New East Cobb Cityhood committee leadership team detailed

Scott Sweeney, Cobb school board, Cobb school calendar — *Scott Sweeney.*

The reconstituted East Cobb Cityhood effort includes some holdover members from the 2019 campaign and new members who have joined in since a new cityhood bill was filed near the end of the 2021 Georgia legislative session.

On Friday Cityhood group released further details about those individuals—some of whom have previously been identified.

You can read all about them by clicking here.

The chairman is Craig Chapin, a technology entrepreneur who was raised in the Walton High School cluster. He took part in an April virtual town hall meeting held by the Cityhood group that featured the bills two co-sponsors, State Reps. Matt Dollar and Sharon Cooper.

Other newcomers include former Cobb school board member Scott Sweeney, who is currently chairman of the Georgia Board of Education, and who’s been front and center since the renewed Cityhood pushed was announced in late March.

Mitch Rhoden is the CEO of Futren Hospitality, which oversees Indian Hills, and is a former chairman of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce. He was named the 2020 East Cobb Citizen of the Year.

Amy Henry moved to East Cobb two years ago and is a sales professional, fitness instructor, nutritionist, and mother of four children in the Walton cluster. Henry was involved in an effort to get Cobb schools to go to in-person instruction last fall, and more recently, she urged the school district to end its mask mandate.

Two people involved in the 2019 effort remain, including Jerry Quan, a former captain in the Cobb Police Department who was in charge of Precinct 4 in East Cobb. He’s currently a resource officer for the Cobb County School District Police Department, assigned to Lassiter High School.

Joe Gavalis is a a retired federal agent and the original Cityhood group president. He’s a longtime resident of the Chattahoochee Plantation area and a member of the Cobb Neighborhood Safety Commission and the Cobb Elder Abuse Task Force.

Gavalis was reluctant to make public appearances during that 2019 Cityhood effort, which began in late 2018. He stayed in the background during several town hall meetings, and it was nearly a year before that Cityhood committee voluntarily revealed its full listing of those involved.

In late 2018, Gavalis was interviewed by East Cobb News by e-mail, but deflected on a number of questions, including the identity of Cityhood leaders.

He asked several prominent East Cobb citizens to serve on an advisory board to examine a financial feasibility study. When one of them asked who else was involved in the Cityhood effort, Gavalis declined to reveal them and that individual quit, citing a lack of transparency.

In its release on Friday, the Citybood group included a photo of Gavalis receiving an award from State Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick of East Cobb upon being named the “Distinguished Older Georgian 2021” by the legislature.

The Cityhood bill filed by Dollar (read our Q and A with him here) and to be taken up in 2022 needs a local sponsor in the State Senate. Kirkpatrick, who represents the proposed East Cobb city, did not co-sponsor the initial bill, saying she received plenty of negative feedback.

The current Cityhood group sought public feedback in the form of an online survey. The April town hall took selected public questions on Cityhood topics, but didn’t provide for direct interaction with citizens.