What has been dubbed “Sunday Funday” at East Cobb Park for several years—a series of spring free concerts—has a new name.
“Music in the Park” debuts Sunday, but otherwise the event will feel similar to concert-goers.
The Friends for the East Cobb Park volunteer organization has scheduled four concerts through the middle of June at the concert shell in the back of the park.
And Wellstar remains as the presenting sponsor.
Sunday’s concert lasts from 4-6 p.m. and features the indie folk duo of Rusted Melody.
Other concerts are slated for May 8 (LooSe ShoEs band); May 29 (Bach to Rock—performed by and for kids) and June 12 (The Woodys—a Fleetwood Mac and 70s rock cover band).
You’re welcome to bring your own food and drink, chairs and blankets to enjoy the music on the back quad.
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The opening of East Cobb Park in 2003 was the culmination of five years of planning, persistence, community involvement and commitment.
What began as a dream for a passive park in the heart of a bustling suburban community turned into a full-throttle campaign that made its reality even more gratifying for those behind it.
Several founding members of the Friends for the East Cobb Park discussed that history this week before the East Cobb Area Council of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, where the park idea was incubated.
“It was a big idea, and it was Sunny’s idea,” said Mary Karras, the first president of the Friends for the East Cobb Park, referring to Sunny Walker.
She was a co-owner of the Frameworks Gallery in East Cobb and a leading arts and community advocate who was the guiding force behind the creation of the park.
“She said, ‘I think we need a passive park in East Cobb,’ ” Karras recalls. “I said, ‘What’s a passive park?’ ”
Walker had a vision, but that’s all the Friends group, formed as a non-profit in 1998, had to go on.
Identifying a possible location, purchasing it and then turning it over to Cobb County for development as a park were all formidable tasks.
Finding land that was close to the Merchants Walk area, that was affordable and suitable for passive park was a tall order.
When a member of the Bowles family came to the bank where Karras worked and offered to sell 13 acres of what had been farmland on Roswell Road, he told her he also had done an environmental study.
That’s when Karras turned to Tom Bills, a resident of the adjacent Mitsy Forest subdivision, and an engineer by training.
“The land was clean and good and ready for us to purchase,” said Bills, a former Friends treasurer and president.
Mary Karras and Kim Paris, co-founders of Friends for the East Cobb Park, with current president Lee O’Neal. (East Cobb News photo by Wendy Parker)
Fundraising was the next step, and it was a comprehensive approach. Cobb County offered a match, but Karras and other Friends advocates had to hustle to get the interest of businesses, foundations and everyday citizens.
Then-U.S. Rep. Johnny Isakson helped the Friends gain access to foundation and business leaders in Atlanta, and the group held events and meetings and wrote letters seeking financial support.
“We were scrambling for every hundred dollars we could find,” Karras said. “We did it because we saw it was an opportunity to create a legacy in this community.”
Without the larger community of everyday citizens contributing their share, the vision of East Cobb Park may not have gone much further.
Scout troops, school groups, families, civic organizations and others chipped in as they could. They included kids turned over big bags of change they solicited from golfers on the Indian Hills driving range.
“That meant as much to us” as the bigger checks, Bills said, “because it showed the support of the community.”
Citizens also could purchase park cobblestones and pickets for the fence around the children’s playground bearing their names. Other contributors had their names, or the names of loved ones, inscribed on park benches.
With all of that support, and most of the money, the Friends group found itself $100,000 short at closing. That’s when Riverside Bank, which had been vital in securing financing during the fundraising drive, agreed to make a loan.
When asked if she or the Friends group ever had any doubts, Karras said no, but understood how their task may come across to some: “Raising $1 million to buy land that we were going to give to the county?”
Yet the laborious fundraising campaign contained the seeds of what the Friends group also had envisioned.
“We started off slow and then we gained momentum,” Karras said. “That gave everybody ownership.”
“There was no giving up,” said Kim Paris, another former Friends president.
“Sunny dreamed big,” Karras said, “and we bought into it.”
Johnny Johnson is the owner of Edward Johns Jewelers and a longtime civic leader who serves as Santa Claus at park’s Holiday Lights festivities: “East Cobb Park became the center of our community.”
East Cobb Area Council president Dan Byers said “East Cobb Park was the crown jewel of this community before we ever moved here.”
More community support followed after the park was built and opened. A second “all-abilities” playground was built with a $75,000 grant from the Resurgens Foundation.
The Friends group continues as an active partner with the county, staging year-round events including concerts and the Holiday Lights tree lighting, which starts at 5 p.m. Sunday.
Last year, a secondary vision of expanding the park became a reality when Cobb County purchased 22 acres of adjacent property belonging to Wylene Tritt, who donated 7.7 acres of what had been the 54-acre Tritt farm.
The Friends group helped the county round out the costs at closing with a $102,000 contribution from its endowment, most of which has been paid back.
For now, the new land will remain as greenspace, but there are longer-term visions of purchasing what’s left of the Tritt land for park purposes.
“History is important, because there is a future for the park,” said Lee O’Neal, the current Friends president. “There are plenty of opportunities to develop that property and purchase more to extend East Cobb Park.”
The Cobb Board of Commissioners voted this fall to name the first bridge connecting the current park to its newer space after Walker, who died in September. A piano was donated in her name in 2017 and sits in the park gazebo.
Karras, now the manager of investor relations for the Cobb Chamber, said Walker also talked about the park one day having an arts center, and would like to see that come to fruition.
For Paris, who’s going to be a grandmother in the spring, her thoughts about the park’s future are more immediate.
“That’s why we did this,” she said, referencing the legacy mission of the park founders, “as the park continues to grow and that our community continues to support.”
Sunny Walker, co-founder of the Friends for the East Cobb Park
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On Dec. 3, the East Cobb Area Council of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce will reveal its 2019 East Cobb Citizen of the Year at its last breakfast meeting of the year.
The event also includes a discussion about the past, present and future of East Cobb Park with founders and visionaries of the park, including Mary Karras, Kim Paris, Tom Bills and Lee O’Neal.
The breakfast is from 7:30-9 a.m. at Indian Hills Country Club (4001 Clubland Drive). The cost is $25 for Chamber members and $35 for guests. Online registration ends on Nov. 29 (click here).
Each of the area councils of the Cobb chamber honor a citizen for work in the community with the Citizen of the Year designation. Last year, the East Cobb Citizen of the Year was Brenda Rhodes of Simple Needs GA, and in 2017 the recipient was U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson.
East Cobb Park opened on Roswell Road in 2003, after years of community advocacy and the purchase of what had been farmland belonging to the Tritt family. The all-volunteer non-profit Friends for the East Cobb Park was organized for that task, and to provide programs and events and assist with maintenance of the park, which is part of the Cobb Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Affairs.
Last year, Cobb commissioners voted to spend $8.3 million in park bond funds to purchase 22 acres of adjoining Tritt property, with plans to preserve it as greenspace and eventually expand East Cobb Park.
The Friends for the East Cobb Park contributed more than $100,000 from its endowment to complete the purchase, and launched a fundraising drive. In August, the county reimbursed $90,000 to the group.
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Sunny Walker at the unveiling of “Sunny” the piano at East Cobb Park in 2017. (ECN file photo)
The Friends for the East Cobb Park is sending out word that Sunny Walker, one of the key figures in the creation of East Cobb Park, has died.
Walker, 71, died on Aug. 27. She also was a past president of Friends volunteer organization, helping to raise money to buy the land on Roswell Road where the park continues today.
In 2017, a piano donated by the East Cobb-based Play Me Again pianos non-profit was named “Sunny” in her honor and located at the park’s upper-level gazebo.
Walker was named the 1993 East Cobb Citizen of the Year by the East Cobb Area Council of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce. Her other community activities included being a Chamber board member as well as its Leadership Cobb initiative. She also was a supporter of the Theatre in the Square in Marietta. From her obituary:
“Sunny is remembered for her unconditional love of people and her perpetual heart of service. Dedicated to the arts, she championed numerous projects that were important to her community and its cultural development. Sunny’s influence is ever-present and vast.”
Walker, who lived in Smyrna, grew up in Rome and moved to Atlanta after graduating from the University of Georgia. She and her sister started the family-owned Frameworks Gallery, located on Johnson Ferry Road.
She is survived by her sister Diane Spencer of Woodstock and four other siblings, two children and five grandchildren. Walker was preceded in death by her husband “Big Al” Walker.
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East Cobb Park is on a proposed list to have license plate reader devices installed, along with Fullers Park and Terrell Mill Park. (ECN photo by Wendy Parker)
Three parks in East Cobb could be among the first in the county to have license plate readers installed as a safety measure.
The Cobb Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs Department will ask commissioners on Tuesday for authorization to spend $168,000 to install the devices at 12 of the county’s 24 active and passive parks.
Those proposed to have the readers installed include East Cobb Park, Fullers Park and Terrell Mill Park.
According to the agenda item summary for Tuesday’s commissioners meeting, the parks selected for the readers were “based on experience and data obtained from the police department records of the number and type of citizen requested dispatch calls.”
The vendor is Flock Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR), which would install two solar-powered cameras at the main entrances to each park. The Flock system would be integrated into the Cobb Police dispatch system and has a real-time reporting tool for the the National Crime Information Center/Georgia Crime Information Center, according to the agenda item.
The data to be retrieved would include the arrival and departure time, license plate and descriptions of vehicles at the parks, with the objective to be able to easily detect and report suspicious vehicles.
The installation cost is covered under the 2016 Cobb Parks SPLOST and would include system integration a three-year warranty and a four-year agreement for cloud hosting, cellular service and software updates.
In a related item on Tuesday, commissioners will be asked to make a $90,213 reimbursement to the Friends for the East Cobb Park, which donated nearly $120,000 last summer to help the county purchase part of the adjoining Tritt property and preserve it for green space.
Wylene Tritt sold 22 acres at 3540 Roswell Road to the county for a cost of $8.4 million, but a supplemental parks bond account established in 2017 had only $8.3 million available.
The Friends for the East Cobb Park stepped in to make the donation from its endowment. Shortly after that, the group announced a fundraising campaignto replenish the endowment.
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I got really lucky Sunday afternoon finding a parking space in front of East Cobb Park, which was packed with people walking their dogs, tossing around a football, having cookouts, riding swings and just enjoying a sunny January afternoon that nearly reached 70 degrees.
It was the last day of an otherwise soggy and cold holiday season. The sun and warmth will stick around for the first part of the week as Cobb students head back to school, with highs in the 60s.
Toward the end of the week it will start to get colder, with highs in the 40s and lows in the 30s and 20s. The rain returns next weekend.
Before leaving I took a look at the free library box near the front of the park. I had seen it from a distance but for some reason had not been curious to see what books had been left there. You can drop off books for others too.
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Wylene Tritt has lived on former family farmland along Roswell Road since 1950. (East Cobb News photo by Wendy Parker)
More than half of the 53-acre Tritt property that adjoins East Cobb Park on Roswell Road is set to be purchased by Cobb County and preserved as green space.
Cobb commissioners are scheduled to vote on Tuesday on a proposal to acquire 29.7 acres of land owned by Wylene Tritt for a cost of $8.3 million. The funding would come from the 2008 Cobb Parks Bond referendum, inlcuding last year’s $24.7 million in supplemental bond funds.
The proposed contract states that the purchase is for 22 of the acres; Tritt is donating the rest to the county as part of the deal. The Friends for the East Cobb Park, a non-profit citizens group, is donating $102,000 for the land acquisition, according to documents included in Tuesday’s meeting agenda.
The land that would be acquired by the county (noted in green in map provided below by Cobb County) would be adjacent to East Cobb Park and at the back of the Tritt property line.
According to information released late Thursday afternoon by Cobb government, the Friends for the East Cobb Park will begin a fundraising drive to purchase the rest of the Tritt property (noted in white, including the Tritt residence) and for future enhancements to the park.
“The chance to purchase some of the Tritt Property is an exciting opportunity and it would preserve a pristine part of Cobb County that could be enjoyed for generations to come,” District 2 Cobb commissioner Bob Ott said in a statement.
“I want to thank Mrs. Tritt for her willingness to work with the county. District 2 has the least amount of available land for parks and this is a significant contribution to the neighbors who have been asking us to look at this property for years.”
Tritt, who’s in her 80s, tried to sell her entire property several years ago for a reported $20 million for the development of a senior living complex. Isakson Living’s purchase of the land was contingent on rezoning, but Cobb commissioners denied the request in 2015 after strong community opposition to a project some considered too dense for the area.
Isakson Living, which is led by the son and brother of U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, sued the county, but legal action was dropped in 2016. The developer cancelled its contract with Tritt, whose family once held vast farmland in the East Cobb area.
While the Isakson Living case was proceeding, a citizens group was formed called Concerned Citizens of East Cobb, which advocated keeping the Tritt property park land. That effort extended into the formation of Friends of Tritt Park, which sought to gauge public interest in raising money to buy the land.
Doug Rohan, a resident of the Sadlers Walk neighborhood adjacent to the Tritt property, has been involved with both groups and opposed the Isakson living proposal.
He told East Cobb News that “we are thrilled at the prospect and we feel this plan is a very responsible approach to the fiscal interests of the county, the financial needs of the Tritt family, and the public interest that this project has generated.
“It seems like a win/win/win and we are hopeful it proceeds according to plan. We will continue to monitor the progress and we plan to attend the meeting next week to make sure this goes through.”
Cobb’s proposed purchase of the Tritt property comes as commissioners are set to tackle an anticipated $30 million budget deficit for fiscal year 2019 and that could include the possible closing of parks and recreational facilities included on draft lists.
Cobb also is building new parks, including Mabry Park under construction on Wesley Chapel Road. On Saturday, the county is holding a public viewing for recently purchased land on Ebenezer Road in Northeast Cobb that will be developed into a passive park.
Tritt, the aunt of country music star Travis Tritt, moved with her late husband Norris to the property in 1950. He inherited what had been 80 acres of farmland from his aunt, Odessa Tritt Lassiter, and gradually sold off portions to nearby families.
Some of the land was sold to the Bowles family, which in turn sold that land. The property included 13 acres that formed the original boundaries of East Cobb Park, which opened in 1998.
In her will, Lassiter insisted that the trees on her property be preserved, and that “no timber is to be cut off either place except for building and repairs on those farms.”
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East Cobb News photos and slideshow by Wendy Parker
The Cobb Master Gardeners Garden Fair and Plant Sale came to East Cobb this year, and the quad at East Cobb Park was filled on Friday and Saturday with vendors selling plants, fresh herbs, garden supplies, equipment and furnishings, arts and crafts, food and more.
The volunteer organization was also soliciting support from attendees to sign a petition to preserve county funding for the UGA Cobb Extension Office, which oversees the Master Gardener program and county 4-H services.
Proposed budget cuts would eliminate the office entirely. The extension office has posted information on its Facebook page about upcoming budget town hall meetings in Cobb.
The Master Gardeners volunteer time to grow and cultivate community gardens in the county, including the CrossRoads Community Garden at Chestnut Ridge Christian Church in East Cobb. The garden grows food that’s donated to pantries and teaches children about gardening, and it recently expanded plant beds.
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The Cobb Master Gardeners will return to the East Cobb area on May 12 for their spring Garden Tour, which features a new community garden at Hyde Farm, and gardens at Murdock Elementary School.
More information here about hours, admission charges and an event map. Proceeds will be used to continue Cobb Master Gardener projects, including the community gardens.
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After another unusual weather week—wet and wintry conditions over the weekend, followed by temperatures in the high 70s—East Cobb fall photos look like they could encompass all four seasons.
Willow Glenn DriveHampton Lake DriveIndian Hills Parkway
The best barometer is typically East Cobb Park, where balmy, sunny weather drew out a nice late Friday afternoon crowd, including some young boys playing catch—both the football and baseball varieties.
All seasons—sports and weather—are converging on this first weekend of November, which will remain warm, with high temperatures in the high 70s. There is the chance for rain, and low temperatures in the 60s.
If you’ve got photos you’d like to share with the East Cobb community—of the weather, a school, or church or organizational event—please feel free to send them, and we’ll post them.
Email us at: editor@eastcobbnews.com and please add any identifying information you have. To send news tips and other information, check our submission guidelines.
Late October and it’s all green in many East Cobb neighborhoods. (East Cobb News photo by Wendy Parker)
One of the things my mother misses most since her move to Florida a number of years ago is a real, authentic autumn. That East Cobb fall feeling, I always called it, at least in my own mind.
A native of Wisconsin, she grew to relish the four full, distinct seasons we seem to have in Georgia. While coming here was initially culture shock for her—this was the South of the early 1960s, as air conditioning, school integration and multiple-lane roads were still new—she grew to regard the place as home.
It’s still home for me, the only member of the family who hasn’t relocated to the Florida panhandle or Alabama Gulf Coast (perhaps I should take a hint?). Like mother, I really do revere the autumns around here, and drives through neighborhoods in East Cobb like where we once lived, that still retain the trees and feel of a community as it was coming to be what we know it today.
When I traversed down our old residential street the other day, it looked very different than how it always did in late October. The lush green colors gave off the feel of mid-summer, instead of the yellow, orange and brown of autumn.
In fact, if you go most anywhere in the community, it doesn’t feel like fall at all. Even East Cobb Park, with its majestic backdrop of high trees framing a singular shade of green, dark green, and hardly any leaves falling anywhere.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not complaining about 70-degree temperatures, for when they go away, they will disappear fast, with a cold winter likely setting in.
For the moment, however, it’s just a different feeling, a week before Halloween, without the natural accompaniment to go with the pumpkin patches and other signs of the coming holiday seasons.
They will be here soon enough, with November just around the corner. While these Indian Summer days are a nice reward for enduring the heat of June, July and August, I’m eager for the fall to start feeling like it, and the beautiful sights of the season that for me is the most special of all.
Whatever you’re doing this week, make it a great one! Thanks so much for reading East Cobb News!
The parking lot was full and so was East Cobb Park on an atypical Monday. The first solar eclipse to pass over the United States in nearly 100 years could be spotted—at least partially—in sunny, clear skies over East Cobb, and many took off from work and school to take in the spectacle.
While some schools allowed their students to witness the event outside, some cancelled plans late, unable to verify the safety standards of special viewing glasses purchased for the occasion.
Down the street on Roswell Road, at least one East Cobb business closed early due to the eclipse.
At the park, spectators tested out their glasses beforehand, and got a little excited when some clouds covered the sky minutes before the arrival of the moon.
The front quad of East Cobb Park looked like it was a weekend, with picnickers and sun-gazers scattered about in anticipation.
Right around 2:35, with the eclipse only a minute away, nearly all heads in the park craned skyward, as the moon partially passed over the sun, momentarily darkening an otherwise bright day over East Cobb.
With metro Atlanta not located in the eclipse’s “Path of Totality,” there weren’t many “oohs” and “aahs” coming from spectators at the park. But their attention was totally focused on the sun for the two or three minutes of partial eclipse visibility.
Moments after the eclipse had moved on, streaking toward its final U.S. destination near Charleston, S.C., East Cobb Park returned to its usual Monday afternoon look.
A major project for summer ARTSCAPE! students at East Cobb Park was celebrated on Saturday, with a ribbon-cutting and dedication of the “Sunny” piano at the upper pavilion.
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The piano, which is part of the Atlanta-based Play Me Again pianos non-profit, was painted by children at this summer’s ARTSCAPE! Program at East Cobb Park. It is named after Sunny Walker, one of the driving forces behind the creation of East Cobb Park and the first board president of Friends for the East Cobb Park.
After the ribbon-cutting, East Cobb youngster Nico Brett, age 12, played the debut music on “Sunny,” Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag,” along with the theme song from the “Peanuts.”
The second-from-last weekend before the start of school has several events geared for kids in end-of-summer mode, but there are quite a few slated for youth and adults alike.
The East Cobb NewsEvents Calendar has all the details of every weekend event we’ve got listed (and send yours along if you don’t see it to: calendar@eastcobbnews.com). Here are a few of the highlights:
At 10 a.m. Saturday, there will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony for “Sunny,” a piano kids at East Cobb Park’s ARTSCAPE! camp have been painting this summer. It’s the latest Play Me Again Piano delivery in metro Atlanta, and “Sunny” will be a permanent fixture at the park’s upper pavilion;
Want to learn about mushrooms—how to grow and cook them? The East Cobb Library is holding a mini-fungi fest at 11:30 a.m. Saturday with a “Build A Mushroom Garden” seminar, and reservations are strongly suggested;
Another library event, this one starting at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Mountain View Regional branch: A screening of the “We Are Marshall” film, about a college football team that perished in a 1970 airline tragedy, and how those on the freshman team played on in their honor;
For grown-ups, the weekend ivory-tinkling continues at Red Sky Tapas Bar, with the 88 Licks Dueling Piano performances Friday and Saturday from 9 p.m. to midnight;
The 180th Marietta Campmeeting concludes Sunday with an 11 a.m. service, and twice-daily services are scheduled for Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 11 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. The guest sermon for the finale will be delivered by Dr. Charles Sineath, a retired pastor formerly at East Cobb’s Mt. Zion United Methodist Church who’s been designated as this year’s Campmeeting Pastor.
Again, let us know if you have calendar items to share, for this weekend and beyond. We’re working to have the best calendar listings in East Cobb, so have a look around and let us know what you think!
