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 finishing touches are being put on the new Kroger Superstore that’s the centerpiece of the MarketPlace Terrell Mill development in the heart of the Powers Ferry Road corridor.
It’s one of the last components of the project to open, and a ribbon-cutting has been scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 2, at 8 a.m.
The store is a 90,000-square foot “superstore,” one of the largest for Kroger in the metro Atlanta area, and includes a drive-through pharmacy, a dedicated area for online pickups and a fuel center with 18 pumps that recently opened.
Kroger spokeswoman Tammie Young-Ennaemba said the public is invited to assemble for a rally at 7:30 a.m. before the ribbon-cutting.
The store will open to the public after that, leaving two restaurants as the final additions of the $120 million MarketPlace Terrell Mill, which replaced aging office buildings, retail space and the original campus of Brumby Elementary School and was developed by Connolly and Eden Rock Real Estate Partners.
The Los Abuelos Mexican Grill, with existing locations in Newnan and John Creek, was tentatively to have opened in June at the Shoppes At MarketPlace, but there’s not an update on a new timeline. The Terrell Mill location has a sign in the window indicating that a liquor license has been applied for.
The same is a couple doors down where The Brass Tap Craft Beer Bar is preparing for an opening in August. It’s a a Tampa-based chain with Atlanta-area locations at Perimeter Center, Milton and Hapeville.
A couple miles down Powers Ferry, the Rose and Crown Tavern is expected to reopen this summer, along with a companion restaurant between the new Bexley and Overture apartment complexes on what was Restaurant Row.
An update on the restaurant’s Facebook page was no more specific than this:
“Rose & Crown Tavern and R & C Kitchen coming to you this summer season.”
The tavern (1935 Powers Ferry Road), the last surviving business in Restaurant Row, closed in July 2019 for what was intended to be only two years.
But it’s been a little more than three, as COVID-19-related and other delays have kicked in. Owner Miquel Ayoub has directed customers to the Mojave restaurant he opened on Powers Ferry Road in Sandy Springs in early 2019.
East Cobb News has left a message seeking more information. Readers also asked for more specifics:
“Hurry up and open already!”
“Is Shrimp and Grits still on the menu?”
Not far up the street, a standalone building for the relocating Tasty China Restaurant (1808 Powers Ferry Road) also is nearing completion.
The popular Szechuan restaurant is moving from Franklin Gateway, where it opened in 1998, to the former site of La Frontera Restaurant. A tentative opening was for the spring, and there’s not an update beyond a liquor license application notice in a front window.
At Terrell Mill Village, the former Kouzina Christos space has a new occupant. It’s the forthcoming Milancho Fresh Market & Kitchen, part of a New Jersey-based chain of locations featuring European-style groceries and with a focus on traditional Bulgarian food products.
There was a Milancho grocery and cafe in Smyrna but that closed in early 2022.
And for the time being, the Starbucks on an outparcel facing Powers Ferry and Terrell Mill Road is closed, as the coffee shop is being renovated.
That includes the drive-through window, and there are cones blocking access to the parking lot and drive-through lanes.
Across Powers Ferry, the Jacobs Java Cafe (1350 Terrell Mill Road) serves up Chicago-style coffee, espressos, and smoothies as well as a variety of hot dogs. You can also buy bags of its coffee blend.
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!
Linda Dunikoski, a senior assistant Cobb District Attorney who prosecuted three men in the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial, has been named the Georgia prosecutor of the year by the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia.
Cobb District Attorney Flynn Broady presented Dunikoski the award recently at the organization’s summer meeting for her work getting convictions for Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael and William R. Bryan.
Arbery was a black man jogging down a residential street in Brunswick when he was pursued by a vehicle with the McMichaels and Bryan, who are all white.
The Cobb DA’s office was assigned the case when the Glynn County district attorney declined to bring charges, citing Georgia’s citizen arrest law. She later was indicted for her handling of the case.
“I am so honored to be recognized by the District Attorneys’ Association of Georgia for my 21 years of service to the citizens of Georgia and for our team’s work on the Ahmaud Arbery case,” Dunikowski said in a statement issued by the Cobb DA’s office.
“Our trial team, including Paul Camarillo and Larissa Ollivierre, could not have achieved justice for the family of Ahmaud without the support of Cobb DA Flynn Broady.”
In the same statement, Broady said that “the eyes of the world were upon the team led by Linda. The trial team showed that we as prosecutors will fight for victims and their families, despite the hardships inherent in a prosecution of this magnitude. Not only did she deliver justice, she brought back the legitimacy of our system of justice to many. We are very proud of the work by these men and women in our office.”
Dunikoski currently is the managing attorney of the Appeals Division of the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office.
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The following East Cobb residential real estate sales between June 26-30, 2023, were compiled from agency reports. They include the subdivision name and high school attendance zone in parenthesis:
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 juggler from Timber Ridge Elementary School at the EAST COBBER parade, which returns in 2023.
A week ago today we launched our “6 for 6” campaign to ask readers to support what we do at East Cobb News bringing you community news and information.
I’m humbled by the support we’ve received thus far, and wanted to say thanks to all of you who have contributed!
We’re calling it “6 for 6” in that we’re marking our 6th anniversary in July, and asking for a minimum contribution of $6 a month, or $60 a year.
Some of you have done that, and even stepped up those amounts more. We’ve gotten pledges for recurring monthly contributions of $12 a month and $20 a month, and a one-time contribution of $125.
I’m just blown away by the response, especially in the stifling heat of the dead summer.
What I planned as a soft launch with people on vacation has exceeded my expectations—so thanks again!
It’s called Press Patron, and it’s designed to help local news publishers like East Cobb News solicit support from their readers.
As I noted last week, I’d like to get 500 supporters signed up by the end of September and 1,000 by the end of the year. After our first week, we’re certainly on track to achieve that, and want to maintain the momentum.
We’d really like to encourage recurring monthly donations if you can swing that. When you click on the link to donate above, you’re not required to create account. But if you want to change your contribution settings, you’ll need to do that.
Please note that since we are a for-profit business, your contribution is not tax-deductible. But it will go a long way to help us keep giving you the local news that you love!
And during our initial “pledge drive” of sorts, we’ll include in these posts some of our favorite photos over the years, including the above taken at the EAST COBBER parade and festival, which is returning this September.
You depend on us to get you the news. We depend on you to help us financially. Now is not time to sit on the sidelines waiting for someone else to support local journalism.
We offer some affordable and dynamic ways to promote local businesses, and we’ve got enticing readership numbers to help those running small businesses to reach new customers.
Our “Six for Six” campaign also includes some advertising specials, so please visit this link for more.
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with questions about using Press Patron and our contributing to supporters’ campaign, as well as general inquiries about East Cobb News: wendy@eastcobbnews.com.
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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!
One of the largest community fundraisers in East Cobb—the Dog Days Run—is just around the corner.
It’s the 18th edition of the event staged by the Rotary Club of East Cobb, and takes place Aug. 5 at the McCleskey Family-East Cobb YMCA (1055 E. Piedmont Road). The run/walk is a 5K format that starts at 7:30 a.m.
Last year, the event generated nearly $100,000, with proceeds going to more than 20 charities in East Cobb. After the run, awards will be given out to top finishers in various categories and sponsors and community groups will have tables in a mini-festival setting.
Butch Carter, current president of the Rotary Club, said runner registrations “typically more than cover the race expense, so that combined with the business sponsorships are what allow us to give back to the community.”
Sponsorships range from $250 for a “Friend of Rotary” sponsorship that includes a race entry and t-shirt to a $15,000 presenting sponsor designation. They’re designed to appeal to all sizes of businesses and community organizations.
Other sponsorship levels include silver ($1,250), lazy dog ($2,500), gold ($3,000) and platinum ($5,000), and include a variety of verbal and logo recognitions, Rotary Club breakfast invitations, race entries, t-shirts and festival booths.
Higher-level sponsorships also receive tickets to the Rotary’s “Give Back” dinners during which charities receive their donations from the run.
This year’s sponsors include Honest-1 Auto Care, Indian Hills Country Club, Dentistry at East Piedmont, the YMCA, The Hanna Family and Malon D. Mimms Company.
Race beneficiaries include the following:
MDE School; American Cancer Society Relay for Life; Boy Scouts of America; Brumby Elementary School; Camp Kudzu; Center for Children and Young Adults; Cobb Library Foundation; Cobb County Public Safety; Cystic Fibrosis Foundation; East Cobb Park; Family Promise of Cobb County; Laws of Life School Essay Contest; Kidz2Leaders; Project Mail Call; Rally Foundation; Rotary Youth Exchange Program; “Service Above Self” Heroes; Walton/East Cobb Robotics; WellStar Foundation (Hospice); Wheeler High School AVID Program; YMCA NE/East Cobb
The registration fee is $30 through July 31 and is $35 after that and for phantom runners.
Prize Money includes $200 each for the overall male and female winners, $200 for the master (age 40-49) male winner, $150 for the master female winner; $150 for the grandmaster (50+) male and female winners; $100 each for the senior (60+) male winner; $50 for the senior female winner.
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David Chastain, a third-term member of the Cobb Board of Education, has been fined $250 and ordered to pay back a portion of two campaign contributions from last year that were deemed to be a violation of state campaign finance limits.
The Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission ruled last month that two donations Chastain’s campaign received exceeded state limits and that his campaign didn’t file the proper paperwork to separate them between the primary and general election.
A Republican, Chastain was re-elected last year to serve Post 4, which includes the Kell and Sprayberry high school clusters, after a bitter general election campaign against Democrat Catherine Pozniak.
Neither of them had a primary opponent last March. Pozniak, a Sprayberry High School graduate who took an early fundraising lead over Chastain, accused him of violating state laws limiting the amounts of individual contributors three weeks before the general electdion.
One of them was a total of $5,000 from State Rep. Ginny Erhart, a West Cobb Republican who filed reapportionment maps for the Cobb school board and Cobb Board of Commissioners that were passed by the legislature.
Another was $4,000 from Jonathan Crumly, an attorney with Taylor English Duma who drew the school board maps. Erhart’s husband, former State Rep. Earl Erhart, was the CEO of Taylor English Decisions LLC, the lobbying arm of the law firm, last year.
The individual limit under Georgia campaign finance law is $3,000, and Chastain later filed amended reports that split the contributions in two.
He said his campaign mistakenly forgot to separate the contributions from Ginny Erhart and Crumly. But the state campaign finance commission, in a June 26 consent order, concluded that Chastain didn’t file the necessary paperwork to bundle the donations.
At the time, Chastain said Pozniak’s complaint was “baseless and politics at its worst,” and showed “a deliberate attempt by Catherine Pozniak and her small platoon of Democratic socialists [that] is on full display by Cobb County.”
A few days after the Pozniak complaint was filed, Ginny Erhart issued a press release claiming Pozniak fraudulently filed a senior school tax exemption for her late father’s home.
Pozniak denied the charge and said that “for Mr. Chastain and his political cronies to retaliate with a smear campaign launched on a family tragedy is beyond reprehensible.”
Chastain defeated Pozniak with 54 percent of the vote as Republicans kept a 4-3 majority on the Cobb school board.
The school board map sponsored by Ginny Erhart is the subject of a federal lawsuit that the Cobb County School District has joined.
Earl Erhart is now the managing director of Freeman Mathis Decisions, the lobbying group for Freeman Matbis and Gary, which the Cobb school district has hired to represent it in the lawsuit.
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“I’m very disappointed that you all are not trying to save us money instead of costing us money,” East Cobb resident John Frank Sanders Jr. told commissioners Tuesday.
The Cobb Board of Commissioners and Cobb Board of Education got an earful this week from Cobb citizens who say their property tax bills will be crippling them and others.
Public hearings are underway as both bodies get ready to set their millage rates for 2023, which has a record tax digest of $58 billion, up 15 percent from last year.
That’s due to tax assessments that across the board are an average of 18 percent higher than last year.
Because neither commissioners nor the school board are “rolling back” to match last year’s revenue collections, the state considers that a tax increase and governing bodies must advertise that and hold hearings.
The proposed fiscal year 2024 Cobb government budget of $1.2 billion includes retaining a general fund tax rate of 8.46 mills. The fiscal year 2024 Cobb County School District budget of $1.4 billion that began July 1 is based on a property tax reduction of 0.2 mills, from 18.9 to 18.7.
But public commenters at those hearings this week said that’s not going to help them that much, and that government should look for ways to tighten its belt when citizens are having to do so.
“I’m very concerned about the most vulnerable members of our community, and that’s the renters,” said Daniel Larkin, a resident of the Meadowbrook neighborhood of East Cobb, at a commission public hearing on Tuesday.
Since rental property owners cannot claim homestead exemptions like homeowners, “they’re going to have to pass the increases on” to their tenants.
“It’s ironic that people talking about affordable housing are driving rising rents” that will hurt tenants more.
The proposed FY Cobb budget is $43 million higher than the current budget, and reflects what county officials say are growing needs for many county services, including fire and emergency services.
Some departments would be getting double-digit percentage increases in their budgets, including public safety.
East Cobb resident Hill Wright likened the county’s appetite for spending to the plight of addicts.
“When they come and bug you to moderate your drug habit, your answer to them is ‘What would you have Cobb County sacrifice? How dare you have Cobb County sacrifice.’ ”
He said when the budget is adopted and the millage rate is set by commissioners on July 25, “you will decide to snort or not to snort.”
John Frank Sanders Jr., who has lived in his East Cobb home since 1982, said Cobb has been a “wonderful place” to live and raise a family.
East Cobb resident Daniel Larkin said commissioners and the school board “are playing a shell game, and there’s no pea under any of the shells.”
“But I can’t believe in the current economic climate we’re debating raising our taxes and not lowering them,” he said, referencing higher costs for groceries, gasoline, housing and interest rates.
“My property value is up but I don’t get the benefit for that. I’m going to live in that house until they drag me out. Yet I have to pay more for that house in addition to all the other expenses that are going up. I’m very disappointed that you all are not trying to save us money instead of costing us money.”
During a budget presentation, Cobb Chief Financial Officer Bill Volckmann said that taking out homestead exemptions, the tax digest growth is closer to 10 percent.
Those exemptions, he said, are 38 percent of residential tax digest, compared to 25 percent less than a decade ago.
“Even if your assessment goes up, you don’t pay any more into the general fund,” he said.
Volckmann also showed a sample tax bill for a resident who saved more than $600 due to the floating homestead exemption.
The Cobb fire fund millage rate, however, doesn’t have that exemption, and that same homeowner would pay $145 more for taxes in that category under the proposed budget.
He also referenced in that bill a rise of nearly $800 in school taxes, even though the Cobb school board lowered the millage rate for the first time in 15 years. But Post 5 board member David Banks of East Cobb wanted a bigger increase, and at budget adoption in May voted present instead.
The school board held two public hearings Thursday for the millage rate, and the small handful of speakers—some who also addressed commissioners—asked them to lower it even more.
Larkin was among them, and he repeated his claims that the commissioners and school board are engaging in “a shell game.
“You’ve made it abundantly clear you’re going to ram this through,” Larkin said, adding that the cutback is “a token percent.”
“I want you to think about the wreckage you’re going to instill on families,” he said. “The rents are very high in this county, and the mortgages are very high. It’s a de facto tax increase. It’s a shell game, but there’s no pea under any of the shells.”
The school board adopted a budget with pay raises for full-time employees between 7.5 percent and 12.1 percent, and the hiring of 11 new officer positions for its police department, which currently has 70 officers.
Laura Judge, an East Cobb resident who is seeking the Post 5 board seat, suggested a tax rate rollback of 0.5 mills, the same as Banks.
“I would like this board and the superintendent and staff to please listen to the folks that come here to ask for some relief on the millage rate,” she said during comments that she later sent out in a press release. “Maybe even listen to the current vice-chair who asked for a rollback of .5 mills.
“I know the budget revolves around what we expected the millage rate to be and rolling back the millage rate means tightening up within our budget. Please listen to the community members who are asking for relief.”
Commissioners will hold another public hearing on the proposed millage rate increase Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. and on July 25 at 7 p.m., when they’re scheduled to adopt the hearing and set the millage rate (more info here).
Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell will have an open house on the budget next Wednesday from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Tim D. Lee Senior Center (3322 Sandy Plains Road).
The Cobb school board will have a final millage rate hearing next Thursday at 7 p.m. during its voting session, at which the millage rate is to be formally adopted.
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Thursday marked the 30th anniversary of the death of the first Cobb Police Officer killed by a firearm in the line of duty.
Shortly after midnight, Police Chief Stuart VanHoozer, other police officials and friends and family members of Robert Ingram gathered at the intersection of Marble Mill Road and Marr Avenue in Marietta.
That’s located near the Come-N-Get It Restaurant off the Church Street Extension.
And that’s where around 12:40 a.m. on July 13, 1993, Officer Ingram was checking the identification of a pedestrian spotted near the railroad tracks in what was regarded as a high-crime area.
He was shot and killed by a man with a hidden .380 caliber handgun who had been released from prison.
The suspect took Ingram’s patrol car to get away from the scene, and the abandoned vehicle was seen later in the day. Near Atlanta Road, George Russell Henry, on probation for burglaries and forgery, was arrested the same day and charged with the murder of Officer Ingram.
Officer Ingram, a 1987 Sprayberry High School graduate, was only 24 years old when he died, and he had just gotten married. He had been on the Cobb Police force for two years, after attending Valdosta State University and serving in the U.S. Air Force.
He was posthumously awarded the Cobb Police Department’s Medal of Valor.
Henry pleaded guilty to Ingram’s murder in 1994 and was sentenced to death; he had appealed his verdict until his health-related death on Georgia’s death row in 2014.
The first Cobb Police officer to die in the line of duty was Lt. John William Hood, who was killed in 1960, several days after responding to a drag racing call on Roswell Road between Powers Ferry Road and what is now the Marietta Parkway.
His patrol vehicle was hit head-on by an 18-year-old driver who was speeding more than 100 mph and heading the wrong way and who also was killed in the crash.
Officer Drew Haynes Brown, a DUI officer, was killed in a 1983 crash when his patrol vehicle was struck by a drunk driver.
Cobb SWAT officers Stephen Gilmer and Matthew Reeves were killed in a 1999 standoff during a hostage rescue.
Officer Freddie Norman died in 2009, 21 years after his patrol vehicle was hit by a speeding car on Pat Mell Road. He was rendered a quadaplegic and was suffering from what were believed to be injuries sustained from the crash.
More information can be found by clicking the Cobb’s Fallen Heroes page prepared by the county.
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The Cobb Animal Services Department is warning the distraught owners of lost pets not to fall for a phone call from someone posing as shelter staff in helping them recover their animals.
Cobb Animal Services logs detailed information and a photo for lost pets brought to the shelter.
Cobb County government said in a video presentation Wednesday that some pet owners who have posted missing and lost pet notices online are getting called by someone who’s claiming to work for the county shelter.
The caller then says the pet is injured, and demands money from the owner to recover the animal, according to the video (see below), which emphasized that Cobb Animal Services never asks for money over the phone for helping retrieve lost pets.
“First off, it’s a distraction for us, because we’re receiving phone calls from people thinking it’s coming from us,” Cobb Animal Services Director Steve Hammond said in the video. “They’re also skeptical when we do call them if we do find the animal because now they’ve received two calls.
“We’re upset with it because it takes away from the good work our team is doing every day.”
Cobb government spokesman Ross Cavitt said the scammer is able to spoof the number of the Animal Services Department when making the calls.
The caller tells the pet owner to pay via the PayPal and Venmo online payment systems, but Cobb Animal Services doesn’t use them.
“There may be a small fee once the pet’s owner comes to the shelter, but county officers will never ask for payment before that,” the county said in a release Wednesday.
A citizen who posted a message on the county government’s Facebook page said the scam happened to her earlier this week.
“I was asking too many questions that he could not answer. He said just come down to Cobb County Animal Services and even provided the address,” she said.
“When I asked for photo proof that’s when things got even more strange. Fortunately the conversation was recorded and in the possession of the proper staff there. Let’s do what we do and blast this everywhere. I pray they somehow catch evil man!”
Another poster said she almost fell for the scam, but said she was told that “we’ll call you back after the vet has had time to look at the pet.”
While waiting for around 30 minutes, she said, “I had time to realize it was too good to be true. He called back, and after TEN MINUTES he finally got to asking about my credit card, so I hung up on him and called the legit Cobb Animal Services number.”
That number is 770-499-4136.
Cobb Animal Services has an online portal to report missing or lost pets that you can access by clicking here.
You can also click here to check on the missing pets that have been taken to the shelter.
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As we’ve been reporting this spring, several public schools in East Cobb will be getting new principals for the 2023-24 academic year that begins on Aug. 1.
Bradley Blackman, Dickerson MS principal
There will be five new principals to be exact, and they and other members of the Cobb County School District’s leadership team are meeting at Harrison High School this week for the district’s leadership kickoff event.
They include key central office staff as well as principals and assistant principals.
A total of 13 new principals will be starting their jobs, including the following at schools in East Cobb. They were profiled recently by the Cobb school district about their new appointments and their expectations:
“Student success looks different for every student. It is important to see value in the growth of students. Individual growth is the best way to measure success for all students! “
“Under my leadership, you will see a school that focuses on teaching and learning. I believe that building positive relationships between stakeholders is imperative for a school to be successful. You’ll find our teachers using highly effective teaching strategies to engage students and create academic growth.”
“To me, student success begins with building trusted relationships and is grounded in the belief that all children are capable of growing, learning, and accomplishing amazing things. Our students thrive when their learning is facilitated and supported by teachers and staff that believe in their ability to impact the future.”
“Students are most successful when they are provided with the opportunity, engaged by highly trained and loving staff members, live in safe and supportive homes, and when they are taught to be advocates for themselves!”
“As the school leader, I will focus on creating an environment where staff and students feel safe, valued, and motivated to be the best version of themselves. I want students and staff to feel proud of their school and excited to walk through the doors each day.”
At the leadership kickoff, staff were greeted by Harrison leaders as well as Cobb school district superintendent Chris Ragsdale and Cobb Board of Education chairman Brad Wheeler.
The priorities emphasized, according to a Cobb school district release, include the following:
• Ensure that Cobb is the best place to teach, lead, and learn. • Simplify our foundation for teaching and learning in order to prepare for innovation. • Use data to make decisions.
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!
Therefore, state law considers that a tax increase and requires the school board to hold three public hearings on the millage rate.
Two of those will take place at 11:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Thursday in the board room of the Cobb school district’s central office (514 Glover St., Marietta).
Members of the public are invited to speak on the millage rate at those hearings, and at the final hearing on July 20 at 7 p.m. in the same location.
That’s when the school board also is scheduled to vote on adopting the millage rate.
The county’s tax digest comes out in July, and this year in Cobb it’s another record—$58.1 billion, which is up 15.7 percent from last year.
The Cobb school board voted in May to pass a budget and lower the millage rate for school taxes from 18.9 mills to 18.7 mills in the wake of rising property tax assessments.
It was the first time in 15 years the school board has unofficially lowered the property tax rate, which in Georgia is capped at 20 mills.
But board vice chairman David Banks of Post 5 in East Cobb wanted the tax cut to be larger, and voted present at budget adoption.
He called it “the largest tax increase the school district has ever had” and suggested a cut of 0.5 mills.
In its official notice of a tax increase that is required to be publicly advertised, the Cobb school district said that because of those increased revenues, the 18.7 mills still represents an effective increase of 2.612 mills.
“Without this tentative tax increase, the millage rate will be no more than 16.088 mills,” the notice said. “The proposed tax increase for a home with a fair market value of $400,000 is approximately $391.80 and the proposed tax increase for non-homestead property with a fair market value of $550,000 is approximately $574.64.”
The FY 2024 budget includes salary increases between 7.5 percent and 12.1 percent for full-time employees, and the Cobb school district will hire an additional 11 officers for its police department, which currently has 70 officers.
The Cobb Board of Elections and Registration on Tuesday appointed Gerry Miller to run the department on an interim basis.
Miller retired as an assistant elections director in Cobb in 2021, and also was an elections supervisor in Fulton and Henry counties.
The Cobb Elections office has been without a director since Janine Eveler retired in April.
Miller was the department’s preparation center director for 11 years, and will serve in the interim capacity as the board conducts a national search for a permanent successor.
“We are grateful that Gerry has agreed to come out of retirement to help lead our elections team,” Cobb elections board chairwoman Tori Silas said in a statement issued Tuesday by Cobb County government.
“We believe he will provide steady leadership while we work to expand our search for a new Elections Director.”
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As far as routine business goes with the Cobb Board of Commissioners, approving neighborhood requests for street lights is as routine as it gets.
When at least 75 percent of a subdivision’s residents sign a petition in favor of pursuing a request for a street light district, that request typically gets added to the commissioners’ consent agenda.
There were four such requests on Tuesday’s consent agenda in various parts of the county.
But for an East Cobb subdivision whose residents include some who’ve wanted street lights for decades, a public hearing was called.
There was some opposition from homeowners living in the Brookcliff subdivision, located off Old Canton Road north of Sewell Mill Road, and a public meeting was requested.
Several others turned out to voice their support for the Brookcliff Street Light District, which would assess a monthly street light service charge for homeowners after the lights are installed by Cobb DOT.
Commissioners voted 5-0 with little discussion to approve the request, but Commissioner JoAnn Birrell noted the novelty of the event, which also was discussed at an agenda work session on Monday.
She said in her more than 12 years in office, she doesn’t recall such a hearing over street lights.
The public hearing and ensuing conversation Tuesday spanned more than a half-hour.
Brookcliff opened in the early 1980s and comprises 155 homes, which are valued in the $400,000 range and above.
It’s a neighborhood of rolling hills straddling Sewell Mill Creek to the north. Like many East Cobb subdivision, it has a formal homeowners association with mandatory dues for homeowners who must abide by legally binding requirements and covenants.
Brookcliff also has a swim/tennis facility and other regular activities, such as a garden club and book club.
What Brookcliff doesn’t have are sidewalks and street lights. Some residents have been eager for the latter for almost as long as they have lived there.
Brookcliff resident Walt Strother
Walt Strother, one of the original homeowners of Brookcliff, said during the hearing that trying to get street lights “was never a spur of the moment decision or effort. For the better part of the last 40 years, several marginal attempts have been made, most recently 20 years ago.”
But ineffective HOA leadership and organization undermined those attempts, Strother said.
Three years ago, he added, “there was a collective enough is enough,” beginning a 27-month journey to making a formal application.
That’s 85 percent in response to the question “What can we do to make Brookcliff a better place to live?”
Strother said the response “was immediate and overwhelming. Street lights.”
He noted that Cobb officials in the late 1970s expressed a desire for all neighborhoods to have street lights.
The Brookcliff POA has collected $45,778 in fees from residents to be forwarded to Cobb DOT, which will install poles and lights.
Residents will pay $9.80 a month for 36 months for installation and upfront fees, then will be billed $3.80 a month after that by the Cobb County Water System.
One of his Brookcliff neighbors, Mike Gault, moved there in 1996, and said “Brookcliff has always been an incredibly dark” neighborhood.
He said when he first moved there, he would walk his black Lab at night after work and spent a lot of time dodging cars.
Gault said the lack of street lights also has been an issue with school bus stops in the winter, with shorter daylight hours.
Cindy Krakowski, a Brookcliff homeowner, was opposed to the new street light district, saying the HOA doesn’t have the authority to use money collected for swimming and tennis use, and claimed the organization was in the red by $54,000 this year.
“They knew if they had to ask every homeowner in the neighborhood for $300 for this initiative, they wouldn’t have gotten 75 percent of the votes,” she said.
Mike Kelly, the current Brookcliff POA president, said the body has met the street light requirements and that it properly followed by-laws in doing so.
In referring to Krakowski’s claims, he said “disengagement from the process is not an excuse” and that the POA reached out extensively to residents for feedback, communication and meetings.
He said the $45,788 sum represents the highest cash balance in the POA’s history and in a slide he showed during the hearing, indicated it would be ahead of budget after paying for the street lights.
“There is no diversion of funds,” said Kelly, noting that the street light request was included as a line-item in the POA budget. “There’s no question there’s a mandate from Brookcliff.”
More than 85 percent of Brookcliff residents said they wanted street lights.
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After her husband was arrested, pleaded guilty and sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting a Kell High School student, Jen Faison started a true-crime podcast to process what had happened.
“Betrayal: The Perfect Husband” explores the saga of Spencer Herron, named a Kell Teacher of the Year, who engaged in multiple extamarital affairs and eventually was accused by a female student of sexual assault.
In 2019, he pleaded guilty in Cobb Superior Court to five counts of sexual assault on the Kell campus and was sentenced to serve five years in prison and 15 more on probation.
The documentary is a three-part series that explores, from Faison’s perspective, what she thought was a “storybook romance” that went badly wrong.
The series finale includes an interview with Rachel, the Kell student who accused him of assaulting her when she was 16. According to court filings, Herron admitted to having sex multiple times with a student on campus from early 2016 through the end of the 2017-18 school year.
Faison and Herron were sweethearts at Berry College and married more than two decades later, after he was teaching video production at Kell. He also was a member of the Cobb County School District’s Superintendent’s Teacher Advisory Council shortly before his arrest.
She was a television producer who moved to Georgia to be closer to him as their relationship deepened.
He had been previously married and divorced, but it wasn’t until his 2018 arrest by Cobb Police in connection with the Kell allegations that Faison began to learn about her husband’s double life.
The Hulu series includes material first presented in the podcast about Faison discovering photos of naked and scantily clad women on his e-mail server.
Herron was released from prison on June 1, according to the documentary, but the Georgia Department of Corrections has no further information since he was incarcerated as a first-time offender.
A review of “Betrayal” by the Daily Beastconcludes that the documentary “is stretched thin for maximum melodramatic purposes, lowlighted by cheesy drone shots and songs whose on-the-nose lyrics seem designed to inspire eye-rolls and guffaws. Yet its core tale remains compelling, especially when, during its closing chapter, it lets a sexual abuse survivor detail the step-by-step means by which she was groomed into participating in a criminally inappropriate relationship.”
Republican John Cristadoro, who is seeking the Post 5 seat on the Cobb Board of Education, has filed a financial disclosure report showing nearly $30,000 in contributions.
That’s nearly a year before the 2024 primaries in what’s expected to be an expensive race.
According to a report filed with the Cobb Board of Elections and Registration, Cristadoro received $18,337 in contributions from a variety of individuals and entities through June 30.
He also loaned himself $10,000 for a total of $28,337 in contributions, according to the report (you can read it here).
He is one of two announced candidates for the Post 5 seat, which is held by Republican David Banks, and which includes the Walton, Wheeler and Pope High School clusters.
The other is Democrat Laura Judge, who filed a report showing $9,255 in contributions, also through June 30 (you can read it here).
Candidates are required to file financial disclosure reports at the end of June and at the end of December for each year in an election cycle.
Primaries will be held in Georgia for federal, state and local candidates on May 21, 2024; the Georgia presidential primary is March 12, 2024.
According to Cristadoro’s report, he has several contributors who’s given at least $1,000 or more.
They include former Cobb Chamber of Commerce chairman John Loud, who’s heading Cristadoro’s steering committee.
Other $1,000+ contributors include Pamela Reardon, an East Cobb real estate agent who’s active with the Cobb Republican Party, and East Cobb resident Caryn Sonderman.
She’s an East Cobb parent who frequently speaks at Cobb school board public comment sessions and who according to the disclosure report was the host of a Cristadoro fundraiser.
Attorney Mary Anne Ackourey contributed $1,546 to the Cristadoro campaign. She’s with Freeman Mathis & Gary, a law firm with offices in the Cumberland area that’s representing the Cobb County School District in a current federal lawsuit over school board redistricting.
Judge is a member of Watching the Funds—Cobb, a citizens group that scrutinizes Cobb school district finances. Fellow WTF-Cobb members Heather Tolley-Bauer and Stacy Efrat have contributed $500 and $250, respectively.
Several state lawmakers have contributed to the Judge campaign: Democratic State Sen. Jason Esteves, whose 6th District includes part of East Cobb, contributed $250.
Democratic Rep. Lisa Campbell of North Cobb contributed $500 and Democratic Sen. Josh McLaurin of North Fulton contributed $100.
Banks, a four-term Republican, has not filed a recent disclosure reports. He told East Cobb News this spring that he has not decided if he’ll seeking re-election.
In an interview with East Cobb News in April, Cristadoro estimated he would need to raise around $85,000 for his campaign.
The Post 5 race is one of four campaigns on the Cobb school board in 2024, and party control of the board is at stake. Republicans have a 4-3 majority, but three current GOP seats will be on the ballot.
The others are held by Brad Wheeler and Randy Scamihorn, neither of whom has filed a recent disclosure report.
First-term Democrat Tre’ Hutchins of South Cobb has filed a disclosure report for the first half of 2023.
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The National Park Service has reopened stretches of the Chattahoochee River from the East Cobb area and downstream that have been closed in recent days due to elevated E. coli bacteria levels stemming from a Fulton County sewage treatment plant spill.
The Chattahoochee River NRA said late Monday afternoon that the river remains closed from the Chattahoochee Nature Center in Roswell to Powers Island in Sandy Springs.
“The sections of the river below Powers Island have bacterial levels below the criteria recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency, but conditions remain subject to change,” an NPS social media posting said.
“The park and Chattahoochee Riverkeepercontinue to monitor and test water quality through the BacteriALERT partnership.”
Fulton County Public Works continues to treat sewage at the Big Creek facility “to ensure all wastewater meets permitting requirements of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.”
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 residential real estate sales between June 19-23, 2023, were compiled from agency reports. They include the subdivision name and high school attendance zone in parenthesis:
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!
Our first post—July 8, 2017—was about the Skip Wells Memorial Ride that began at Sprayberry High School, and we’ve been truckin’ ever since.
This month, East Cobb News turns six years old!
On July 8, 2017, we published our very first post, about a motorcycle ride to honor a fallen East Cobb high school graduate who was shot to death in a domestic terrorist act while serving his country.
Truth be told, I had declared my independence as a journalist well before that, as I was laying the groundwork for East Cobb News.
A quarter-century at newspapers and a few more for various online outlets helped prepare me to take on the task of building a news resource to last for this community, where our family settled exactly 50 years ago this year.
I chose this particular time to make it official and finally push the button, and the journey has been an interesting, challenging and very gratifying one.
As we have recently celebrated our nation’s independence, I’m asking East Cobb News readers to help us celebrate ours, as we have reached an important milestone.
For the first time, I’m asking readers to help support the work we do in serving you with news and useful community information.
We’re suggesting that you contribute a minimum of $6 a month, or $60 a year, in honor of the 6th anniversary of East Cobb News.
We’re calling it the “6 for 6” campaign, and for the rest of the year we will be encouraging all of you to help us out. We’ll have special promotions, swag and other goodies and giveaways for readers and supporters.
While those details are being worked out, let me be clear about a few things:
This is a totally voluntary campaign. You are not required to pay to read and use East Cobb News. You can click on to any link on our site, get our newsletter and follow our social media platforms as you have been without interruption, at no cost to you.
One of our first major events to cover was the opening celebration for the new Walton High School classroom building in late July 2017.
We appreciate our growing readership as we have built up an essential community resource.
A few numbers as we approach the end of 6 years:
Averaging 150K page views/month
Averaging 70K unique visitors/month
More than 8.3K newsletter subscribers and growing
Unlike other local media outlets, we don’t lock down our content behind a pay wall or require you to register to read stories. We don’t bombard visitors to our site with noisy pop-up videos. We don’t clutter our pages with out-of-town clickbait.
But because we’re committed to keeping East Cobb News free and accessible to all, we’re asking for your financial support today, as we continue to build a sustainable local news business that puts community first.
In order for us to do that, we need you to do two things:
Support our advertisers!
Becoming a paying supporter!
Well, three things actually:
Tell your friends, families and neighbors about us too!
Read more here about our recommended contribution options, and how to pay online or by other methods.
You can also donate an amount of your choosing.
Regardless of what you give, you can do so easily by clicking here.
Our payment platform is hosted by Press Patron, which makes it easy to support the journalism you love via one-time or monthly contributions.
The Press Patron platform is safe and secure, and is connected with the prominent Stripe online payment system. When you sign up to contribute, you can control your account and payment preferences.
We’re suggesting at the very least that you contribute $6 a month—in honor of our 6th anniversary!
Six bucks a month. Think about it. That’s a couple of cups of drive-through coffee. Or a lunch entreé. Or an after-dinner dessert.
(Is any of this making you hungry?)
East Cobb News readers eagerly await our coverage of restaurant openings and other “foodie” news.
That’s about what some of the most notable independent journalists in the country charge for their newsletters.
Unlike them, however, we don’t have tens and hundreds of thousands of subscribers and readers.
Local news doesn’t scale, but at its best it is deeply devoted to serving its readership.
That’s where you come in.
“6 for 6” is very similar to a public radio campaign, but for your hometown news site, lovingly started from scratch by a journalist who grew up here and calls East Cobb home.
The Power of Local
Over the last three-plus years, as the COVID-19 pandemic and the response to it affected every aspect of daily life, readers came to depend on East Cobb News for all the details about how this affected our community.
We know this not only because our audience numbers skyrocketed during that time, but also because of more direct feedback we got. Such as this reader who gets our newsletter, and who sent us this message:
“This is a fabulous publication. Thank you so much!”
You have no idea what a shot in the arm that has been as we navigated these unusual times with all of you. We never stopped working to catch you up with all the vital updates about the reopenings of businesses and schools, how to follow your local elected bodies online and how to help out those in need.
Here are a few other reader testimonials we’d like to share:
“You have a great sense of the community and what makes it tick.”
“Appreciate your deep and objective coverage. Thank you.”
“I read it religiously. I have lived in East Cobb for 43 years. It is my community of people and places. Keeping up with things tightens the feelingsI have for East Cobb. Basically, I love your publication!”
Community activism over the Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center eventually led to a redevelopment project that’s currently underway.
As we have returned to normal, we’ve resumed chronicling the things you’ve come to expect from East Cobb News:
Local government, schools, public safety, getting around, development
Business openings, especially retail and restaurants
Events, quality of life issues and community service
Elections, candidate profiles and how to cast your vote
Human-interest features and the activities of our community’s youth
What we’ve seen in the last three years is how vital local news has become to a community, and people in East Cobb have been generous with their compliments and with their eyeballs.
We greatly appreciate the many reader contributions we get, letting us know about an event or fundraiser, honoring people for their good works and accomplishments, and sending along feel-good stories in a time of great stress and anxiety.
Now East Cobb News needs something else from you to continue doing the work we’ve done not just for the last three years, but for the last six.
To say launching East Cobb News was a labor of love is an understatement.
What was truly behind the idea was the sense of opportunity it presented to create something just for this community.
Journalism has been my profession for 40 years, but East Cobb is the place I’ve called home, and that nurtured my aspirations for my career and life.
But local news has taken a very deep hit as my profession and the news industry have been transformed over the last two decades.
There’s been so much destruction and job loss, and communities have been deprived of vital information they need.
As I wrote here last Labor Day, this is a time to build, and I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished thus far with East Cobb News.
Readers tell us constantly how important quality-of-life issues matter to them in our coverage of the community.
The Power of Now
You depend on us to get you the news. We depend on you to help us financially. Now is not time to sit on the sidelines waiting for someone else to support local journalism.
We offer some affordable and dynamic ways to promote local businesses, and we’ve got enticing readership numbers to help those running small businesses to reach new customers.
Our “Six for Six” campaign also includes some advertising specials, so please visit this link for more.
Business owners and marketing professionals can also check out our other advertising information. We have a variety of products and price points and most importantly, the flexibility to work with you to craft a package that fits your needs and your budget.
If you really want to stand out with your message, East Cobb News can give you something no other local outlet can provide—dozens of dynamic online display and newsletter formats, including video, slideshow gallery and rotating cube features that dazzle readers and convert into sales.
To me, The Power of Local also extends to local business, and East Cobb News is the ideal marketing partner for local businesses that are trying to thrive in the post-pandemic world.
We love to share news of new and expanded businesses in East Cobb—hey, we’re a local small business too!
We approach advertising the same way we do the news—as a fellow business owner and citizen, fully invested in our community. We want you to grow and thrive, because we understand how local businesses form the backbone of our community.
Now more than ever.
As we have recently celebrated the birthday of our nation’s founding ideals, we’d like to ask our readers to help us as we continue the work of providing independent, online local news and useful community information.
That’s our one and only mission, and it’s unlike anything else in East Cobb.
Please consider giving the suggested amounts with the options below, or whatever you like. While we greatly appreciate recurring annual monthly or annual contributions, we also accept one-time donations that can be renewed as you like:
Here’s the link to contribute, and to create an account with the Press Patron platform. It was formed with local news publishers in mind to help them grow and become sustainable.
I’ve set some substantial, but reachable goals for the “6 for 6” campaign: We’d like to have 500 subscribers by the end of September, and another 500 by the end of the year.
Frankly, I think we can achieve much more than that, and I’ll update those numbers and encourage more readers to take part as we go along in the coming months.
Please keep in mind that East Cobb News is a for-profit business. While your donations are not tax deductible, they will go a long way to help us keep giving you the local news that you love!
As always, please feel free to reach out with questions, news tips and advertising queries: wendy@eastcobbnews.com.
Enjoy your summer, stay safe and be well East Cobb!
Miller retired as an assistant elections director in Cobb in 2021, and also was an elections supervisor in Fulton and Henry counties.
