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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Among the recent retirees of the Cobb County School District are several people who served at schools in East Cobb for more than 30 years.
They were honored last week as part of a 335-member group that retired in 2020, 2021 and 2022 in the first such event since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The luncheon at Roswell Street Baptist Church featured remarks from Cobb schools Superintendent Chris Ragsdale, and several board members were also present.
Among the longest-serving retirees were Shane Amos, a teacher and coach at Walton High School for 36 years; Wanda Waldrop, a custodian at Addison Elementary School, who served 35 years; and Nancy Janas, a teacher at Mountain View Elementary School for 35 years.
Also honored was Mary Ortland, the longtime nurse at Dodgen Middle School.
The retirees worked a combined 7,523 years in the Cobb County School District.
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The Georgia Secretary of State’s office is providing sample ballots for voters for the 2022 general elections that culminate on Nov. 8.
The revamped My Voter Page (click here) allows voters to access a customized sample ballot that includes candidates in all the elected offices for which they are eligible to vote.
That includes federal, state and local offices and four statewide ballot questions.
In addition to a U.S. Senate seat, Georgia governor and all state constitutional offices will be decided, along with all legislative and U.S. House seats.
In Cobb, there’s just one countywide race—Cobb Solicitor—and in East Cobb, voters will be deciding District 3 Cobb Board of Commissioners and Post 4 Cobb Board of Education representatives.
Two Republican incumbents are being challenged in those races: Commissioner JoAnn Birrell by Democrat Christine Triebsch, and current school board chairman David Chastain by Democrat Catherine Pozniak.
Post 4 on the Cobb school board still includes most of the Kell and Sprayberry attendance zones and has been redrawn to include some of the Lassiter cluster.
Redistricting also given voters East Cobb a second member of Congress and additional legislative seats.
The area will have two representatives in the U.S. House: District 6, which will have a new member after incumbent Democrat Lucy McBath opted to run in the 7th District, and the 11th District, in which GOP incumbent Barry Loudermilk is seeking re-election.
House districts 37, 43, 44, 45 and 46 will continue to have East Cobb constituencies, but the lines have been reapportioned substantially in some instances.
State Senate District 32, which has included most of East Cobb, has been redrawn to include a portion of Northeast Cobb and some of Cherokee. Senate districts 6 and 56 will now include portions of East Cobb in addition to north Fulton.
The Secretary of State’s office also has launched BallotTrax, which enables absentee voters to securely follow their ballots, whether they were mailed in or dropped off in person.
Any registered voter may apply for an absentee ballot, and the earliest day to mail an absentee ballot is Oct. 11. That’s also the last day to apply to register to vote.
The last day to apply for an absentee ballot is Oct. 22.
Advance voting will take place in Cobb from Oct. 17 to Nov. 4.
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On Aug. 24 members of the Kiwanis Club of Marietta Golden K and the Lost Mountain Kiwanis Club sponsored the 27th Annual Youth Charity Golf Tournament at BridgeMill Athletic Club in Canton that raised more than $40,000 for various charitable organizations.
They support Circle K Clubs at the college level, Key Clubs in high school, Builders clubs in middle schools, K kids programs and the Silver Pen writing contest in elementary schools. Kiwanians also provide mentoring and storytime reading at area schools.
More than 100 golfers representing local counties took part in the shotgun start event, which included goodie bags, greens fees, two mulligans and a raffle ticket.
Prizes were awarded for the Longest Drive, Straightest Drive and Closest to the pin.
The buffet lunch included a live auction that raffled off 15 gift baskets ranging in value from $350 to $500.
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The Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday rejected a proposal to build an environmentally-friendly subdivision in the Northeast Cobb area after a contentious series of meetings.
The board voted 4-0 to deny a request by Green Community Development, an Atlanta developer, for 13 homes on 7.5 acres of severely sloping terrain off Kinridge Court.
Cobb zoning staff and other agencies recommended denial for density, stormwater runoff and traffic issues. The Cobb Planning Commission recommended denial in July.
Green had initially proposed 16 homes in asking to switch from R-20 to OSC-1 zoning. That’s a category that stands for Open Space Community and includes the designation of additional green space (staff analysis here).
The homes in the proposed Serenesee at Kinridge subdivision were to have rooftop gardens, “greenpaved” parking and other sustainability and LEED features, that the applicant, Christopher Hunt, proclaimed would win awards.
But his combative conduct has been out of the ordinary for Cobb zoning hearings. In making a motion to deny the request, Commissioner JoAnn Birrell said the case was “very contentious, to say the least.”
She didn’t reference Hunt by name but said that comments made to Cobb zoning staff, nearby residents and the East Cobb Civic Association during the process are something “I don’t appreciate or tolerate.”
There was a community meeting about the request that Birrell organized but said she left “when the name-calling began.”
When Hunt raised his hand to respond, she said she wouldn’t be calling on him. He spoke out anyway, and Chairwoman Lisa Cupid admonished him to remain quiet.
During his presentation Tuesday, Hunt complained about a list of recommendations from the ECCA that he claimed were “90 percent false.”
He accused the civic group of providing “misinformation” that he said he wasn’t given an opportunity to rebut.
Hunt said the reduction of homes to 13 constitutes a density less than nearby neighborhoods, and that the proposed buffers around the property are “200 percent” in excess of what the county requires.
“I’m trying to be sustainable,” he pleaded, further blasting the ECCA for its “unethical, sabotaging efforts.”
Hunt asked commissioners to delay the request by another month to respond to the ECCA recommendations.
Jill Flamm of the ECCA also presented a petition signed by 66 neighbors in opposition and said that it’s “unfortunate that the applicant has chosen to conduct himself in this manner during this process.”
She reiterated traffic and stormwater concerns, as did a Kinridge Court resident who noted a previous zoning case on the same land years ago to build only four homes was turned down.
Birrell asked Carl Carver of Cobb Stormwater Management about how runoff would be handled given the topography of the property.
He said that stormwater currently “sheds off in almost all directions,” and to capture runoff from what was proposed likely would require “level separators” that he said “would be difficult on the side of a steep slope.”
Amy Diaz of Cobb DOT said that although the peak traffic estimate would only be 13 vehicles, the daily estimate was 130 vehicles on a slender, privately maintained street on a downward slope.
Commissioner Keli Gambrill was absent from the meeting.
Earlier during the hearing, commissioners approved a motion by Birrell to continue a request to build a gas station and car wash at Trickum Road and Sandy Plains Road.
Southern Gas Partners LLC has substantially revised an application (new site plan here; additional stipulations here) that would cut the 24/7 hours of a convenience store to 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. and limit traffic access for both roads to right-in, right-out only.
But nearby residents still say there are substantial stormwater runoff issues that haven’t been addressed.
The same developer was granted a continuance for a request to build a car wash across the street on Shallowford Road.
When Birrell asked Bo Patel of Watson Development if that car wash could be substituted for the one proposed for the intersection, her told her the Shallowford Road property included a stream buffer that made development unlikely.
“We need to have more discussions,” she said. “It still needs some work.”
Another zoning case in East Cobb is being continued to the Oct. 4 Cobb Planning Commission hearing. Kenneth B. Clary is seeking rezoning of 13.38 acres at 4701 Post Oak Tritt Road near McPherson Road from R-30 to R-15 for 18 single-family detached homes.
Garvis Sams, the applicant’s attorney, said “there are some remaining issues which are scheduled to be addressed and resolved.”
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An urgent care clinic for pets will be opening soon at East Cobb Crossing Shopping Center.
UrgentVet, which says it’s the first dedicated urgent care clinic for pets in the country, will open at 4363 Roswell Road, Suite 100, on Sept. 29.
The Belmont, N.C.-based company founded in 2015 has 20 existing locations, including 8 in North Carolina, 11 in Florida and one in Texas.
UrgentVet provides after-hours emergency and specialty veterinary care. A company release said that “UrgentVet clinics routinely treat vomiting, diarrhea, lacerations, wounds, and skin and ear problems among many other presenting complaints.”
UrgentVet East Cobb will have 2,200 square feet (a couple doors down from the Dog City Bakery) with five exam rooms and a comfort room. The exam rooms include dimmable lighting for anxious animals and relaxing music.
The facility also will include an in-house diagnostic lab, digital X-ray machine, ultrasound and cloud-based medical record-keeping software.
UrgentVet is open 365 days a year—from 3 -11 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, and 12-8 p.m. on holidays. A clinic in Cumming is opening on Thursday.
“It feels so good to expand the UrgentVet footprint into a new state, and Georgia is a place that we’ve wanted to be for a long time,” UrgentVet founder Dr. Jim Dobies said in the release. “Opening clinics in Cumming and East Cobb make sense for so many reasons, and we couldn’t be more excited about giving pet parents in the north Atlanta suburbs a new after-hours option for their dogs and cats.”
No appointments are necessary for UrgentVet, and pet owners who check in online can request to receive a text message when their arrival time approaches.
The company claims that UrgentVet veterinarians and support staff are “Fear Free Certified Professionals,” meaning that skilled in caring for the pet’s physical and emotional well-being.
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According to a company release, it will be the fifth Warby Parker store in Georgia, joining locations in Buckhead, Westside Atlanta, Ponce City Market and Perimeter Mall.
The East Cobb store will be in Suite 205, between the Versona store and Ansley Atlanta Real Estate.
Warby Parker offers customers eye exams and sells a full line of optical eyewear and sunglasses, as well as contact lenses and accessories.
The store also features custom artwork by Atlanta artist and muralist George F. Baker III.
Opening hours for The Avenue East Cobb Warby Parker store are 11-7 Monday-Saturday and 12-6 Sunday.
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Eastminster Presbyterian Church will mark its 50th anniversary in October with a special catered dinner for current and former members and clergy, a special worship service and other festivities.
The dinner takes place on Saturday, Oct. 8. The special service is scheduled for the next day, with a family barbecue and other festivities to follow.
The church located at 3125 Sewell Mill Road has around 600 members. Eastminster belongs to the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians, a Reformed denomination of around 400 churches nationwide that separated from the Presbyterian Church in 2012.
Eastminster Presbyterian (website here) holds two traditional worship services every Sunday along with Sunday School classes. The senior pastor is Rev. Aaron Moore and the associate pastor is Rev. Hubie Mann.
The church hosts a Boy Scout troop, a preschool, a weekly gathering of home schoolers, a teaching center for local musicians and a practice site for bagpipe enthusiasts.
Eastminster began in 1972 with a core group of eight people with a goal of meeting the worship and pastoral needs of an area of East Cobb undergoing rapid suburbanization.
The church first met at a specially-built small house at Johnson Ferry Road and Woodlawn Drive, then broke ground on its present facility at Sewell Mill and Old Canton roads in 1991.
Eastminster’s work in the community includes volunteering for food service with the Table on Delk and MUST Ministries and providing supplies to Blessings
in a Backpack.
Beyond East Cobb, Eastminster aids needy families in Welch, W. Va. and supports ministries to orphanages in Kenya, school children in Guatemala and a church plant in Costa Rica.
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MUST Ministries operates a food pantry at Brumby Elementary School that includes donations from a variety of community organizations and individuals.
PORCH-Marietta, a collection of volunteer, grassroots neighborhood organizations, is continuing an ongoing food drive to stock the food pantry at Brumby Elementary School and the Center for Family Resources.
Participants leaved canned goods on their front porch on a designated day of the week that are collected by neighborhood coordinators. The items are sorted and delivered to pantries, agencies and families in need.
PORCH chapters have emerged around the country after the concept was begun in Chapel Hill, N.C. in 2010.
The East Cobb neighborhoods taking part in PORCH-Marietta include Sentinel Lake, Indian Hills, The Oaks, Heatherleigh, Paper Mill Manor, Chimney Lakes and Timberlea Lakes II.
Liz Platner, the chapter leader of PORCH-Marietta, says that in lieu of canned goods, financial donations can be made on the chapter’s website.
The link also has specific needs of items listed for Brumby and CFR, and remaining collection dates for 2022.
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Cobb County School District resource officers Kevin Brunson, William Duling and Jerry Quan hold plaques given them by teens at Congregation Etz Chaim. Photos: Jewish National Fund-USA.
Congregation Etz Chaim of East Cobb this week marked the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by honoring Cobb County School District resource officers.
Their presentation on Wednesday to resource officers Jerry Quan, William Marshall Duling and Kevin Brunson, thanking them for their service, was conducted in partnership with the Jewish National Fund-USA.
Teens from the synagogue’s youth group presented plaques to the officers.
“I felt inspired seeing the people who keep me safe at the synagogue I grew up in,” said Etz Chaim teen Mia Kleinman.
Said Tamar Oren, a senior at Sprayberry High School: “The officers are like our dads at school. They talk to us in the hall and are people we go to for absolutely anything. I know they have risked their lives and for that I am forever grateful.”
Etz Chaim Rabbi Daniel Dorsch said that “we continue to be grateful for our community’s partnership with Jewish National Fund-USA that enabled us to honor our law enforcement personnel in such a special and meaningful way.”
According to a release by JNF, the plaque features the JNF’s 9/11 Living Memorial in Jerusalem, which is “the only commemorative site of its type outside of the U.S. that lists all the names of those who were killed on 9/11.
“It represents the firefighters, paramedics, and police officers who made the ultimate sacrifice and worked tirelessly to save countless lives on that infamous day, and honors first responders who risk it all to protect and serve. Established in 2009, the monument is a testament to the deep connection between the State of Israel and the U.S., and our countries’ shared values of peace, religious tolerance, democracy, and fighting terrorism.”
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The measure sets forth terms for what constitutes disruptive behavior and how the board may take action in response, including allowing the school board to meet in an alternate location should disruptions get out of hand and calling on law enforcement to intervene “in any potential violation of law.”
A new state law gives local school districts until Oct. 1 to develop rules that must be adopted annually.
Cobb Superintendent Chris Ragsdale told the board at a Thursday afternoon work session that rules he proposed are “not to be confused with the public comment policy.” The rules “need a vote and have to reviewed every year.”
Darryl York, the Cobb school district’s Director of Policy and Planning, told board members that “a lot of the language” in the proposed rules are already on the books.
The new law, SB 588, states that members of the public “shall not be removed from such public meetings except for actual disruption and in accordance with rules adopted and published by the local board of education.”
Some attendees who shouted at the board to delay the vote continued their disruptions after, and chairman David Chastain called for a recess. The protests continued, with some shouting “Shame on you!” as the meeting was adjourned.
The new rules give the board chairman the discretion to enforce them.
During the work session Thursday, board member Tre’ Hutchins of South Cobb said he was concerned about provisions he said would discourage free speech and wondered about how they would be implemented in the case of serious disruptions.
“I would hate to see on TV a citizen escorted out of this room for exercising their Constitutional rights,” he said. “I’d like to know what that discretion looks like.”
But Ragsdale responded that “you don’t have a Constitutional right to disrupt a meeting.”
Board member Jaha Howard of Smyrna questioned a provision that would allow the board to meet elsewhere—with live streaming available for the public—if disruptions were an issue.
Chastain, of Post 4 in Northeast Cobb, said he doesn’t remember a meeting in which the board wasn’t able to finish its business.
Chastain also Howard that “you weren’t here in July,” a reference to Howard attending that meeting virtually.
“The goal is we will complete the people’s business,” Chastain said.
Board member Jaha Howard told him that “you have a lot more confidence in the board chair than I have. You haven’t been on the receiving end of being shut up.”
At the Thursday night voting meeting, the board agreed to a request by Howard to amend the rules to combine prohibitions on “jeers, shouting, or other disruptive noises” and “any other means an attendee may use to disrupt the meeting” into the same bullet point.
Davis did not explain her vote against the rules.
Before the vote, former Cobb schools guidance counselor Jennifer Susko, a regular critic of the district and the board, said during a public comment session that she and others speak out the way they do because they’re being constantly stonewalled.
“To avoid getting flustered by us, consider responding to your constituents at all, in any way,” she said. “The jeers, shouting and other disruptive noises only occur because ya’ll refuse to respond to your constituents.
“Most of us would rather not be here all the time disrupting, but we have no choice, since it’s the only way to be heard. I’ll look forward to the adjustments in all of our behavior.”
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The National Merit Scholarship Corporation has announced its initial batch of semifinalists for the 2022-23 school year, and Walton and Wheeler high schools lead the way for the Cobb County School District.
Of the 60 students, 44 come from high schools in East Cobb, including 18 from Walton and 16 from Wheeler.
National Merit Scholarships are awarded to high school seniors across the country based on academic performance, test scores and other requirements. This year, a total of $28 million in scholarship funding will be awarded.
Finalists will be chosen in the spring and will be eligible for scholarship aid in a variety of sources. Participants submit detailed applications and they must be endorsed and recommended by a high school official.
Students also write essays and are assessed on factors such as leadership abilities and honors and awards received.
“Merit Scholar designees are selected based on their skills, accomplishments, and potential for success in rigorous college studies, without regard to gender, race, ethnic origin, or religious preference,” the Corporation states.
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Cobb commissioners will consider a resolution in October to replace newly drawn lines (at right) putting most of East Cobb in District 3 with a proposed map (at left) that would keep District 2 relatively unchanged from what it is now.
Cobb County Government has placed a legal ad announcing a proposed resolution that would amend the county code to enable the Board of Commissioners to redraw commission districts.
The ad published Friday in The Marietta Daily Journal states that the measure will be discussed at commission meetings on Oct. 11 and Oct. 25, with a vote scheduled on the latter date, to invoke home rule powers under the Georgia Constitution.
Home rule powers are used to amend local legislation, although redistricting duties typically have been the province of the Georgia General Assembly.
Commissioner Jerica Richardson said in March that legislative maps redrawing her out of District 2 “ignored the will of the people.”
Earlier this year, Republican-dominated legislature approved Cobb commission district boundaries that redrew District 2 Commissioner Jerica Richardson out of her seat, which includes some of East Cobb.
The first-term Democrat moved to a home off Johnson Ferry Road last year that starting on Jan. 1, 2023 will be in District 3, which covers most of East Cobb.
But under state law, by that date she would have to reside inside the new District 2 boundaries, which include the Cumberland-Smyrna area and much of the City of Marietta.
The county’s legal ad indicates that the proposed ordinance, which would take effect Jan. 1, would not affect upcoming general elections in November. District 3 commissioner JoAnn Birrell, a Republican, is seeking re-election to a fourth term.
Richardson vowed in March that “I will not step down” and hinted at a challenge to the new lines that she did not specify at the time.
In an interview with East Cobb News on Friday, Richardson admitted that the proposed resolution is out of the ordinary. But so was the act of the legislature, she said, adding that in trying to come up with a response, “we realized there is no playbook.”
She insisted that it’s not about her staying in office but addressing a precedent of the legislature, which ignored a vote by the Cobb delegation to adopt maps drafted by Democratic Rep. Erick Allen of Smyrna, the delegation chairman, that would have kept the current lines roughly the same.
Allen’s bill, HB 1256, got a vote of of the majority of the Cobb delegation but did not come up for a vote in the legislature. Instead, Republican House members John Carson of East Cobb and Ed Setzler of North Cobb sponsored HB 1154 that included the maps that were eventually adopted and signed into law.
Richardson said it’s the first time in state history a sitting elected official had been drawn out of a district during reapportionment.
“For me, it’s about the principle,” Richardson said. “Will there be a check and balance to state control?”
She said she “was very surprised” at the GOP end-around and added that “I did hope Cobb County wouldn’t succumb where a portion of the delegation would be breaking away” from what she called a “gentleman’s handshake.”
City governments have had such home rule powers for years; should Cobb’s resolution be adopted and withstand any legal challenges it could have implications for county governments around Georgia.
Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt said a copy of the proposed resolution, which would include the Allen maps, isn’t immediately available and “won’t come before the board until the October meetings.”
He later distributed a statement from Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid backing the proposed resolution.
She said that “the drastic nature of the state’s action has undermined the cooperation that generally does occur and should occur with counties and their local delegation when redrawing district lines. It has also undermined the expectation voters should have in trusting that those they elect to serve will be able to do so.
“I could not sit idly by and watch the integrity of this board’s composition and our citizens’ vote be callously undermined.”
Birrell told East Cobb News Friday she is against changing the maps approved by the legislature.
“Not only does it cause confusion for the citizens of Cobb County which is entirely disrespectful, it isn’t even legal,” she said.
East Cobb News has left a message with Carson seeking comment.
Richardson said her understanding of the home rule law is that since Allen’s map was signed off by the legislative reapportionment office, that satisfies state constitution provisions for invoking home rule.
“I’m going off counsel that has been provided to the board,” she said. “I trust them on so many other matters, I trust them on this.”
She said she didn’t think about moving to the new District 2 “because I’ve been in this community.”
When she was a student at Georgia Tech, her family moved to a neighborhood near The Avenue East Cobb and her brothers attended Walton High School.
After living in an apartment in the Delk Road area, Richardson said she bought her home in the Johnson Ferry-Post Oak Tritt area because “I was looking for a home as a young adult, growing into your career and into a community where I am from.”
She said she didn’t consider running in the new District 3 because she would have had to resign her position and a special election would be called for District 2.
Richardson has organized a political advocacy committee, For Which It Stance Inc., that was incorporated by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office as a 501(c)4 domestic non-profit organization.
That was created in March, as she announced her plans to contest the redrawn lines; the executive director of For Which It Stance is Mindy Seger, who led the East Cobb Alliance, which fought against the now-defeated East Cobb cityhood referendum.
Seger told East Cobb News that For Which It Stance was “set up to engage the community on issues of encroachment of governing powers,” the first of which is Richardson’s bid to stay in office.
Seger sent out a For Which It Stance press release Friday saying that “a Georgia elected official has never been forcibly removed from office during their term by the state’s redistricting process. . . Many Cobb residents have been anticipating a county response to this overreach of state control. That day is here.”
The release goes on to say that county action to invoke home rule “sets the scene for a legal battle that could create a powerful check and balance between state and local control. . . . If Commissioner Richardson is forced to resign, nearly 200,000 residents and Cobb’s economic epicenter, including the Battery, will be left unrepresented until her seat can be filled.”
A website has been set up for that campaign, called DrawnOutGA, which said that Richardson was not gerrymandered but “Jerica-mandered.”
The website has online petition and donations button, and there will be a “Local Control Summit” on Oct. 8 that includes “community courses” and a dinner.
Seger said plans for that event are still in the works, including a location.
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A few readers have contacted us about the closing of Red Sky Tapas & Bar in East Cobb and we’ve contacted the restaurant to get more information.
After 14 years, the restaurant founded by Terry Kirby and Brian Kennington at the Market Plaza Shopping Center on Johnson Ferry Road has shut its doors for good.
A reader messaged us Wednesday night and said “went by this evening and definitely closed. No signs but deserted.”
UPDATED, Thursday, 7:30 p.m.: Red Sky announced the closure on its Facebook page after this story published:
“Thank you for 14 wonderful years of memories, fun, friends and family. Sadly, we are permanently closed.”
There was no further explanation. East Cobb News has left multiple messages with Red Sky Wednesday and Thursday seeking further comment. There was no answer at the restaurant via telephone and there was no voice mail option.
RETURN TO ORIGINAL STORY:
The restaurant and retail site ToNeTo reported late Wednesday that Kirby said he and his partner “were presented with ‘an offer they couldn’t refuse’ and made the difficult decision to sell the business.”
They continue to operate 1911 Biscuits & Burgers, a breakfast and lunch spot on South Cobb Drive in Smyrna, but the Red Sky space “will reportedly be reconcepted under new ownership,” according to the report.
Market Plaza, which includes the Los Bravos, Kouzina Christos, Mediterranean Grill, Bagelicious and Fuji Hana restaurants on eight acres, was sold in August by Market Plaza Joint Venture to Palatka Mall LLC for $9.8 million, according to Cobb property tax records.
In addition to its menu items, Red Sky was known for its live musical entertainment—including dueling pianos—and having a variety of benefit and charitable events.
Kirby and Pennington opened Red Sky in 2008, years after coming up with the concept for a night dining and entertainment concept in East Cobb.
Kirby previously was a manager of a sports bar in Sandy Springs and was shot in the back and paralyzed below the waist during a robbery in which his pregnant boss was killed.
He frequently visited Red Sky guests, moving around in his wheelchair to gauge their experience.
“It’s more than a dining experience,” Kirby said in a 2015 interview with the AJC. “It’s a shared experience. You enjoy the food and the people you’re with. Dining like that builds relationships.”
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Here’s the first look a major change proposed for Paper Mill Village: The building containing an existing Starbucks location would give way to a two-story, standalone coffee shop with a drivethru lane.
That’s according to filings with the Cobb Zoning Office in an application scheduled to be heard by the Cobb Planning Commission Oct. 4.
The filings include a revised site plan with new access points and procedures for conducting a traffic study to gauge how the expanded coffee shop would affect traffic in the busy Johnson Ferry Road-Paper Mill Road area.
S & B Investments has applied to rezone the 0.73-acre tract on the northwest corner of that intersection from future commercial and R-80 to NRC (Neighborhood Retail Commercial).
(Although Paper Mill Village is a mixed-used commercial development, it has a unique zoning history that we noted earlier this year when the property’s developer sought NRC designation for other buildings there.)
According to the application (you can read it here and view more renderings), the building would be around 5,000 square feet and the Starbucks would be open from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. seven days a week.
A stipulation letter from Garvis Sams, the S & B Investments attorney, includes a lengthy list of retail uses that would not be allowed on the property (you can read that letter here).
S & B Investments previously requested, then dropped, a request to add a drivethru lane for its existing 1,600-square-foot building, which includes space for two other retail businesses. One of them, where a nail salon was located, is vacant, and the other is a dry cleaning service.
Initial zoning staff analysis concluded that there wasn’t sufficient space to provide drivethru service for Starbucks with the building intact.
In his letter, Sams wrote that “while Starbucks has been a presence at this intersection for decades, because of the change in demographics and circumstances engrained in the nuanced evolution of our culture generally and more specifically the like-kind demographic within this sub-area of east Cobb County, the drive-thru component is no longer an option but is, instead, a necessary component.”
There is a standalone one-story Starbucks just up Johnson Ferry at Woodlawn Square. There’s a two-story Starbucks similar to the one proposed for Paper Mill Village in Sandy Springs.
Renderings provided in the Paper Mill Village filings show expansive customer space inside the new building, and traffic configurations.
The initial site plan called for a two-way access point from an existing alley off Johnson Ferry Road.
That has been changed to provide separate entrance and exit access from that alley, and a two-way access point from the existing alley off Paper Mill Road. A total of 23 parking spaces are included, including handicapped spots, and the drivethru area would be sealed off.
Cobb Zoning Staff has not completed its analysis or made a recommendation.
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