UPDATED, 8:37 P.M.:
Bill Simon of the East Cobb Alliance contacted East Cobb News to report that the meeting on Thursday has been cancelled.
ORIGINAL STORY:
The anti-cityhood group East Cobb Alliance, which has been critical of pro-cityhood efforts conducted in secret, is meeting on Thursday to prepare for cityhood-related events next week.
But the Alliance meeting at a public facility is not open to the public. The meeting is scheduled from 7:30-9:30 p.m. at the East Cobb Government Service Center (4400 Lower Roswell Road).
The purpose of the meeting is to help formulate questions and responses before two cityhood-related events next week.
The Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb is holding a town hall on Monday at Wheeler High School, and next Tuesday, the cityhood group and the East Cobb Alliance will appear at a forum organized by the East Cobb Business Association.
The e-mail urged recipients not to post the meeting notice on Nextdoor or to forward the message, because “we do not want the press or the media or the pro-cityhood people to see what we’re up to. Nothing nefarious, mind you, but we’re trying to serve our members of ECA to help with planning and execution of our team strategy with as little interference as possible.”
When East Cobb News asked Bill Simon, a leader of the East Cobb Alliance, why the meeting isn’t open to the public, he said that it’s “because it’s a private meeting, paid for by private funds.”
(The cost to reserve the meeting room at the East Cobb Government Service Center is $25, the standard fee for any group wishing to meet there. The room has a capacity of 85 people.)
The East Cobb Alliance, which was formed this summer, has been critical of the Committee for Cityhood in East Cobb for what it calls a lack of transparency. The proposed City of East Cobb, according to the Alliance, “is a concept secretly planned by a small group of people for nearly a year before there was public notice of it. Since this group is being rather secretive about several things regarding the PCEC (including their professional backgrounds & why they might be involved), ECA has a page dedicated to exposing (via public records) who is who, and what does who do.”
(East Cobb News last year published stories along similar lines, including the resignation of a citizen from a cityhood ad hoc committee because he was told “it’s none of anyone’s business” who’s all behind the cityhood effort.
While some private, closed groups on Facebook do appear in search results, Residents Against East Cobb City Task Force is completely hidden.
In the e-mail, the message stated that “if you are on Facebook, there is a Closed FB Group that, upon you answering the two entry questions, you will be allowed to join: Residents Against East Cobb City Task Force Group. If the questions are ignored, you cannot gain entry.”
The East Cobb Alliance does have a public Facebook page that updates with links and financial analysis of proposed city services but does not include information about the group’s innerworkings.
In a followup response to an East Cobb News request to attend the meeting, Simon said he would “politely decline your request. . . . There is a stated maximum room limit of the number of people who can attend, thus the reason why it is specifically NOT a public meeting accessible to the public, regardless of the subject matter we are discussing. . .
“Also, if you feel you have some First Amendment right on your side to crash this event, and you appear there on Thursday, just be aware of the potential consequences to your reputation if you are proven wrong.”
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Nobody said anything to me about needing to bring my Dick Tracy watch or my secret handshake manual … we must be talking about different meetings. A private meeting is not a secret meeting – and this was a private meeting where we could put our heads together and figure out “where to go from here”, in a nutshell. Not for one minute do I believe that the pro-cityhood group has not had far more than one private meeting scheduled (and none held) – where’s all the coverage of their secret meetings? What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. There are two sides to this story; glorifying one and demeaning the other is not good journalism, and that applies to any news outlet.
I was not able to attend that meeting due to having to work, but was disappointed that it was canceled. This grassroots group needs to be able to counter the professional lobbyists and polished presentations that the cityhood people’s deep pockets can buy. If Bill Simon was abrupt and defensive in his emails to Wendy that was likely because he has been putting a lot of effort into finding the truth in all of this and his efforts were thwarted by the article naming the time and place of the meeting. I do believe Wendy is unbiased and hope she will continue to report about this issue with the intelligence and great writing she is known for. It’s good to see civil debate and careful analysis on this site and others.
I think in the future the author needs to take into consideration that any group in opposition to a government action has the right to meet in private for planning purposes. If you posted information about a private meeting with the intent to bring people to the meeting, you should apologize for that. The headline and story you posted suggesting a secret meeting was misleading and that is why it is causing this uproar. That should be retracted. There are many people strongly opposed to this expansion of government and you need to understand you are being depended on to bring them truthful and not sensational misleading information.
Wendy Parker – time for a little introspection rather than defending a weak position. Think about it this way, “What is my role” in this and “What can I do differently” that would show ECN is truly an objective news source?
If you will take some time to read what East Cobb News has been reporting about cityhood for the last year, you will find that there is no more comprehensive, fair or even-handed source on this subject. That’s how any news source should be judged, not just by one or even a few stories. There are more than two dozen stories here, a number of them critical of the cityhood group, as well as other information and resources that are as objective as you will find.
As a community news consumer I hope you will avail yourself of this information. This is why I provide it, and I thank you for taking the time to respond.
http://eastcobbnews.com/east-cobb-cityhood-news/
I’m puzzled by the headlines and tone of this article. Does ECN not believe the 6 or 8 developers who are attempting to fleece the citizens of East Cobb have not been meeting in their private office suites without any other public or media attendance. Does ECN not feel the Pro Cityhood Group did not meet with Matt Dollar privately to formulate and push this bill through at the last possible moment without any public input. While the Pro Cityhood Group has deep pockets and can afford a $36,000 GSU study, the opposition group has no funding and only a grass roots, social media campaign to oppose this issue. Is it wrong to utilize a $25 meeting room without a totally public forum?
It’s pretty obvious that the East Cobb News is biased when it comes to the cityhood movement. A group of people who are meeting to prepare for a public meeting is not news. Presenting it in this way demonstrates that this journalistic organization is most probably being used and funded by the pro-cityhood movement. The anti-cityhood coalition is not trying to change the power and tax structure of our community. The mysterious group of wealthy real estate developers is using their money and influence to do that.
East Cobb News has been reporting on cityhood extensively for nearly a year, including several stories on the cityhood group’s transparency issues. We have taken no position on cityhood and receive no funding from anyone involved in this issue.
I invite you and anyone else to read through our coverage here:
http://eastcobbnews.com/east-cobb-cityhood-news/
I am fully in support of the East Cobb Alliance’s direction, goal, and purpose of opposing city-hood.
But, assuming the quote attributed to Simon is accurate – the one containing a lightly-veiled threat to a reporter about “the potential consequences to your reputation” for “crashing the event” due to “if you feel you have some First Amendment right on your side” – then I find that a bit unbalanced and unnecessary for him to say and shows a public lack of sanity that this group is going to need if it is to be taken seriously.
I’ve encountered Wendy on other news stories in the past and find her to be very pleasant and accommodating. Seems she asked permission to attend, and he said no. So she won’t. So why the animus in the group’s response?
May want to consider who your spokesperson is before this process starts getting serious. The stakes are too important to let egos get in the way. Just sayin’ . . .
Mr. Wellons,
I’d love to have the opportunity to forward you the ENTIRE email exchange and then let you decide the accuracy, rather than what a biased, and quite possible, on-the-take writer, decides to remove out of context and print.
Also…ECA is a group of volunteers….if you think you can do better at organizing and dealing with dishonest members of the press, come on over and join the effort at:
https://eastcobballiance.com/
Mr. Simon, it’s bad enough to accuse a journalist of bias where none exists (as the full record of ECN’s coverage of the cityhood issue shows) and to call an honest person dishonest. But it’s slanderous and embarrassing to yourself to imply that Wendy is “on the take” with no evidence (for none exists). It does your cause no good to make baseless accusations against someone whose very livelihood reveals every day that her only “bias” is caring about the community where she has lived her whole life.
The PCEC has nothing to do with “community”. When the neighborhood Starbucks, across 92 at the head of Mabry Road, is not part of the PCEC but the intersection of Windy Hill Road and Powers Ferry Road is, there’s more at play than creating a community. When the three services required by state law are development, trash, and fire, there’s more at play than creating a community – at least, one that benefits the citizens over all else.
Headlines and captions matter. Full disclosure (such as adding real estate to the list of how the IFG founders are experts) matters. This is a grass-roots Davey vs. political machine Goliath here, with big consequences for the people who live here, and painting both sides with the same brush is imperative.
If you are truly a news organization, I think your publicizing a private meeting is meant to just cause trouble. There has been a year of complete secrecy as this city hood group has not even disclosed who is behind it. Why don’t you infiltrate the pro city group to publicize who its members are and what there intentions are. What is wrong with a group in opposition meeting in private to discuss the matter? What exactly are you, as a “news” source trying to accomplish?
Susan, I would disagree. Wendy, and others, have been digging to try to find out who was behind the city-hood movement – for the past YEAR – who paid for the GA State report that makes it look viable, etc, and only one person admitted to being involved and refused to release the names of the other participants. As I see it, so far she’s applying the same standards to both sides.
This meeting was supposed to take place in a rented space with a limited seating capacity as set by fire codes. Since Wendy selected to publish the meeting details in this article, the organizer could not guarantee that the agreed upon conditions for using the room (limited attendance numbers) could be met, thus the meeting had to be cancelled. I think there is a very big difference between reporting on the news and creating an article which you know from talking directly to the organizer would be negatively impacting a grassroots effort made up entirely of volunteers who are attempting to have an organizational meeting before a scheduled public meeting to oppose a very organized group with hired lobbyists and a PR firm, etc. If the author had just reported about the meeting, without forcing the organizer to cancel it by publishing the place, date, and time, I could perhaps understand your point. I do not know Wendy personally, but if it was her intention or not, she helped one side of this issue over the other by publishing it.
There is an obvious difference between a group of real estate developers making a concerted effort to push a law through with paid lobbyists, years of secret meetings, secret organizers, advertisements, misleading push polls, and proven-false data and a group of concerned-citizen volunteers who simply want to discuss without being in front of a reporter.
I agree, there is a huge double standard being applied here. I do not remember receiving an invitation to a public meeting discussing if a city study should be conducted, where the boundaries should be drawn, the name of the proposed city, etc. All the planning and meetings were conducted in private. Even when this started being discussed in the news, members backing the study wanted to remain anonymous.
I personally see no issue with those who oppose the proposal using communication platforms and holding planning meetings. Just because a space is in a public building (for example a room in library) does not mean it can’t be reserved for a private purpose or is necessarily large enough to safely hold a public meeting.
I think it’s perfectly appropriate for a closed Facebook group to have an in person meeting to discuss strategy in private. I’m not sure why this is news. Certainly you are welcome to report that it is taking place, and you can even try to talk to people about what was said in the meeting after it transpires, but I don’t think there is any obligation to allow you to be present and report on it as though it is a public commissioners meeting…
I am STRONGLY AGAINST another Government.
But, I am not a Facebook user. How can I attend ?
This East Cobb Alliance has a website and email contacts available at https://eastcobballiance.com/ The meeting being referred to in this article was cancelled because it was supposed to be held in a rented space, with a maximum capacity set by the fire marshall. Once the author of this article printed the location and time, the person who paid to rent the space could not ensure the number of people showing up would fall within the agreed upon limit for the rented room.