Bring your fishing pole (and license) to Ebenezer Downs Park Saturday morning.
There’s a good chance of rain with a number of free outdoor-oriented events scheduled in East Cobb, so check weather updates before heading out.
On Friday, another weekly Electric Avenue Concert take place at The Avenue East Cobb (4475 Roswell Road) near what’s going to become the heart of the retail center’s redevelopment. From 6-8 p.m. guitarist Jeff Gillman will be performing on stage. You can bring your own tailgate chairs but coolers and outside beverages are not allowed.
The Battery Atlanta will be the venue Saturday morning for the American Heart Association’s Greater Atlanta Heart Walk. It’s free for individuals and groups to take part (although they’re asked to register) to help raise funds and awareness for improving heart health and reducing heart disease (800 Battery Avenue).
Saturday morning recreational events are on tap, with a fishing outing on tap from 9-10:30 a.m. at Ebenezer Downs Park (4055 Ebenezer Road). It’s Fish With Your Commish, District 3 Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell’s occasional series of community meetings at the area’s newest passive park. It’s also being billed as a chance to have a “Conversation With Your Cop,” as Cobb Police personnel will be on hand to talk about public safety issues. If you’re going to bring a fishing pole, make sure to bring your license too.
The monthly Hyde Farm Walking Tours led by Cobb Parks and Recreation continue Saturday at 10 a.m. and 11 a.m., and give the public a chance to explore what life on an 1840s-era working farm was like. The 45-minute walks explore the Chattahoochee River and lowland forests, lush with orchards and wildlife. The walks are free; but you’re asked to register at the above link (721 Hyde Road).
Sunday afternoon marks the fall return of Music in the Park, sponsored by Friends for the East Cobb Park. The electic sounds of the Dark Star Brothers can be heard from 4-6, and you can bring chairs, blankets and food to quad by the concert shell. Other concerts in the series are Sept. 25 and Oct. 9 (3320 Roswell Road).
You can find our calendar listings in one handy place on our site. If you have events to share with the public, please e-mail: calendar@eastcobbnews.com and we will post them here.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
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!\
Photo Credit: Chris Savas for Georgia Symphony Orchestra
The Marietta-based Georgia Symphony Orchestra has announced what it’s calling a “Give Back” initiative to award funding to music programs in metro Atlanta, specifically in local schools.
According to a GSO release, participating programs will receive 15 percent of all ticket sales associated with their organization through the 2022-23 season.
That season begins Saturday with a “Brass Splash” event. “Give Back” participants will receive their donations at the end of the season, when ticket sales are finalized.
“We want to partner with the community to invest in local schools,” Susan Stensland, the GSO’s interim co-executive director, said in the release. “This initiative perfectly aligns with our mission to enrich our community and to instill and fulfill a lifelong appreciation for the arts.”
The GSO’s 72nd season includes nine concerts and 14 performances, including matinees, and concerts also will include the GSO Chorus and the GSO Jazz ensembles.
For more information and for music program partnership eligibility details, e-mail info@georgiasymphony.org or call 770-615-2908.
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 handful of public electric vehicle charging stations in East Cobb are primarily centered along Johnson Ferry Road.
The latest are at Parkaire Landing Shopping Center, where two free Volta charging stations have been installed in the corner of the parking lot closest to the East Cobb Library.
They provide a Level 2 charge, delivering 6.2 to 19.2 kilowatts, requiring a 208-240 Volt, 40 Amp circuit.
According to Evocharge, an EV charging station manufacturer, a Level 2 charge typically provides 32 miles of driving range per hour of charge, and takes an estimated 6-8 hours to fully charge.
Most electric vehicles are equipped with a Level 1 charge that provides a 1.2 kilowatt charge using a common household 120-volt circuit and provides typically four hours of driving range per hour of charge. The estimated time for a full charge is 11-20 hours.
Based in San Francisco, Volta has nearly 3,000 free EV charging stations across the country, including nearly 200 in metro Atlanta. Volta also has installed six chargers at Six Flags Whitewater and four at Town Center at Cobb.
Other EV charging stations in East Cobb charge customers to use their stations.
SemaConnect has installed two Level 2 stations at Woodlawn Point Shopping Center (1100 Johnson Ferry Road) that costs $1.50 an hour.
The same cost applies for two Level 2 chargers at the Koala Express Shell Station (1280 Johnson Ferry Road).
At Merchants Walk (1311 Johnson Ferry Road), there are two ChargePoint Level 2 chargers at the front entrance to the Kohl’s department store. The cost is $1.25 an hour.
The AAA Car Care Plus at 1197 Johnson Ferry Road has two EVGo Level 3 chargers. Those are considered the fastest chargers. An EVGo membership is required, and there are various levels of charging rates available.
Charge Hub, which helps EV drivers find charging stations, has created an interactive map. Other East Cobb-area EV stations include the Walgreens at 2975 Delk Road, the Franklin Gateway Sports Complex and GE Complex at Wildwood Office Park.
EV owners are encouraged to check with each charging station provider for availability, pricing and reservations before heading to the pumps.
Rivian, which received more than $1.5 billion in state tax incentives in the largest industrial project in Georgia, has drawn opposition for environmental reasons, and from locals who don’t want their rural way of life to be affected.
California recently became the first state in the country to ban the production of gasoline-fueled vehicles, by 2035, and other states could follow suit.
Georgia is not among those states that have tied state laws to federal vehicle emissions standards.
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!
Fall break in the Cobb County School District takes place from Sept. 26-30, and special arts-oriented camps have been scheduled for children during that week.
They include dance camps at The Art Place-Mountain View (3330 Sandy Plains Road) called Get It! Jazz and Hip Hop Dance Camp for children ages 6-10. There’s also the Island Adventure Musical Theater Camp for children ages 6-12. Please register online or call 770-509-2700.
At the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center (2051 Lower Roswell Road), there will be a Disney-themed Island Adventure Musical Theater Camp for children ages 5-12. Register online, in person, or over the phone at 770-509-2711.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
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!
Last year James Whitcomb, an East Cobb resident, swam 10 miles at the Mountain View Aquatic Center to help raise money for Tunnel to Towers.
He got pledges exceeding $20K, and recently let us know he’s asking for the same this year as he repeats his “Mega Swim” challenge.
This year, however, he’s extending his time in the pool to 13.1 miles—a half-marathon—when he pops into the pool at 6:30 a.m. Friday.
Tunnell to Towers is a non-profit that assists seriously injured first responders and military veterans with mortgage-free homes and other housing assistance.
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!
A participant in a 2018 town hall regarding the Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center expresses a common sentiment of our times.
In April, the journalist-turned-venture capital entrepreneur Katherine Boyle penned a widely-read essay that really lit a fire under me at the right time.
A reporter at The Washington Post when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos purchased the newspaper, Boyle has had a front-row seat at the convergence of media and technology in the early 21st century.
She’s now a general partner at Andreesen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley VC firm started by Marc Andreesen, the web browser pioneer behind Mosaic and Netscape.
Boyle has made the leap of many journalists going into something else over the last two decades, as our profession and various media industries have been in major transformation if not rapid decline.
In her piece for the Common Sense newsletter founded by Bari Weiss, a former columnist at The New York Times, Boyle concluded that American dynamism is lagging primarily because we’re just not all that serious about building for the future.
She takes aim at the massive institutional decay and warped priorities that have marked our times. Yet she strikes a tone of optimism in closing when she writes that “We do not need aging institutions to pave the way for American dynamism. But we need American will.”
I nodded my head often while reading this blunt, but hopeful argument. This paragraph from Boyle in particular I want to shoot straight into my veins:
“Building is an action, a choice, a decision to create and move. It is shovels in the dirt with a motley crew of doers who get the job done because no one else will. Building is the only certainty. The only thing we can control. When the projects we believed were Teflon strong are fraying like the history they toppled, the only thing to do is to make something new again.”
I’m among the journalists who couldn’t imagine doing anything else but the news, and that’s what prompted me to start East Cobb News. The idea was to bootstrap it for a couple of years, then ramp up the editorial and business side.
In March 2020, just as I was seeking office space and lining up freelancers, the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, and we all know what happened next. I buckled up to cover a story unlike anything else in my 40 years as a professional journalist.
Building something from scratch is hard enough, but carrying on during such a surreal time was something I never imagined.
There were days when I literally did not know what day it was, or if I would ever write something that wasn’t about COVID.
As I’ve noted previously, we got major increases in web traffic due to extensive coverage of the local COVID response, which affected people in every aspect of their daily lives.
That was a silver lining, to know how valuable your product has become to others, and I’ve tried to identify others as we appear to have put the worst of the pandemic behind us.
As another Labor Day holiday approaches, I feel very gratified to have made it this far, re-energized and grateful to the community that we’re serving.
I hear from readers frequently about how they appreciate what they read at East Cobb News, and I can’t overstate how much that means to me. I get some complaints, too, and try to address them in the same way as the compliments.
It was 14 years ago this week that I left the newspaper business, when I took a buyout at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I was taken aback this week to read that the place that nourished my career over 18 years appears to be ending daily print editions, publishing a newspaper only on the weekend.
This scenario isn’t all that surprising, and other newspapers are likely to follow suit.
The ink-stained wretches in my profession have been nostalgic about the old days for years. While I will always love what newspapers have been (for the most part), the news isn’t about a delivery system. It’s not about the feel of a newspaper in your hands with your morning coffee.
Tactile pleasures aside, it’s about the news, and the best way to provide it and deliver it to a readership. That’s why it’s imperative to keep building outlets that meet their readers and advertisers where they are.
The slogan under my masthead is “Local News for the Way You Live Today,” and that’s my the premise of my building project.
I’ve watched my own industry evaporate in front of my eyes, and chronicled the last couple years of death and loss during a pandemic, tearing and burning things down, the ripping apart of the social fabric and the public trust. All I want to do is keep building, keep making this site the best it can be for a community that nurtured me.
It’s not on a scale of the tech companies or a larger news media entity. I’ve planted a seed where I am, and want to cultivate it.
Most of all, I want to build something that will outlast me. A former colleague at Patch who started her own news site and magazine in Walton County has sold them to the local newspaper.
Her example and determination helped inspire me to start East Cobb News. Cynthia Rozzo, the founder of the EAST COBBER, recently sold the magazine to her advertising manager, Laren Brown, who is carrying the publication into its third decade.
That’s remarkable staying power, something I hope to realize some day. But there’s still a lot of building to do. I’m unpacking the results of a recent reader survey, and plotting out editorial and business objectives for the rest of the year.
For the first time in a long time, however, I’m going to take a couple days away from the screen, Sunday and Monday—barring major breaking news—and absorb the true meaning of Labor Day.
I hope you will too, and I encourage you to stay in touch.
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 McCleskey Family-East Cobb YMCA and Northeast Cobb YMCA are among the branches participating in the Metro Atlanta YMCA’s Annual Days of Service events next Saturday, Sept. 10.
The events bring together volunteers to complete service projects at the branches and to benefit those in need in surrounding communities.
The McCleskey-East Cobb Family YMCA (1055 E. Piedmont Road) will host volunteers to assist with outdoor painting projects from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
The Northeast Cobb Family YMCA (3010 Johnson Ferry Road) will host volunteers for a beautification day, also from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Volunteers will assist with weeding, trimming, painting curbs, and cleaning up the parking lot. The Northeast Y will also be packing hygiene kits and making blankets for children.
For information and to sign up to volunteer, 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!
The 14th Cobb Diaper Day is returning in September and October in virtual format, with a goal of collecting 100,000 diapers for families in need.
Simple Needs GA is one of the Cobb non-profits distributing diapers to parents in need.
Organizers said those interested in contributing can do so in several ways. They can make direct contribution to the Cobb Diaper Day website, purchase them on Amazon through the Cobb Diaper Day Wish-list and declare a collection day at workplaces and organizations and with families and friends.
Since its inception in 2008, the non-profit Cobb Diaper Day has collected and distributed more than a million diapers.
Two Wednesdays in October have been designated for dropping off diapers at the solar flower garden of Cobb EMC (1000 Emc Pkwy NE, Marietta): Oct. 12 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and Oct. 26 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Once collected, the diapers will be turned over to several community organizations for final distribution:
Cobb Douglas Public Health Teen Pregnancy Program
Communities in Schools of Georgia in Marietta/Cobb County
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!
Single-family homes on half-acre lots are being planned by Brooks Chadwick. For a larger view, click here.
A noted East Cobb development firm will soon submit plans to Cobb officials for a single-family subdivision on Shallowford Road near Blackwell Road.
Brooks Chadwick is proposing to build 29 homes on nearly 18 acres of the Powers property, which includes a 13-acre lake.
But the developer isn’t seeking a change from the present R-20 zoning, so there won’t be any public meetings.
Todd Thrasher, a managing partner at Brooks Chadwick Capital LLC, told East Cobb News that although there’s a denser R-15 neighborhood nearby, “we feel like our future community will be prettier, and allow for a better development as an R-20 community than if we were to rezone and cramming for density on our site.”
The issue of density has come up about the project, and Thrasher said “I wanted the community to know that we’re not putting up apartments.”
Density has become a hot topic in recent months in an area of Northeast Cobb that’s been undergoing substantial development.
Cobb commissioners last fall approved a 92-home subdivision on Ebenezer Road despite objections from nearby residents over density and stormwater issues, but the developer, Pulte Homes, later pulled out of the project.
Also last year, commissioners approved the redevelopment of the Sprayberry Corners Shopping Center that includes senior apartments. A plan to include market-rate apartments was scotched by the developer, Atlantic Realty, after commissioner JoAnn Birrell opposed them.
The Powers property is is in an area that is strictly single-family residential.
The homes being planned by Brooks Chadwick in its 23rd residential development in East Cobb would start at around 4,000 square feet, with prices starting around $1 million.
Thrasher said they’re just inside the Lassiter High School attendance zone and will have one access point, on Shallowford Road.
Brooks Chadwick sold off those 49 acres to other developers and Thrasher said his firm is likely to follow suit with the Shallowford Road property.
“We’ll buy the land, put the street in” as well as other basic infrastructure before selling off to another homebuilder, Thrasher said.
The Powers property includes 42 acres, and he said that land along the north side, bordered by Eula Drive, is being sold to another builder for nine residential lots.
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!
John Swierenga, owner of Trash Taxi: “We can fix this without disrupting what we have.”
A number of mostly small and independent trash haulers pleaded with Cobb officials Wednesday to work with them to resolve long-standing service issues.
Most adamantly, they asked that Cobb not approve a code amendment that they claimed would put many of them out of business.
Even before the “trash summit” at the Cobb Civic Center, Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said neither she nor any of her colleagues were in favor of a designating a single hauler for each of four commissioner districts.
That was at the heart of a proposal by the Cobb Sustainability, Solid Waste and Beautification director presented last week during a work session.
Commissioner JoAnn Birrell had previously suggested delaying trash service changes until January, but Cupid was hopeful changes to the proposal could be hammered out by the time commissioners vote on code amendments later this month.
UPDATE: After we published this story, Birrell included the following information in her weekly e-mail newsletter:
“As the code amendment package has been advertised, there will still be a public hearing at 9 a.m. on Sept. 13 on all proposed code amendments. However, after the public hearing, we plan to make a motion and vote to table the Solid Waste code section. It is a consensus of the BOC—none of us are in favor of the proposed one hauler per district.”
She and fellow Republican commissioner Keli Gambrill attended the summit along with Cupid. You can watch the full two-hour summit below.
The trash-related proposals are expected to be pulled before commissioners vote on code amendments later this month.
“We want a code amendment framework to address all these issues,” Cupid said at the outset of the meeting, referring to five areas of concern that she said have continued since the recession.
They include some areas that haulers will not serve, inconsistent service, multiple trash haulers serving the same neighborhood, illegal dumping and a lack of curbside recycling.
Kimberly White, executive director of Keep Cobb Beautiful, a government agency, said the county had to close several recycling dropoff spots it maintained because the private hauler it contracted with “couldn’t keep up.”
Some of those locations became an eyesore, she said, and KCB is trying to reopen more spots.
Shannan Salvey, co-owner of S & B Junk Removal, said in prepared remarks that the county “couldn’t handle recycling and now you want to manage trash for the whole county.”
She said the proposed code amendment would “take away our customers’ pursuit of happiness.” A single-hauler monopoly, she said, goes against “the foundations of our country.”
Unlike the previous work session, Wednesday’s meeting with the haulers included a lengthy discussion on recycling.
The proposed code amendment also would have required trash haulers to provide recycling services, something Cupid said residents have been complaining about.
Jon Swierenga of East Cobb, owner of Trash Taxi, said he and other haulers offer recycling, but it’s not mandatory and it comes with an additional fee.
When White said that “charging extra for recycling is too much” for some customers, he responded that “it’s not that we don’t want to recycle. But we cannot absorb all that cost.
“It’s not that the service isn’t available,” Swierenga said. “It’s that customers don’t want to pay for it. That’s the issue. We want to provide the services but we can’t do it for free.”
Also sitting at the table was Parks Huff, a noted Cobb zoning attorney who was representing the haulers. He suggested improving communications with the public as well as the haulers.
“It costs the same to pick up recycling as it does trash,” he said. “That needs to be communicated.”
He also said he didn’t know there was a recycling station at Lost Mountain Park until he went there one day.
Haulers said they were blindsided by the code amendment, which was proposed without their input. Jonathan Jenkins, head of the Cobb solid waste department, said he hadn’t met with haulers since 2019.
“We need time to address these issues,” Swierenga said. “We would like to hear of complaints that we can respond to in 24-48 hours. We can fix this without disrupting what we have.”
He said he was optimistic in saying that “I see a win-win down the road on this.”
Cupid reiterated that there isn’t a proposed 18 percent fee increases for sanitation services that some opponents of the proposed code amendments had claimed.
“We want every resident to have access to trash service, a robust recycling program and reduce litter in the county,” she said in a statement in her newsletter Friday. “This is a constructive meeting, and we are going to work to improve communications and work towards a solution.”
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 was sentenced last week on child sexual exploitation charges after pleading guilty in Cobb Superior Court.
Steven D. Porter, 65, was given a 10-year sentence by Judge Gregory Poole and ordered to serve two years in prison, according to Cobb Superior Court records.
The Cobb District Attorney’s office said a jury trial call was scheduled for Porter’s case last Tuesday, Aug. 23, but he entered a guilty plea instead.
Porter was taken into custody in the courtroom and was held at the Cobb County Adult Detention Center before being transferred to the Georgia state prison system Thursday afternoon, according to Cobb Sheriff’s Office records.
Porter was charged in April 2021 after Cobb Police executed a search warrant at his home and found on a thumb drive more than 300 photos and videos of children performing sexually explicit acts, according to his arrest warrant.
According to the arrest warrant, police sought the search warrant after someone uploaded sexually abusive material involving children to an IP address connected to a residence on Snowchase Way, located off Freeman Road near Johnson Ferry Road, between Aug. 2, 2016 and April 1, 2021.
Porter was released in April 2021 after posting an $11,200 bond, according to court records.
He was indicted on 10 counts of child sexual exploitation in October. According to the indictments, the photos and videos found at his home depicted children between the ages of 6 and 12, some posing nude, engaging in acts of intercourse and sodomy with adult males.
In Porter’s sentencing, all 10 counts were merged together, according to court records. Terms of his probation include no contact with minors, except for supervised visits with his biological grandchildren in the presence of adult family members.
In December, Porter requested a bond modification to allow for visitation with his seven grandchildren, who range in age from 3 to 10, according to court records.
Poole allowed Porter to have in-person and virtual visitations that required his wife and the children’s parents to be present at all times. His wife also was required to record the virtual calls with his grandchildren, the court records show.
After his release, Porter also will not be allowed to possess or subscribe to sexually oriented material and he cannot utilize a 900 phone number or rent a post office box or drop box without approval of a probation officer.
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 playing of “Hava Nagila” is a long-standing tradition at Noshfest.
For the first time since 2019, Noshfest is a go.
The Jewish food and cultural festival at Temple Kol Emeth (1415 Old Canton Road) returns to its usual time slot—the Labor Day holiday weekend—in a format similar to pre-COVID.
After postponing the 2020 event to Spring 2021, organizers called that off too, and said the 2022 festival would take place in September.
The event, now in its 10th year, is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday and Monday.
Entry is free but you’re asked to bring two cans of food per family to be donated to MUST Ministries.
In addition to food vendors and cooking demonstrations, the schedule includes live entertainment, tours of the synagogue, a kids’ zone, crafts, face-painting and dancing.
Among the Noshfest food items include noodle kugel, potato knish, cheese blintz, bagels with cream cheese, Dr. Brown’s sodas, babka, halvah, pastrami and corned beef on rye and Hebrew National hot dogs.
The local food vendors include Alumni Cookie Dough, Bagelicious, Marietta Diner and Shish Kabob Mediterranean Grill.
You can find East Cobb News calendar listings in one handy place on our site. If you have events to share with the public, please e-mail: calendar@eastcobbnews.com and we will post them here.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
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!
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has again extended a suspension of the state’s gas tax that was due to expire this month.
Instead, he is continuing the suspension of the 29-cents-a-gallon tax for gasoline and 32-cents-a-gallon for diesel through Oct. 12. The suspension has been in place since March, and has been extended several times before.
Although gasoline prices continue to fall—to under $3.50 a gallon in many parts of East Cobb—Kemp cited continuing inflation elsewhere and supply chain issues.
Kemp, a Republican who is seeking re-election in November, blamed Democrats in Congress and said that “we can’t fix everything Washington has broken, but we can use the resources we have as a result of our responsible budgeting to keep more money in the pockets of hardworking Georgians.”
His announcement comes right before the Labor Day holiday weekend, and the new extension approaches the elections.
Stacey Abrams, Kemp’s Democratic opponent, has urged that he extend the gas tax suspension through the end of the year.
She hasn’t issued a statement on the latest extension, but when Kemp renewed the extension in August, she accused him of refusing “to provide Georgians with the stability they deserve and commit to a full-year suspension.”
The Georgia Department of Revenue estimates that the state gas taxes raise around $150 million a month for road maintenance projects.
Georgia motorists still pay a federal gas tax of 18 cents a gallon.
According to AAA-The Auto Club Group, Georgia’s gas prices are among the lowest in the country, as are most Southern states.
The current statewide average of $3.38 a gallon is “5 cents less than a week ago, 44 cents less than a month ago, and 43 cents more than this time last year,” AAA noted on Monday.
Metro Atlanta’s average of $3.43 a gallon is among the highest areas in the state.
In early June, the statewide average was $4.49 a gallon.
The most expensive state for gas is California, which averages $5.25 cents a gallon.
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 Flying Biscuit Cafe at Parkaire Landing has been closed since mid-August due to what the company is saying is an ownership and management change.
The new proprietors have been hiring staff and have been off-site for training, according to a Flying Biscuit social media post.
They have announced a reopening date of Sept. 12. We’ve contacted the company for more information on what’s behind the changes and what customers can expect when they return.
This is Flying Biscuit’s second stint in the East Cobb area. The 3,000-square-foot Parkaire location opened in March 2021 in the former La Vida Massage space after a delay of more than a year due to COVID-19.
Flying Biscuit left East Cobb in 2010 in a freestanding space at Woodlawn Commons now occupied by Chase Bank.
The Atlanta-based breakfast and lunch chain has 12 restaurants in metro Atlanta and another in Athens, five in North Carolina, four in South Carolina, two each in Alabama and Florida and one in Texas.
Cobb Foodie Week set
Several East Cobb restaurants are taking part in Cobb Foodie Week, a promotion of Cobb Travel & Tourism that takes place from Sept. 10-17.
The restaurants establish their own specials, discounts and menu options. The East Cobb participants include the following:
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 commissioner Jerica Richardson’s latest “Community Huddle”—a virtual meeting for constituents to discuss county government issues—concerns proposed code amendments.
Cobb code amendments are updated twice a year, and the current proposals cover 10 areas of the ordinance.
The Cobb Community Development Agency is coming back to commissioners to attempt to regulate AirBNB short-term rentals, especially AirBNBs (Chapter 78).
The proposed amendment would require a short-term rental certificate from the county business license office, a local agent to be available 24 hours a day and following occupancy and vehicle limits.
The county also is proposing to expand its authority in the inspection of multi-family rental housing units (Chapter 18) to include a required occupational tax for apartment complex owners and inspection of a quarter of a complex’ units every year.
Commissioners will hold specific public hearings on the code amendments on Sept. 13 and Sept. 27, before voting on them on the latter date.
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 Jason Cunningham Charitable Foundation, a non-profit that assists children with hearing loss, is holding a golf fundraiser in the fall.
The Jason Cunningham Charity Golf Classic takes place Oct. 17 at Horseshoe Bend Country Club (2100 Steeplechase Lane, Roswell) and includes prizes and other activities.
Cunningham, a 1999 graduate of Wheeler High School, suffered from hearing loss as a child, and he ultimately received hearing aids. But as an adult his communications issues led to depression, and he died in 2015 at the age of 34.
His friends and family began the foundation to raise funds and awareness for children who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Since its inception six years ago, the JCCF has raised more than $400,000 to provide financial assistance for education, advanced hearing technology and medical care to more than 60 families and more than 300 children.
For information about the foundation and to sign up for the golf event, 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!
The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration recently moved to new offices on Roswell Street near the Big Chicken.
There’s an Open House scheduled for next Saturday, Sept. 10 that also will include a job fair to fill positions for the November general elections.
The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the new facility, 995 Roswell Street, Marietta.
The agency recently moved there from offices on Whitlock Avenue. The Cobb elections board voted earlier this month to relocate early voting to the headquarters, which features expanded and more secure space.
The ribbon cutting takes place at 11 a.m., and the job fair starts at 12 noon.
Representatives from every department within the elections office will be available to speak with job candidates about the open positions, which include poll workers, warehouse prep and more.
For more information about Cobb Elections, 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!
The Cobb County Public Library System said Monday that Sunday hours at its main branch and three regional libraries will resume starting Sept. 11.
Those locations include the Mountain View Regional Library (3320 Sandy Plains Road), as well as the main Switzer Library in downtown Marietta, the South Cobb Regional Library in Mableton and the West Cobb Regional Library in Kennesaw.
According to a release sent by the library system, they’re the largest libraries in the system.
The hours will be what they were before the pandemic—1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
For more on the services at the Mountain View Regional Library, click here. The phone number is 770-509-2725.
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!
Instead, he is continuing the suspension of the 29-cents-a-gallon tax for gasoline and 32-cents-a-gallon for diesel through Oct. 12. The suspension has been in place since March, and has been extended several times before.
