WorkSource Cobb/CobbWorks offers a variety of training programs, workshops and on-site recruitments for numerous companies. Discover what is being offered in your area and take advantage of what your local career center offers to help you prepare for your next career.
Webinar: Perfecting your job searching skills Brushing up on your job search skills could land you a career that aligns with your work experience, education and lifestyle. Join the Job Search Techniques webinar, 9-10:30 a.m., Tuesday, June 14.
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!
Daniell Middle School in East Cobb will be getting a new principal in the coming school year, and she’s a familiar face to teachers, staff and students.
The Cobb Board of Education on Thursday approved personnel changes that including promoting Daniell assistant principal Amy Stump to principal, effective July 1.
She will succeed James Rawls, who is leaving after four years to become principal at Cooper Middle School, where he previously had been an assistant principal.
Stump previously had been an assistant principal at Dickerson Middle School.
That is the sixth change of principals at East Cobb schools this spring. Last month, new principals were appointed at Eastvalley, Powers Ferry and Rocky Mount elementary schools.
Two other principals have retired: Dr. Thomas Flugum at Pope High School and Dr. Amanda Richie at Brumby Elementary School, but their successors have not been named.
The 2022-23 school year starts on Aug. 1.
The school board also affirmed the accreditation of the 16 high schools in the Cobb school district by the Georgia Accrediting Commission.
That’s an agency that accredits only high schools in the state, and whose representatives toured Cobb high schools last year as the district was under a special review by Cognia, its main accreditor and which accredits school systems.
Cognia had instructed Cobb schools to make improvements in four areas in its findings that were released last fall, but reversed those findings in March.
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale told school board members Thursday that the GAC accreditation will not affect its accreditation with Cognia and is simply another layer of accreditation.
While Cobb had considered switching to GAC while the Cognia review was underway, Ragsdale assured board members that there were no plans to do so now. The vote to affirm the GAC accreditation was a unanimous 7-0.
GAC announced it was giving the high schools its highest designation, “accredited with quality.”
GAC was paid $3,000 to perform the accrediting process and will be paid $850 annually to continue accreditation monitoring.
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!
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!
Cobb DOT crews doing maintenance on Johnson Ferry Road at Olde Towne Parkway last winter. (ECN file photo)
The Cobb Department of Transportation will ask county commissioners Tuesday for funding for outside firms to help perform routine road maintenance projects because of what it says are “critical level” staffing shortages.
According to an agenda item for Tuesday’s Board of Commissioners meeting, Cobb DOT director Drew Rensler and other county department leaders will request funding from the federal American Rescue Plan Act.
The agenda item (you can read it here) says 41 of the 94 maintenance positions in Cobb DOT are vacant, and the maintenance division has been operating with at least 40 percent vacancies for the past year.
“At this time, the Division has extended regular mowing frequencies by two weeks, and work order completion dates by one month due to shortages in current staffing levels,” the agenda item states.
“The utilization of contracted services will allow the Division to respond more efficiently in providing required maintenance operations countywide, and will prevent the back log of work orders.”
Another agenda item (you can read that here) from Rensler, Cobb Water Authority director Judy Jones and Cobb Parks and Recreation Director Michael Brantley further details staff shortages.
They include 27 percent vacancies in “critical” positions maintaining 90 Cobb parks facilities, 30 percent vacancies in the county’s fleet department, 32 percent vacancies in “critical” positions in property management and 31 percent in the water system.
“The volume of vacancies has strained the respective agencies’ abilities to maintain and operate critical infrastructure which is vital for the residents and visitors of Cobb County,” the said in their request.
The funding requests include $636,000 in outsourced salary expenses in all, with $288,000 for water, $132,000 for DOT, $123,000 for Parks, $58,500 for property management and $34,500 for fleet management.
The department heads also will be asking for “a one-time payment of $1,500 for each frontline field staff member responsible for the maintenance and operation of critical public infrastructure throughout the County.”
The bonuses would apply to employees hired before April 1, and they must stay with the county for 12 months after receiving it.
While the agenda items were posted with the full agenda (you can read that here), the Cobb DOT and other department infrastructure items were sent to news media outlets Thursday night by Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt.
He noted that Cobb has begun taking applications for $147 million in ARPA funds and received the second installment of $73,824,239 on Thursday.
Government agencies are among those eligible for the funding, as commissioners previously approved criteria that included county infrastructure.
Tuesday’s meeting also will include an update on the county’s agreement with the Atlanta Braves over Truist Park and The Battery and a recognition of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.
Commissioners also will be asked to issue a proclamation on behalf of state senators Kay Kirkpatrick and Doc Rhett to Judy Boyce, the widow of former Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce, in recognition of his public service.
The meeting starts at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the second floor board room of the Cobb government building (100 Cherokee St., downtown Marietta).
The hearing also will be live-streamed on the county’s website, cable TV channel (Channel 24 on Comcast) and Youtube page. Visit cobbcounty.org/CobbTV for other streaming options.
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!
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale responds to a question about safety issues from school board member Tre’ Hutchins.
Two weeks after a deadly school shooting in Texas, Cobb County School District Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said Thursday that the district has switched to a new crisis alert system provider.
During prepared remarks at a Cobb Board of Education work session, Ragsdale also said each of the district’s 114 school campuses will have at least one unannounced Code Red drill during the 2022-23 school year to test the new system.
He added that the Cobb district is considering recruiting and training retired military, law enforcement, and other agents to serve as armed guards of schools and wants to hire more school psychologists to help students with mental health issues.
AlertPoint, which has been Cobb’s alert system vendor for the last five years, will be replaced by Centigex, which provides alert system technology for the educational sector and other industries.
Installation of the new system began in April and will be in place in all schools by Aug. 1, when the new school year begins in the Cobb district, according to Ragsdale, but he didn’t say why the district was making the change.
In February 2021 all high schools in Cobb were put on a brief Code Red lockdown. After initially saying it was due to a false alarm, the district said the incident was a deliberate cyber attack on the AlertPoint system and called in the Cobb Police Department to help investigate.
Centigex offers something similar to AlertPoint, what is called the CrisisAlert System, which is in place in several other school districts in metro Atlanta for what Ragsdale said is a “first level of security.”
In the Centigex system, teachers and staffers are equipped with wearable badges to report emergencies electronically via the push of a button, and that “instantly” alerts administrators and responders and triggers a lockdown in seconds.
On May 24, an 18-year-old boy in Uvalde, Texas shot his grandmother, then entered Robb Elementary School and fatally shot 19 students and two teachers before he was killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer.
Ragsdale called the tragedy an “evil act,” and said that while “there’s no quick fix” and “you cannot ban evil,” the new alert system is part of the Cobb district’s enhanced objectives “to put in place all measures necessary to ensure the safety of our students and staff. Student safety has been, and continues to be, our number one priority.”
He said he could not publicly explain some of the procedures and protocols for security reasons, but told board members the matter could be discussed in executive session.
AlertPoint was installed in 2017 in several schools and then district-wide the following year. Cobb spent $5.3 million to purchase AlertPoint, and said all teachers and staff had been trained to use it.
But a survey conducted by Watching the Funds Cobb, a citizens group tracking Cobb school district spending, said more than 80 percent of respondents said they didn’t know how to use AlertPoint and hadn’t been trained on it.
When the subject came up at the work session, Ragsdale said that AlertPoint was “fully functioning” although not every staff member had a badge.
Board member Jaha Howard told Ragsdale he wanted to have trust in the new company, and Ragsdale directed him to the Centigex website.
The Centigex CrisisAlert Syterm also is installed in several hundred districts in Florida, which mandated such systems after the Parkland High School shootings left 17 people dead in 2018.
But Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools, the largest district in North Carolina, dropped Centigex in 2020 when some features of the system weren’t reliable or working at all.
Ragsdale said after each school’s Code Red drill, district officials will brief school administrators to improve crisis preparedness.
“That does not mean that we will show up and issue a code red without announcing it is a drill,” he said.
The idea of arming teachers, however, is something Ragsdale said he isn’t entertaining: “We’re asking teachers to do too much already.”
At the board’s Thursday night business meeting, several speakers demanding more security measures wore orange shirts saying “We Demand Safer Schools Now!”
Some were not satisfied with what Ragsdale had announced, and called for the district to resume the suspended “No Place for Hate” and other bias training programs, and to do more for students with mental health issues.
One of the speakers, parent Jenny Peterson, said “how can you fix what’s broken if you don’t identify it? Be leaders!”
The Cobb school district said it will be seeking to use money Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund, passed by Congress in 2020, to help pay for some of the additional security measures.
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!
New Cobb school board maps push Post 6 (in turquoise) completely out of East Cobb.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and other organizations and individuals have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the redistricting of Cobb Board of Education seats.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta, claims that legislators used race as “a predominant factor” in redrawing the seven school board posts, diluting black and Hispanic voting power in Cobb County.
The suit alleges that the board’s four white members “forged ahead with a secretive map-drawing process to maintain their tenuous majority over the Board’s three Black members.”
But the only defendants named are the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration and director Janine Eveler.
Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt told East Cobb News that Daniel White, the Cobb Elections attorney, was not aware of the lawsuit.
The suit (you can read it here) is asking the court to declare that the redrawn posts 2, 3, and 6 violate the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution and to order an interim redistricting plan for those three seats.
Those new lines pushed three seats entirely into the South Cobb area, including Post 6, which currently includes the Walton and Wheeler attendance zones.
The new lines, which go into effect in January, cut out the East Cobb area of that post, which solely includes the Smyrna-Vinings-Cumberland area.
Post 2 and Post 4 also are in the South Cobb area, and along with Post 6 have are represented by three black Democrats.
One of them is Charisse Davis, who was elected in 2018 to serve Post 6. She is not seeking re-election this year.
Nor did Jaha Howard of Post 2, who ran in the Democratic primary for Georgia school superintendent last month.
The new maps split East Cobb into two districts: Post 4, held by two-term Republican chairman David Chastain and that includes the Kell, Lassiter and Sprayberry clusters; and Post 5, held by Republican vice chairman David Banks, which comprises the Pope, Walton and Wheeler clusters.
Chastain is up for re-election this year and in November will face Democrat Catherine Pozniak.
“Ultimately, the Board and General Assembly enacted a redistricting plan that whitewashed the northern, eastern, and western districts by packing Black and Latinx voters into the Challenged Districts, as a last-ditch effort to limit the power of their emerging political coalition,” read the lawsuit.
“The Plan is a product of the Board’s pattern and practice over the last several years to impose policies that disproportionately and negatively impact students of color and their families.”
The lawsuit also catalogues a number of conflicts on the Cobb school board along racial lines over the last three years, and concerns from black legislators about the redistricting proposals that they may violate the federal Voting Rights Act.
“As shown in the maps [above] which reflect Black and Latinx voting age population figures by voting district utilizing 2020 census data, the majority of Cobb County’s Black and Latinx communities live in the southern half of the County, while most of the County’s white population lives in the north,” according to the lawsuit.
Other plaintiffs include the Galeo Latino Community Development Fund, the New Georgia Project Fund, the League of Women Voters of Marietta-Cobb and some Cobb school parents in those three posts.
Other legal groups involved in filing the suit include the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, the ACLU Foundation of Georgia and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law.
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A consent decree between Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church and the denomination’s North Georgia Conference has been filed in Cobb Superior Court, and reveals more details beyond last week’s general announcement.
Rev. Dr. Jody Ray, Mt. Bethel UMC
We’re reading through the full 125-page settlement (you can read it here), but the main terms are what was divulged last week—Mt. Bethel gets to keep its property and most assets and has 120 days from Monday, when the agreement was signed, to pay $13.1 million to the North Georgia Conference.
Mt. Bethel also will return certain intellectual property, including items with UMC insignia, and will officially remain part of the denomination until its obligations under the settlement are met.
After that, Mt. Bethel’s use of its property on its main campus on Lower Roswell Road will come with some restrictions.
That includes not using any of the parcels comprising the main church buildings and the Mt. Bethel Christian Academy as a headquarters or office for any religious denomination for seven and a half years.
Mt. Bethel has been an organizing member of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, which recently launched the Global Methodist Church, an international consortium of conservative congregations.
But Mt. Bethel officials say that once the congregation has left the UMC, it will become an independent church.
Mt. Bethel also is prevented from selling the Lower Roswell Road properties for seven and a half years without giving the UMC and the North Georgia Conference the right of first refusal to purchase them.
Once Mt. Bethel completes the real estate closing, the organization will become Mt. Bethel Church Inc. with a trade name of Mt. Bethel.
The settlement stipulates that other properties near the main campus—three homes on Fairfield Drive, an older adult center, a day care center and the Mt. Bethel church cemetery on Johnson Ferry Road—can be sold at any time.
However, those facilities also may not be used to house a denominational office.
Mt. Bethel’s North campus on Post Oak Tritt Road is not included in the settlement because church leadership last year placed the facility under the ownership of Mt. Bethel Christian Academy.
The North Georgia Conference objected to that action, since there wasn’t a vote taken by the congregation, which was required by the UMC’s Book of Discipline governing documents.
The settlement terms also include a provision that information collected through discovery will not be shared or discussed by any of the parties.
A preamble to the settlement notes that “both sides plan to look forward and honor the mission and ministry of each other as Christians. Accordingly, the Parties shall encourage their members to focus on the mission of Jesus Christ and not the past actions and alleged transgressions of each another, as referenced in the civil action now being mutually resolved.”
Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson, North Georgia Conference UMC
In a letter to Mt. Bethel members on Monday, pastor Rev. Dr. Jody Ray, explained the terms, and concluded by saying that “we reiterate our great hope in the future of Mt. Bethel’s mission and ministry to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which we pray each and every one of you will be a part of.”
The Friends of Mt. Bethel, a group of church members opposed to the church’s actions against the North Georgia Conference, said that “while the settlement agreement may not be what we had hoped for, it does not change who we are. We are the beloved sons and daughters of the King. We will continue to pray for you as you prayerfully consider your steps forward. God has a place for all of us.”
They will be meeting next week with Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson of the North Georgia Conference at another Methodist church in East Cobb.
It was her reassignment of Ray to a non-ministerial post at the North Georgia Conference in May 2021 that set off a heated dispute lasting more than a year.
Mt. Bethel was among the conservative UMC congregations anticipating that the denomination would allow gay and lesbian clergy and same-sex marriages, which are currently forbidden.
After Ray turned in his UMC ministerial credentials, he delivered a sermon in which he said he would not “bow the knee, or kiss the ring, of progressive theology. . . . which is no theology.”
Mt. Bethel kept him as CEO and lay pastor, positions the North Georgia Conference said weren’t allowed under the Book of Discipline.
After Mt. Bethel refused to acknowledge his appointed successor, Rev. Dr. Stephen Usry, the Conference announced it would seize the church’s assets.
After mediation failed last summer, the Conference sued Mt. Bethel in September 2021, and Mt. Bethel filed a countersuit.
The United Methodist Church had scheduled a vote on protocols for separation in 2020, but its conferences have been delayed until 2024.
There won’t be a vote for Mt. Bethel to disaffiliate, as has happened with some churches in the North Georgia Conference recently.
Mt. Bethel’s attorneys said they wanted to have a vote of its membership, but the North Georgia Conference did not schedule one.
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!
The following East Cobb food scores for the weeks of May 30 and June 6 have been compiled by the Cobb & Douglas Department of Public Health. Click the link under each listing for inspection details:
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!
Republican voters want absentee ballot dropboxes eliminated, while Demcorats want their availability expanded.
The biggest winners in the Georgia primary elections on May 24—at least in terms of percentage of the vote—weren’t individual candidates or those fighting against Cityhood referendums in Cobb County.
The respective Republican and Democratic questions that appeared on partisan ballots were overwhelmingly lopsided, which isn’t a new trend.
The state parties assembled questions on topics familiar to their voting bases.
The results are used by the parties to shape messaging and to collect information, but this year they touched on a number of cultural and other hot-button topics.
Republicans were asked about border security, education spending, absentee ballot access and Buckhead cityhood in relation to crime concerns.
Regarding the latter, a proposed Buckhead cityhood bill was scotched by outgoing GOP Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and the bill had no local sponsors.
The ballot question that got the most one-sided response from Republican voters was transgender athletes, with 95 percent saying female-identified biological males should not be allowed to compete against girls in high school sports.
But the GOP-led Georgia legislature couldn’t pass a bill requiring high school athletes to compete with the sex of their birth.
Another bill passed this year gave that authority to the Georgia High School Association, the governing body for high school athletics. On May 4, the GHSA’s executive committee, by a 62-0 vote, changed its bylaws to bar transgender athletes from competing along gender identity lines.
Democratic voters were asked about student loan forgiveness, Medicare expansion, expanding voter registration access and parental leave.
Five of the nine questions had YES votes of 90 percent or more, including incentives for Georgia to promote the creation of renewable energy sources.
Only 80 percent said YES to a question if marijuana should be legalized and regulated, similar to alcohol, for consumers aged 21 and over, with tax revenues to fund education, health care and infrastructure.
1. The Biden administration has stopped building the border wall and illegal border crossings have dramatically increased. Should securing our border be a national priority?
YES: 93% statewide; 89% Cobb
2. Education is the largest line item in the state budget. Should education dollars follow the student to the school that best fits their need, whether it is public, private, magnet, charter, virtual or homeschool? 3. Florida has passed a law to stop social media platforms from influencing political campaigns by censoring candidates. Should Georgia pass such a law to protect free speech in political campaigns?
YES: 78% statewide and Cobb
3. Florida has passed a law to stop social media platforms from influencing political campaigns by censoring candidates. Should Georgia pass such a law to protect free speech in political campaigns?
YES: 83% statewide; 81% Cobb
4. Two of the three current federal work visa programs are lottery based. Should federal work visas instead be issued on job skill?
YES: 86.6% statewide and Cobb;
5. Biological males who identify as females have begun competing in female sports. Should schools in Georgia allow biological males to compete in female sports?
NO: 95% statewide; 95% Cobb;
6. To prevent ballot tampering, state law prohibits political operatives from handling absentee ballots once they have been marked by the voter. To protect the integrity of our elections, should the enforcement of laws against ballot tampering be a priority?
YES: 95% statewide; 92.8% Cobb;
7. Absentee drop boxes are vulnerable to illegal ballot trafficking. Should absentee ballot drop boxes be eliminated?
YES: 85% statewide; 75% Cobb
8. Crime has dramatically increased throughout the country including in our capital city of Atlanta. Should the citizens of residential areas like the Buckhead community of Atlanta be allowed to vote to create their own city governments and police departments?
YES: 80% statewide; and Cobb
Democratic Party Questions
1. Should the United States remove obstacles to economic advancement by forgiving all student loan debt?
YES: 85% statwide; 81% Cobb;
2. Should all Georgians have access to paid parental leave following the birth or adoption of a child?
YES: 95%% statewide; 96% Cobb
3. Should every three- and four-year-old in Georgia be given the opportunity to attend a high-quality preschool free of charge?
YES 96% statewide; 95% Cobb
4. Should Georgia voters have the right to gather signed petitions to directly place questions on the ballot, whether to change the law or poll the public?
YES 87% statewide; 86% Cobb
5. Should families earning less than $150,000 per year receive an expanded tax credit to help cover the costs of raising children?
YES 88.8% statewide; 87.6% Cobb
6. Should the State of Georgia expand access to health care for over half a million Georgians by utilizing federal funds to expand Medicaid?
YES 96.9% statewide; 96.8% Cobb
7. Should the State of Georgia expand voter access by increasing early voting opportunities, allow same-day voter registration, removing obstacles to voting by mail, and installing secure ballot drop boxes, accessible at all times, through Election Day?
YES: 95% statewide; 97% Cobb
8. Should marijuana be legalized, taxed, and regulated in the same manner as alcohol for adults 21 years of age or older, with proceeds going towards education, infrastructure, and health care programs?
YES: 80% statewide; 84% Cobb
9. Should the State of Georgia incentivize the development of clean, renewable energy sources to support America’s energy independence?
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!
The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration has announced some precinct venue changes for the June 21 primary runoff elections.
Among those contests headed to a runoff is the Republican primary for the 6th Congressional District, which includes some of East Cobb, and pits Jake Evans against Rich McCormick.
The changes were made after Cobb Elections was told that some regular polling places would not be available on the runoff election day.
The locations of three East Cobb precincts will be different but Cobb Elections said they are only temporary and for the runoff only. They include the following:
Fullers Park 1: From Fullers Park Recreation Center to Immanuel Korean United Methodist Church (945 Old Canton Road);
Murdock 1: From Atlanta Chinese Christian Church to Murdock Elementary School (2320 Murdock Road)
Roswell 2: From Mt. Zion United Methodist Church to Episcopal Church of St. Peter and St. Paul (1795 Johnson Ferry Road).
Advance voting in the runoffs starts Wednesday and continues through June 17 at various locations. Some will have absentee ballot dropboxes, including the East Cobb Government Service Center (4400 Lower Roswell Road). For more information, click here.
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!
Cobb County Government is accepting applications for organizations and individuals seeking grant funding under the American Rescue Plan Act.
Cobb has been earmarked with $147 million in COVID-19 stimulus funding passed by Congress in the $1.9 trillion legislation in 2021.
Cobb commissioners approved investment guidance to allocate funding in the community health, support services, economic development, county infrastructure and public safety areas.
Those eligible for the grants must meet the following criteria:
Projects must serve Cobb County and its residents
Projects submitted must align with at least one of the five priority areas and at least one subtopic associated with the chosen priority area.
Project submissions from organizations outside of the Cobb County government must align with one or more Economic Development, Support Services, and Community Health subtopics, or Broadband & Digital Equity. Submissions from organizations outside of the Cobb County government will not be considered for Public Safety subtopics or County Facilities or Stormwater.
Projects must support communities impacted or disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. For more information, please see question 3.3.
Projects must consider equity in their project plans.
More information and access to an application link can be found here; the deadline for applying is 5 p.m. on Sept. 9.
Applications will be screened in several areas, including equity, financial continuity, impact, project budget, risk mitigation and impact.
Final funding decisions will be made by the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
Cobb officials will hold two information webinars about the application process on webinars on June 16 at 4:30 p.m. and June 27 at 6 p.m.
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!
After serving north and west Cobb as well as Cherokee, Paulding and Bartow counties for the last 18 years, Trash Taxi has begun serving the East Cobb area.
Christi Rhyne of Trash Taxi said that weekly trash and recycling services available now for residents and businesses in ZIP codes 30062 and 30066 and starting in September, weekly recycling services will be offered.
She said one of the reasons for the reach into East Cobb is due to complaints about existing services.
“Since I live here too, I am really excited to be able to use the company I work for as my personal trash hauler,” she said.
For more information about Trash Taxi, click here or call 770-975-0926.
Trash Taxi is based in central Florida, and provides services there and in Alabama and will soon serve parts of Michigan and Ontario, Canada.
Locally, Trash Taxi of Georgia is based in Acworth, and belongs to the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, the Acworth Business Association and the Better Business Bureau.
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!
For the second time, Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid will deliver a State of the County address next week.
She’s the featured speaker at the Cobb Chamber of Commerce’s Marquee Monday breakfast on June 13.
The event takes place from 8-10 a.m. at the Coca-Cola Roxy Theatre at The Battery Atlanta (800 Battery Ave.) and will include the Cobb Chamber’s presentation of its Executive Woman of the Year Award (info and registration here).
Until this year, the address from the head of county government had been delivered exclusively to the Chamber audience.
But earlier this year, Cupid added a separate event to invite the larger public. After being unable to get commissioners to provide funding, her “All In” address in April was sponsored by Wellstar Health System and other private donors.
She spoke al length about diversity and demographics and how Cobb can “retain our strength as an affluent suburban county” without leaving other types of communities behind.
That address was before three Cityhood referendums, including one in East Cobb, were rejected by voters last month.
The county government held town halls and launched a Cityhood information page that was criticized in particular by the East Cobb Cityhood group.
Last week, in her weekly e-mail newsletter, Cupid referenced the Cityhood votes by saying that “this should be the start of new dialogue. The town halls, forums, and conversations gave us a great opportunity to hear from residents. Now is the time to consider how we can strengthen county services, create communities with a better ‘sense of place,’ and capture the heightened level of engagement these votes encouraged.
“Residents made it clear they want a role in land use, zoning, and parks programs. Hopefully, this sparks increased community engagement with commissioners and staff when it comes to amendments to our Comprehensive Plan and participation in zoning meetings. In the weeks and months ahead you can also get involved in the county’s transition to a Unified Development Code among other matters like waste collection.”
Now in her second year in office, Cupid sounded some alarm bells with Chamber leaders and local elected officials in 2021 when Cobb commissioners approved a controversial residential rezoning near the Dobbins Air Base reserve accident potential zone.
That resulted in a land swap with the county to resolve the matter, commissioners later approved a code amendment to take away their discretionary power on rezonings around Dobbins.
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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!
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!
Signs from a pandemic: Black Lives Matter rally on Johnson Ferry Road; an expression of hope on Holly Springs Road.
As the year 2020 approached, I sent out what was the first reader survey for East Cobb News, eagerly anticipating a breakthrough year for this community news site after a couple of years of laying the groundwork.
As I began to look through the responses, a breakthrough event was in progress, and it changed everything for so many of us.
As COVID-19 and the responses to it dramatically altered our world, I set the survey aside. While many of my best-laid plans for this site also were put on hold, readers turned to East Cobb News like never before.
We thoroughly covered the COVID response and its effects on the community, schools and so much more. Along the way, we broke stories about the opening—and closure—of an adult retail store and a bitter controversy embroiling one of East Cobb’s biggest faith communities.
More than two years later, we’re hopeful the worst of the pandemic is behind us. We’ve grown our traffic and newsletter audiences with a sizable daily reach that is unmatched in this community.
Community life, and festivities, are springing back into action, and we’re eager to gauge your thoughts about East Cobb News as we get back to what is feeling like normal again.
All you have to do is click the link above, and respond to 10 questions about this site, and the news and information we provide. The survey takes just a few minutes, and once you’re finished, hit the “submit” button.
What’s happening in East Cobb is why you come here, and we want to better serve your interests and understand what you value about this community resource.
Unlike corporate-owned media, East Cobb News answers above all to our readers, with the objective of meeting the news and information needs in our community. Your answers will help us tailor our product to make it really appeal to what’s important to you.
Don’t be bashful—tell us what we’re doing well, what we could do better or different. We appreciate your readership and look forward to delivering more community news and information that’s relevant to you as we continue in 2022.
I’m always accessible to field your questions, hear complaints and try to explain why we do what we do at East Cobb News. E-mail me: wendy@eastcobbnews.com.
We’ll be collecting responses through the end of July, so please feel free to complete the survey as you can. We’ll share the responses as the school year begins.
Thanks so much for your readership of East Cobb News! Have a great summer!
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!
The East Cobb-based Aloha to Aging, a non-profit dedicated to services to senior citizens and their caregivers, is marking its 13th anniversary this month with a special fundraising event.
It’s called Concert and Cornhole for a Cause, and takes place on June 26 at Red Hare Brewery and Distillery (1998 Delk Industrial Blvd.) from 2-6 p.m.
As the name suggests, there will be live music and a cornhole tournament. Participants will enjoy the sounds of Saints N Sinners and Northside Duo, specialty drinks and the competition.
Proceeds will benefit Aloha to Aging and its programs, including an aging sensitivity class for individuals, businesses and families dealing with those with age-related health or cognitive changes, family support groups and the Aloha Day Club, designed for those 50 and older who are no longer driving.
Sponsors and participants are needed for the event and more information can be found by clicking here.
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!
Cobb County is gathering donations of knitted and crocheted squares for the 2022 Yarn Storm project in recognition of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. The project is being coordinated by Cobb County Government, the Cobb District Attorney’s Office and LiveSafe Resources.The 6-inch and 10-inch squares can be in any color or design and will be used to install yarn storming displays on June 15.
Please bring your donation by Wednesday, June 8, to one of these locations:
100 Cherokee St. in Marietta. (There will be a collection box located inside the building for your donations.)
Cobb Senior Wellness Center, 1150 Powder Springs Street, Marietta
Freeman Poole Senior Center, 4025 South Hurt Road, Smyrna
N. Cobb Senior Center, 3900 South Main Street (inside Kennworth Park), Acworth
Tim D. Lee Senior Center, 3332 Sandy Plains Road, Marietta
W. Cobb Senior Center, 4915 Dallas Hwy, Powder Springs
You may also mail your completed pieces to: Cobb District Attorney’s Office, 70 Haynes St., Third Floor, Marietta GA 30090. For additional information, please visit www.cobbcounty.org/WEAAD.
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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!
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!
Walton High School has been named the recipient of the Georgia Athletic Directors Association Directors’ Cup trophy for the school’s performances in high school athletics in the 2021-22 academic year.
The honors are given in each of the eight classifications of the Georgia High School Association.
Walton is the overall and boys’ and girls’ winner in Class 7A, the largest of the classifications. The Raiders collected 1,281 points, winning state championships in four sports: girls volleyball; girls swimming, and boys and girls tennis.
Lambert was second with 1,143 points, followed by Mill Creek with 1,140.
In the girls division Walton had 599 points, while North Gwinnett had 552. On the boys side, Walton collected 682 points to 624 to Hillgrove.
The GADA totals points based on how teams finish in all sports for which the GHSA awards state championships.
Walton, the only high school in East Cobb in Class 7-A was second in the Directors’ Cup standings in 2021, and last won the all-sports trophy in 2019.
In Class 6A, Lassiter finished third with 1,082 points and Pope was fourth with 1,073 points, trailing Buford and Cambridge.
The Lassiter girls topped their division and the Trojans boys were 9th, and the Pope girls were 4th.
Lassiter teams won state Class 6-A championships in fast-pitch girls softball, girls swimming and boys and girls soccer.
The Pope baseball team won the state championship in late May at Truist Park.
Also in Class 6-A, Kell finished 32nd, and Sprayberry was 54th.
In the Class A private school division, Mt. Bethel Christian came in at No. 45.
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Mt. Zion United Methodist Church in East Cobb is offering diversity scholarships to students in the area as part of its Life Skills Outreach Ministry.
It’s an extension of the church’s racial unification (RU) team that was formed in 2021, “to raise awareness of the issues facing historically marginalized populations.”
This year, the ministry “wishes to demonstrate the compassion that will benefit deserving students from our community.”
The ministry’s mission statement is that “We truly love others, recognizing our differences. We will listen intently, learn what others need, lament when others suffer or struggle, and leverage our gifts to help everyone, in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Five college scholarships of $1,000 each will be distributed for the upcoming school year, and applications will be received through June 15.
They are merit-based scholarships for students in the East Cobb area, including the Sprayberry, Wheeler, Lassiter, Pope, Kell and Walton high school attendance zones.
Students receiving the scholarships must be enrolled in an institution of higher education for the 2022-23 academic year.
The RU team will review the applications and announce the recipients by Aug. 15. The RU team also will provide one-on-one mentorship for the scholarship recipients for life skills, character development and spiritual growth.
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!
Cobb County is gathering donations of knitted and crocheted squares for the 2022 Yarn Storm project in recognition of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. The project is being coordinated by Cobb County Government, the Cobb District Attorney’s Office and LiveSafe Resources.The 6-inch and 10-inch squares can be in any color or design and will be used to install yarn storming displays on June 15.
