Cobb commissioner Lisa Cupid

Cupid announces campaign to become Cobb Commission Chair

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Lisa Cupid of South Cobb, the only Democrat on the five-member Cobb Board of Commissionrs, announced Tuesday she’ll be seeking the countywide office currently held by Republican Mike Boyce of East Cobb. Lisa Cupid, Cobb Commission Chair campaign

She said on her Facebook page she decided to run after “much prayer and conversation with my family,” and offered a brief explanation why:

“Cobb County is on the move. We have new challenges and new opportunities and as we move forward, we must do so in the best interest of all the county.

“We have an opportunity to embrace what is to come and continue to make our county the best place in Georgia to live, work and play. We cannot allow the comfort of the present to scare us from the possibilities of tomorrow.”

The official campaign kickoff event is next Wednesday, April 10, at the Embassy Suites Hotel on Akers Mill Road.

Cupid also has launched a campaign website, Cupid for Cobb.

Cupid was first elected in 2012 after defeating incumbent Woody Thompson. Her background is in mechanical engineering and she is an attorney.

She was the only vote against the 2013 memorandum of understanding with the Atlanta Braves to build what’s now known as SunTrust Park, mainly because of the way the deal was handled.

Since Boyce was elected in 2016, Cupid has been his most reliable ally on the commission, vocally supporting his call for a property tax millage increase. It passed 3-2, over the objections of East Cobb commissioners Bob Ott and JoAnn Birrell.

Cupid, who has advocated for greater economic and business development, transit and community-based policing, also has been Boyce’s vice chair for the last two years.

But the political profile of Cobb, which has been Republican-dominated for years, is changing. Hillary Clinton carried the county in the 2016 presidential campaign. Last year, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams easily won Cobb, as did most other statewide candidates in her party.

Even East Cobb, which has been heavily GOP, now has Democratic representation in Congress (Lucy McBath), one post on the Cobb school board (Charisse Davis) and a State House seat (Mary Frances Williams).

The last Democratic county chairman was Ernest Barrett, who served 1965-1984, shepherding Cobb through dramatic change as it was becoming suburbanized.

Cupid also would become the first female and the first African-American to lead the county government.

Boyce has said he is seeking a second term but has not formally announced his campaign. Ott, who is the longest-serving commissioner, first elected in 2008, will be completing his third term in 2020.

He has not indicated whether he will be running again for his current District 2 seat, which includes some of East Cobb and the Smyrna-Vinings-Cumberland area.

 

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Cobb commissioners approve Braves settlement that could net county $1.36M

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Cobb commissioners on Tuesday approved a financial settlement with the Atlanta Braves that could result in the county receiving $1.366 million in infrastructure fees for SunTrust Park.

Joann Birrell, Cobb commissioners approve Braves settlement
Commissioner JoAnn Birrell said the 2013 stadium deal between Cobb and the Braves “keeps coming back to haunt us.” (ECN file photo)

The 4-1 vote came after a lengthy discussion that included a brief recess to iron out concerns from two commissioners who tried to table the agreement.

The settlement was reached following a dispute that arose in May, when Cobb sent the Braves organization a notice of default on a $1.486 million bill for overdue stadium development (water and sewer) fees. The Braves fired back with a $4.683 million request, setting off heated legal correspondence and mediation.

Read the Proposed Settlement Terms Here

Technically, the matter is still in mediation, since the Braves have not taken final action on the settlement.

In the settlement, which was discussed by commissioners during an executive session on Monday, the Braves also agreed to pay $380,000 for a signage and maintenance contract for a pedestrian bridge over I-285.

Cobb would reimburse $500,000 in project management fees to the Braves, who agreed to drop any other claims, according to county attorney Deborah Dance.

She also said the $380,000 Braves sum is a credit against the $500,000 amount, reducing the county’s obligation to $120,000.

The county also would pay $326,816 under terms of a 2017 transportation agreement with the Braves. Those funds would be paid out in two installments, of $163,408 each, in October of this year as well as October 2019.

Last year, commissioners paid $11.4 million out of the county water fund as part of a $14 million agreement for transportation matters.

According to information presented by Dance, the county discovered in a review that the $500,000 in project management costs for Heery International Inc. had been paid by the Braves through a project bond fund. The terms were spelled out in a 2014 consulting contract between Heery, the county and the Braves in 2014 (document here).

Joann Birrell, commissioner of District 3 in Northeast Cobb, and District 1 commissioner Lisa Cupid of South Cobb wanted to table approving the settlement for two weeks. They wanted to view the actual settlement document, and Birrell wanted to see proof that other payments had been made.

At one point, Birrell said the county’s 30-year memorandum of understanding with the Braves, adopted in 2013, “keeps coming back to haunt us.” Cupid’s motion to table was defeated 3-2, after which commissioners took a 10-minute recess.

After the break, Birrell, who voted for the Braves deal in 2013, was satisfied with what she was presented from county finance and legal officers.

Cupid, however, said she couldn’t support settlement, calling it a “déjà vu” regarding the original stadium deal. She was the only vote against the the 2013 agreement, and on Tuesday she said the current settlement reflected “the same level of haste, the same lack of organization.”

Commissioner Bob Ott of East Cobb, whose District 2 includes the SunTrust Park area, said of the settlement documents that “this is not something that was hard to go find” and that the staff was well-prepared.

Cupid agreed with the latter point, but said “this has everything to do with us as a board.”

She was the only vote against the settlement, which chairman Mike Boyce said was “a compromise.”

Boyce, who made the process of the Braves deal a key component of his campaign to oust then-chairman Tim Lee in 2016, said the nearly $1.4 million the county is getting is “because this board held its ground. We did the right thing as a board.”

Before the discussion Tuesday, Ben Williams, a spokesman for Cobb Citizens for Governmental Transparency, said the county shouldn’t have to pay any more money for stadium expenses.

That group was founded in 2014 after citizen concerns about the hastiness of the original Braves deal, which was approved only two weeks after it was made public.

 

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East Cobb resident wants Confederate general’s name in Cobb park designation

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Mableton Discovery Park
A rendering of a proposed park in Mableton, along the Chattahoochee River, includes Civil War earthworks.

An East Cobb resident who asked Cobb commissioners Tuesday to include the name of a Confederate general in the name of a new county park along the Chattahoochee River upset the commissioner who took the action item off the meeting agenda.

During a public comment period, Mary Stevens, who said she lives in East Cobb, wants the name of Gen. Joseph Johnston to be part of a proposed park in the Mableton area that includes Civil War earthworks.

Stevens said the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery and that “had it been so bad for the freed slaves they would have left the South.”

She said blacks served the Confederate Army as cooks, chaplains and other laborers and that “naming the park anything that does not include the name of Joseph Johnston is historically inaccurate.”

Johnston was the general in charge of Southern forces that fought Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union Army at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain and the Battle of Atlanta in 1864.

Cobb commissioner Lisa Cupid, who represents Mableton and South Cobb and is the board’s only African-American, tabled a proposal to designate the 103-acre tract as the Mableton Chattahoochee River Line Park.

A master plan for what some South Cobb residents preferred to be called the Mableton Discovery Park was approved by commissioners in March. Cobb has owned the land that’s also been known as Johnston’s River Line since 1990, but finalizing the name has been a thorny matter that has been delayed before.

Cupid said she understood there would be those with different perspectives, which is why she favored the Mableton Chattahoochee River Line Park name as a compromise.

“It’s very clear that this is a very sensitive issue that I don’t think was dealt with very sensitively” by Stevens, said Cupid, saying she was “deeply offended” by her remarks.

 

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