After having three representatives on the Cobb Board of Education in recent decades, the East Cobb area may be down to two for the next decade, starting with the 2022 elections.
A proposed map that’s being recommended by the board’s four-Republican majority would take Post 6 completely out of East Cobb.
That seat is held by Democrat Charisse Davis, who lives in the Cumberland-Vinings area, which would form the new heart of Post 6.
The current Post 6 includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters.
The school board voted 4-3 Thursday along partisan lines to submit a map proposed by GOP chairman Randy Scamihorn (see inset of East Cobb area above) to the state reapportionment office.
In that map, Walton and Wheeler clusters would be included in Post 5, currently represented by Republican David Banks, whose new post also would maintain Pope High School.
Republican David Chastain represents Post 4, which would have the Kell, Lassiter and Sprayberry clusters. He’s up for re-election next year.
The Cobb legislative delegation will be drawing lines for Cobb school board, Cobb commission and municipal elected bodies in January; the school board’s proposal is only advisory.
The map was drawn by attorneys at Taylor English, a Cumberland-area firm that was paid $200,000 by the Cobb County School District.
Scamihorn said the map he proposed met all the criteria, including adjusting to shifts in population.
Davis, who said the map is not “fair and competitive,” made a motion to keep the current post boundaries. But that vote failed along partisan lines.
She and fellow Democrat Tre’ Hutchins had proposed their own maps, which they later withdrew.
“I will be losing two of the three high schools that I currently represent,” Davis said. “It is not a fair map.”
A declared candidate for the Post 6 seat also wants to keep the post maps the way they are.
Amy Henry, a Republican who has four children in the Walton High School cluster, said she understands the need to shift lines to accommodate population changes, but Post 6 should remain largely as-is,” according to a statement issued by her campaign.
“She is prepared to run and win in a competitive post,” the statement said. “Early support for her campaign since the announcement has been strong and she looks forward to seeing how the Cobb legislative delegation weighs in on the final maps.”
Davis and fellow first-term Democrat Jaha Howard, who are both up for re-election in 2022, would be drawn together in Post 6; he’s declared his intent to run for Georgia School Superintendent.
Scamihorn noted that Davis and Howard—who have battled the Republican majority repeatedly on a variety of topics—live so close together.
Scamihorn said he’s losing 40 percent of his Post 1 seat in northwest Cobb, and reminded his colleagues that he didn’t draw the map.
“The dice rolled where it rolled,” he said.
But Democrats weren’t buying any of that.
Jackie Bettadapur, an East Cobb resident whose two sons graduated from Walton, said during a public comment session at Thursday’s work session that “by stonewalling and shutting down the three minority members” the Republican majority has “cancelled the voices of nearly half of Cobb’s constituents.”
Bettadapur is the chairwoman of the Cobb Democratic Party, but did not identify herself as such during her comments, which accused the GOP of pushing “a political agenda and not the best interests of our county.”
Should the board’s recommended map be adopted, current Post 6 voters living in the Walton and Wheeler clusters would not have a school board election on their ballot for six years.
Banks, a Republican and current board vice chairman, was re-elected last year to serve a fourth term.
Bettadapur took aim at Banks, who has come under fire from critics for comments about racial matters and an e-mail he recently sent out discouraging COVID-19 vaccines.
Bettadapur warned the board not to assign “Wheeler and Walton high school representation to a board member that trafficks in quack science, conspiracy theories and the old Southern Lost Cause politics of segregation and racism.”
Critics of the Republican-approved map also complained about the process for making them public and the short time for citizens to offer comment.
The proposed maps were added to the agenda late Wednesday and were voted on at the work session Thursday afternoon.
The state reapportionment office will review the recommended map and could request technical changes that may require more action by the school board before Cobb legislators draw the final lines.
Related posts:
- Wheeler Name Change group to participate in Confederate forum
- Proposed Cobb school board map aimed at keeping GOP majority
- Cobb school board to discuss reapportionment, SPLOST loans
- East Cobb MS earns STEAM certification from Cobb school district
- Cobb schools accrediting agency puts district on improvement plan
- Education SPLOST results by East Cobb precincts
- Cobb schools mask ruling appealed in federal court
- Cobb Education SPLOST VI referendum passes easily
- New Eastvalley ES scheduled to open in August 2023
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John, Mr. Banks is an embarrassment who represents exactly what the Cognia review cited as inappropriate and detrimental to the progress of the School District. The article provides links to some of his behavior mentioned by Ms. Bettadapur. You may want to read them.
What is really important here is the business-as-usual being inflicted upon the citizens of Cobb County by its School Board. East Cobb is booming, new homes are being built at a record pace, new schools are being built and old schools are being renovated and expanded to accommodate the influx of new students.
But somehow, the Republican School Board Chairman has managed to devise a reapportioned map that eliminates a Board seat representing East Cobb. Oh, and by the way, that seat is currently held by a Democratic African American female.
And finally, he denigrates the whole process by calling it nothing more than a roll of the dice.
So, let’s review. They limit when and how items are placed on their meeting agendas, which are not made public in a timely manner. They limit public speaking at their meetings. They vote in a 4-3 block R vs D with little regard for the welfare of the students or the district. And now, when our growing county would benefit from several more knowledgeable and enlightened school board members, they want to circle the wagons and reduce the number, eliminating one of their political opponents from a most important post.
Cobb County voters, have you had enough of this nonsense yet???
“To a board member that traffics in quack science, conspiracy theories and the old Southern Lost Cause politics of segregation and racism”.
She has an interesting view of Mr. Banks.
Mr. Banks is an “interesting” guy, by which I mean a demented kook, as Ms. Bettadapur and Mr. Horn rightly point out.