On August 24, 2020, Forbes announced that the Cobb County School District was being recognized as one of America’s “Best-in-State Employers.” Cobb Schools has been on the list both years since Forbes began the award in conjunction with Statista in 2019.
“We know teachers are the most important part of any student’s experience and this is another confirmation that we are putting our Team first, ” said Superintendent Chris Ragsdale. “Our motto of ‘One Team, One Goal, Student Success,’ is only possible when our employees actually believe it and get the support they need to achieve it. We are grateful for the back-to-back recognition because it shows that we are keeping the main thing, the main thing.”
Cobb Schools moved up one position from 2019—from #23 to #22 in the state. It is one of only two school districts to make the Top 25 in Georgia and landed ahead of notable Georgia companies such as The Home Depot, UPS, and Coca-Cola.
Forbes and Statista select Best-In-State Employers based on an independent survey of more than 80,000 working for companies of at least 500 employees. The surveys are administered using a series of online panels and provide a representative sample of the U.S. workforce.
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Hiring and other opening signs have been up for months at the forthcoming Lidl store at Woodlawn Square in East Cobb, but there’s still no word yet when the store may open to the public.
We’ve been getting inquiries from readers and today Lidl passed along some information about expansion into Georgia with five more stores, including the East Cobb location, by the end of 2021.
We asked Lidl if there’s a general timetable for opening at Woodlawn Square, if not a specific date, and here’s the reply from the company:
“We expect to have more to share on the East Cobb store over the coming weeks and will look forward to getting in touch with you again then.”
What Lidl is saying for now is that the East Cobb store is part of a $500 million expansion with 50 new stores on the East Coast. The other stores in Georgia are in Marietta (on Whitlock Ave.) and future stores Sandy Springs, Woodstock and Duluth.
Lidl said those five stores will create an estimated 200 new jobs.
Lidl is a German-based discount grocer that competes with another German rival Aldi, and currently has two stores in the south Cobb area.
Lidl first attempted to enter the East Cobb market in 2017 when it sought rezoning of the Park 12 Cobb theatre on Gordy Parkway, but that request was denied following strong community opposition.
Lidl will occupy more than 21,000 square feet of space formerly occupied by The Fresh Market, which closed last October.
The only Aldi store in East Cobb is at the East Lake Shopping Center on Roswell Road, near the Marietta Parkway.
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UPDATE: Nobody showed up to speak in favor of or against the new ordinance on Tuesday. There will be another public hearing Sept. 8, the same day Cobb commissioners are expected to vote on the matter.
An initial public hearing is scheduled Tuesday for proposed Cobb code amendments that would make sweeping changes in regulating sexually oriented businesses.
At a Monday work session, the Cobb Board of Commissioners was briefed by Cobb County Attorney’s Office about the proposals, which would expand the definition of sexually oriented businesses and restrict where they can operate.
They would be required to get special sexually oriented business licenses, and all employees would have to have permits. Anyone operating such a business would have to meet buffer and other regulatory measures to abate what are termed “adverse secondary negative effects.”
The proposed code amendments come two months after Tokyo Valentino, an Atlanta-based adult retail store, opened on Johnson Ferry Road in a vacant mattress store in East Cobb.
That store opened after it received a business license to operate as a retail clothing store under the general commercial zoning category. East Cobb commissioner Bob Ott said the county could not stop an adult store from opening there, even if it advertised itself as something else, due to existing ordinances.
The land where the former Mattress Firm store stood has been zoned general commercial since the 1970s
The new store in East Cobb drew community opposition before it opened as Tokyo Valentino and after Morrison initially said that’s not what would be going in that space
Among the court cases attorney Scott Bergthold referenced during the presentation were several current legal disputes involving adult stores in Brookhaven and Sandy Springs operated by Tokyo Valentino owner Michael Morrison.
In June the city of Marietta closed and revoked the business license of a Tokyo Valentino store on Cobb Parkway for violating an ordinance regulating the amount of sexual peraphernalia allowed in a general commercial category.
The proposed Cobb amendments would completely overhaul a section of the county code pertaining to licenses for adult businesses, which Bergthold said hasn’t been updated in decades.
He said courts have ruled that “can’t ban them but can stringently regulate” where they’re allowed to operate and what they can do.
Under the proposed code amendments, the new category of “sexually oriented businesses”—which would include adult retail stores like Tokyo Valentino as well as adult entertainment establishments—would be allowed only in two industrial zoning categories.
Any “lawfully existing” adult businesses operating in other zoning categories would have until the end of 2021 to relocate to an appropriately zoned property, and could apply for “hardship” to extend that period.
An aerial map of the Tokyo Valentino store at 1290 Johnson Ferry Road and surroundings.
That provision would presumably affect the Tokyo Valentino store on Johnson Ferry Road, the only one currently operating in unincorporated Cobb County.
An adult bookstore would be defined as one that derives at least 25 percent of its revenues from the sale and rental of sexually explicit items and has at least 25 percent of its floor space devoted to displaying those materials.
Sexually oriented businesses also would not be allowed to operate within 750 feet of residentially zoned land, within 1,500 feet of a school, religious facility, government-owned or run building, 1,000 feet of another sexually oriented business and 500 feet of another business licensed to sell alcohol, either on premises or a package store.
The Tokyo Valentino store is located close to some of those kinds of buildings and areas.
The adverse affects Burkholder referenced include declining property values, crime and public safety risks, lewdness, decency and the possible transmission of disease, drug use and trafficking and aesthetic impacts like traffic, litter, noise and blight.
Violations carry a maximum fine of $1,000 per violation, and proposed provisions outline steps the county could take to address repeat violators deemed to be a “nuisance,” including revocation of a business license.
Cobb County Attorney William Rowling said the proposed code changes have been publicly advertised three times since July 31.
Cobb commissioners will conduct a public hearing at their regular meeting that starts at 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Action on the code amendments is scheduled after another public hearing in September.
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Local Jewish leaders are planning a response to an act of vandalism over the weekend in an East Cobb neighborhood that included swastikas and other anti-Semitic graffiti being scrawled on fences.
Rabbi Larry Sernovitz of Temple Kol Emeth, one of three synagogues in East Cobb, said in a message to his congregation that several fences were spray-painted with “multiple swastikas.”
“The swastika has come to be known as a symbol of Nazism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism. This act and this symbol is not representative of the Cobb County that we know and love and has no place in our community,” he said.
The neighborhood is along Holly Springs Road in the vicinity of Post Oak Tritt Road. That’s near the former site of the Marcus Jewish Community Center’s Shirley Blumenthal Park, which is now the high school campus of Mt. Bethel Christian Academy.
Sernovitz also thanked Cobb Police “for their timely response to the incident. Additionally, we applaud the actions of the residents of this neighborhood for coming together as a community to take back their space and to clean and refresh their public fencing. Thirty members of this neighborhood, children and adults from many different faith backgrounds, worked together to erase the damage that had been done to their neighborhood on Sunday afternoon.”
Kol Emeth was to have held a community event Monday with the Anti-Defamation League of Atlanta, but scheduling conflicts have put that on hold.
“We look forward to working in concert with our interfaith community to combat hate in all of its forms,” Sernovitz said. “Over the coming days, we will be organizing opportunities for dialogue within our TKE community and in concert with our neighbors. As plans progress, we will keep you updated.”
Allison Padilla-Goodman vice president of the ADL’s Southern office in Atlanta, told East Cobb News “stay tuned for a future event!”
Sernovitz just began his tenure in July at Kol Emeth, succeeding longtime Rabbi Steven Lebow, who retired after 34 years.
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Although Kroger is one of many businesses requiring East Cobb customers to wear masks, there isn’t a county government mandate to do so.
When Cobb Commission Chairman Mike Boyce said last week he was asking county staff to review Gov. Brian Kemp’s latest order allowing local governments to pass mask mandates, he said he would be reluctant to impose one.
Not just because he thought it would be hard for public safety to enforce, he said, but also because he didn’t think he could get his colleagues to go along with it.
Boyce said a mask mandate would require public hearings and commissioners’ approval of a new ordinance.
Both of East Cobb’s commissioners said last week they don’t support that either.
JoAnn Birrell said in a response to a query from East Cobb News that “I concur with the governor’s order and the Chairman.”
Kemp’s order allows local governments to issue broad mandates if a county averaged more than 100 COVID-19 per 100,000 people over a 14-day period.
Cobb’s average as of Sunday for the previous two weeks was 313 cases per 100,000, as that number continues to trend down.
That’s a metric that public health officials have said designates “high community spread” and it’s a key indicator Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale has said will guide a return to classroom instruction. He’s targeted getting that number under 200.
The Cobb GIS office has created a new map letting users gauge community spread data in the county and around the state. When you click on a county, it shows the cases per 100,000 over the previous 14 days, and has color coding to indicate the severity of the spread in a particular county.
Even if a local government issued a community mandate, Kemp’s order still requires the consent of property owners.
Commissioner Bob Ott of East Cobb also said of a broader mask requirement that “I don’t think it’s enforceable. It’s better to work with businesses and get them to do it.”
That sentiment is part of what Boyce has called a “nice ask mask” campaign that includes the use of billboards, as seen below, and social media messages, including photoshopped images above that include a mask on the Big Chicken.
Kemp’s order does allow local governments to impose mandates on public property, and Boyce said Cobb County Manager Jackie McMorris can issue a mask order for county buildings.
Birrell said whatever McMorris may come up with, “I support her decisions.”
Shortly after Kemp’s order, the city of Smyrna imposed a mask mandate. Sandy Springs and Roswell orders require masks only in city buildings.
Most Cobb commissioners have been urging public mask use in their public statements and e-mail newsletters, and they often wear them during their public meetings.
Like Boyce, Ott said he has noticed high levels of voluntary mask compliance when he’s out and about.
“We just can’t be thinking up laws that are unenforceable,” Ott said.
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It”s already been a manic Monday for Cobb school students, teachers and parents and many others globally.
Zoom, the video teleconferencing platform that’s become heavily relied-upon during the COVID-19 pandemic, has crashed around the world.
We got a text from a Cobb schools parent shortly after 8 a.m. saying the Cobb Teaching and Learning System, the district’s instructional portal, was down.
The district said around 9:30 a.m. that CTLS is operational, but that since 8:10 a.m., “Zoom has been experiencing a worldwide outage. The problem is being worked on, District staff is in direct contact with Zoom executives, and currently, there is no timetable for its return. We will update our community via social media and email as soon as the situation is resolved.”
Zoom is how student attendance is marked and virtual class participation is conducted. The parent who texted us said Microsoft Teams is being utilized as a backup. The district said that alternative had some issues and was down at times last week.
CTLS had some technical issues at times during the first week of all-online classes in Cobb last week.
The district also said to parents Monday morning that “your student’s workload is still accessible. Your teachers will be contacting you with more information shortly.”
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On Tuesday, the Atlanta Regional Commission is having a webinar for the public to learn more, discuss and ask questions.
The RiverLands project envisions more than 100 connected miles of multi-use trails, from the Buford Dam near Lake Lanier to the Chattahoochee Bend State Park near Newnan.
A bridge connecting Hyde Farm in East Cobb to Morgan Falls Overlook Park in Sandy Springs is one of the additions that’s part of the
The webinar starts at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, is free and you can sign up by clicking here. The ARC’s Paul Donsky has more on the What’s Next Atl blog about the project.
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The Cobb County School District acknowledged technology issues during the first week of all-online school, but stressed the many positive reports it said it got from teachers, parents and students.
The technology glitches that came with starting a new school year all-online weren’t unexpected. The Cobb County School District rolled out a massive new platform on Monday’s first day that was difficult for some students, parents and teachers to access.
Many parents reported troubles logging in, or being unable to get audio and live chats and Zoom links, or were having issues with specific browsers and devices.
Others said they had few problems and commended the district, which reported 107,000 first-day logins (enrollment is 112,000) on the Cobb Teaching and Learning System.
Even those with problems praised their children’s teachers and principals, many of whom were pressed into computer troubleshooting duties.
Among them is a mother of two children at East Cobb schools, who reported that her kids’ classroom connections crashed on more than one occasion during the week.
The district acknowledged what it said on Thursday afternoon was “an intermittent, system-wide interruption to the CTLS platform” that lasted for roughly two-and-a-half hours.
That crash, the mother told East Cobb News, was an emotional breaking point for her.
“The teachers are trying so hard, but the technology is in and out,” said the mother, who did not want to be identified, nor where her children attend school.
She wanted to have her children attend schools in person before Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale in July switched to an all-online start, citing COVID-19 concerns.
Now, she’s concerned that the virtual start to the school year might last longer than just a few weeks, and that poses more than technology problems for her kids.
“Mentally, these kids need to connect with their friends, they need to connect with their teachers and with other people” in person, and not just online, she said.
She said her middle school student is not faring well outside of a school environment, and she’s spoken with several other parents, some of whom were breaking down because of what their children are having to navigate.
“They’re struggling to be online all day,” said the mother, who also was choking with emotion.
Another mother of East Cobb students, Amy Henry, has been outspoken and public against the all-virtual start, starting a parents group called “Let Parents Choose,” which held rallies in recent weekends, demanding what she calls a “common-sense plan” to return to classroom instruction.
She and her husband moved last year from DeKalb County, where their children were in private school, and chose East Cobb and the Walton High School district because of the public schools.
Henry and her husband both work and she said they cannot do so at home. When the all-virtual decision was made, they put their kindergartener and fourth-grader in private school. Their two older children are Walton students attending online classes at home and participating in football and volleyball.
Amy Henry, with four children in the Walton district, leads a parents group for in-person school that held a rally on the Marietta Square last weekend.
She said her high schoolers experienced some of the same technology problems but is more concerned about what it’s going to take to get schools open for students.
Ragsdale told the Cobb Board of Education Thursday that one of the key metrics he’s looking at is what public health officials call “high community spread.” Anything more than an average of 100 cases per 100,000 people over 14 days is considered high, and that figure in Cobb County now is in the 300s.
Noting the low COVID-19 case rate for children under 20, Henry said other factors need to be considered.
“This virus is not a death sentence, not for everyone,” she said. “What in life is 100 percent safe? The damage we’re doing to kids [by not being in school] is immense. We’re creating a generation that’s fearful of the world.”
Henry and the unidentified mother said they support measures such as mask-wearing at schools, “but at some point we have to ask what kind of damage we’re doing to kids in the long run.”
Henry said she understands the difficult situation Ragsdale and other superintendents are in, and she doesn’t want schools to open and then have to shut down because of a virus outbreak, as has happened in some Cherokee and Paulding schools.
But Henry said the virus isn’t going away and “we cannot settle for virtual.”
In the meantime, she and other Cobb school parents will be getting some additional help. On Thursday, the Cobb school district set up a technical support system for parents and teachers:
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Once a nearly all-white school, Wheeler has one of the most diverse student bodies in the Cobb County School District, as exemplified by its Class of 2020.
After an online petition was started this summer to change the name of Wheeler High School, a graduate of the East Cobb school has started one of her own to keep the name as it is.
“We have great memories of our friends and teachers and just the best years of my personal life. You have let them remove our statues you are not going to take this away from us,” she wrote in her introduction.”
Behensky’s effort comes two months after a group calling itself “Wildcats for Change”started a petition demanding that the Cobb County School District rename Wheeler.
The school on Holt Road is named after Joseph Wheeler, a former Confederate general who was readmitted to the U.S. Army after the Civil War and served in Congress. He is one of the few Confederate officers buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
The Wildcats for Change petition has more than 4,500 signatures, including that of Cobb Board of Education member Charisse Davis, who represents the Walton and Wheeler clusters.
Those seeking to keep the Wheeler name discussed their memories on the new petition, including Mark M., who said he was part of the school’s first graduating class in 1967:
“Changing the name of the school will do nothing to change history. Leave it alone.”
Cathy M., a 1977 graduate:
“I am from the South. My parents are from the South. This is our heritage, Southern Heritage. Those who are demanding that anything southern (names, statues, locations, etc.) be changed and destroyed are bigots. Instead of standing strong against those that want to destroy the South, the politicians, stores, companies, professional sports organizations, manufactures and many more cave and bow down to these lunatics.”
Todd H.:
“The school was never about a singular person, of whom I never knew existed. It was about the memory of all the people who I went to school with. Don’t sully the memory.”
Leslie G., who graduated in 1969:
“Don’t punish us for what our ancestors did. People we never knew and whose views we don’t share. It was just Wheeler, my alma mater. I never even knew who he was until this ridiculous idea came up a few months ago. Please don’t invalidate the youth of so many of us.”
During a Cobb school board meeting Thursday, Davis said she had received correspondence from a descendant of Joseph Wheeler “who wanted me to know he had turned his life around.”
Her comments came during a discussion about creating a committee to examine school naming and renaming policies.
Board member David Morgan made the proposal after he noticed that there are no schools in the 112-school Cobb district that are named after minorities.
Morgan didn’t refer to Wheeler, or to a similar petition begun to change the name of Walton High School, but said he wanted to craft a policy to reflect the diversity of the Cobb school district.
According to the district’s own data, Cobb’s overall student body of nearly 112,000 students is 37 percent white, 30 percent black, 22 percent Hispanic and six percent Asian.
Wheeler was for many years a nearly all-white school, but is now one of the most diverse in the Cobb school district. Georgia Department of Education figures from March showed that Wheeler had 811 black students out of a total enrollment of 2,159.
Among the notable alumni of Wheeler is Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Harold Melton, who is African-American and graduated in 1984.
The school board voted 4-3 to create a 10-member naming/renaming committee, and Davis said she wanted to serve. The panel will have three school board members, and each person on the seven-member school board will appoint a citizen from their posts.
Board member David Chastain, a Wheeler graduate who represents the Kell and Sprayberry clusters, voted against, saying he liked Morgan’s suggestion of a possible policy change but said “I don’t think we need to form a committee. . . . We do need to make this part of our consciousness as we move forward.”
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After being closed since Aug. 7 after an employee was exposed to COVID-19, the Sewell Mill Library and Cultural Center will reopen on Monday beyond curbside service.
The Cobb County Public Library System made the announcement on Friday, and here are the details:
Sewell Mill will be open Mondays, 10 am to 8 pm; and Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 am to 6 pm. Curbside service pickup hours will return to Sewell Mill on Mondays from 11 am to 2 pm and 5 pm to 7 pm; and Tuesdays through Fridays from 11 am to 2 pm.
Cobb Library patrons are asked to schedule curbside appointments at the libraries offering the service at least one hour in advance on the same day of the planned appointment. A form for scheduling the curbside appointments and more details are available at www.cobbcat.org/libraryexpress.
For information on Cobb libraries, including open locations and libraries offering curbside service, visit www.cobbcat.orgor call 770-528-2320.
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Cobb Board of Education member David Banks is coming under fire for making a reference to COVID-19 as the “China virus” in his weekly e-mail newsletter.
Banks, a three-term Republican from East Cobb, sent out a newsletter on Tuesday listing recent retirees from the Cobb County School District, and led with this sentence:
“Since the China virus is still of concern, the CCSD Retiree ceremony was canceled this year. “
Not long after that, Julia Hurtado, a Democrat who is running against Banks in the Nov. 3 election, posted a message on a private Cobb schools Facebook page saying that “I am heartbroken for any of the Asian kids this man represents,” and encouraged anyone bothered by what he had written to go to her website.
Other social media messages have expressed similar sentiments, and East Cobb News heard from a constituent of Banks, parent Jonathan Chen, whose children attend school in Post 5, which includes the Lassiter and Pope clusters.
He said he’s lived in Post 5 since 2010 and hadn’t heard of Banks, and thought the reference was xenophobic.
“I feel it is critical that he be held accountable for his words, especially since he has been tasked with the education of our children,” Chen said.
Chen, a pulmonary doctor with the Wellstar Health System, said it’s not wise to name a virus or pathogen after the location where it was discovered because “has the effect of casting blame on the area as the source of disease which can lead to discrimination, isolation, and even violence.”
Chen said if such an outbreak were to have originated in Marietta, “fear now arises that all Marietta residents are infected so consequently, they are viewed with suspicion, fear, and even hatred by residents of surrounding communities.”
He added that “calling the SARS-coV2 virus the China virus blames China and Chinese people for the virus,” and that he refers to it as the Coronavirus.
East Cobb News has left a message with Banks seeking comment.
UPDATED:
At 9:15 a.m. Sunday, Banks e-mailed this reply to East Cobb News:
“I read your article.
“I received less than 100 negative emails concerning the ‘China virus’ and all but one came from Democrat voters. This is not a ‘blast.’ Several thousands would be a blast. These people are racists and you carried their water. Don’t be used to divide.”
ORIGINAL STORY CONTINUES:
During a Cobb school board work session Thursday, two of Banks’ colleagues referenced the incident without mentioning him by name.
The board was discussing an anti-racism resolution that ultimately failed in a 3-3 vote, with Banks voting present. He said that resolution was unnecessary and read language from district’s non-discrimination policy.
Board member Jaha Howard made a motion to amend the resolution to include an apology by any board member who had said anything racist or offensive. That amendment failed.
Charisse Davis, who represents the Walton and Wheeler clusters, said before the vote that board colleagues have made slurs, and that “if we can’t condemn that as a board I don’t understand why we’re moving forward with this resolution.”
She and Howard were among the three black Democrats who voted against the resolution, saying it didn’t go far enough in condemning racism in the school district. Three votes in favor of the original resolution were the other white Republicans on the board.
It was the third time that the board attempted to come to a consensus on an anti-racism measure, following other local governments, including Cobb County, and metro Atlanta school districts.
The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration has certified Fitz Johnson as the winner of the Republican runoff for District 2 of the Cobb Board of Commissioners.
Johnson is a Vinings resident who got 4,925 votes, while former Cobb Planning Commission member Andy Smith of East Cobb had 4,839 votes.
In a note to supporters after the certification, Johnson said he spoke with Smith and Kevin Nicholas, who finished third in the June 9 GOP primary, and “I look forward to working together with them to win in November.”
Johnson will face Democrat Jerica Richardson in the Nov. 3 general election, with the winner succeeding retiring Commissioner Bob Ott.
The November ballot for East Cobb voters is now set. Here’s a quick look ahead at other contested local, state and federal races, most of which were settled before the runoff.
Cobb Commission Chairman
Mike Boyce, (R), incumbent, vs. Lisa Cupid (D), current Commissioner from South Cobb
Cobb Board of Education, Post 5
David Banks, (R), incumbent, vs. Julia Hurtado (D)
Cobb District Attorney
Joyette Holmes (R), appointed incumbent, vs. Flynn Broady Jr. (D), special election
Cobb Sheriff
Neil Warren (R), incumbent, vs. Craig Owens (D)
Georgia State Senate, District 32
Kay Kirkpatrick (R), incumbent, vs. Christine Triebsch (D), a rematch from 2018
Georgia State House, District 37
Mary Frances Williams (D), incumbent, vs. Rose Wing (R)
Georgia State House, District 43
Sharon Cooper (R), incumbent, vs. Luisa Wakeman (D), a rematch from 2018
Georgia State House, District 44
Don Parsons (R), incumbent, vs. Connie DiCicco (D)
Georgia State House, District 45
Matt Dollar (R), incumbent, vs. Sara Tindall Ghazal (D)
Georgia State House, District 45
John Carson (R), incumbent, vs. Caroline Holko (D)
U.S. House of Representatives, Georgia 6th District
Lucy McBath (D), incumbent, vs. Karen Handel (R), a rematch from 2018
U.S. Senate
David Perdue (R), incumbent, vs. Jon Ossoff (D)
U.S. Senate Special Election
Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a Republican appointed in January, will compete in “jungle” primary will take place with candidates from both major parties. If the leading vote-getter fails to win a majority, the top two finishers will meet in a runoff of Jan. 5, 2021. The winner will fill out the final two years of the term of former Sen. Johnny Isakson.
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The Cobb Board of Education on Thursday voted to purchase nearly four acres of land close to Walton High School for $2.65 million, adjacent to newly acquired land for a new softball and tennis complex.
After an executive session, the board voted 6-1 in two separate motions by Post 6 member Charisse Davis, who represents the Walton and Wheeler clusters.
The properties include 3.5 acres at 1483 Pine Road for $2 million, and 1.2 acres at 3753 Providence Road for $650,000 (indicated by the blue stars on the map above).
Those parcels are located next to 15.2 acres on Pine Road that the district purchased in November for $3 million (red star), after threatening the property owner, Thelma McClure, with eminent domain.
There’s a sign fronting that property on Bill Murdock Road, and across from the Walton campus, that it’s to be the future home of Walton varsity tennis and softball teams.
Their old facility is where the new Walton classroom is located, and the teams have been playing home competitions since 2014 at Terrell Mill Park.
Walton softball parents had been considering legal options under Title IX, a federal law banning sex discrimination in education.
The board didn’t discuss the additional land purchases at Thursday’s meeting. The only member to vote against was Jaha Howard of the Campbell and Osborne clusters.
Funding for the property acquisition comes from Cobb Education SPLOST V revenues. So will construction costs, but those have not been determined and there isn’t a timetable for that project.
The school board also voted 7-0 for a fiscal year 2021 budget of $1.3 billion. It includes using $31 million in reserves to close a $62 million deficit following state budget cuts in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.
The budget maintains an existing property tax rate of 18.9 mills, includes step salary increases and there are no pay cuts or furlough days for employees.
The budget was amended to add $15 million in spending for COVID-related expenses.
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The developer of a proposed mixed-use project at the Sprayberry Crossing shopping center is asking for a delay in a rezoning request for another month.
Kevin Moore, an attorney for Atlantic Residential, sent a letter on Wednesday to the Cobb Zoning Office asking for a continuance from the September calendar to October. Moore wrote that the delay “will allow additional time to continue working through concerns and questions expressed by area residents and homeowner representatives and present proposed agreeable stipulations.”
Continuance requests are generally granted by staff as long as they come at least a week before public hearings. The Cobb Planning Commission was scheduled to hear the Sprayberry Crossing case on Sept. 1.
Atlantic Residential wants to build 61,500 square feet of office and retail space (30,000 for a major grocer), 178 apartments, 122 senior-living apartments and 50 townhomes on more than 17 acres.
The developer also wants to build an open-air entertainment and food hall and incorporate walking trails and greenspace around an existing family cemetery.
The proposal is seeking a rezoning category called redevelopment overlay district (ROD), for the first time since it became a category in 2006.
Earlier this month Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell held a virtual town hall providing information about the zoning process and the Sprayberry Crossing details in particular.
She told East Cobb News on Thursday that “I’m receiving emails both for and against the proposal. Keeping a tally.”
Many residents have pushed for an overhaul of the long-blighted retail center that’s there now—the property has been on the county’s redevelopment list.
But others are concerned about apartments going up in a community of single-family homes and additional traffic in the Sandy Plains and Piedmont Road corridor.
The ROD designation would mean that any development contained within does not set a precedent for the area surrounding a property that may be zoned that way.
At least 10 percent of the housing units in an ROD must be set aside for residents making no more than 80 percent of an area’s average median income.
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Cobb school superintendent Chris Ragsdale said Thursday he does not have a specific timetable for the return to classroom learning for students in the Cobb County School District.
During a virtual Cobb Board of Education work session, he reiterated previous statements he’s made that public health metrics—and not political considerations—will determine when face-to-face instruction can begin taking place.
He was responding to questions from school board members, and said that while some of those COVID-19 indicators are declining, Cobb County still has too high of a community spread for schools to reopen safely to students and staff.
“I know people are asking for a date, and I am not going to give one,” Ragsdale said during the work session, which was being live-streamed via Zoom.
He said Cobb County’s COVID-19 case statistics and issues relating to contact tracing and efficient testing will be the key factors in a decision to let students return.
Cobb is the second-largest school district in Georgia with 112,000 students, and started in all-virtual format last week.
But he said Cobb is still in the “high community spread” category for the virus, averaging more than 300 confirmed cases per 100,000 people over the last two weeks.
While that figure has come down in recent weeks, public health officials have said that the threshold for high spread is 100 cases per 100,000. Ragsdale said his target for reopening would be in the 200 cases per 100,000 range.
Rasgdale cited figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that lists Georgia 5th nationwide among states with the most COVID-19 cases, now with more than 243,000.
That’s a distant fifth behind California, Florida, Texas and New York. Cobb’s cases per 100,000 figure is not among the highest in Georgia, but its total cases have surpassed 15,000 and the county has the second-highest death toll with 352, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.
Of Cobb’s confirmed cases, a total of 1,614 have occurred among people ages 20 and under. Those numbers also have gone up dramatically since the summer began. At the start of July, that age group had 282 reported cases. By the start of August, that figure had grown to 1,078 cases.
The number of daily COVID-19 cases in Cobb has declined since early July, but the county still is in the “high community spread” category. Source: Georgia DPH. For more data click here.
Ragsdale said the district is juggling several sets of guidance at the state and local levels, and on Wednesday got new guidance from Georgia DPH that had some good measures and others he said “go down the path of not being able to open schools.”
Chief among them as far as Cobb schools are concerned, he said, is social distancing in the classrooms, something he said isn’t going to be possible.
He didn’t mention the subject of masks, something the district was going to encourage but not require, before Cobb schools switched to an online-only start to the school year.
When asked by board member Randy Scamihorn when the numbers would be good enough, Ragsdale said, “That’s the most difficult part of this situation. Nobody knows.”
He said he doesn’t want Cobb to get in a situation of some other metro Atlanta school districts, which opened in person and then shut down in part or altogether due to a rash of COVID-19 cases.
Ragsdale said that while the district’s protocols “are greatly improved, it’s still not where it needs to be.”
He said there will be “huge question over Labor Day” and the district’s regularly scheduled fall break to see where virus case numbers and trends are heading.
“If we can avoid a spike and keep that trend going down, we’ll be in Phase 1 sooner rather than later,” Ragsdale said.
Once a decision to return is made, K-5 and special education students will be the first to be able to come back, followed two weeks later by middle school students. Another two-week break would take place before high school students would return.
Younger and special ed students would return first, Ragsdale said, to accommodate those parents who need to get back to work.
For the first time in six months, since the COVID-19 outbreak began, the school board heard public comments before the work session.
That public comment session was not shown on the district’s livestream feed, but board chairman Brad Wheeler indicated it was being recorded and would be shown later.
More than a dozen people signed up to speak on the issue of classroom return, and there have been two rallies in recent weeks from parents demanding face-to-face instruction.
“Our situation is not what everyone wants,” Ragsdale said, pledging that Cobb schools would reopen for classroom instruction “as soon as it’s as safe as possible.”
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Barbara Desmond, a resident of the Horizon condominium community off Powers Ferry Road, was taking a walk last Thursday morning when she heard what she said was an “awful distressed sound” of a crying kitten “way down in a sewer drain!”
While others discovered the kitten and called for help, she said she stayed on the scene near the entrance to the Hudson Ridge apartments on Windy Ridge Parkway and Parkwood Circle.
Cobb Fire and Emergency Services crews from Stations 3 and 4, as well as Cobb Animal Services, arrived to conduct a rescue operation that turned out more than successful.
The small black kitten not only was extracted safely, one of its rescuers adopted “Figaro,” who was obviously terrified but got plenty of comfort from the crews and later from her.
Barbara provided the photos and shot and narrated the videos.
She reports that the crews had to gain access to both points of the drain, around 60 feet apart, and that crew members fitted with oxygen suits and tanks came in either direction, and said “OMG it was so intense.”
She said “Many ANGELS on the scene helped with this very dangerous rescue!”
Here’s more from Barbara: “When I said thank you to the firefighters so much for all that you did to save the kitty, they all looked at me and the Chief said ‘It is our job to rescue all life.’ ”
She later gave Figaro some love before the kitten was adopted, and said she is “so proud to live in Cobb and this amazing team of First Responders! I am forever touched by this kitty rescue and wanted to share!”
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A member of the Cobb Board of Education is asking for a discussion on the Cobb County School District’s policy of naming and renaming schools and its other facilities.
David Morgan
David Morgan, who represents the Pebblebrook and South Cobb clusters, is scheduled to present that matter at the school board’s work session Thursday morning.
The virtual meeting begins at 10 a.m. and you can watch here or on Channel 24 on Comcast Cable.
The agenda for the work session and other meetings on Thursday can be seen here.
Morgan’s agenda item is called “Facility Naming Policy and Renaming of Some Schools” but doesn’t go into any detail. East Cobb News has left messages for Morgan seeking comment.
The Walton and Wheeler renaming petition creators have said the namesakes of the schools were white supremacists. George Walton, one of Georgia’s signatories to the Declaration of Independence, was a Revolutionary War veteran, governor and senator.
Joseph Wheeler, a Confederate general during the Civil War, was later readmitted to the U.S. Army, served in Congress and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
East Cobb News contacted Charisse Davis, who represents Post 6, which includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters. She said because of the lack of details in the agenda item, she’s “not sure what Mr. Morgan will bring up.”
She forwarded a link to the school district’s naming policy and said that “members of the community have expressed concerns about the names of schools in Post 6, but also elsewhere in the county.”
She signed the Wheeler petition but has not said if she supports a Walton name change. The Walton petition, started by a student named Joseph Fisher, has more than 3,000 signatures.
Those behind the Wheeler petition (which has nearly 4,500 signatures) noted that the school opened in 1965, just as the Cobb County School District was preparing for integration.
Also during the work session, the school board will discuss an anti-racism resolution for the third time, after previous attempts to reach a consensus have fallen through.
The school board will hold a public forum on the proposed fiscal year 2021 budget at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, and final adoption is scheduled during a voting meeting to follow the work session and an executive session.
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!
A final public forum on the proposed $1.13 billion fiscal year 2021 budget and final adoption are on the docket for the Cobb Board of Education on Thursday.
The meetings will be held virtually, as they have been since the COVID-19 crisis began in March.
A virtual budget public forum will begin at 9:30 a.m. Thursday and you can watch by clicking here. There are instructions on that link for anyone who wishes to call in to comment and participate in the budget forum via Zoom.
The school board will hold a voting meeting after its 10 a.m. work session and an executive session. The agenda for the voting meeting includes an item for final budget adoption.
You can view the agendas for both public meetings on Thursday by clicking here. The board in July adopted a tentative budget, which is a formality before final adoption.
Although the Cobb County School District’s fiscal year began on July 1, a budget hasn’t been adopted due to delays in the legislature adopting the state budget. The Georgia General Assembly session was delayed because of COVID-19, and its final budget was passed in June.
Nearly half of Cobb County School District funding comes from the state, which is cutting that amount this year by $62 million.
To help close that gap, the district is proposing $31 million in reserve funds to help offset the state budget cuts. Cobb school funding under Georgia’s Quality Basic Education Act is expected to be $518 million.
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Submitted information from Cobb County government:
“Homeowners who own a home in Cobb County and have been adversely affected by COVID-19, may apply for mortgage payment assistance up to $4,800 and/or homeownership counseling. They must have occupied the home prior to March 1, 2020 and currently occupy the home, and they must currently be delinquent on their mortgage payments.
The Cobb Home Saver program is designed to mitigate home losses and provide optional homeownership counseling. Both independent and government studies have shown that when engaged at the onset of a crisis, homeownership education and counseling reduce the odds of foreclosure by 42%.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners approved $4.8 million in emergency funding for the program. The funding comes from the $132 million allocated to the county in the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.For more information, including how to apply, click here: https://cobbhomesaver.org/
For those who are for-profit businesses, don’t forget that Round 2 of the Small Business Relief Grant is still open until August 21st at 5 p.m! See link for eligibility and application requirements: https://selectcobb.com/grants/
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!
