.
Cobb students also scored higher than their counterparts in large school districts in metro Atlanta, according to state education department figures.
Fulton’s mean score is mean score is 1,101, Gwinnett’s is 1,097, Cherokee’s is 1,091, Paulding’s is 1,032, Forsyth’s is 1,014, DeKalb’s is 1,000 and Atlanta’s is 947.
Fayette County schools led metro Atlanta with a mean score of 1,132.
“I cannot say enough about how proud I am of our teachers and the entire team,” Cobb Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said in the release. “Despite all the uncertainties and distractions of teaching and learning in a pandemic, our teachers remained focused on what is best for students. The commitment to high-quality classroom choices, supported by our Board during the pandemic, is a primary factor that led to the highest SAT scores in the metro area.”
What follows are full scores for the six high schools in East Cobb, followed by the Top 10 schools in the state.
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The National Weather Service map tracking the possible path of Hurricane Ian that was released late Tuesday afternoon.
Due to possible heavy rains and storms stemming from Hurricane Ian, a number of high school football games in Georgia have been moved up to Thursday night, including those involving teams from Cobb schools.
The Cobb County School District Media Relations office said in a message that all of the Cobb teams in action this week are playing games on the road—out of the county—and Thursday’s kickoff times are the same for what had been scheduled on Friday.
Although Cobb schools are on fall break, sporting events are taking place. Only four Cobb public high schools were to play this week, three of them from East Cobb:
Lassiter at Johns Creek
Sprayberry at Alpharetta
Walton at North Paulding
According to the National Weather Service, Ian is on a track to the Florida Gulf Coast near the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, and is projected to make landfall Wednesday afternoon, possibly as a Category 4 hurricane.
Ian passed over Cuba Tuesday as a Category 3 storm, and more than 2.5 million people in Florida have been encouraged or ordered to evacuate.
The storm system is expected to reach southern Georgia early Friday and could move into the Atlantic Ocean and threaten the Georgia coast. Gov. Brian Kemp has declare a state of emergency for all Georgia counties from 7 a.m. Thursday to midnight Friday.
The preliminary forecast doesn’t include Cobb County and metro Atlanta in those warnings. The NWS is forecasting a 40 percent chance of rain Friday, from the mid-afternoon through the evening.
The Atlanta area could get between 1-3 inches of rain during that time, and possibly more in some areas of north and central Georgia.
Strong winds between 30-45 mph could be felt in some areas, and there could be power outages and isolated flash flooding.
Rain will continue all weekend, with a 60 percent chance Saturday and tapering off to a 40 percent chance Sunday and 20 percent on Sunday night and into next week.
For more information and to track the hurricane click here.
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Rendering from site plan application to be heard by Cobb commissioners Oct. 18.
A development company that is presently converting the former GTC Cobb Park 12 Cinema complex in East Cobb for a self-storage facility wants to use a portion of that property to build a standalone restaurant.
Filings with the Cobb Zoning Office show a request by Stein Investment Group to amend a site plan for a special land-use request approved in 2021 at the northeast intersection of Gordy Parkway near Shallowford Road.
The request, which is scheduled to be heard by Cobb commissioners Oct. 18, calls for taking out part of the former cinema parking lot for the restaurant (see site plan below), which would contain 3,200 square feet and have 29 parking spaces.
The application was filed Sept. 13 (you can read through it here) and there isn’t a staff analysis and recommendation yet; site plan changes don’t have to go before the Cobb Planning Commission.
Stein Investment received a special land-use permit required in Cobb for storage facilities to build 101,190 square feet of self-storage space. Plans also called for the building of a 33,785-square-foot-building adjacent to that, with a basement.
There aren’t many other details yet about the restaurant; the site plan notes that there will be two-way access on Gordy Parkway and right-in and right-out access on Shallowford Road. The site plan and accompanying renderings also show a double canopied drive-through for the restaurant.
Stein has retained noted Cobb zoning attorney Garvis Sams, who handled the self-storage request last year. He’s also representing S & B Investments which is proposing a two-story Starbucks at Paper Mill Village.
That request will get its first hearing next Tuesday before the planning commission.
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Khan Nguyen, a junior in the STEAM magnet program at Wheeler High School, received a perfect score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) in his first time taking the test.
His mother, Tuyet Anh, sent word of his accomplishment, along with the photo, and some additional information.
She says he took the SAT in May and got the score of 1,600. According to the Princeton Review, the average SAT score is 1,068, as of 2018.
His mother says Kyan, 15, is active in Wheeler’s math team, Science Olympiad and music outreach activities. He also works as a part-time tutor and also enjoys reading, playing the piano and playing soccer with his friends.
His one-on-one tutoring sessions, she reports, “have helped Kyan understand how different people have different strengths, and it is a real pleasure to see his peers succeed where they had struggled before.”
She adds that he’s interested in biotechnology and biomedical engineering and has a mild interest in business.
His college plans are to apply to a number of colleges, including Northwestern, Georgia Tech and Brown.
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A man who crossed Roswell Road near Powers Ferry Road Saturday night was struck by four vehicles and was killed, according to Marietta Police.
Police said in a message Monday afternoon that the victim’s name has not been released because next-of-kin are still being notified.
He was identified by police as a 38-year-old Hispanic male who exited the parking lot at the Mi Rancho restaurant (1495 Roswell Road) around 9:15 p.m. Saturday.
That’s near Williamson Bros. BBQ in the location of a former McDonald’s.
UPDATED:
Marietta Police said the victim was Ismael Bernardo Morales.
Police said the man crossed Roswell Road outside of a crosswalk and was struck by four vehicles. He was pronounced dead on the scene, according to police, who said all four motorists stayed on the scene and are cooperating with police.
Marietta Police are continuing to investigate the crash and are asking anyone with information to call Investigator Bedford at 770-794-5364.
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While the now-pulled trash service overhaul has gotten much of the attention, other proposed Cobb code amendments to be considered by Cobb commissioners have generated community opposition.
Richard Grome, East Cobb Civic Association
Among them are proposed regulations for short-term rentals, a matter that has come before commissioners twice before.
A final hearing on that and other code amendments is scheduled for Tuesday night, as is a vote by the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
Their meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the 2nd floor board room of the Cobb government building, 100 Cherokee St., in downtown Marietta.
The code amendment proposals cover a wide range of ordinances, including apartment inspections, smoking in public parks, and zoning.
The Cobb Community Development Agency hasn’t substantially changed proposed provisions for short-term rentals up to 30 days that would require a certificate for each rental through the Cobb Business License Division.
Each rental must have a designated agent available be contacted about parking, noise and other issues.
The regulations would allow up to one person for every 390 square feet and parking, building, health and sanitation regulations governing single-family zoning would also apply.
The rentals would be subject to hotel/motel taxes tourism fees and other local and state taxes.
Fines would be $500 for a first violation in first 12 months and $750 for a second violation in the same time span. A third violation would result in revocation of a certificate, and new applications for that property would be rejected for 12 months.
Cobb commissioners declined to approve the proposal in January and the opponents raised familiar concerns.
Richard Grome, president of the East Cobb Civic Association, asked commissioners at a Sept. 13 public hearing to hold the code amendment proposals.
The proposed regulations, he said, include “a great amount of ambiguous language and undefined terms, all of which are subject to interpretation.”
He asked whether a $55 license cost for a short-term rental would cover “all the work involved” in keeping four county agencies updated. Grome also asked who would be responsible for checking the maximum occupancy and if some properties could be grandfathered.
While recognizing the need for such a code, Grome said “work still needs to be done to tighten up the language and address certain specific issues.”
Jamie McCreary, a resident of the Weatherstone subdivision in East Cobb, also said that enforcement mechanisms “lack definition.”
He said the provision that short-term renters and agents are responsible for following, the health, sanitation and other regulations “sounds very fox and henhouse. In my opinion they’re always going to be in compliance if they’re the ones that get to say if they’re in compliance or not.”
McCreary said that notifications to be provided in the rentals of occupancy and parking limits “are good,” but he also questioned how that would be enforced.
He worried about the introduction of what he called “transient housing” in residential neighborhoods, and referenced a home next to his with 5,500 square feet that could allow up to 14 people.
“I’d like to see some control between families who are trying to make a little additional income to get by and make ends meet versus people who are setting up transient hoteling systems,” McCreary said.
The full agenda for Tuesday’s meeting can be found by clicking here.
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Drew Collins is learning the ropes of running a business that he and his father David, a horticulturalist, started four years ago.
On the first Saturday of the fall, Drew Collins moves about rows of native perennial plants aligned in a portion of a community park in his East Cobb neighborhood.
As customers browse nearly 200 species of plants—from Black-Eyed Susans to Yarrow “Peter Cottontails” and many others in between—the 14-year-old answers questions and helps place items on wagons.
What’s called “Drew’s Plant Sale” are the semi-annual fruits of his labor growing and tending to a sprawling nursery in the back yard of his home in Fox Hills, an enterprise that has expanded due to word-of-mouth referrals and making connections with local garden clubs.
While Drew has been around the plant world all his life—his father David is a long-time horticulturalist at Fernbank Science Center—the freshman at Fellowship Christian School in Roswell is gaining valuable experience as he earns money for college.
“Drew’s Plant Sale” includes descriptive information about each plant, including several varieties of the Canna Lily.
“It was something to do and it was pretty fun,” Drew explains about getting serious about plant-raising that started at the age of nine, with a few basic herbs.
His father saw something more, and they parlayed it into a local business venture.
For the last four years they have held sales in April and September; on Saturday, more than 1,500 plants were on display.
“I told him, ‘If we’re going to do this, let’s have some goals,’ ” David Collins said. First up was raising enough money from the initial sales to purchase a truck to transport the plants.
They started with 500 plants sold at their home, but two years ago required more room. The Fox Hills park comprises seven acres along Sope Creek where homes were demolished after the area was declared to be in a flood plain.
This year Drew grew more than 2,000 plants, and next year the aim is to double that. David Collins didn’t want to divulge dollar figures from the sales, but said that “we’re two-and-a-half years ahead” of where they thought they would be financially.
Drew is self-funding the business with proceeds from past sales, and has been making presentations to community groups, including the Sope Creek Garden Club.
The work is physically challenging. Setting up for the sale took several days, and David Collins said the biggest issue is that they’re running out of room in their backyard nursery, which includes a greenhouse for unsold plants.
While the teen is soft-spoken and shy, his father sees him growing in many ways in having to deal with the public.
In his years as an educator, David Collins sees young people struggling to communicate with others, especially adults. Giving teens the confidence during what for many of them is an awkward time in their lives is invaluable.
Drew hasn’t started thinking about where he might go to college, and for now he says he relishes learning and growing with every stage as his business develops.
“I don’t know if Drew will go into this” professionally, his father said. “But there are so many life lessons that he is learning from this.”
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4642 Jefferson Ridge Way, 30066 (The Enclave at Jefferson Ridge, Lassiter): Travis Newberry to Sean and Jamilah McCulley; $737,000
3910 Rock Mill Parkway, 30062 (Rock Mill, Lassiter): Veronica and James Shaffer to BAF 3 LLC; $323,000
3442 Winter Wood Trace, 30062 (Country Crossing, Pope): Jamilah Franklin to Andrea Unanka; $420,000
3012 St. Andrews Way, 30062 (Ashford Pines, Pope): Southern States Investments LLC and Carl and V.L. Evans to Thomas Neuman and Dagmara Szkaradec and J & I Properties LLC; $415,879
564 Parliament Street, 30066 (Downing Street of Town Center, Sprayberry): Jennifer Gibson to Jordan and Wesley Gibson; $390,000
521 Yorkshire Drive, 30068 (Country Place East, Wheeler): SSDNJ Investments Corp. to Krista Wain; $495,000
2473 Cedar Canyon Road, 30067 (Cedar Canyon, Wheeler): Courtney Newton to Norey Smith; $230,500
1718 Woodwalk Creek Unit 2, 30339 (Riverwalk at Wildwood, Wheeler): Darlene Bostic to Denika Thomas; $605,000
Sept. 7
5023 S. Ellipse Road, 30066 (Wimbledon Place, Walton): Piarias de Cleir to GCO Capital LLC; $300,000
3357 Clair Circle, 30066 (Shaw Woods, Sprayberry): Andrew and Jennifer Cartwright to Janet Laney, Diane Farmer and Hanson Farmer Jr.; $420,000
1591 Sprayberry Drive, 30066 (Sprayberry Heights, Sprayberry: Robert and Lynn Palazzo to Suhey Cuellar and Ricardo Alcantar; $420,000
1570 Meadowview Drive, 30062 (Hasty Meadows, Sprayberry): Fan Jinghong to SFROC Georgia LLC; $280,000
471 Old Canton Road, 30068 (Sope Creek Farms, Wheeler): John Sheahan to Sean and Lindsay Dalberg; $425,000
2056 Pawnee Drive, 30067 (Cayuga Forrest, Wheeler): Roger Schmidt to Evan Kellams; $336,000
Sept. 8
4519 Dartmoor Drive, 30067 (Fainview Farm, Walton): Sandra Brown to Tracy Trentadue and James Monacell; $632,500
4970 Heritage Trace Court, 30068 (Heritage Trace, Walton): Jessica Lee to Hoang Tran and Khuyet Thi Nguyen; $460,000
495 Nottingham Drive, 30066 (Canterbury North, Sprayberry): Byron Jay Curlee to James and Joann Moore Revocable Trust; $250,000
671 Dozier Drive, 30066 (Breezecrest, Sprayberry): Mary Ellen and James McNeel to Marshall and Rachel Knox; $286,000
2212 Concord Square, 30062 (Concord Square, Sprayberry): Georgia Home Rescue LLC to Megan Height; $475,000
330 Nibblewill Place Unit 25, 30066 (Barrett Creek Townhomes, Sprayberry): Ronak Padhiar to Stephanie and George Landa; $329,999
3331 Casteel Road, 30062 (Post Oak Square, Pope): Stephanie Fahringer to Daniel Casillas; $450,000
2291 Woods Field Lane, 30062 (Post Oak Square, Pope): Colleen Halvorson to Eleven Collective LLC; $420,000
1701 Grist Mill Road, 30062 (Barnes Mill Lake, Wheeler): Eric Smith and Rochonda Pearson to Raycar Group LLCl $281,000
Sept. 9
2001 Winsted Way, 30062 (Easthampton The Estates, Walton): Stuart Dermer to Steven Alan Williams; $820,000
915 Tisdale Trail, 30068 (The Reserve at Olde Towne, Walton): Pulte Home Co. LLC to Michelle Jurecevich; $722,837
907 Tisdale Trail, 30068 (The Reserve at Olde Towne, Walton): Pulte Home Co. LLC to The Sheri Rosenberg Living Trust; $662,258
895 Tisdale Trail, 30068 (The Reserve at Olde Towne, Walton): Pulte Home Co. LLC to Subbiah and Meenakshi Venkatachalam and Sivagami Alagappan; $716,272
664 Serramonte Drive, 30068 (Villas at Parkaire, Walton): Karla Warnick to Joel Perez; $330,000
2862 Landing Drive, 30066 (Windsor Oaks, Lassiter): Sherry Winchester to Samuel and Mary Clay; $725,000
1250 Little Acres Place, 30066 (Philmont Estates, Sprayberry): Cherecobb Holdings LLC to Acosta Construction Co.; $218,500
3478 Sabrina Court, 30066 (Swanson Heights, Lassiter): Cato Homes LLC to Purchasing Fund 2021 1 LLC; $495,000
3100 Susan Court, 30066 (Russell Plantation Estates, Sprayberry): Charity Fincher to Teresa Lamprey; $415,000
2727 Country Lane, 30062 (Chimney Springs, Pope): Jeremy Wisneski to Rachel and James Parham; $720,000
3346 Camelot Drive, 30062 (Camelot, Pope): Laura Daniel Khligh to Layne and James Gainey; $407,000
2346 Wilderness Way, 30066 (Wilderness Ridge, Sprayberry): Cyrus Alan Brooks to Delaruelle Brumskine; $395,000
3587 Liberty Lane, 30062 (Independence Square, Walton): Brian Peterman to Brian Levenson and Michelle Freesman; $525,000
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The following Cobb food scores for the week of Sept. 19 have been compiled by the Cobb & Douglas Department of Public Health. Click the link under each listing for inspection details:
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The East Cobb-based Aloha to Aging non-profit will have a fall festival and expo Oct. 16 to provide resources and awareness for aging care recipients and their caregivers.
The “Generation to Generation” event will be held from 2-6 p.m. at Covenant Presbyterian Church (2881 Canton Road). It’s free and open to the public and will include participant prize drawings and chances to buy “Split the Pot” raffle tickets.
Aloha to Aging, Inc., which was founded in 2009, has expanded its service provisions to include Cherokee, DeKalb, Fulton and Paulding counties.
Last year A2A served more than 3,000 people (including volunteers) with services that include a social day respite program for those over 55 who no longer drive but want socialization activities away from home, monthly support groups for those with Early Onset Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and their caregivers and education and wellness programs to aid seniors and their family members.
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October’s just around the corner, and we’re starting to get word of Halloween-related events around the community for the public to enjoy.
Among the organizations taking part is the Mabry Middle Foundation, which will have a Haunted House event Oct. 22 that includes an immersive Halloween experience.
They’re calling it “The Fear Master’s Lab,” and it’s centered around the story of a professor driven MAD by his students and parents and just “wants payback for all the sleepless nights.”
According to the program promo, “things take a toxic turn though when he creates a laboratory specifically designed to extract people’s deepest and darkest fears and turn them into tools to haunt their nightmares.”
The event takes place from 7-10 p.m. at the Mabry Middle School campus (2700 Jims Road) and you can find more information and order tickets by clicking here.
According to a Foundation release, “The Fear Master’s Lab is aimed at providing a safe, local Halloween experience for area students while still providing the highest-level fright factor and entertainment. This event is the first of its kind for the East Cobb community.”
There also will be a pumpkin boutique selling professionally decorated pumpkins and a kids area (ages 10 and under) with games, crafts and other activities.
Proceeds from the ticket sales will be used by the foundation to support academic programs and facility improvements at the school.
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Three employees of schools in East Cobb were honored this week by the Cobb County School District.
They’re among the district’s classified employees of the year, which goes to those working in support staff positions: secretaries, custodians, nurses, food service staff, bus drivers, paraprofessionals, fleet maintenance and other categories.
The honors were announced during a luncheon this week at Roswell Street Baptist Church and are given at the elementary, middle and high school levels.
Just as was done last week with retired Cobb school district employees, the individuals were honored over the last two school years, since the event has been suspended for COVID-19 reasons.
District-level classified employees of the year from 2020-22 include Kathleen Riewerts (in the photo above), who is the Food and Nutrition Services manager at Daniell Middle School.
For the 2022-23 school year, school nurse Susan Murphy of Murdock Elementary School and Terri Robbins, the school secretary at Kell High School, were district-level winners.
They posed for the photos with their families and Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale.
“I love Kell, especially because we have such a wonderful team, Robbins said in a Cobb school district release. “I have the best principal. It’s a job that I am happy to go to every single day. I look forward to it. It is just the team that makes the whole experience worthwhile.”
“I have a love for food. I come from a big Italian family, and I love to be able to share that with the children and teach them about nutrition and food and different tastes and stuff,” Riewerts said in the release.
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Cobb school board chairman David Chastain is accusing his November election challenger of “trying to score some cheap political points” in comments she made about a special review conducted last year by the Cobb County School District’s accrediting agency.
In a campaign e-mail sent Wednesday, Chastain accused Catherine Pozniak of being “a politically activist opponent” for her criticisms of the board regarding the special review.
Chastain, a Republican, is vying for his third term representing Post 4, which includes the Kell and Sprayberry clusters and a portion of the Lassiter attendance zone. Pozniak is a Democrat who graduated from Sprayberry and only recently returned to East Cobb after attending college, teaching and being a school administrator in other states.
Near the top of Chastain’s e-mail was a headline entitled “The Discredited COGNIA Report,” under which he said he was “very proud of the SUCCESSFUL and VIGOROUS defense of our school’s accreditation.
“Engaging in selfish political behavior, which puts our students at risk, is not the type of leader we need on our Cobb school board.”
In March, just before Cognia, the Alpharetta-based accrediting agency, reversed findings of its special review, Pozniak blamed the board’s Republican majority for “not having a clear plan for teaching and learning.”
In an interview with the Cobb County Courier, Pozniak said “I think it’s unfortunate the way the board leadership has approached this, which is to not talk about it at all. These are not unfixable problems and issues, and while they are avoiding the topic, they are also not coming to a solution.”
In his e-mail this week, Chastain included the first part of the first sentence and highlighted it in yellow, as well as her charge about the board “avoiding the topic.” He didn’t cite the specific source except to say “local media blogs.”
Under an italicized headline in red, “NEWS ALERT,” Chastain said “the problem for my politically activist opponent comes directly from the recanted accreditation report. . . . ‘there was no real issue.’ ”
That’s a quote from Cognia president Mark Elgart, who in announcing the reversal told the board that the agency’s special review team “did not adequately contextualize or incorporate factual evidence provided by the School District, drawing erroneous conclusions.”
The initial report, issued in November 2021, gave the district a year to make improvements in several areas. All of them were rescinded with the exception of board governance.
The Cobb school board has a 4-3 Republican majority, and the Post 4 race could determine party control.
Chastain is the only Republican board member on the ballot this year.
He easily defeated Democrats in his first two elections in a post considered to be strongly conservative.
But Pozniak has outraised Chastain, who held a fundraiser last month at Atlanta Country Club.
She has $18,357 in cash on hand and has raised $7,505 since January, according to her latest financial disclosure reports. In all, Pozniak is reporting she has raised nearly $23,000.
Chastain, a Wheeler High School graduate, has collected $5,625 in the first six months of 2022 and has $4,850 on hand.
In his e-mail this week, Chastain wrote that Cognia realized it had been “played” by “some political activists and some rogue board members,” a reference to the board’s three Democrats who asked the accreditor to conduct a review.
He accused Pozniak of “joining the assault on our students and our schools.”
Pozniak told East Cobb News that in her discussions with parents on the campaign trail, “Cognia doesn’t come up” that often.
She said the comments she made to the Courier were published on March 3. The following day, the school board announced a special-called meeting for March 7, at which the accrediting agency reversed the findings of the special review.
“My quotes in that article were not in reaction to Cognia’s reversal–it hadn’t happened, yet,” she said
“I hear a lot from parents who have reached out to him and they hear nothing from him,” Pozniak said of Chastain.
“People who have not heard back from him are now being reached out to under these circumstances,” Pozniak said, a reference to Chastain’s campaign e-mails.
She said she’s seen the most recent e-mail and said it contains “petty stuff.”
Pozniak also called out board leadership for not publicly responding to more recent issues, including complaints of a new East Side Elementary School logo resembling a Nazi symbol, and school safety measures that include hiring armed non-police personnel at schools.
“People are dissatisfied with what they are seeing from this board,” she said. “There’s not one issue that’s driving this race.”
East Cobb News contacted Chastain seeking comment, and he requested questions via e-mail. He replied late Friday afternoon.
When asked to identify the “political activists,” Chastain said the following, via a campaign media coordinator:
“It has been extensively documented who has sought to tarnish the Cobb County School District’s great reputation, in public comments, emails, social media comments, and those who aggressively seek face-time on television and the radio. In addition, a quick review of Pozniak’s campaign donation list clearly demonstrates groups and individuals who do not share Cobb County values in limiting instruction to the state standards.
“We will consider putting some links on our website and other platforms in the very near future to assist voters to understand who those groups or individuals are. On the first review, it seems like it would be a good addition to our messaging and education of the voters.”
He also was asked who is receiving the e-mails and whether some of the addresses may have come from a list kept by fellow East Cobb board member David Banks, who sends out an occasional e-mail newsletter.
Chastain said that “while it is unfortunate that Catherine Pozniak has only lived in Cobb County for only a few months as an adult, the harsh reality is that her failing campaign simply does not have the right to know where our numerous email lists come from and how far our broad base of support extends.”
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Starting Oct. 3, Cobb library patrons will be able to check out materials to help them in the process of becoming American citizens.
The Citizenship and Civics guides include “official U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) publications and study guides on the naturalization process, according to a Cobb County Public Library System release.
Katherine Zavala, a member of the library’s Community and User Engagement department, said the kits also will help aspiring citizens prepare to meet with an immigration attorney. More from the release:
“The kit contains publications on the rights and responsibilities of immigrants seeking to become a U.S. citizen, quick civic lessons for the naturalization test, flashcards in English and Spanish on naturalization, and a Citizenship Resources at the Library sheet. The checkout period for the kit is three weeks.”
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The 2.55-acre parcel at the intersection of Terrell Mill and Delk roads and has an older homesite. Zoning staff has recommended denial, noting that the property is surrounded by residential areas and does not conform to the county’s comprehensive land-use plan which calls for medium-density housing in that area. 
