As the final notes of “Silent Night” wafted through the sanctuary, I kept looking at the light.
The candlelight that we all held in one hand as we sang, kneeling, at the end of a lovely Christmas Eve service.
I didn’t want the light to go out, and kept the candle burning during the processional, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”
After that, the overhead lights had come on and as I exited the building, I looked back at a beautiful sight. The soft lights that radiated from the building, and the Christmas tree in front, left me in a comfortable glow.
I was filled by the warmth of a festive event, the embrace of new friends and the promise of new birth.
For the second year in a row, I attended the Christmas Eve candlelight service at St. Catherine’s Episcopal Church on Holt Road.
What was different this year is that I’ve been going there for the last few months, after many years of not being religious in any way.
Bit by bit, week by week, a little more of a light that had dimmed for me began to brighten up again.
Earlier this year I lost my mother, and finding my way out of that darkness has been rough. My first Christmas without her was going to be especially difficult.
On Monday, as I scratched off the last few items on my grocery shopping list, that sense of loss overwhelmed me, and I barely made my way out of the store without breaking down.
On the morning of Christmas Eve, that melancholy reappeared, and I wondered if I had the strength to go to church.
It was on Christmas Eve a year ago I learned my mother’s lung cancer had become so advanced, and she had gotten so weak, that she decided to forego any chemotherapy. She lived two more months, and for me that favorite of her holidays has become a bittersweet memory.
After the candlelight service Tuesday night, I drove past our old house, and noticed that the current residents had decorated a Christmas tree in the front yard, with beaming green and red lights. I smiled, knowing my mother would be delighted.
The lights of the holidays always made her happy, but she always knew how to look for the light every day of the year.
She found it, in her faith and her family and her sense of fidelity to friends and strangers, and really lived it.
It’s a lesson she taught me long ago, and that I’m trying to learn anew. The light is not always visible, and often is buried amid darkness and despair.
But it’s there, if we’re willing to let it shine.
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East Cobb Cityhood leader David Birdwell met a skeptical and at times hostile crowd at the group’s first public appearance in March. (ECN file photos)
The leaders of the East Cobb cityhood effort did the right thing this week by calling off their push for legislation and a referendum in 2020.
They were running out of time to get too many things done—including finalizing a map and a proposed list of services—and had stoked even more opposition, suspicion and confusion for months this spring and summer when they barely connected with the public at all.
County elected officials, including legislators, hadn’t been told what was going on.
State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick said she got a lot of negative feedback about East Cobb cityhood.
After its first town hall meeting in March, the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb had its work cut out, as citizens packed a church parish hall and demanded to know who, what and especially why this was being proposed.
A month later the cityhood group had a town hall meeting at Walton High School. Like that and future events it held, citizens could ask questions only by writing them down on a note card for a moderator to read. Or not.
This is no way to have a meaningful dialogue with the public about a dramatic change in their local government, in an initiative that would ultimately be decided by citizens.
Neither is having a cityhood bill filed in the legislature the day after that first town hall meeting, and on the next-to-last day of the General Assembly session.
At the time, I thought it smacked of another bad-faith effort on the part of the cityhood group, which paid for a financial feasibility study issued last November, but whose members remained anonymous and unwilling to meet with the public.
At one point on its website, the cityhood group explained that it wasn’t identifying its donors or others involved for fear of harassment from their “enemies” and the media.
By dodging such basic questions, and setting up a non-profit 501(c)4 “social welfare” organization to conceal donors, original cityhood leaders likely created more opponents than they ever conjured up in their paranoid imaginations.
Public suspicions were immediate, and they continue today: Development interests are behind this. Nothing but a land grab. Look at what’s happening in Sandy Springs. We don’t want that coming here.
Also: We don’t want another layer of government. My property taxes are bound to go up. The services I get from the county are just fine.
When the cityhood group finally faced the public, newly appointed cityhood leader David Birdwell didn’t stand much of a chance.
East Cobb cityhood leader Rob Eble speaks at a Wheeler HS town hall meeting in November.
I’ve found him and Rob Eble, another newcomer to the group, to be well-intentioned. But overcoming the bad start of others has been a tall order, and it’s dogged them ever since.
So has the lack of any kind of public groundswell for a City of East Cobb. When prominent civic leaders say they were blindsided by this, that’s telling.
Trying to push through legislation in two years, hiring high-profile lobbyists and keeping the public in the dark for months hurt the cityhood case even more.
Another big question: What’s the rush?
Other cityhood efforts in metro Atlanta have taken several legislative cycles. There is so much to work out, in addition to finances: Intergovernmental agreements, start-up costs, staffing even a bare-bones city hall, and that darn map.
Eble told me this week the cityhood group never finalized an expanded map to include the Pope and Lassiter school zones. It was an estimate provided by a GIS service that detailed the original map.
Ultimately, the East Cobb cityhood effort struggled from a lack of organization more than having what many consider a shadowy agenda.
Eble admitted the cityhood group made mistakes communicating with the public. As for the idea of cityhood, he said, “I still believe in it. But nobody’s trying to shove anything down anybody’s throat.”
There are many who will never believe this, of course, and they will remain ever-vigilant to stop cityhood.
Yet I’ve also talked to, and heard from, citizens who are unsure. They weren’t necessarily opposed to cityhood but wanted more information, and didn’t feel like they were getting it.
Some others roiled by an annexation spat this summer with the City of Marietta have been open to the idea of an East Cobb city, fearing the county can’t protect them.
As these last few months have transpired, I do think the idea of cityhood is worth considering. I’ve been accused of being biased, both for and against a city, but I don’t really have an opinion.
Too big to succeed?
As someone who grew up in East Cobb, I’ve seen my community become suburbanized, and now more densely developed in some areas.
This is happening all over the county, which has more than 750,000 people and is projected to have a population of one million by 2050.
Before the cityhood issue was raised, I had been wondering if Cobb County government could continue to operate as it has.
There are serious concerns about public safety staffing, the county’s growing pension obligations and addressing transportation and development concerns.
Is Cobb too big to govern the way it is, with a countywide chairman and four district commissioners serving nearly 200,000 people each? And representing communities that are distinct from one another?
Tre Hutchins and Galt Porter of the South Cobb Alliance, a pro-cityhood group in Mableton.
There are times when commissioners are squabbling during their meetings that I wonder if they can even agree on what to have for lunch.
I’ve thought a citizen-led, grassroots cityhood movement in East Cobb could gain some traction, especially around zoning, development and land use issues.
I could see a City of East Cobb providing those and other community development services, including code enforcement.
I’ve never understood why the cityhood effort centered upon providing expensive police and fire services to supplant excellent, if not fully-staffed county departments? We have the lowest crime and fire rates in Cobb County.
Why not provide something better than what exists now, in say, sanitation, where the increasingly monopolized American Disposal private hauler is the subject of many complaints?
A financial review group studying the East Cobb feasibility study recommended that option, at least to start.
A “city light” form of government could serve East Cobb much better than one worrying about how to pay for new fire trucks and police cars and trained professionals to staff them.
Transparency matters
The “pause and reset” phase for cityhood, to borrow Eble’s phrase to me, is a good time to rethink those matters, as well as to be fully forthcoming with the public before gearing up for 2021.
At the outset, the cityhood group should lay out all of its finances, including how much money has been spent, and who’s been footing the bills.
Identify everybody who’s given money to the cause, and been involved in the effort in a significant way. Everybody.
This isn’t a private business deal, but an entirely public matter that could affect the lives of more than 100,000 people.
Follow the lead of the Mableton cityhood effort, which conducted extensive town halls over a couple of years to really hear what the public thinks, without note card questions and a “here’s what we want to do” mentality.
East Cobb cityhood leader David Birdwell at an East Cobb Business Association debate in November.
Like Mableton, have a city map fully detailed, including city council districts that were indicated in the East Cobb bill but never visualized, and provide an online survey.
Better communications include regular use of social media. The East Cobb cityhood group barely updated those platforms and its website, which is absurd heading into the third decade of the 21st century.
Cityhood leaders should have regular discussions with legislators and other local elected officials, since without their support a referendum will likely never happen.
The East Cobb cityhood group certainly has serious intentions. It had the money to buy access and line up the mechanics of getting a bill passed in the legislature.
What it didn’t have was a concept of what it really takes to gather public support, and its efforts to explain its reasons for cityhood were belated and underwhelming.
Something as substantive as creating a new local government shouldn’t be accepted as easily as cityhood leaders may have thought. Nor should it be categorically rejected as the anti-city East Cobb Alliance has maintained.
For those of us who have an open mind about the issue, we’re still receptive to hearing a better case being made.
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East Cobb cityhood leaders heard plenty from citizens at a Wheeler High School town hall meeting this week. (ECN file)
In trying to lay out a case for why a City of East Cobb might be a better value for citizens’ tax money than Cobb County government, those behind a cityhood movement used some animal analogies this week.
They described East Cobb as a “golden goose,” with its middle class and wealthy homeowners comprising a hefty portion of the county’s tax base, and not receiving the public services, especially police and fire protection, to justify their property tax bills.
East Cobb citizens, they argued, may feel like a frog in slowly boiling water, unaware of how much worse the heat can get if they don’t figure out a way to jump out.
“How are we being boiled?” shouted a woman from the back of the auditorium at Wheeler High School, angry not at the message she was hearing, but the messengers.
Like many of the more than 100 or so people in attendance at a town hall meeting Monday night, she was more than skeptical of the cityhood narrative that East Cobb would be better off as a new city, with more responsive local government delivered without a tax increase.
Cityhood leaders Rob Eble and David Birdwell and Bill Green of the Independent Financial Group at the Wheeler town hall. (ECN file)
It’s a message that the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb has been trying to make for several months, and that was renewed again this week.
“I was one of the frogs,” said Bill Green, who described himself as a cityhood skeptic, then became part of what was called the Independent Financial Group that concluded that a City of East Cobb is fiscally viable.
Before attending the cityhood’s first town hall meeting in March, he said, “I didn’t know what was going on.”
His comments to many of those in the Wheeler auditorium were unconvincing.
Cityhood leaders were heckled repeatedly by citizens unhappy about what they said is a lack of information, or a lack of transparency, or some of both.
Most of all, they remain deeply skeptical that the cityhood group that formed a little more than a year ago has given them any good reason to support a dramatic change in how their local government operates.
“I think it’s a solution in search of a problem,” said John Morgan, who lives in the nearby Willow Ridge subdivision.
He said he moved to East Cobb from DeKalb County more than 30 years ago, is satisfied with the Cobb County services he gets and doesn’t understand calls for what he said would be “another layer of bureaucracy.” Furthermore, slicing off an affluent part of Cobb would be “devastating” for the county and its AAA bond rating.
“And for what? We have a great life here. Why this?”
It’s a refrain that’s been heard repeatedly, and increasingly with more vigor, in recent weeks. A newly formed citizens group opposing cityhood, the East Cobb Alliance, was part of a debate with cityhood leader David Birdwell on Tuesday at a luncheon meeting of the East Cobb Business Association.
Mindy Seger, an accountant, went toe-to-toe with Birdwell on several fronts, taking issue with a financial feasibility study, claims of better police and fire services, and individuals on the cityhood committee with real estate ties.
When Birdwell said only three of the 14 cityhood leaders had real estate estate backgrounds, including himself, she asked, “can we get that list?” (It was released on Friday, on the cityhood’s revamped website, and contained several changes from the initial group members announced in March).
When asked to identify those who’ve been funding cityhood expenses, Birdwell would say only that a “large group” of East Cobb residents have been making donations.
In several ways, Seger is the ideal representative for those dead-set against cityhood. She was well-prepared and kept to factual concerns opponents have had in what has been an emotionally fraught issue.
Mindy Seger of the anti-city East Cobb Alliance debates David Birdwell of the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb. (ECN file)
Like others who’ve come together to fight cityhood, she’s new to this kind of activism. She said after the debate that “there’s kind of been a political awakening” in East Cobb over the issue.
“It’s gotten people engaged,” Seger said, “and that’s a good thing.”
The citizens the cityhood group needs to win over are people like Joe O’Connor, a longtime East Cobb resident who liked the idea of cityhood after Cobb property tax rates went up in 2018.
When the financial feasibility study was released, O’Connor, who worked on East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott’s first campaign for office in 2008, was among those asked by the cityhood group to offer his thoughts.
When O’Connor asked who funded the study, he said he was told it was none of his business, and he promptly resigned.
State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick is taking a “wait-and-see” approach about sponsoring an East Cobb cityhood bill. (ECN file)
Now, O’Connor couldn’t be more opposed to cityhood. At the ECBA luncheon, he said he received a call a couple weeks ago from a pollster asking questions about cityhood that he thought were designed to produce a “yes” vote. He said he told the caller his vote would be no, and in no uncertain terms.
“It’s obvious they’re not going to tell who’s behind this financially,” O’Connor said. “I never invest in a company when I don’t know who’s running it.”
At the Wheeler town hall meeting, resident Patty Hawkins said she’s got an open mind about cityhood, but wanted to get more information about the proposed city boundary line changes (they now include the Pope and Lassiter school clusters).
“I think it’s something to consider,” said Hawkins, who said “I think I’d vote for it,” but there’s still more she wants to learn about the issue.
For the moment, the cityhood opinion that matters the most may belong to State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick of East Cobb. The cityhood bill introduced last session by State Rep. Matt Dollar still needs a local senate sponsor if it’s to pass the legislature and establish a referendum next year.
Kirkpatrick told the crowd at Wheeler she’s getting mostly negative feedback about cityhood, but is keeping an open mind and welcoming feedback from constituents. She’s planning to do some of her own polling on cityhood before the end of the year, which could decide whether the bill will be taken up at all when the legislature returns in January.
After nearly a year since the cityhood effort was revealed, the lack of a genuine public groundswell remains the single biggest challenge for those proposing a City of East Cobb.
While a key lawmaker feels the boiling heat, and as the community watches to see which way she’ll jump, those who think their “golden goose” is being cooked with a cityhood effort are as loud and organized as they’ve ever been, and couldn’t be more distrustful.
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I drove past Sun Trust Park a couple weeks ago, hours before the Atlanta Braves would clinch the National League East title.
To say that was a happy occasion was an understatement; I trace my Braves’ fandom to 1969, when I first attended a game at Atlanta Stadium and the year they won the West with Henry Aaron. Their opponents that day were the San Francisco Giants and Willie Mays.
During the years to follow, the Braves struggled to solidify the changing business of baseball in an economically challenged area of downtown Atlanta.
Little did I or many of my Cobb County neighbors have any idea, that after only 20 years at Turner Field, the next home of the Braves would be rather close to our homes.
It’s been six years since it was revealed that the Braves had worked out an agreement with Cobb County to jointly finance a new stadium, in the Cumberland area, on Windy Ridge Parkway and visible from I-75.
In that late summer of 2013, Tim Lee became a household name not just in Cobb County, but the metro Atlanta area and the baseball world. As the Cobb Commission Chairman at the time, he was approached by the Braves, and discussions were kept secret for months until the last minute.
Even other commissioners weren’t told until it was clear the word was going to get out. What’s more, they had exactly two weeks before they would be asked to formalize a Memorandum of Understanding that would commit the county to nearly $400 million in public financing.
Lee talked a good game about the money not coming from property taxes. Two of his colleagues, Helen Goreham and JoAnn Birrell, were ecstatic. After some grim years of tax increases and budget cuts due to the recession, here was a big fat piece of economic development, plopped right in Cobb County’s lap.
Anyone who would look this gift horse in the mouth, it was suggested by those doing the rah-rah for the stadium, is a fool.
But two weeks was no time to thoroughly review a 30-year commitment for snags, fine print and other potential issues bound to come up for such a complicated, long-term deal.
It’s not a secret that subsidized sports stadiums and arenas rarely yield the jobs and economic benefits they promise, and quite often come with unexpected costs. But Lee, the Cobb Chamber of Commerce and other civic boosters were undeterred.
Lee rammed the Braves’ stadium deal through with a 4-1 vote, with only Lisa Cupid of South Cobb raising questions about the process, and some of the details of the MOU.
That’s how Lee, who died last week from cancer at the age of 62, got some big things done during his six years as chairman. During the recession, he threatened to close down Cobb library branches, to get commissioners to the table to raise taxes and cut services.
That ploy worked, but I came away with a dim view of how Lee operated. The lack of transparency with the Braves’ deal only confirmed that impression a few years later.
Lee lost his bid for re-election in 2016 to Mike Boyce, an East Cobb resident, who drove home the faulty process of how Cobb got the Braves.
Regardless of how Lee swung the deal, what it has represented since then is a kind of transformation of Cobb County.
As the county went from rural to suburban in the late 1960s and 1970s, Cobb is changing again, to an increasingly urban area in many places, including more pockets of East Cobb.
What county officials like to call the “halo effect” of development stemming from Sun Trust Park and The Battery has spilled over to the nearby Powers Ferry Road corridor.
The tax benefits of the Braves’ relocation to Cobb County look like they’re going to pay off. That’s a good thing.
The high-density residential and commercial development that’s popping up all around the county, even possibly to the Sprayberry area, was likely to come whether a stadium was built or not.
However, Sun Trust stands, not just as the home of our Local Nine, but as a symbol that Cobb County is not just the bedroom community that attracted many of us here. The ranch-style homes once built on big, wooded lots a generation ago are increasingly being plowed under for McMansions on postage stamps and upscale townhomes.
Mixed-use developments are replacing standard strip shopping centers as the retail industry goes through major upheavals. Tax incentives for corporate relocations promising new jobs have become more frequent and controversial.
Some of those trends were already in motion when Lee, seeking his first full term as chairman, won a close Republican runoff in 2012. In that election, he had to fend off a former chairman, Bill Byrne, who raised the idea of a City of East Cobb to get votes.
At his watch party at a hotel near Kennesaw State, Lee breathed a sigh of relief when the voting returns finally went his way. He wiped his brow, thanked his supporters and hugged his wife.
Deep down, he was humble and hard-working, from his involvement with the East Cobb Civic Association, to representing an East Cobb district on the Board of Commissioners and as chairman.
Pragmatism was his hallmark, and as much as I disliked the way the Braves deal went down—ends should never justify the means—Lee never regretted it, even if it cost him his political career.
A few hours after Lee’s memorial service Friday at First United Methodist Church in Marietta, the Braves rallied to win a playoff game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Sun Trust.
It’s a shame he didn’t get to enjoy the renaissance of the team and the area where it now plays. My condolences go out to his family, and in lieu of flowers donations were asked to benefit the Atlanta Braves Foundation.
Lee’s actions helped shape a new evolution for Cobb County, one that may be more dramatic than what has come before.
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Sen. Johnny Isakson and his wife Dianne in Normandy in June for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. (Isakson office photo)
As the legacy of Johnny Isakson was being assessed this week by statewide media, and in Washington, D.C., news outlets, the view from home isn’t all that different, but with a few parochial twists.
Even before he became Georgia’s senior senator, a key leader in an emerging Republican majority in the state and a political elder statesman, Isakson was known simply as “Johnny.”
A personable, eager, hardworking real estate agent, he moved to what was to become East Cobb under the auspices of Northside Realty, founded by his father. This was in the mid-to-late-1960s.
He got involved in many business and civic activities, including the Marietta-Cobb Jaycees, the younger division of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce.
That’s how my father became acquainted with Isakson during that time, as Cobb County was going through its first boom period. The Jaycees also included George Lankford, later to become the first Republican elected to the Cobb County commission.
The Jaycees attracted many aspiring and ambitious types, some drawn to seeking political office. Isakson ran for the commission but lost in his first stab at elected office. My dad volunteered in the Lankford campaign but didn’t get involved in politics after that, as he built his own successful career as a home contractor.
Isakson continued taking an active role in community leadership as Northside Realty became a cornerstone of an East Cobb residential market that was just beginning to lay the foundation for the desirable homebuying market that it is today.
He took to politics like he took to selling real estate, utterly determined to succeed. That doggedness would serve Isakson well as a Republican because of the Democratic stranglehold on state, local and federal politics.
As a young legislator, he benefitted from Democrats who weren’t afraid to work across the aisle. When Republicans became the majority party, Isakson returned the favor without hesitation.
After losing a nasty battle for governor to Zell Miller, Isakson was called upon by Miller to head up a state board of education in disarray. Isakson took on the job.
Bipartisanship was never a dirty word to Isakson, a rarity given the increasingly polarized times that paralleled his ascent.
He would succeed combative Speaker Newt Gingrich in the East Cobb-based 6th U.S. House District.
After losing a U.S. Senate GOP primary, Isakson in 2004 won the first of three elections to that body, becoming the first Georgia Republican to ever do so.
That he won’t be able to finish out that third term due to health reasons has saddened many, including those who don’t agree with him politically.
That’s because for Isakson, a person’s politics aren’t a reflection of who they are as a human being. He’s unlike too many of his Congressional colleagues in both parties, as well as the current commander-in-chief, who exploit those differences for the purpose of intentional division.
Isakson is a committed conservative, to be sure, and he has fought hard for those positions and has been a loyal member of his political party. Some observers, especially those with a more liberal perspective, think he could have done more to publicly decry the tenor of the Tweets and other outbursts coming from the White House, among other things.
Earlier this year, Isakson did give Trump a tongue-lashing for comments about the late Sen. John McCain, one of Isakson’s closest colleagues and friends. That the president didn’t Tweet something in return, or respond in any other way, is noteworthy.
In an age of political showhorses, Isakson has always been a workhorse.
Treating people with respect has been a hallmark of his service as an elected official, something he cultivated as a young real estate agent in East Cobb many decades ago.
Eight years ago this month, on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, Isakson stood in the pulpit at East Cobb’s Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, where he has taught Sunday School for many years.
He delivered remarks during an ecumenical service there that summed up so much of what Isakson has embodied in public life. He was resolute about U.S. objectives in cracking down on terrorism, but in doing so reached out to the Christian, Jewish and Islamic faithful in attendance.
That was one set of remarks among the many thousands of speeches he has given in more than four decades on the public stage, but it’s one I heard as so thoroughly decent and devoid of an agenda.
It was refreshing, as was Isakson’s example in so many other ways. He spoke out against an anti-gay resolution adopted by the Cobb commission in the early 1990s that prompted Atlanta Olympic organizers to cancel related events in the county.
The county has come a long way since Isakson stepped into the spotlight, and that’s not a coincidence.
Whether you agreed with his votes and politics or not, his humble leadership style and the personal values he put into practice every day will certainly be missed, especially in these fractious times.
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The first good rain we’ve had in a while was the day our family bid a final farewell to our mother.
Between the showers on Saturday afternoon, we spread her ashes on the soft ground holding dogwood trees that line a slice of Lake Allatoona, just off the Old Highway 41, and close to downtown Acworth.
After more than 15 years since she left Georgia, and two months after her death, my mother, whose name was Arlyn Culpepper, finally came back home to stay.
The small beachhead and pavilion near the shore form a rustic church retreat of which our East Cobb congregation was a part. It was also one of her favorite places, for the sense of peace, faith and family they provided.
On the Labor Day holiday, a big corn roast was always the method of celebration, and we reprised that tradition as we gathered again at Lutherwood.
Our family picnic on Saturday featured plenty of unshucked ears, bratwurst, hamburgers and I can’t remember what else.
We tried to recreate that sense of familiarity that binds families together, and honors those who have left us.
It has been decades since I went there, but upon first sight the memories came flooding back.
For our mother, the South wasn’t home, but it’s where she moved to from her native Wisconsin as a young mother, married to an aspiring homebuilder. Georgia, and metro Atlanta, was where many homes were being built in the early 1960s.
As I started school, we moved to Cobb County, finally settling in East Cobb in the 1970s. It wasn’t easy raising three young children, and after my parents divorced, it got even tougher for her.
Even before she remarried, what she wanted for us was some stability, and that meant more than anything, a sense of home. She bought an early 1960s ranch house right behind our church on Lower Roswell Road as I entered middle school.
For her, being able to walk to our church, Faith Lutheran, just as she did as a young girl, was an important part of restoring a sense of home.
For me, living within a short walk of the ball fields, tennis courts and swimming pool of Sewell Park, and the old East Marietta Library, finally gave me a sense of home.
I left for most of the 1980s, away at college and big-city life in my 20s. When I came back home in the early 1990s, I was shocked. East Cobb was starting to feel more like a city, and less like a suburb.
“What happened?” I once asked mother. “Everybody moved here,” she said.
But when I visited the house, nothing else mattered. Not just the plates of leftovers I took home with me, but the comfort of familiar surroundings and chatter.
She spent those empty-nest years involved in church activities, attending classes at the Enrichment of Life Movement in Marietta, knitting and quilting for cancer patients and family members, and dogsitting for their neighbors.
When she and my stepfather retired to Florida, I knew it would never be the same. They enjoyed those years living near the beach, but after his death in 2015, mother didn’t have much time herself.
Her arthritis and scoliosis worsened, and about a year and a half ago she developed lung cancer that she didn’t tell us much about until it was too late.
Over the holidays, she was hospitalized, but was too weak to endure chemotherapy. She had had enough of doctors, and the pain she was going through, and didn’t want us to deal with months of preparing for the inevitable.
After her funeral in Fort Walton Beach, we looked through so many of the photos she had kept over the years, many of which I had forgotten about. Including my first sports team:
I’m No. 20, seated at the bottom right in the first row, and haven’t seen this in decades. I couldn’t believe she kept this photo, and my grade-school pictures (I’ll spare you those!).
The memories they provide are priceless, but for me, they reinforced the importance of a sense of home.
I don’t meant to prattle on about this, but as I continue on in middle age, those things have become even more important, and not just because I’m building a community news site.
Everybody else in my family lives along the Gulf Coast (I should take a hint!), and while I love going down to visit, this place we call East Cobb is home for me. Of all the many things she did for us, this is one of the finest gifts of all.
My mother missed the seasons in Marietta after she moved to Florida, and always enjoyed returning home for visits in the spring and the fall.
I wish she could have come back for one more trip before her health declined, but I’m comforted that she’s resting close by in perpetuity, near the home—and the sense of place—that she bestowed to us all.
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During Thursday night’s town hall meeting about East Cobb Cityhood, David Birdwell was patient, polite and completely earnest as he took the slings and arrows of a citizenry dubious about what he’s trying to sell.
As a new spokesman of a cityhood movement that stumbled out of the gate earlier this winter—one which refused to identify individuals, thus raising questions about its motives—Birdwell is stepping into the void at a critical time.
Joining the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb, Inc., in January, after the release of a feasibility study and after those forming the group had already hired a lobbyist in the Georgia legislature, Birdwell had to face an overflow audience at the Catholic Church of St. Ann by himself.
Rob Eble, a technology consultant who’s been designated the other half of the new public face of the cityhood effort, couldn’t attend after suffering a knee injury.
While that may serve as something of a metaphor for how some see the idea of part of East Cobb becoming a city, Birdwell is adamant that it’s an idea that “makes enough sense to explore.”
A semi-retired real estate entrepreneur, Birdwell has lived in East Cobb for the last 22 years—like many in the cityhood group, the Atlanta Country Club area to be specific—and said after reading the feasibility study he was intrigued enough to learn more.
After being contacted by those in the cityhood group—which still hadn’t gone public even as legislation and a city charter were being drawn up—Birdwell agreed to put himself front and center, something he found improbable.
“I can’t believe I did it,” Birdwell said after the meeting, as the church lights were being turned off and the doors to the parish hall were being locked.
“We don’t have a lot of answers now, but I feel convinced of the reasons why I’m doing this,” he said.
To the more than 500 East Cobb citizens who heard him out this week (or in some instances, heckled him), Birdwell also was firm about something else: “I am not a political person,” he said, prompting howls of disbelief.
They returned a short time later when he insisted that “nobody is doing this for any personal gain.”
The laughs—hearty guffaws—were deafening. Yet Birdwell carried on with his message that cityhood is about more local control, better services and a chance for East Cobbers to shape the future of their community.
I believe Birdwell’s sincerity about what he’s saying, and since East Cobb News began publishing about this issue in December, we’ve heard from many others who feel the same way.
It’s a familiar refrain coming from those who’ve been behind cityhood, yet who still remain in the background. But his job now is to convince tens of thousands of East Cobb residents who remain highly skeptical, if downright cynical, about what they’re being told.
What was reassuring is that there will be another town hall to continue the conversation, on April 29, at Chestnut Ridge Christian Church.
Quite frankly, he’s got a very tough sell to make.
That’s because many of those who question cityhood think the services they get from Cobb County for the taxes they pay are just fine. Some are absolutely convinced their taxes will go up, which Birdwell and the cityhood group say will not happen. Others see a number of people involved in the real estate industry who are behind this effort and get suspicious.
Birdwell may not be political, but from the get-go the cityhood effort smacked of rank politics. The map that was drawn up, and is now part of the legislation and charter submitted on Friday, to the letter matches the boundaries of the East Cobb portion of Commissioner Bob Ott’s District 2.
It doesn’t include a big chunk of what many consider East Cobb. Only the Walton, Wheeler and part of the Pope and Lassiter attendance zones are included in this map. I’ve heard from those living near Sprayberry, Kell and the rest of Pope and Lassiter: Um well, what about us?
Others have suggested, only slightly tongue-in-cheek: Are they gonna call this the City of Walton?
Ott, who told me before the town hall this is by far the biggest such meeting he’s ever held, has been coy about his interest in cityhood. But several of his appointees served on an ad hoc citizens committee that made recommendations about the feasibility study.
Riley Lowery, Ott’s longtime political consultant, is now advising the cityhood group, which was formed in the fall, not long after Cobb commissioners narrowly voted for a tax increase. Ott voted against it, and has said often that some of his constituents are upset that the district provides 40 percent of the county’s tax revenue but doesn’t get the services in return.
Dee Gay, a member of the East Cobb cityhood steering committee, lived in Sandy Springs when it became the first of the new cities in metro Atlanta to spring from a cityhood movement.
“I like it,” she said of Birdwell’s presentation, noting that Sandy Springs cityhood was 20 years in the making. The East Cobb group wants a referendum in the 2020 primaries and actual mayor and city council elections in the 2020 general election.
The problem Birdwell faces is more than perception.
There’s a sense that unlike some other cityhood efforts in metro Atlanta, there isn’t a grassroots uprising to form a City of East Cobb. That those who were skeptical weren’t given many details for months only enhanced their concerns.
Hence, the reactions at Thursday’s town hall.
“There’s such a dearth of information right now, and people are making an emotional decision,” said Linda Carver, president of the East Cobb Civic Association.
Her organization, which represents around 10,000 households, is officially remaining neutral on cityhood.
If there was a groundswell for cityhood, she said, “I think we would have seen that a long time ago.”
This will be Birdwell’s toughest selling point, even though the cityhood group is now eager for volunteer input as town halls and other public meetings will be taking place.
“It’s important for this community to consider,” Birdwell said.
While that is true, he’s got to persuade those who live outside the Atlanta Country Club, or aren’t well-placed in the Walton High School community, or don’t belong to Ott’s kitchen cabinet.
Birdwell was dealt a poor hand, and now he’s got to play it.
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First of all, Happy New Year East Cobb! I wish all of our readers a happy, healthy, and prosperous new year, and hope that you and your family are enjoying the holiday season with relish.
We’ll be getting back to our usual posting schedule shortly, but I wanted to say a few words before we get on with 2019.
As the first full calendar year of East Cobb News is in the books, my heart is full of gratitude for readers who’ve come to this site during 2018, followed us on social media, subscribed to the newsletter, left comments, offered story tips, asked questions, pointed out corrections or just got in touch to say thanks.
I’ve been hearing that a lot lately from readers—thanks for doing this. It’s been a great pleasure to provide news and information that’s all East Cobb, and only East Cobb.
Over the past few days I’ve been compiling our top stories and photos and readers’ picks from 2018, and I’ll include them again at the bottom of this note. Looking back through them, I was surprised how much we were able to report on, because I’ve often felt I’ve only been scratching the surface.
I’m the kind of person who likes to show, not tell. My main objective for East Cobb News for 2019 will be to continue building on a solid foundation for providing news and information for this community.
I’ve appreciated so many of you making your contributions, with photos, stories, tips and suggestions. You’ve helped make this the kind of community resource I want people to feel that they can’t be without.
Whether it’s regular coverage of local government and schools, transportation and development, local businesses and events, I want East Cobb News to really reflect our vast, diverse and thriving community.
Among my aims for the coming year is to do more in-depth stories about what you care about the most, as well as highlighting more people who serve vital roles in our community.
I’ve got a few ideas and subjects percolating along those lines, and if you have any suggestions, feel free to get in touch. Just e-mail me at: wendy@eastcobbnews.com.
In this new year I also want to connect community-minded readers with small businesses and organizations that help make the community better. I’ve been a member of the East Cobb Business Association this year and have seen this dynamic up-close, and it’s been very inspiring.
If you run a small business or organization and are interested in advertising opportunities, please get in touch. We’re young, but we’re growing, and we can provide you with a variety of ways to reach your ideal, targeted market.
You have many ways to get community news, from sources that have been around for decades and have plenty of name recognition. East Cobb News is only 18 months old, but I’ve been around here most of my life, and what really drives my passion is that this is the place I call home.
Thanks again for your readership in 2018. I’m excited for what’s in store for 2019!
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!
On Christmas Eve a year ago, I stepped inside church doors for the first time in a very long while and found a seat in a pew.
This church was packed for a candlelight service that resonated with the faces, and the voices, of children. Many of them were invited to come to the front for a special word of scripture.
A young family sat beside me, including a baby held by her father the whole time. Occasionally, she cooed and smiled, as the song surrounding her, surrounding all of us, wafted through the sanctuary.
The music soared, and so did we.
“Peace be with you.” We grasped the hands of those around us and greeted one another with those words.
These are the usual practices and scenarios at church services every Sunday here in East Cobb, and elsewhere.
But as someone who drifted away from faith as a teenager, I felt immediately reconnected with a spirituality that has long eluded me.
Since Christmas Eve last year, I haven’t been back to church, either, mainly because I’m still not sure what I believe. All I know is that the peacefulness of being in that sanctuary on that evening hasn’t left me.
Neither has the sense that it’s moments like those that really reflect the meaning of the season.
The holidays have flown by, and as usual, I have found them overwhelming. The secular activities of shopping and gift-giving, Santa visits and tree lightings are fine and festive, as are office and school parties.
So is helping those less fortunate with the provision of food, clothing, home supplies and gifts for children as volunteers, and with charities.
Yet there’s something that I’ve found missing, something that I’ve only found in a sanctuary, or in connecting with the Christian traditions of the season. Perhaps it’s just another mid-life occasion in which I’m reflecting on the forces that shaped me.
Earlier this week, I heard Handel’s “Messiah,” the whole magisterial thing, performed by New York Philharmonic on a radio program. If that doesn’t uplift you, nothing will.
It made me think about how such music has started bringing back a little closer to God. So have some of the liturgies, many of the Psalms and an appreciation for the richness and variety of what’s available in this East Cobb community we call home.
Many of our local churches have opened their doors to the public for concerts, nativity scenes and other events this season. They’ll do the same on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
If you’re like me and unsure about what you believe, or you’re if simply looking to find a sense of peace, consider taking a step inside.
And may peace be with all of you this holiday season!
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Earlier this week a few hundred newspapers and other news organizations around the country published editorials in response to President Donald Trump’s charged rhetoric against a free press and to advocate for what journalists do.
I’m not sure such a coordinated effort had much of an impact, especially given the state of the newspaper industry. As one national press observer wrote, this tactic played into Trump’s hands, and I tend to agree.
You don’t have to like Trump’s declaration that the press is “the enemy of the people”—it’s an outlandish, false assertion, like so much of what he says—to understand his objectives of inflaming his political base and pushing journalists back on their heels.
Ever since he first ran for president, Trump has engaged in press-bashing that’s truly alarming. While the news media has plenty of shortcomings, including getting much of its coverage of the last election dreadfully wrong, no president should speak like this.
However, I’m more concerned about what public officials do rather than what they say, as demonizing and unbecoming as Trump’s nonsense about “fake news” has been.
One of the papers that editorialized against Trump’s words this week is the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, which has been aggressively attacked by public officials for its reporting of a story of great local and national interest.
The Fort Lauderdale newspaper published details about the alleged gunman in the Parkland high school shootings that the school system there released unintentionally.
A local judge was incensed, not by the schools trying to hide vital public information, but by the newspaper, which she threatened to hold in contempt.
The Sun-Sentinelisn’t backing down, although the political and legal power being brought to bear against it is formidable.
Forget all the hot air coming from Washington, Trump as well as an often grandstanding national political press corps that continues to misunderstand what propelled him to the White House.
The Sun-Sentinel case illustrates to me that the real battles for a free press are being fought at the local level, where journalists are in increasingly shorter supply these days.
That’s because chains and hedge funds are scooping up what’s left of independent and locally owned papers, strip-mining them of whatever value is left in a dying business, and leaving their communities to fend for their own news and information needs.
Trump’s newsprint tariffs, reaching 30 percent, are taking a big toll as well, affecting even our local daily newspaper.
For those of us in local news, the retort to Trump shouldn’t be to him at all but to keep doing what we pledge for our communities. The news.
Kevin Riley, editor of the AJC, where I proudly worked for nearly 20 years, wrote that “We’re not engaged in a shouting match with the President. We are working on stories like these,” and then rattled off some of its recent reports.
In the year-plus since I launched East Cobb News, I’ve been grateful to connect with local citizens about critical issues facing our community.
Even when we don’t agree, as was the case with a previous commentary I published this week, hearing from engaged readers and citizens is essential for a free press and the community.
I’m encouraged to be in touch with these East Cobb citizens and taxpayers, regardless of their views, and especially regarding our heated budget process this summer, and continuing discussions on growth, county finances, schools and more.
There’s a lot going on here just in our corner of Cobb County, and I’m eager to continue to build this site and foster important community conversations.
I don’t intend to use East Cobb News as a soapbox like this very often. I want this to be your platform more than anything.
If you care deeply about what happens in East Cobb, don’t be bashful about it.
If you don’t agree with what’s published here, sound off. That’s what the comment section is for on every post.
If you don’t like what you seeing being done in your name as a taxpayer, parent, citizen or in any other capacity, let’s hear it. Let’s talk about it. Let’s get to the heart of the matter, through reporting and discussion.
I’ve seen good results along these lines in the early months of this site, and I look forward to hearing more from you in the months to come.
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Cobb commissioners spent $1.7 million this year to buy Ebenezer Road property for a future passive park. (East Cobb News photos by Wendy Parker)
Last week a national organization that examines municipal and local governance concerns published a series of posts about Cobb County growth issues, especially in the years since the recession.
The organization is called Strong Towns, which I have not heard of before. It describes itself as a non-profit media organization that’s based in Brainerd, Minn., a small town with a population of 13,000 or so, not close to a metropolitan area.
On Tuesdays I like to focus on local government, since that’s when many Cobb Board of Commissioners meetings take place. Today’s meeting has been cancelled, and I thought I’d delve a little into this interesting, but flawed examination.
The five-part Strong Towns report, which has gotten some chatter on Cobb citizens social media groups, refers to Cobb as “a suburban region that epitomizes the folly of going into debt to build more and more infrastructure with no ability to pay for it.”
Condominiums along Powers Ferry Road are part of a high-density community spreading out from SunTrust Park.
While that’s certainly how many locals around here feel about what’s happening in the county, I think the premise is faulty, and I’m skeptical of some of the claims made in this report.
Strong Towns misses one of the biggest points of all: Cobb remains a very attractive magnet for jobs because of its diversified economy and a well-educated workforce, the partial byproduct of another major attraction here, excellent public schools.
Cobb isn’t as “addicted to growth,” as the initial post is titled, as much as new residents and employers are continuously drawn by quality services and low taxes. A heavy pipeline of development bottled up during the lean years of the recession is taking shape.
These realities were not examined by Strong Towns, but I will link to all the posts in this series so you can read for yourself:
In an evergreen post elsewhere on its site, Strong Towns claims that many cities and counties in America are falling for a “Growth Ponzi Scheme,” which it further asserts as “the dominant model of suburban growth since the mid-20th century.”
The final post about Cobb started off with a reference to Bernie Madoff, who’s serving prison time for defrauding investors.
Really? To try to make a link between criminal behavior and the development and financial issues of a bustling suburban county, albeit one with major budget problems, borders on being irresponsible, as well as willfully misunderstanding.
Cobb commissioners this spring adopted the long-delayed Johnson Ferry Urban Design Guidelines to guide future growth in the busy commercial corridor.
I will always detest the Atlanta Braves stadium deal because the process was a total sham. But that doesn’t explain the county’s budget, tax and spending issues, which go back many years.
The county wasn’t chasing growth as much as it wasn’t sufficiently funding the growth that was already here or on the way, or was having trouble keeping up with the pace of the growth.
(Here’s a good example: When our family moved to East Cobb in the early 1970s, our home was still on septic tank, with the Sope Creek sewer line still under construction.)
There is an anti-suburban sentiment behind this report, and this is the biggest problem with it:
“Much of Cobb County . . . feels like nowhere. It has no center of gravity. It has no thriving urban core to serve as a tax-revenue cash cow.”
A citizen living near a proposed townhome community near Olde Town Athletic Club demonstrated to county commissioners this spring the building heights that were part of the initial plan.
Ironically, the area around SunTrust may prove to be just such a place. Cobb does have many misplaced priorities, symbolized by the Braves deal, and which I wrote not long ago stripped away the illusion of supposedly fiscally conservative government.
Instead of really trying to understand the unique challenges facing a Sunbelt community that has gone from mostly rural to suburban and now urban in many spots, and in about a half-century or so, Strong Towns wants Cobb to be more like Brainerd, I guess (a place where I’ve never been).
From what I’ve read about this organization, it wants every place to be like small-town America, with bucolic downtown cores, pedestrian-friendly shops and restaurants and adaptable to a “traditional development pattern.”
While that sentiment does have some conservative support, and it’s appealing to me as I continue on in middle age, it has never really come about in Cobb, for better or for worse.
It’s a nice ideal, but it doesn’t offer any practical solutions. Strong Towns produced a lot of words about Cobb County but with little real local knowledge on the ground about its subject.
That matters.
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East Cobb citizens had their say at several budget town hall meetings this summer, including at the Sewell Mill Library on July 9, shortly before commissioners voted to raise property taxes. (East Cobb News file photo)
Whenever the subject of a Cobb tax increase comes up, those who say “no” the loudest and most often quite often have prevailed.
Especially after I returned to the county in 1990, the “nos” have frequently had the ear of elected officials.
They have done almost anything to heed those citizens who urge them to: Cut wasteful spending. Impose a hiring freeze. Take care of needs instead of wants. Live within your means, just like we do.
These have been the bedrock principles of low-tax conservatism for as long as I can remember growing up in Cobb County.
Cobb became a magnet for new residents and businesses in large part because of low taxes. That’s still a big attraction, but so are good government services and schools. As a result, Cobb’s explosive growth, especially in the last 30 years, has generated another constituency.
These citizens, coming from all across the county, and representing many demographic and socioeconomic classes and interest levels, effectively countered the “no” forces during the budget deliberations that concluded this week with a general fund property tax rate increase of 1.7 mills.
Those citizens have been extremely vocal over the past few months about supporting the services they feared were being imperiled as a $30 million deficit loomed.
As draft lists were made public about potential “savings” in library and park services, the UGA Cobb Extension service and other small-bore line items, these citizens formed their own groups. Some started on Facebook, then fanned out to attend budget town hall meetings and public hearings and urged their members to tell commissioners what they valued.
They were every bit as active and organized as those who opposed a tax increase. At this point, the naysayers may wish to point out that citizens were whipped up into a frenzy by Commission Chairman Mike Boyce, who cited the need for a millage rate increase to keep Cobb “a five-star county.”
I wrote previously that there was some emotional blackmail involved as these lists were made public. I also wrote that a tax increase was likely. For far too long, Cobb elected officials have been fearful of getting an earful from those who always say “no.”
The problem with always saying no is that the provision of services wasn’t keeping up with the demand. Even as Cobb’s population grew from 450,000 in 1990 to more than 750,000 today, commissioners were gradually reducing the millage rate.
A post-recession situation emerged in which library hours hadn’t been restored, Cobb DOT maintenance crews hadn’t been replenished and the county had to hire dozens of new police officers.
Members of the Cobb Master Gardeners spoke in favor of preserving the UGA Cobb Extension Service.
As I listened to those who were saying “yes,” I heard the voices of Cobb citizens adamantly insisting that the services they valued were worth a few extra dollars a month on their tax bill.
Among those standing up were members of the Master Gardener Volunteers of Cobb County. I’ve been hearing from them all summer. They work with the UGA Cobb Extension Office, which runs the local 4-H program and gets equal funding from the county and the state.
Also saying “yes” were some citizens who identified themselves as fiscal conservatives. These weren’t garden variety Berkeley radicals but suburban gardeners. They were also library and arts patrons and everyday people not prone to political activism.
None of those saying “yes” that I heard this summer are wild about a tax increase. I’m certainly not, but Cobb leaders have been dodging this bullet for too many years. After playing ball with the Atlanta Braves, they cut the millage rate in 2016, right before SunTrust Park became operational.
To me, that was the height of fiscal irresponsibility. Yet many proud fiscal conservatives have ignored that this summer, or belatedly sprung to action. The local newspaper fulminated in a thunderclap editorial that Boyce went against his promises of no new taxes, and fretted that “conservatism has fallen out of fashion” yet again.
(I’d argue that real, principled conservatism went out of fashion when the four members of the commission who are Republicans voted to subsidize a baseball stadium, an action the daily printed edition uncritically approved. The lone Democrat, occasionally slammed by the same publication, cast the only vote against it.)
Earlier this month, citizens against a tax increase lobbied for a hiring freeze, even as DOT, public safety and other positions have been frozen for several years.
The day before the budget vote, the Cobb GOP passed a resolution against a tax increase with plenty of boilerplate language, but no tangible suggestions to balance the budget.
Commissioner Bob Ott
JoAnn Birrell and Bob Ott, East Cobb’s commissioners, were on the short end of the 3-2 vote. Birrell wanted a smaller increase, Ott wanted to see more proposed spending cuts.
The decisive vote was cast by Bob Weatherford, drubbed the day before in a runoff against a tax increase opponent, but who said it was time for the county to invest its future.
Though his support for a tax increase may have cost him his political future, Weatherford’s rationale was certainly different than what we’re accustomed to in Cobb. So is Boyce’s, whether he runs for re-election in two years or not. Both are Republicans.
What looms ahead remains uncertain. I wonder if 1.7 mills will be enough of an increase to avoid another rough budget process next year. There are efficiencies that have to be considered that Boyce ignored in this budget.
Ott offered some sound spending proposals that deserve attention. Foremost is reforming the county’s existing defined benefit pension plan, which is a ticking time bomb for many governments. SPLOST reform also must be addressed.
More than anything, I hope citizens who participated in the budget battle this summer, both in favor of a tax hike or against, continue to stay active. Their voices and diligence and willingness to question how their money is being spent are needed.
No matter your views on a tax increase, it was encouraging to see such vigorous civic involvement, especially from those who don’t normally speak out.
Before Wednesday’s vote, former Gov. Roy Barnes, who holds a 4-H gala at his Marietta home every fall, said to the commissioners that local government is “government in the raw.”
We may be about to find out what that truly means, even after this grueling summer.
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Even before she remarried, what she wanted for us was some stability, and that meant more than anything, a sense of home. She bought an early 1960s ranch house right behind our church on Lower Roswell Road as I entered middle school.
