Cobb Elections is offering two additional days and extra locations for voters to return absentee ballots before the Nov. 8 general election.
In addition to being able to drop off absentee ballots at previously designated locations—including the East Cobb Government Service Center—during early voting hours through Friday, there will be drop off availability on Saturday and next Monday.
It’s called “Last Call,” and it’s being done because of the proximity to the general election and to give absentee voters the assurance their ballots will be collected on time.
Absentee ballots can be dropped off at the early voting designated location drop boxes by 7 p.m. Friday or received by mail at the Cobb Elections office by 7 p.m. next Tuesday, Nov. 8.
In addition, the “Last Call” locations—all of them at public library branches around the county—will be available from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday.
They include the East Cobb Library (4880 Lower Roswell Road) and the Mountain View Regional Library (3320 Sandy Plains Road), along with the North Cobb Regional Library, the Powder Springs Library, the South Cobb Regional Library, the Switzer Library and the Vinings Library.
Jennifer Mosbacher, an East Cobb resident and a member of the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration, said voters using the “Last Call” service will hand-deliver their ballots to an official registrar at the library branch of their choice.
That registrar will then prepare the ballot on-site for electronic tabulation that will commence with the closing of the polls on election day.
Mosbacher said the voter will be notified that their ballot has been received and that it will be counted after 7 p.m. on Nov. 8.
On Election Day, Nov. 8, absentee ballots may be returned only to one location, the Cobb Elections main office (995 Roswell Street), between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m.
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We were wondering this back in 2020, when the Cobb government GIS (Geographic Information Service) launched a real-time wait-time map to assist voters during an extraordinary set of circumstances for elections:
To get the latest wait-time estimates, click here.
Our traffic figures reflected a high level of interest in that feature (including our most-clicked individual post link on Oct. 12, 2020, more than 75K times).
Cobb government said earlier Saturday that after two weeks of early voting in the 2022 general election, the wait-time map has been clicked more than one million times.
That’s also roughly the number of people in Georgia who have cast ballots during early voting, with one more week remaining.
In Cobb, the number of early voting is at 107,503, according to Cobb Elections, about 20 percent of registered voters in the county.
Through the first two weeks of early voting, 14,957 people have voted in-person at the East Cobb Government Services Center, the most of any location.
The Tim D. Lee Center is third, behind East Cobb and the Smyrna Community Center, with 14,620 votes cast.
That’s through Friday, with Saturday being the last Saturday for early voting. Sunday voting will take place for the first time in Cobb tomorrow, Oct. 30, from 12-4 at the Cobb Elections main office, 995 Roswell Street.
The deadline to apply for an absentee ballot passed on Friday. Those receiving them can mail them back in to Cobb Elections or drop them off at designated drop boxes during early voting hours only.
A drop box is located inside the East Cobb Government Services Center (4400 Lower Roswell Road).
All absentee ballots must be received at the Cobb Elections office or delivered to a drop box by the time the final election day polls close (7 p.m., Nov. 8)
This year voters will be choosing candidates in some new boundaries following redistricting, and there was an error in assigning some voters to the wrong post in a highly-watched Cobb school board race.
That’s in Post 4 in Northeast Cobb, where 111 voters have cast ballots although they’re actually in Post 5. Cobb Elections director Janine Eveler said 1,112 voters registered in the Sandy Plains 1 precinct were coded as Post 4 voters although they live in Post 5.
She said the votes that already have been cast cannot be changed, but the error has been corrected.
That race features Republican incumbent David Chastain and Democrat Catherine Pozniak.
It’s unclear what might happen if the margin of difference in that election is less than 111 votes, but the results could be challenged and a new election could be called.
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After easily winning election to the Cobb Board of Education in 2014 and 2018, incumbent Post 4 member David Chastain is facing opposition that has prompted a different campaign approach than in the past.
Typically circumspect and mild-mannered in public, the Republican chairman of the seven-member board has issued newsletters, press releases and other statements that are anything but reserved.
The intensity of his campaign against political newcomer Catherine Pozniak (our profile of her is here), a Democrat, has ramped up as the Nov. 8 general election date approaches.
Pozniak denied the charge, saying Chastain “has stooped to mining my father’s obituary and weaponizing the details of his death and his estate to launch personal attacks.”
She previously accused him of campaign finance violations he has rebuked, although he has hired a former Congressional candidate and state ethics chairman to defend him in Pozniak’s complaint that will be decided after the election.
In a Post 4 area (Kell, Sprayberry, Lassiter clusters) that was redrawn by the GOP-dominated Georgia legislature to preserve a Republican seat, Chastain acknowledges there’s a different dynamic this year.
Since his last election, Democrats have become the majority party on the Cobb Board of Commissioners and the Cobb legislative delegation.
Until recently, she held a sizable campaign finance advantage over Chastain, who recently held a fundraiser at Atlanta Country Club. As of the end of September, both campaigns reported raising around $45,000 each, which is much higher than other recent school board elections in Cobb.
“Voters here have to show up and participate,” Chastain said in a recent interview with East Cobb News, referring to his conservative base. “I’m being attacked for things that have nothing to do with policy. You’re seeing this at the federal and state levels too.
“It’s not like me,” he said when asked about the charged rhetoric from his campaign, including his taking a shot at Harvard, where Pozniak earned a doctorate degree.
A proposal analyst at Lockheed Martin, Chastain is campaigning on the Cobb school district’s test scores and defending its academic accreditation, and is hailing a high employee retention rate and designation by Forbes magazine of being one of the top employers in Georgia.
Chastain also is a stalwart supporter of retaining the senior exemption in Cobb County for school taxes.
But he’s also frequently referencing what he thinks Democrats have in mind to in their attempts oust him, saying much of Pozniak’s support comes from “outsiders.”
“My opponent isn’t so much about our kids but to fulfill some sort of an agenda, more oriented toward more liberal social reforms and away from academics,” he said.
“It boils down to a power struggle and they want the power.”
Republicans hold a 4-3 majority on the board. Chastain is the only GOP member up for election this year; Post 6 will stay in Democratic hands and Post 2 in the Smyrna area is Democratic-leaning.
Those new representatives will replace outgoing members Charisse Davis and Jaha Howard, respectively, Democrats who were at the center of several mostly partisan disputes on the Cobb school board the last four years.
Chastain has twice been chairman in his second term, including in 2019, when he proposed a policy to ban board member comments.
He said it was necessary because some members had become “too political” in some comments that weren’t related to schools. Howard and Davis complained they were being censored, but Chastain defends the policy.
He also defended Superintendent Chris Ragsdale for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic response.
“He’s done a good job,” Chastain said. “We are getting back now close to where we were before and are planning for the future.”
He rattled off some areas of emphasis, including expansion of digital learning, improving Individual Education Program options and increasing school safety.
Pozniak has been critical of the Cobb school district for flagging reading scores at the third-grade level as well as others, and said Chastain is mistaken in asserting that “things are good enough.”
Chastain said it’s at the third-grade level “when you first see who is going to need some help. I think we’re doing as much as we can. COVID was a mess but the resources have come together” for a recovery.
He also took issue with criticisms that he and the Republican majority on the board haven’t been responsive to some parents and students.
“Who are we talking about?” Parents and their children’s educations? Our policies and curriculum are aligned with state standards,” he said, adding that the Cobb school district is “building on success.
“We’re doing well for a school district that’s so diverse,” Chastain said, adding that “there’s this desire on the part of the Democrats to take power.”
A Wheeler High School graduate, Chastain doesn’t think his alma mater needs a name change, as some in that school community and beyond have been advocating due to Joseph Wheeler’s role as a Confederate general in the Civil War.
The board hasn’t taken up the issue since a board majority is required to add meeting agenda items other than those submitted by the chairman and superintendent.
That’s another controversial matter that’s come up in Chastain’s second term, as was a vote last year to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory. A board discussion wasn’t allowed, and the Democratic members abstained, but Chastain said the topic is “still relatively new.
“It’s difficult to define,” he said. “We’re trying to make sure that there’s no curriculum that limits a child’s perspective about their color and ethnicity.”
The Cobb school district has come under fire for some finance and spending issues, including some that were part of a special review by Cognia, the district’s accrediting agency, pertaining to COVID-19 safety measures.
“That became a dumpster fire,” he said of the Cognia review.
While Pozniak has said the district’s finances and contractual procedures are “opaque” and lack transparency, Chastain said he’s confident that the district’s procurement processes are solid and claims that the district “is a great steward of taxpayer money.”
Chastain said maintaining Cobb’s academic progress is his ultimate priority, and cited recent managerial issues and changes in the Gwinnett school district, the largest in Georgia, as a cautionary tale.
Once a solid conservative area, Gwinnett now has a Democratic majority on its school board that terminated the contract of 25-year superintendent Alvin Wilbanks in 2021, a year before his planned retirement.
“What has happened in Gwinnett—I don’t want that to happen here,” he said.
“Cobb is still the best place to teach, lead and learn in metro Atlanta. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”
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After leaving home to attend college, teach and become an educational administrator, Catherine Pozniak has returned to her Northeast Cobb roots to put that background to local use.
When she moved back to her family home in 2020 following the death of her father, she said she hadn’t thought about running for elected office.
But the effect of the COVID-19 response on schools and eventful developments in the Cobb County School District where she graduated prompted her run for the Post 4 seat on the Cobb Board of Education.
Pozniak, 43, is an educational consultant and Democrat who’s challenging two-term Republican incumbent David Chastain for the post that represents her alma mater, Sprayberry High School, as well as the Kell and some of the Lassiter clusters.
“This is an important moment in time in education,” Pozniak said in a recent East Cobb News interview. “This is an opportunity now to build something better than what is there now.”
You can visit Pozniak’s campaign website by clicking here; East Cobb News has interviewed Chastain and will be posting his profile shortly.
In addition to addressing what she says are lagging test scores and curriculum issues—especially for grade-school reading—Pozniak also said she is running on behalf of parents, students and other stakeholders who feel they’re not being heard by the current board majority.
“My opponent is saying that things are good enough,” Pozniak said. “But for so many families and students, they are not good enough.”
Although she is a first-time candidate in the political world, her candidacy quickly caught notice. Neither she nor Chastain had a primary opponent, but over the summer, she outraised him with more $20,000 in contributions.
He held a fundraiser at the Atlanta Country Club and both are reporting having raised around $45,000 each.
With Republicans holding a 4-3 majority, party control of the school board is on the line, and the highly-watched contest has led to mutual and even third-party mudslinging.
Republican legislators also have said that if Pozniak is elected and Democrats gain control of the school board, Superintendent Chris Ragsdale will be replaced and Cobb schools will indoctrinate students in social and cultural issues instead of basic academics.
Despite the charged rhetoric, Pozniak said she’s been encouraged with what’s she seen, heard and learned on the campaign trail.
“I’m optimistic about the involvement from the community on both sides,” she said. “People get how important the school system is. It’s pretty remarkable how a school board race is getting this kind of attention.”
Pozniak, a 1997 Sprayberry graduate, earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Sydney in Australia, a master’s from Cambridge University in Britain and an educational leadership doctorate degree from Harvard.
She taught on a Native American reservation in South Dakota and was an assistant secretary in the Louisiana Department of Education. She currently consults on educational fiscal policy for Watershed Advisors.
Her priorities include improving the Cobb school district’s literacy curriculum, which she says “is lowly rated and not founded in the science of reading.”
She said she wasn’t pushing for a particular curriculum to replace it, but hears from teachers “who say they’re frustrated” and that “kids aren’t reading proficiently.”
As a school board member, she said it would be one of her primary responsibilities to help set academic expectations for the Cobb district, the second-largest in Georgia.
Pozniak also has been critical of Cobb’s algebra curriculum and noted the Cobb school district’s 50.5 percent score in that portion of the Georgia Milestones end-of-course test.
“That’s even lousy for high school students in Post 4,” she said, arguing that Cobb needs a comprehensive math curriculum.
On the subject of the senior tax exemption for schools, Pozniak said she doesn’t favor revisiting that—Chastain has been adamant that it should not be touched—and said it’s a matter for the legislature to take up.
On fiscal issues, Pozniak said the Cobb school district is not as transparent as it should be. She said that not all contracts are made publicly available before board meetings or even voted on.
“Except for SPLOST [construction and maintenance projects whose contracts are required to be disclosed by law], you really don’t see that in Cobb. It’s really an opaque system.”
“That’s a $2.9 million contract,” she said. “To not have it come up for approval, it’s stunning. There’s no oversight.”
Chastain, the current chairman, Pozniak said, “has been part of how we got to this point. There’s an erosion of transparency and accountability and he hasn’t taken any measures to change that.”
Pozniak has tried to steer clear of cultural wedge issues that have flared up recently on school boards across the country.
She called the clamor over Critical Race Theory—the teaching of which the Cobb school board banned last year—as “political theatre” and said that’s not a concern she’s hearing from parents.
“It’s not about issues that are hot-button issues,” she said. “It’s about what is going on in the schools and the students’ experiences there.”
As for diversity, equity and inclusion issues that also have been raised in schools, including Cobb, Pozniak said she understands “why the partisan narrative gets the play that it does.
“But not until recently was this an issue. It’s just where we are.”
She said the opportunity she sees this year “is to get educators on board” to help address learning issues in the wake of COVID-19 disruptions.
“I have a crossover of bipartisan support,” she said, “parents of kids with dyslexia, special-education students. These are very frustrated parents who are looking for something better.”
Pozniak has been accused of taking campaign contributions from outsiders. Her biggest donation, $3,000, is from Democrats for Educational Equity.
There’s not much publicly available information, but it’s a Washington, D.C. political action committee that “is dedicated to helping to elect a new generation of leaders, who will bring their shared experiences for the goal of educationalequity,” according to information Pozniak provided at the request of East Cobb News.
She said that “I am one of many educators that Democrats for Educational Equity supports, but being an educator is not a requirement.”
Pozniak said most of her other campaign donors are from those oriented around education issues or people she knows.
“If they’re not a friend, they’re a friend of a friend.” she said.
“They know what I’m trying to accomplish,” Pozniak said, adding that a number of local contributors, including educators, are doing so anonymously.
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The current Cobb Commission map (at left) shows District 2 in pink; a redrawn map (at right) placed most of East Cobb in District 3, shown in yellow.
Cobb commissioners voted along partisan lines Tuesday to submit an unprecedented home rule resolution over commissioner redistricting to the state in a dispute that’s expected to be decided by the courts.
The 3-2 vote was the second of a required two votes to invoke home rule provisions. The board’s three Democrats voted in favor, and the two Republicans were opposed.
During reapportionment earlier this year, District 2 commissioner Jerica Richardson, a first-term Democrat who represents some of East Cobb, was drawn into the new District 3 with incumbent Republican commissioner JoAnn Birrell.
Richardson said never before has the Georgia legislature redrawn a county commission incumbent into another district during the middle of a term, and called that an example of state overreach into local matters that home rule is designed to prevent.
Cobb Republican lawmakers ignored a map drawn by State Rep. Eric Allen, the county’s Democratic legislative delegation chairman, that would have left the current lines relatively unchanged, and instead pushed through a map that put most of East Cobb into District 3.
That’s the justification Richardson and her Democratic colleagues gave for making a home rule challenge that Birrell and other Republicans said flouts the Georgia Constitution.
The resolution, which includes reverting the commission district maps to those drawn by Allen, starting Jan. 1, 2023, does not have any bearing on 2022 general elections.
Legislatures in Georgia have the duty to conduct reapportionment.
In its legal challenge, Cobb will be asserting that the state pre-empted the county’s home rule powers, a claim that hasn’t been tested regarding redistricting.
Commissioner Jerica Richardson
“The electoral district lines established by HB 1256 [Allen’s map, which was not voted on], satisfy the traditional redistricting principles of compactness, contiguity, respect for political boundaries, preserving communities of interest, and protection to incumbents,” the Cobb resolution states.
“I love my district—it’s a true slice of America,” Richardson said in prepared remarks before the vote. “Local government is the operational arm that comes the closest to the community.”
She said that the “historic precedent” of the home rule challenge isn’t just about how her district was redrawn, but preventing the legislature from enacting similar measures that would trample on local home rule.
“This is about the balance of power between all 159 counties and the state,” Richardson said.
Richardson moved to a home off Post Oak Tritt Road in 2021 from an apartment in the Delk Road area, which remains in the new District 2.
She has until Dec. 31 to move into District 2 if she wants to seek re-election in 2024, and some public speakers at Tuesday’s meeting suggested that she do that.
Commissioner JoAnn Birrell
Birrell, who is seeking re-election this year to a fourth term in the new District 3, repeated previous comments that while she thought what happened to Richardson was unfair, the home rule resolution is “politically motivated” and said “this board has no power or authority over the legislature.”
She said the county should take up the issue with the legislature during the 2023 session.
Keli Gambrill, the other Republican commissioner, stressed that “this is not personal. It’s about the rule of law and we can’t be making things up as we go along.”
Richardson’s mother Valerie spoke emotionally on her daughter’s behalf, saying she was “appalled that this election can be null and void after two years.”
She said GOP legislators not only ignored Allen’s map but did not consult with commissioners before having their own drawn up.
“Did they think [Jerica Richardson] would move back to her old apartment or just cry?” Valerie Richardson said. She also referenced previous District 2 commissioner Bob Ott, saying that if he were still in office, “this would not have happened.”
Valerie Richardson also referenced the Civil Rights movement, and asked “Do we have to wait another 100 years to fix this wrong? You have the authority to fix this now.”
Cobb Republican Party Chairwoman Salleigh Grubbs said that while she likes Richardson, the maps approved by the legislature were signed into law early this year and wondered why Democratic commissioners didn’t issue a home rule challenge then.
“This was an apparently calculated plan by Commissioner Richardson,” Grubbs said. “She chose to move in 2021, knowing that redistricting was coming.”
A home rule challenge, Grubbs added, is “not fair to the citizens of Cobb County.” She wanted Richardson to recuse herself due to a “major conflict of interest,” which would have resulted in a tie vote.
Richardson not only didn’t recuse herself, she seconded the motion to adopt the resolution.
South Cobb Commissioner Monique Sheffield, a Democrat, took issue with those who suggested Richardson move, saying it’s code for “you don’t belong, go back to where you belong. . . . She has a right to live anywhere in her district.
“When there was flooding in East Cobb [in September 2021], it was Commissioner Richardson, not the state, holding town halls and advocating on your behalf.”
The board’s other Democrat, Chairwoman Lisa Cupid, in acknowledging the Cobb resolution as “a novel question of law,” said that “this is not something that we can just move past . . . this is not something that we can just take lying down.”
Cobb County Attorney William Rowling said during the discussion that the Allen map would be filed with the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, where it’s expected to be challenged by the state Attorney General’s office.
In March, after the Republican maps were adopted, Richardson vowed that “I will not step down.”
On Wednesday, she wrote a message on her Facebook page saying that due to the resolution, “on January 1, I will continue to work on behalf of my constituents and no longer be forced to resign 2 years before the end of my term. I appreciate all that came out to have their voices heard and the support for defending local control. It was a beautiful showing of our Cobb community.
“We still have much work to do and must stay committed to doing the good works daily. We cannot forget that the tenets of a republic must be defended, and not taken for granted. The only guarantee is that we will always defend our community regardless of what is yet to come. In the meantime, it’s full steam ahead on the issues that matter to you: infrastructure, economy and workforce, quality of life, and breaking the walls of division.”
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Two Republican legislators from Cobb are accusing a Democratic candidate for a seat on the Cobb Board of Education of improperly claiming a senior exemption from school taxes.
State Reps. Ginny Ehrhart of West Cobb and John Carson of Northeast Cobb are alleging that Catherine Pozniak is violating state law for claiming a homestead exemption from paying school property taxes in 2021.
“Ms. Pozniak stole from the students of the Cobb Public School system by failing to pay duly owed school property taxes,” Ehrhart said in a press release over the weekend. “What’s worse, she illegally used the senior tax exemption of a deceased individual to claim a fraudulent homestead exemption. This action is inexcusable. No one should commit such a violation, and most certainly not someone running for the Cobb School Board.”
Ehrhart wants the Cobb Solicitor’s office to conduct an investigation.
Pozniak is challenging Republican incumbent David Chastain for the seat in Post 4, which includes the Kell, Lassiter and Sprayberry clusters in what has become an increasingly bitter campaign.
She responded by saying that “for Mr. Chastain and his political cronies to retaliate with a smear campaign launched on a family tragedy is beyond reprehensible.”
In Cobb County, homeowners aged 62 and older can claim an exemption from school property taxes if they are the official homeowner as of Jan. 1 of a given year.
Pozniak, a Sprayberry graduate, is listed on Cobb property tax records as the owner of a home that previously belonged to her father, who died in April 2020.
Those records indicate that a senior exemption was reflected on 2020 and 2021 tax bills with Edward Pozniak listed as the property owner.
The 2021 bill was issued on May 13, according to tax records.
A Cobb real estate deed dated June 9, 2021 listed Catherine Pozniak as the executor of her father’s estate and having granted ownership of the home to herself and her sister and then to Catherine Pozniak as the sole owner of the home where she now lives.
Her 2022 tax bill includes $3,019 in school taxes.
In a statement to East Cobb News, Pozniak said that “our family has ample documentation to show that we settled Dad’s affairs with honesty and integrity, just as he lived his life.”
State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart
She said the transfer of property took longer than expected due to his death occurring at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and that the Cobb Tax Commissioners’ office didn’t know of the ownership change when the 2021 bill was issued.
Pozniak said that “when I asked to pay for the exemption, the tax commissioner’s office said that they can’t bill a new owner for a previous owner’s exemptions.”
Senior exemptions are automatically renewed unless there is a change in the ownership of the property.
Ehrhart and Carson were sponsors of redistricting bills for Cobb commission districts and school board posts that sidestepped maps drawn up by the county’s Democratic-led legislative delegation.
The school board lines were drawn at the behest of the board’s Republican majority by attorneys at Taylor English Duma. Its affiliated company, Taylor English Decisions, a lobbying and political consulting firm, is run by Ehrhart’s husband, former legislator Earl Ehrhart.
His campaign responded by calling it “baseless and politics at its worst.” On social media, Chastain denigrated Harvard, where Pozniak earned a doctorate in educational leadership.
In her statement Monday, Pozniak said that “with two weeks left in this race, David Chastain has already stooped to mining my father’s obituary and weaponizing the details of his death and his estate to launch personal attacks because Mr. Chastain has nothing to say about the fact that half of Cobb’s 3rd graders can’t read and half of Cobb’s students can’t pass algebra.
“My father served this country for 25 years in the Army, signed-up for two tours in Vietnam, and was a Bronze Star recipient. Mr. Chastain cannot trample on the reputation and memory of a decorated Vietnam Veteran to deflect from his own failures as a leader.”
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Record turnout for the first week of early voting in Georgia for the 2022 general election included a record number of voters in Cobb County casting ballots.
According to Cobb Elections, 51,779 early votes have been cast in person during the first week, pending Saturday’s results.
Friday’s total of 11,388 was the highest individual day thus far, with 12 days of early voting continuing through Nov. 4.
Cobb Elections also has accepted 3,862 absentee ballots, after issuing 26,237 absentee ballots by request. Voters had until Friday to request an absentee ballot.
There are 13 early voting locations in Cobb, and the two in the East Cobb area have had the highest turnout.
A total of 7,109 votes have been cast at the East Cobb Government Service Center (4400 Lower Roswell Road) and 6,868 at the Tim D. Lee Senior Center (3332 Sandy Plains Road).
Another 6,357 votes have been cast at the Smyrna Community Center.
During early voting, voters can go to any location in the county to cast their ballots.
Nearly 730,000 voters have voted this week across the state, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office.
That’s ahead of the record pace of the 2020 elections. With a presidential race on the ballot, a little less than 500,000 early votes were cast two years ago for the general elections.
This year Georgians are selecting all statewide constitutional officers (governor, secretary of state, etc.) as well as deciding a U.S. Senate race, all 14 U.S. House seats and all state legislative seats.
In Cobb, there’s only one countywide race, for Cobb solicitor. In East Cobb, contested races include District 3 Commissioner, Post 4 Cobb school board and several legislative and Congressional offices (see our early voting guide for more).
Early voting continues Monday at the East Cobb Government Service Center and the Tim D. Lee Senior Center.
Hour are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Friday and 8-5 next Saturday, Oct. 29. There also will be early voting on Sunday, Oct. 30, from 12-4 p.m. at the new Cobb Elections office at 995 Roswell Street.
The Cobb Elections office and the Cobb government GIS office also are teaming up again with an estimated wait-time map for early voting, with updates provided at each location by the polling managers.
Absentee ballots may be dropped off at drop boxes at designated drop box locations, including the East Cobb Government Service Center during early voting hours only.
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!
What’s been a highly charged campaign for a Northeast Cobb seat on the Cobb Board of Education from the start got even more contentious this week.
The battle between Republican incumbent David Chastain and Democratic first-time candidate Catherine Pozniak for Post 4 has been waged over the Cobb County School District’s accreditation review, test scores and the endorsements of educators’ groups, among other issues.
In her latest attack, Pozniak filed an official complaint about Chastain’s campaign contributions.
That was after he took shots at an Ivy League university Pozniak attended in an off-handed comment congratulating victories by local sports teams.
What’s at stake is party control of the Cobb school board. Chastain, the current board chairman whose Post 4 area includes the Kell, Lassiter and Sprayberry attendance zones, is seeking a third term.
He’s part of a 4-3 GOP majority on a board that has been divided along partisan lines in recent years on a number of issues.
Pozniak, who graduated from Sprayberry High School and returned to Georgia two years ago, has been leading in campaign fundraising until recently.
The newly drawn Post 4 boundaries as approved by the Georgia legislature. For a larger view, click here.
Filings for both candidates on Sept. 30 indicate they have raised roughly $45,000 each.
In her complaint, Pozniak accused Chastain of violating state laws by accepting contributions in excess of state individual limits.
They include $5,500 from State Rep. Ginny Ehrhart, a Republican from West Cobb who sponsored a bill redistricting lines for the Cobb school board favored by the board’s GOP members and bypassing a map recommended by the Democratic-led Cobb legislative delegation.
The GOP maps pushed Post 6, which currently includes the Walton and Wheeler attendance zones, fully into the Cumberland area, covering East Cobb with Chastain’s Post 4 and Post 5, held by Republican vice chairman David Banks.
Attorney Jonathan Crumly, whose firm Taylor English Duma redrew the school board lines the Republicans approved, is cited in Pozniak’s complaint as having contributed $4,000 to Chastain’s campaign.
The individual limit under Georgia campaign finance law is $3,000.
“The donors that gave David Chastain campaign contributions in excess of the campaign contribution limits are not just any donors. They are donors who benefitted from a no-bid contract David Chastain authorized as a member of the Cobb County Board of Education to draw a map that is not even the responsibility of the school board,” Pozniak said in a release issued by her campaign on Wednesday.
“David Chastain’s disregard for campaign finance laws raises serious questions about his leadership and conduct as Chairman of the Cobb County Board of Education, which oversees the district’s $1.5 billion budget.”
Chastain, who filed an amended campaign report in August splitting those contributions in two, between the primary and general elections, said it was an error that was corrected and heatedly denied violating state campaign laws.
In a press release his campaign issued Thursday, he said Pozniak has availed herself of the same “built-in amendment process for her own campaign.”
He said the complaint, filed with the Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission, is “baseless and politics at its worst,” and shows “a deliberate attempt by Catherine Pozniak and her small platoon of Democratic socialists [that] is on full display by Cobb County.”
Chastain has hired Jake Evans, a former Republican 6th District Congressional candidate and a former head of the State Ethics Commission, to represent him in the complaint. That won’t be acted upon until after the Nov. 8 general election.
In his release, Chastain continued to hammer away at what he has charged is a coordinated campaign by outsiders to influence the Cobb school board.
Among Pozniak’s contributors is Emma Bloomberg, the daughter of former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who gave $300.
She’s among the “far-left fringe supporters” of Pozniak that include “the scandal-ridden Southern Poverty Law Center, the Teach-For-America organization, the radical National Education Association, among many other liberal groups/individuals in the far left Hall of Fame,” Chastain’s release said.
He asserted he “will not be distracted by the antics of this ‘woke’ candidate.”
Chastain came under fire over the weekend for a comment on his campaign Facebook page mocking the value of an Ivy League education.
Pozniak holds a doctorate in education from Harvard, and on Sunday, Chastain congratulated the No. 1 Georgia Bulldogs for their football win—he’s a UGA graduate in a post bragging on Cobb schools recent SAT scores.
He also congratulated “my opponent’s far-left, Northeast, out-of-touch liberal, Ivy League university as well. Go, Harvard Football!”
More than 100 comments followed, many of them critical of the post. You can read through them by clicking here.
One commenter said “Love my Dawgs!!! …. Also, why are you tearing down someone for their school? Wouldn’t want my daughters to hear a school board member mock schools that kids in their district might attend (Ivy League, Northeast, or Liberal).”
Said another: “I hope there are more cogent arguments in favor of his opponent than the objectors present. Who will be better for education in Cobb? That is the issue, not perceived alma mater insults.”
In an interview earlier this week with East Cobb News, Chastain said he mentioned Harvard in the context of questioning Pozniak’s doctorate credentials.
“My opponent, when she emphasizes that she’s a doctor, what did this person do?” he said. He claimed that what she completed was not a dissertation but a capstone project that is being embargoed until 2057.
Normally mild-mannered in public, Chastain admitted that the pitched rhetoric from his campaign “is not like me, but it’s important to get out our message.”
A full candidate profile of Chastain is forthcoming, as is a similar profile of Pozniak.
In her interview with East Cobb News, she noted Chastain’s refusal for a direct debate (they’ve appeared at differing forums but not together).
She also said her education background (she taught on a native reservation in South Dakota and was a state education administrator in Louisiana) are needed on the board to ensure the Cobb school district improves, especially for students at-risk, after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“My opponent is saying things are good enough,” Pozniak said. “But for so many families and students, it’s not good enough.”
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As she nears the end of her third term in office, Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell is telling voters she’s a steady hand amid significant change in county government and the Northeast Cobb community she has represented for more than a decade.
She’s running for a fourth term in new District 3 boundaries in East Cobb that are more favorable for a Republican candidate. In 2018, she won with a little more than 51 percent in a redrawn district that included much of the city of Marietta.
Since then, however, the political dynamics have changed in Cobb, which is now governed by a majority of three Democrats on the all-female Board of Commissioners.
Birrell is one of two Republicans in the minority, and opposes a Democratic-led bid to invoke home rule provisions to keep District 2 Commissioner Jerica Richardson in office.
But the bigger issues facing the county, Birrell said in a recent interview with East Cobb News, center around how to fund a growing demand for providing and upgrading key services and solve major staffing shortages.
“Things are pretty critical,” she said. “We don’t know what the future holds.”
In the Nov. 8 general election, Birrell is facing Democrat Christine Triebsch, a former Georgia Senate candidate.
She said she did so because she wanted the county to fill existing positions before creating 148 new jobs across the government.
“I think right now we’re in pretty good shape [financially],” she said. “But I’m concerned that our budget next year is not going to be sustainable with the new positions.”
Some departments are experiencing 40 percent vacancies, including infrastructure functions such as transportation and water, sewer and stormwater management.
The budget also incorporates provisions of a pay and class study for county employees, as well as continuation of step and grade salary increases for public safety.
Those are measures supported by Birrell, who has said that public safety is her highest priority.
For a larger view of the new District 3 boundaries, click here.
Commissioners will soon be hearing a proposal for a stormwater impact fee that Cobb has never imposed; Birrell said she opposes it because it would be another tax burden for citizens who are paying higher water bills.
She also was vocally against a proposal for the county to designate single haulers for commission districts, a measure that was tabled earlier this fall.
Birrell said Cobb doesn’t need to get into the business of regulating private trash providers.
“We get a lot of the complaints but it may not need to come back,” she said. “They’re in that business and they have to work together to make sure our citizens get service.”
Birrell has raised nearly $52,000 in the current election cycle (through Sept. 30), prompting claims from Triebsch that her opponent is more vested in business interests than those of average citizens and homeowners.
In her most recent campaign disclosure form, Birrell reported receiving $2,500 contributions from John Tanner and Cynthia Reichard, the CEO and Executive Vice President, respectively, of Arlyessence, a fragrance company that recently received $27 million in bonds from the Development Authority of Cobb County (commissioners appoint some of the members but aren’t directly involved in that process).
Another $2,500 contribution to Birrell’s campaign is from Tom Phillips, a businessman whose 50-acre property on Ebenezer Road was rezoned by commissioners last year for a 99-home subdivision. Pulte, the applicant, has since pulled out of developing that land.
But Birrell said she prides herself on being accessible to anyone.
“You can ask any citizen that I hear from that I’m very responsive,” she said.
As for charges that Birrell has been more sympathetic to development interests, she said “go ask the East Cobb Civic Association and homeowners associations about the things I have stopped that were too dense and not appropriate for the area.
“I always listen to my constituents,” she said, noting her rejection of a large-scale multi-use development in the I-575-Bells Ferry area last year.
Commissioners are expected to vote a second time next week on the home rule vote that Birrell said will end up costing taxpayers money in a legal wrangle she thinks the county is likely to lose.
“It was not fair that Jerica was drawn out of her district in the middle of her term,” Birrell said. “But the legislature draws our lines. Reapportionment is not a home rule provision.”
But Birrell said she isn’t animated by partisan motives when it comes to most issues.
“A lot of our votes are along party lines,” she said. “I’m outnumbered on some things but I’ve tried to work with the full board.
“You have to look at the issue and do what you feel is right.”
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When she first ran for the Georgia Senate in a special election in 2017, Christine Triebsch offered herself as a Democratic voice in a district in East Cobb that has been strongly Republican.
She’s running for similar reasons for the District 3 seat on the Cobb Board of Commissioners against Republican three-term incumbent JoAnn Birrell.
“I saw a race that was uncontested,” Triesbsch said, “and that was my main goal—to give voters a choice.”
Triebsch, who lost three times to Republican Kay Kirkpatrick for the District 32 Georgia Senate seat, describes herself as “a compassionate Democrat who doesn’t have a voice here.”
She’s chastened by redistricting maps approved by the Republican-dominated Georgia legislature that drew current District 2 Commissioner Jerica Richardson out of her East Cobb home.
Triebsch currently lives in District 2 and in a recent interview with East Cobb News said that “I voted for Jerica and my vote has been eliminated. If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.
“What does this do to our voting rights? Was my vote meaningless? The gerrymandering has got to end.”
The new District 3 lines that will be in force for the Nov. 8 general election include most of East Cobb (see map below).
(The Democratic majority on the Cobb commission has voted to invoke home rule over reapportionment in a bid to keep Richardson in office in a move that is likely to be decided in the courts.)
Triebsch’s campaign website can be found here; Birrell will be profiled separately by East Cobb News.
Triebsch is a Marietta-based family law attorney whose husband Kevin is an assistant principal at East Cobb Middle School. They have a daughter and a son who graduated from the Cobb school district.
She said she’s trying to appeal to citizens and homeowners who feel as though they don’t have the same kind of clout with county leaders as more powerful business and development interests.
“Those who are left out and who are not being heard,” Triebsch said. “What I’m hearing is that people believe that businesses are more important to the current commissioner than the average homeowner.”
For a larger view of the new District 3 boundaries, click here.
She’s pointed to campaign contributions Birrell has received from major corporate leaders in claiming that her opponent is beholden to special interests.
(Birrell’s latest financial disclosure reports show she has raised nearly $35,000 in the current campaign; Triebsch’s filings show she has raised less than $10,000).
Triebsch referenced affordable housing several times as a priority that “is important to me,” and specifically addressing the topic of workforce housing, for teachers, law enforcement personnel and others on public salaries.
Enabling more of those public servants to live in the communities they serve should be a higher priority in Cobb County, Triebsch said.
“If we can get people into housing with strings attached, that would be fantastic,” she said. “How can a Cobb County educator buy a house in this area?”
She noted that Birrell voted against the Cobb fiscal year 2023 budget that took effect Oct. 1 and that included significant pay increases for county employees. Birrell said she did so because she was concerned that newly created positions might not be sustainable in future budgets.
“She wants four more years,” Triebsch said of Birrell. “That would be 16 years” in office. “In this area, it gets gerrymandered. If we had a competitive area, the voters would have a choice.”
When asked about how “red” or Republican-leaning she thought the new District 3 is, Triebsch didn’t elaborate.
Should she win, that would give Democrats a 4-1 majority (the other commission Republican, Keli Gambrill of North Cobb, is running unopposed).
But Triebsch said she wouldn’t govern with partisan objectives in mind.
“It’s what is best for the homeowners and residents in District 3,” she said. “What do they want? I’m not going to rubber-stamp what anybody on the board wants.”
Triebsch said she wasn’t in favor of a proposal to designate a sole trash provider to areas of Cobb County. That code amendment proposal was rejected by all five commissioners—Birrell was especially vocal against it—and has been tabled until next year.
“Competition is good,” Triebsch said. “We don’t need the board deciding who gets to haul the trash.”
Triebsch said she supports better pay for county employees, but didn’t offer any specifics on what a “living wage” for them might be, and how the county budget would be crafted to accommodate that.
She said following the zoning code is imperative to control growth, supports more initiatives for public transit and supports measures to enhance quality of life, including green space for parks and recreation.
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If you’re looking for information and a the wait-time map for the U.S. Senate runoff, click here.
ORIGINAL STORY, OCT. 17
As it has done previously, Cobb Elections and the county government’s GIS office are teaming up up to provide an estimated wait-time map for early voting during the 2022 general elections.
If you click the information icon in the upper-right corner you’ll find a color-coded legend explaining the wait times and other information.
Voting activity has been busy at several locations Monday morning, including the East Cobb Government Service Center (4400 Lower Roswell Road), where the wait times were estimated to be around 30 minutes.
That’s one of two locations in East Cobb that will be open for all three weeks of early voting, including the next two Saturdays, Oct. 22 and 29.
The East Cobb Government Service Center also has a drop box for absentee ballots that is available during early voting hours only.
Cobb Elections officials have begun mailing out absentee ballots. The deadline to apply to receive one is Friday, and you can apply online by clicking here.
Gabriel Sterling, the chief operations officer for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, said this morning that Cobb voters have requested more absentee ballots thus far (23,136) than any other county, and that 216,754 applications for absentee ballots have been submitted statewide.
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From Oct. 17-Nov. 4, Georgia voters can cast their ballots in person in advance of the Nov. 8 general election.
The 2022 elections feature new boundaries for all elected offices due to redistricting, and voters in East Cobb will see very different maps for their elected representatives than the previous 10 years. More on that further down in this post.
When, where, how to vote
Early voting will take place at select locations around the county, including the East Cobb Government Service Center (4400 Lower Roswell Road) and the Tim D. Lee Senior Center (3332 Sandy Plains Road) as follows:
Oct. 17-21, Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Oct. 22, Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Oct. 24-28, Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Oct. 29, Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Oct. 31-Nov. 4, Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
For more locations for early voting and drop boxes, click here. Cobb voters can cast early ballots at any location in the county regardless of where they live.
For the first time ever, Cobb County voters will be able to vote on Sunday, after the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration approved an early voting date for Oct. 30. That will take place from 12-4 p.m. at the new Cobb Elections office at 995 Roswell Street.
The Cobb Elections office and the Cobb government GIS office also are teaming up again with an estimated wait-time map for early voting, with updates provided at each location by the polling managers.
Voters also can request an absentee ballot for any reason, but the drop boxes available during the 2020 elections are more restricted this year.
There is a drop box at the East Cobb Government Service Center, but it is open only during early voting hours.
The deadline to apply for an absentee ballot is Oct. 22, and ballots can now be mailed in through election day. You can get an application online from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office by clicking here.
But absentee ballots must be received at the Cobb Elections office or delivered to a designated drop box by 7 p.m. on Nov. 8, when the polls close for good.
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.
Georgia voters will be deciding all statewide constitutional offices—governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, etc.—as well as a U.S. Senate seat
They also will choose all 14 members of the U.S. House and all members of the Georgia General Assembly, both the State Senate and State House.
The Cobb Solicitor’s race is the only countywide office up for election this year. Two seats on the Cobb Board of Commissioners and three seats on the Cobb Board of Education also will be determined.
The new Cobb Commission District 3 area includes most of East Cobb, and Republican incumbent JoAnn Birrell will be seeking a fourth term against Democrat Christine Triebsch (District 3 map).
On the Cobb school board, Post 4 Republican incumbent David Chastain is being challenged by Democrat Catherine Pozniak (Post 4 map) in an area that includes the Kell, Sprayberry and some of the Lassiter attendance zones.
East Cobb News will be featuring candidate interviews in these races in the coming week.
U.S. House
District 6 will have a new representative, as Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath is seeking the 7th District seat. The new 6th includes East Cobb, some of North Fulton, Cherokee and Forsyth counties and all of Dawson County (East Cobb portion of 6th District map).
The candidates are Democrat Bob Christian of Forsyth, an Army veteran and small business owner, against Republican Rich McCormick, an emergency room physician who previously ran in the 7th district.
Reapportionment also placed some of East Cobb in the 11th District, which stretches from Bartow and Cherokee counties to include much of Cobb and northern areas of the city of Atlanta >(see Cobb portion of map).
Republican incumbent Barry Loudermilk of Cassville is seeking another term against Democrat Anthony Daza of Atlanta, who owns a ballroom dancing business in Buckhead.
Georgia Senate
Redistricting also carved up East Cobb into additional seats in the General Assembly.
In the State Senate, District 6 has been vacated by Attorney General candidate Jen Jordan, a Democrat. Her successor will be Republican Fred Glass, a financial advisor, or Democrat Jason Esteves, a former chairman of the Atlanta school board (East Cobb portion of District 6).
District 32 formerly covered most of East Cobb but now has only a portion (see Cobb area of map), stretching to areas of north Cobb, Woodstock and Cherokee. Republican incumbent Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick of East Cobb is seeking another term against Sylvia Bennett, a social worker.
Most of Northeast Cobb and a good bit of Johnson Ferry Road corridor is now located in District 56, which includes North Fulton (see East Cobb portion of map). The Republican incumbent, John Albers of Roswell, is on the ballot, and is facing Democrat Patrick Thompson, a clean energy entrepreneur, also from Roswell.
Georgia House
A sliver of District 37 remains in East Cobb (see map) in a Marietta-based seat held by Democrat Mary Frances Williams. She is seeking another term against Republican Tess Redding.
Three other East Cobb incumbent House members, also Republicans, are seeking re-election.
In District 44 (map), which has retained much of its Northeast Cobb boundaries, GOP Rep. Don Parsons is seeking another term against Democrat Willie May Oyogoa, a travel advisor.
Longtime State Rep. Sharon Cooper, a Republican, was drawn into District 45 (map) after two close calls in District 43. Her Democratic opponent is Dustin McCormick, who unsuccessfully ran for a special election in District 45 in April after the resignation of GOP Rep. Matt Dollar.
John Carson, a Republican, is running again in District 46 (map), which retains most of its Northeast Cobb base and goes into Cherokee County. His Democratic opponent is Micheal Garza, the owner of a web development business.
A new legislator from East Cobb will be chosen in District 43 (map). The Democratic candidate is Solomon Adesanya, a restaurant owner. Republican Anna Tillman is a geologist.
We’ll have more coverage of these races as early voting continues.
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Commissioner Jerica Richardson said the home rule resolution is an option to address the legislature’s “unprecedented” redistricting against the wishes of the Cobb delegation majority.
In a strict partisan vote, the Cobb Board of Commissioners approved the first of two votes Tuesday to take an unprecedented step at invoking home rule powers over redistricting.
The board’s three-member Democratic majority voted to approve a resolution that would redraw the four commission districts according to a map accepted by the Cobb legislative delegation.
That map, which was not voted on by the Georgia legislature this year, would have kept current District 2 commissioner Jerica Richardson in her district, which includes some of East Cobb as well as the Cumberland-Vinings area.
The two Republican commissioners voted against the resolution, saying it’s a violation of the Georgia Constitution for local governments to conduct reapportionment, which is a task of the legislature.
Another vote has been scheduled for Oct. 25 before the resolution would be sent to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, but a lawsuit by the state is expected in response and the matter will likely be resolved in the courts.
“We begin to make history with this vote,” Richardson said.
A map approved by the Republican-dominated legislature redrew Richardson, a Democrat in her first term, out of the East Cobb home off Post Oak Tritt Road that she moved into last year.
She would have to move into the newly redrawn District 2 by Dec. 31 in order to keep her seat. Her term expires at the end of 2024, but she has said since the legislative session that she will “not step down.”
Before Tuesday’s vote, she reiterated previous public remarks that the legislature’s action to draw a sitting commissioner out of office during a term is unprecedented, and needs to be challenged.
Commissioner JoAnn Birrell
She said it’s the opinion of the county’s legal counsel that the Georgia Constitution allows for local governments to claim home rule powers.
That has not occurred with regards to redistricting. “That it has not been used in this manner does not mean it cannot be used in this manner,” Richardson said before the vote.
District 3 Commissioner JoAnn Birrell, a Republican whose new district includes most of East Cobb, said of the resolution that “this action is illegal” and goes against the state constitution.
She said she twice asked Cobb County Attorney William Rowling for a second opinion but noted that “this was not done,” then read from a letter by the state Office of Legislative Counsel questioning the constitutionality of the resolution.
Rowling responded that several times the language in that letter stated “it appears” and took issue with referenced federal redistricting cases.
“Federal cases do not speak to Georgia law,” he said. When Birrell asked him if home rule could apply to local redistricting in Cobb’s case, he said “Yes ma’am. I do think it’s undecided.”
Keli Gambrill of North Cobb, the other GOP commissioner, accused her Democratic colleagues of “playing politics over enforcing policy” in advancing the resolution in executive session.
Judy Boyce
She also said the “local courtesy” tradition of the legislature honoring county delegation maps isn’t law, and Cobb “has no legal authority to enact redistricting.”
Monique Sheffield, a first-term Democrat who represents South Cobb, said Richardson was elected for four years “and she should have the opportunity to do so.”
That was the sentiment of public speakers in support of the resolution. They included Jackie Bettadapur of East Cobb, who is the head of the Cobb Democratic Party. She didn’t identify herself as such, but said that Cobb’s Republican lawmakers who presented their own maps “went rogue” in getting them approved.
“This is voter nullification,” she said, adding that the GOP “is overturning 2020 election results.”
“State overreach into local government matters has got to stop,” Bettadapur said. “Give voice to our votes and honor the 2020 election results” that resulted in the first Democratic majority on the commission since the 1980s.
Pam Reardon of East Cobb, a Cobb Republican activist who also didn’t mention her party ties, countered by saying that the approved maps are the law and that “this lawsuit is going be a colossal waste of taxpayer funds.”
She said Richardson, who narrowly was elected in 2020 by roughly 1,200 votes over Republican Fitz Johnson, knew redistricting would occur and moved “all the way across District 2” into her new home.
Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid tried to move the vote up on the agenda to allow public speakers to have their say beforehand.
But she couldn’t get a majority, and after the vote, speakers on either side of the issue had their say.
They included East Cobb resident Judy Boyce, whose late husband, Mike Boyce, was the Republican chairman from 2017-2020.
She said she voted in the May primary with the new lines in effect, including District 3, in which Birrell is seeking a fourth term against Democrat Christine Triebsch.
The resolution doesn’t affect 2022 elections, but it could create chaos if it ultimately prevails, and Boyce urged commissioners not to vote for home rule.
“What happens to my vote?” she said, getting emotional. “What you did today nullifies my vote. I deserve to have my vote honored. How does this work now?
“I don’t think what you’ve done today is legal. It’s politically motivated.”
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Cobb is challenging a legislative-approved map at right and wants to replace it with the one on the left that would allow District 2 commissioner Jerica Richardson to keep her seat (in pink).
An unprecedented legal ploy by Cobb County to invoke home rule provisions for reapportioning commission district lines will be considered for a vote Tuesday.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners will be asked to pass a resolution to redraw the four commission districts according to a map drawn earlier this year by State Rep. Erick Allen, the Cobb legislative delegation chairman, that would preserve the District 2 seat for commissioner Jerica Richardson.
But Cobb Republican lawmakers ignored Allen’s map and pushed through the GOP-dominated Georgia legislature that took most of East Cobb, where Richardson lives, out of District 2.
Under state law, Richardson, a first-term Democrat who was elected 2020, would have to move out of her home off Johnson Ferry Road and into the new District 2 if she wants to remain in office.
She has claimed it’s the first time in state history a sitting elected official has been drawn out of a district, and that the legislature ignored longstanding courtesy by not accepting the local delegation map.
The resolution is on the commission’s regular agenda (agenda item here), and will be followed by a second consideration and vote on Oct. 25.
The Cobb challenge will have no bearing on the upcoming Nov. 8 general election. Voters in East Cobb will have the District 3 commission race on their ballot (in yellow on the maps above).
That seat is currently held by Republican JoAnn Birrell, who is seeking a fourth term and is being challenged by Democrat Christine Triebsch.
Cobb’s resolution, should it pass, is likely to be challenged in court by the state. Birrell has previously said that she didn’t think it was fair for Richrdson to be drawn out of her seat.
But she is against changing the maps approved by the legislature, saying it’s confusing to voters and “isn’t even legal.”
The full agenda for Tuesday’s meeting can be found by clicking here. It will take place starting at 9 a.m. in the second floor board room of the Cobb Government Building, 100 Cherokee St., in downtown Marietta.
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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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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.
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
Cobb commissioners 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.
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!
State Rep. Mitch Kaye (directly under the Star of David) and State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick (standing at his right), both of East Cobb, are part of the 16-member Georgia-Israel Legislative Caucus delegation.
State Rep. Mitch Kay and State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick of East Cobb are part of a bipartisan legislative delegation from Georgia currently traveling in Israel.
Members of the Georgia-Israel Legislative Caucus arrived in Tel Aviv on Monday, meeting with members of the Israeli Knesset, as well as representatives from the country’s military, diplomatic, business and legal communities.
The legislators also met with Major General (Ret.) Alon Levavi to learn more about the Georgia Israel Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE).
“This trip is about strengthening the deep bonds of friendship and shared values between Georgia and Israel,” Kaye, a Republican from House District 45, said in a release issued by the Georgia House of Representatives.
“I am already encouraged by the warm welcome we received upon arriving in Tel Aviv, and I look forward to expanding our understanding of this incredible nation over the next several days.”
Kaye was the first Jewish Republican elected to the Georgia legislature in the 1990s and earlier this year won a special election to fill the unexpired term of former State Rep. Matt Dollar through the end of the year.
Other legislators and their families making the trip include House members Debra Bazemore (D-South Fulton), Micah Gravley (R-Douglasville), Debbie Buckner (D-Junction City), Karen Bennett (D-Stone Mountain), Barry Fleming (R-Harlem) and Darlene Taylor (R-Thomasville).
The release said the Gov. Brian Kemp issued a commendation recognizing the trip, noting that Georgia exported more than $280 million worth of goods to Israel and imported $652 million worth of goods from Israel in 2021.
His commendation “also also commended the launch of the Georgia-Israel Legislative Caucus, the expansion of direct flights between Atlanta and Tel Aviv starting next year and the GILEE program with Israel,” according to the release.
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 Board of Education chairman David Chastain, who is up for re-election in November, is holding a campaign fundraiser later this month in East Cobb.
The fundraiser is Tuesday, Aug. 30, from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Atlanta Country Club (500 Atlanta Country Club Drive; info and RSVP link here).
Chastain is a Republican who is seeking a third term from Post 4, which includes the Kell, Lassiter and Sprayberry clusters.
He is being opposed by Democrat Catherine Pozniak, a Sprayberry High School graduate and a former teacher and state education administrator in Louisiana.
Both were unopposed in the May primary election; Chastain received 13,921 votes to 6,105 for Pozniak.
Their contest could determine party control of the seven-member Cobb school board.
Republicans hold a 4-3 edge on a board that has been rife with partisan conflict over the last three-plus years.
On his campaign website and in recent social media postings, Chastain stressed the need “to keep STABILITY and STEADY LEADERSHIP” on the school board.
His priorities include focusing on “age appropriate” education and to “keep politics out of the classroom.” He also vowed that he “will never support removing campus police officers from schools” and supports the senior tax exemption and fiscal budgeting.
But he is trailing in campaign fundraising to first-time candidate Pozniak, according to financial disclosure reports filed for the first half of 2022.
She has $18,357 in cash on hand and has raised $7,505 since January, according to her reports. In all, Pozniak is reporting she has raised nearly $23,000.
Chastain, a Wheeler High School graduate and a proposal analyst at Lockheed-Martin, has collected $5,625 in the first six months of 2022 and has $4,850 on hand.
Chastain’s contributors include Melissa Bottoms, a former Cobb Leadership member and owner of The Retreat, a senior-living residence in Marietta ($1,000); the campaign of fellow Republican board member Randy Scamihorn ($500); Georgia Public Service Commissioner and former Cobb commissioner Stan Wise ($300); and former Cobb Commission Chairman and Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens ($125).
The biggest donors for Pozniak, an educational consultant, include Democrats for Educational Equity, a Washington, D.C. political action committee that contributed $3,000.
She also has a $1,000 donation from Christine Ortiz, a Florida-based “equity-centered” design entrepreneur who attended the Harvard graduate education school—where Pozniak earned her doctorate—and who has created K-12 “microschools.”
Her other $1,000 donors include James Garvey, an attorney and former state board of education member in Louisiana, and Anne Mellen, an Atlanta employment and labor attorney.
Outgoing Democratic board member Charisse Davis chipped in a contribution of $105 to Pozniak’s campaign.
Last week, Pozniak announced she had been called up for six weeks of duty in the U.S. Army Reserve, where she is a captain and adviser on educational issues.
She said she will return to active campaigning by mid-September.
The school board clashes have included the Cobb school senior property tax exemption; racial, diversity and equity issues; the Cobb County School District’s response to COVID-19; and a special review conducted last year by Cognia, the district’s accrediting agency.
Democrats Jaha Howard and Charisse Davis, at the center of many of those controversies and whose 2018 elections reduced what had been a 6-1 GOP majority, are not seeking re-election this year.
Chastain is the only Republican incumbent on the November ballot. Davis, whose Post 6 currently includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters, will be succeeded by Democrat Nichelle Davis, a former classroom teacher, who is unopposed.
That redistricted post’s East Cobb footprint has been reduced to include only areas along Powers Ferry Road.
There is a general election battle for Howard’s Post 2, which takes up the Campbell and Osborne clusters.
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!
