On a party-line vote Tuesday, the Cobb Board of Commissioners approved spending $108,000 for the MUST Ministries summer cooling center.
The vote was 3-2, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed.
The item was on the board’s consent agenda, but was moved to the regular agenda for the purposes of having a discussion.
GOP commissioners JoAnn Birrell and Keli Gambrill said they weren’t opposed to the cooling center, but said the county shouldn’t be funding charities.
“I don’t think it’s the role of government to do this,” Birrell said. “We do it for one [non-profit], we get a lot of requests from others. I would like to revisit this if it’s going to be in the budget this year.”
This will be the second year in a row that Cobb is directly providing funding to MUST for the cooling center, which is open to the homeless when temperatures exceed 90 degrees during daytime hours.
Likewise, Cobb has funded MUST operations for heating assistance during the winter. The funds have come from a $500,000 allotment to the Cobb Emergency Management Agency.
According to an agenda item (you can read it here), $40,000 of the cooling center funding is earmarked for families to stay in hotels “to ensure they stay together.”
Another $25,000 is to go for additional security at the MUST Hope House venue at 1297 Bells Ferry Road, with the rest to provide additional food, cleaning supplies, staffing and transportation from South Cobb (you can read the agreement here).
Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid, a Democrat, said there is “misinformation” being spread about Cobb funding charities, said “this is an initiative of the county, and not of MUST.
“We’ve had conversations with a number of partners because of concerns about people being outside during extreme temperatures,” she said. “It’s not necessarily to fund MUST operations, but they’re coming in and asking us to partner.”
She said the amount of effort to place homeless people in county facilities in the winter and summer was overwhelming, and that “MUST was able to step up.”
Marietta resident Christine Rozman, a frequent speaker at board public comment sessions, said before the vote: “We shouldn’t be paying for charities.”
Gambrill said that she’s “heard a lot of discussions today about grants and conversations, but I was never included in these conversations and that is why I don’t support this.
“It’s not that I don’t support helping people in need, but we are essentially giving MUST a heads-up over other non-profit agencies which as a government we should not be doing. We should be treating them all equally.”
Cupid said she has had “multiple meetings” with members of Cobb faith communities who have expressed concerns about how to care for the homeless during extreme weather situations and “that helps us in determining that this was something we wanted to do.”
Cobb EMA director Cassie Mazloom said that MUST offers security, “which is so important” and that it “makes it a more pleasant atmosphere and a more safe atmosphere for everyone.”
Tuesday’s meeting was the first for District 2 Commissioner Erick Allen, a Democrat and former Georgia legislator, who last month won a special election to serve the area that includes most the Cumberland-Smyrna area and along the I-75 corridor.
Related:
- Cobb Chairwoman to deliver State of the County address
- Allen takes office as Cobb commission special elections certified
- Cobb government acknowledges ransomware attack
- Cobb government said data breach affects 10 people
- Cobb school board, commission announce FY ’26 budget process
- Cobb delays Columns Drive median tree-cutting after protests
- Cobb department heads ask for $92M+ in new spending
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