Top East Cobb 2021 stories

Top East Cobb 2021 stories: Mt. Bethel UMC-Methodist dispute

by

Mt. Bethel Church

A dramatic and contentious battle involving one of East Cobb’s most prominent faith communities gained local and national headlines in 2021.

In April, Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church senior pastor Rev. Dr. Jody Ray was reassigned by the North Georgia Conference of the UMC as part of its annual “moving day” process of relocating clergy.

The denomination’s commitment to an “itinerant” ministry typically garners little controversy.

Ray had been in the job at Mt. Bethel—which has around 10,000 members—for six years, after previously serving as an associate under longtime Pastor Randy Mickler.

But in a social media posting, Mt. Bethel leaders said that the church “is not in a position to receive a new senior minister at this time.”

Mt. Bethel Church prayer service, Jody Ray
Rev. Dr. Jody Ray.

Within days, Ray had turned in his UMC ministerial credentials, Mt. Bethel had retained him in a CEO/lay leader role and declared its intent to disaffiliate from the denomination.

While the moves struck outsiders by surprise, the wheels had been in motion for a breakup for some years.

Like other Protestant denominations, the United Methodist Church has been roiled by theological disputes, in particular over gay and lesbian clergy and allowing same-sex marriages to be held in their churches.

In 2016, Mt. Bethel was a founding member of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, which is made up of theologically conservative churches laying the groundwork for a split in the Methodist faith.

The United Methodist Church was scheduled last year to begin implementing a “Protocol for Reconciliation through Grace and Separation.”

If approved by UMC delegates, it would set up a process to allow conservative congregations to separate, especially over issues of sexuality.

But COVID-19 issues have delayed that national conference until September of 2022.

In his first sermon since the dispute began, Ray looked at this children in the pews and said “I want you also to remember this day, that your Daddy didn’t bow the knee, or kiss the ring, of progressive theology. . . . which is no theology.”

Related stories:

Mt. Bethel leaders saw the reassignment of Ray by North Georgia Conference Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson as an attempt to head off Mt. Bethel’s disaffiliation—and in particular to keep the church’s property and assets, valued by the local denomination as around $35 million.

But Haupert-Johnson said Mt. Bethel’s actions violated the UMC’s Book of Discipline, its primary governing document, and she took action to seize assets and place the congregation under North Georgia Conference direction.

Mt. Bethel defied those orders and refused to accommodate or fully pay Rev. Dr. Stephen Usry, the Conference’s designated replacement for Ray. Haupert-Johnson ruled that Mt. Bethel was not a church in good standing, a requirement for disaffiliation.

Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson, North Georgia Conference UMC
Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson

In July, Mt. Bethel held a prayer service that included Rev. Bryant Wright, the retired founding pastor of nearby Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, who told attendees that “spiritual warfare intensifies when God’s about to do something good.”

A Mt. Bethel member who stood behind the church said in an interview with East Cobb News that the congregation was being unfairly placed in a poor light, and he referred to Haupert-Johnson as a “heretic.”

But some Mt. Bethel members disagreed with the church leadership, and came out publicly saying the dispute was ripping the congregation apart. They later formed a group called “Friends of Mt. Bethel” and warned that legal action would be costly and even more divisive.

Among those opposed to the current Mt. Bethel leadership was the now-retired Mickler, who presided at the church for nearly three decades.

Mt. Bethel and the North Georgia Conference tamped down their war of words temporarily over the summer as they entered a mediation process.

But those talks broke down, and on Sept. 8 the North Georgia Conference sued Mt. Bethel over assets and property in Cobb Superior Court.

In its counterclaim, Mt. Bethel accused the North Georgia Conference of trying to “dry up” its resources “by deterring member contributions.”

In November, Mt. Bethel was allowed to hire the head of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, a licensed attorney in Virginia, to serve on its legal team.

As the wheels of litigation began their slow grind, Mt. Bethel insisted that its members should be allowed vote on disaffiliation before the 2022 UMC national conference.

Other Top East Cobb 2021 posts:

 

Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!

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!

Top East Cobb 2021 stories: Cobb school board conflicts

by

Cobb school board approves budget

Another year of deep divisions on the Cobb Board of Education included a rare special review by the Cobb County School District’s accrediting agency in 2021.

In November, Cognia found that board conflicts, board members’ communications with the public and the elected body’s code of ethics, among other matters, warranted a year-long “improvement plan” to be evaluated at the end of 2022.

For now, the district maintains full accreditation, but must make strides under Cognia’s recommendations as part of a “Progress Monitoring Review.”

That the review was conducted at all remains a source of division on the fractured school board, which has been roiling along partisan lines for three years.

Cognia was approached in March by Charisse Davis, Jaha Howard and Tre’ Hutchins—the Democratic minority members on the school board—complaining that they were being silenced by the four Republican members who make up the majority.

The accreditor also received around 50 complaints from community members, ranging from district finances, equity and diversity issues and demands to change the name of Wheeler High School in East Cobb.

Cognia conducted interviews in August, with Cobb school district officials complaining that they were never given specific allegations, including the complaints from community members.

In June, the Republicans passed a resolution banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory in Cobb schools. The Democrats all abstained, after Republican board chairman Randy Scamihorn tried to prevent a discussion on the matter, including providing a definition of CRT.

The ban also extends to the use of the 1619 Project, which The New York Times published in 2019 as a historical critique of slavery in America.

Hutchins, the newest board member who represents Post 3 in South Cobb, said that CRT has never been taught in Cobb schools and “is not a real thing” in the district.

During that meeting, Hutchins and Scamihorn engaged in a lengthy and heated argument, as they raised their voices to interrupt one another for several minutes.

The Cobb vote was one of many in 2021 banning the teaching of CRT in school districts with Republican board majorities.

In October, along a 4-2 partisan vote, the Cobb school board approved a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and racism.

The vote came after anti-Semitic graffiti was found at Pope and Lassiter high schools. But the resolution was put on the school board agenda at the last minute, with no public notice, and included an anti-racism provision that the board haggled over to no avail in 2020.

The Democratic members said they were surprised by the anti-racism provision being added.

Davis, whose Post 6 includes the Wheeler and Walton clusters, was absent and did not vote.

Another source of conflict was over a reapportionment map to recommend to the Cobb legislative delegation, which will redraw the seven Cobb school board posts in January.

The four board Republicans approved spending $200,000 to hire Taylor English, a Cumberland area law firm, to draw the maps.

The map recommended by Scamihorn and approved by his GOP colleagues would draw Davis and Howard into a revamped Post 6, which would lose its East Cobb schools.

Most of East Cobb would be included in Post 5, represented by Republican vice chairman David Banks. and the rest would be in Post 4, where current GOP member David Chastain has said he will be running for another term next year.

Davis has not indicated if she’s seeking re-election; Howard has declared an intent to run for state school superintendent, but qualifying isn’t until March 2022.

In November, the same school board GOP majority amended Superintendent Chris Ragsdale’s contract without much public discussion.

The details were revealed through open records requests and included additional leverage for Ragsdale, who has been superintendent since 2015, to negotiate the terms of his departure.

The amended contract would give him extended notice if he is to be terminated for cause. He would receive full pay for the remainder of his contract if he leaves in another circumstance.

That would be if a special review panel determines that he has been “harassed” or “embarrassed” by school board members.

The three Democrats voted against the revisions. Ragsdale’s contract, which pays him a base salary of $350,000, ends in February 2024.

Other Top East Cobb 2021 posts:

 

Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!

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!

Top East Cobb 2021 stories: Cobb’s continuing COVID response

by
East Cobb rapid COVID-19 testing
Long lines formed in December 2021 at a COVID testing spot at East Cobb United Methodist Church.

The year 2021 is ending in similar fashion to how it began: With a surge in COVID-19 cases that prompted calls for precautions, testing, vaccination and masking.

The Omicron variant that was sweeping through the United States as the Christmas holiday season approached was the third wave of the virus to take a toll on Cobb and elsewhere this year.

Long lines formed at testing locations, including East Cobb United Methodist Church, after Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid declared a COVID emergency for the fourth time in 2021.

That was on Dec. 22, when the case rates had jumped by more than 150 percent in a week. County buildings are also under an indoor mask mandate until Jan. 22, 2022.

Currently, the transmission rate of the virus in Cobb averaged 805 per 100,000 people, far above the “high” threshold of 100 per 100K.

Indeed, more than 1,000 cases in Cobb were reported each on Dec. 28 and Dec. 29, well above the highest reported date during the January 2021 surge.

Wednesday’s 1,865 reported cases is the highest single-day total in the county since the pandemic began in March 2020, and comes as county officials are advising more precautions through the holidays.

Cobb COVID-19 cases are on a surge for the third time in 2021. For more data from the Georgia Department of Health, click here.

Cobb and Douglas Public Health director Dr. Janet Memark is urging the public to limit indoor gatherings or to wear masks when they cannot avoid large crowds inside (see video interview with Cupid below, taped at the beginning of this week).

She also noted that only 58 percent of eligible adults and children in Cobb are considered “fully vaccinated,” and fewer than 20 percent have received booster shots.

Due to long testing lines she said that anyone who feels sick or has COVID-19 symptoms should skip that step, presume they have the virus and begin an isolation period.

Her message is similar to surges at the beginning of 2021, when school parents and teachers admonished the Cobb Board of Education for saying little about the COVID-related deaths of three teachers.

As the 2021-22 school year began, the Cobb County School District announced a masks-optional policy that prompted protests on both sides of the issue.

Parents, teachers, staff and others gathered at the district’s main office before school meetings to either demand a mask mandate that was in place the previous school year, or to keep them relaxed.

Superintendent Chris Ragsdale came under fire from the Cobb Board of Health as an early fall surge due to the Delta variant prompted demands for a mask mandate.

A special board meeting in September urged “universal masking” in schools following CDC guidance. Ragsdale, a member of the board, abstained, but the decision carried no mandates.

At the next Cobb school board meeting, he defended the district’s mask and COVID policies, saying data analysis showed that masking was not effective at slowing the spread of the virus.

Cobb schools have remained masks-optional, and four parents of medically fragile children filed a federal lawsuit against the district. In October, their request for a temporary injunction to force the district to follow CDC guidelines was denied.

At the same time, Cobb school board member David Banks sent an e-mail on his official account discouraging recipients from getting the COVID-19 vaccines. Banks never publicly responded to requests for comment, but he’s been criticized previously for explaining that he doesn’t wear masks because he thinks they don’t work.

Cobb County government COVID responses weren’t fraught with that kind of drama.

During three previous emergency declarations, Cobb government required mask use in indoor buildings and socially distanced at public meetings.

In December 2021 Cobb commissioners allocated the last of the county’s $133 million in funding from the federal CARES Act, spending most of the final monies to assist small business and to pay for protective equipment and other items for first responders.

The county used some previous funding to open a vaccine call center for several months. For several months Jim Miller Park served as mass vaccination center; Cobb and Douglas Public Health continues to provide free vaccinations at its main clinics.

The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines in Cobb stumbled a bit in January, as a website created to book appointments and provide basic information crashed upon launch, leaving anxious seniors and medically fragile candidates for the shots frustrated, especially as the initial supplies of vaccines ran out.

As of Dec. 29, 435,286 Cobb County residents were fully vaccinated, 475,777 have had at least one dose and 147,491 have received boosters.

Since March 2020, there have been 97,398 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Cobb County, and 1,346 confirmed deaths.

Other Top East Cobb 2021 posts:

 

Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!

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!

Top East Cobb 2021 stories: Sprayberry Crossing redevelopment

by

Sprayberry Crossing citizens groups

After years of pleading, prodding and practically begging, residents in the vicinity of the downtrodden Sprayberry Crossing Shopping Center finally got their wish in 2021.

But the redevelopment plans of Atlantic Realty, an Atlanta luxury apartment builder that first filed its rezoning request in the summer of 2020, will look very different from what was originally intended.

Even after the Cobb Board of Commissioners approved the rezoning in June—with some vocal opposition from other residents—there was yet another twist in what the mixed-use project will look like.

As commissioners were signing off on a project with 132 senior apartments and 102 townhomes and a small amount of retail space, the developer was trying to work out a traffic arrangement with a liquor store owner whose business is located at what would be the new development’s main entrance on Sandy Plains Road.

That project also was to have included a 34,000-square-foot grocery store to be occupied by Lidl. But Atlantic Realty’s discussions with the Sprayberry Bottle Shop fell through, and Lidl is no longer involved in the development.

Other retail space and restaurants are tentatively being planned instead.

Before passage, Atlantic Realty dropped plans for a general apartment building that drew most of the opposition, with those against fearing a single-family area would change the nature of their neighborhoods.

A once-vibrant shopping center that has evolved into a longstanding community eyesore is expected to be demolished in early 2022.

Other Top East Cobb 2021 posts:

 

Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!

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!

Top East Cobb 2021 stories: East Cobb Church rezoning case

by
East Cobb Church rezoning held
Residents opposed to the East Cobb Church rezoning application objected to high-density residences.

The cornerstone of a proposed mixed-use project at the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford intersection was the least controversial component of a rezoning saga that took nearly a year to unfold.

While the proposed new home of East Cobb Church wasn’t an issue, residents living near the 33-acre assemblage said the residential portion of the application was too dense and would cause traffic and other quality-of-life concerns.

Cobb commissioners voted 3-1 in October to approve the rezoning, after months of delays and revisions that left residents reeling.

The final revision that was improved will allow for 44 townhomes and 51 single-family detached homes to be built near two single-family subdivisions whose primary access point, Waterfront Drive, is located in the heart of the newly approved residential area.

North Point Ministries, which operates several other megachurches in metro Atlanta, has plans to buy all of the 24 parcels that make up the 33 acres. The current owners of the properties, retired prominent attorney William Hanna and his wife’s ministry, have insisted on selling the land to a single buyer.

North Point has plans to sell 20 acres to Ashwood Atlanta, which will develop the homes.

What especially bothered some residents was a last-minute site plan unveiled at the commission meeting in October, without much time for zoning staff or public review.

“It is clear we need to vote in favor in the 2022 midterms [a] Cityhood vote to protect East Cobb’s interests and ensure we have a zoning board that listens to its taxpayers,” Rachel Bruce said after the vote.

(The properties involved in the East Cobb Church case are all included in the proposed City of East Cobb that will be considered in the 2022 legislative session.)

Other issues include stormwater concerns. What was once known as Maddox Lake has been dredged for several years, and federal officials must determine if that part of the land can be developed.

If it’s declared to be in a flood plain, North Point attorney Kevin Moore said the residential developer would reduce the number of units accordingly.

In her motion to approve the application, commissioner Jerica Richardson—in her first major rezoning case in the East Cobb part of her District 2—included provisions to cap the density at five units an acre.

East Cobb Church, which has been holding services at Eastside Baptist Church, has been promoting its campaign for a worship facility as part of the “Revitalize JOSH campaign.”

A year after commissioners approved the Johnson Ferry-Shallowford master plan, an underdeveloped corner of that intersection will be revived by a project that wasn’t contemplated during the lengthy master plan process.

For East Cobb Church, coming home means a commitment to its new community.

“We’ve been dreaming of a home, not just to go but, but to launch from, into the community, on a mission to love, where we live,” Pastor Jamey Dickens said in a church-produced video after the rezoning vote.

Other Top East Cobb 2021 posts:

 

Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!

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!

Top East Cobb 2021 stories: Revived cityhood effort launched

by
Revised East Cobb city map
For a larger view of the proposed City of East Cobb boundaries, click here.

A second attempt to pass legislation for East Cobb Cityhood was unveiled in early 2021, just a few months after it appeared to be a dead issue.

A local legislator who wouldn’t sign on to a cityhood bill in 2019 said just that, but in March became a co-sponsor of legislation to be considered by the Georgia General Assemby in 2022.

State Rep. Sharon Cooper joined efforts with fellow East Cobb Republican lawmaker Matt Dollar to revive the idea of cityhood.

The proposed boundaries and services are different from the 2019 campaign, which was abandoned by cityhood leaders after substantial opposition surfaced.

Local elected officials also were lukewarm to the proposed City of East Cobb, which would have included more than 100,000 people.

(See our complete archive of past cityhood stories by clicking here.)

Some new faces to the cityhood committee prompted changes in the legislation by Dollar (who won’t be seeking re-election in 2022 after being drawn into the same district with Cooper).

The Johnson Ferry Road corridor runs along the middle of the proposed city boundaries , with a population of around 55,000.

Initially, the proposed services were planning and zoning, code enforcement and parks and recreation.

The cityhood group held virtual town halls and met individually with some civic and business groups as a financial feasibility study was conducted.

That study, released in November, included police and fire services that had were in the 2019 campaign.

Cityhood leaders said there was strong support for public safety services based on feedback in polling, and the study concluded that the city would have an annual surplus of $3 million annually.

A proposed city hall would be located at the East Cobb Government Service Center, which would be purchased from Cobb County, and where the Precinct 4 police station and a Cobb Fire station are located.

Like three other cityhood bills in Cobb—Lost Mountain, Vinings and Mableton—the East Cobb effort remains centered around development, zoning and density issues in unincorporated Cobb.

The East Cobb bill will still need a state Senate sponsor when it comes up in the legislature in January.

If that bill passes, a referendum would take place in November 2022, giving voters in the proposed city the final say on whether there will be a new municipality.

Other Top East Cobb 2021 posts:

 

Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!

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!

Top East Cobb 2021 Stories: Ed SPLOST passes; political news

by

East Cobb precinct votes Senate runoffs

The year 2021 started with the election of two new U.S. Senators from Georgia and ended with the passing of a state and Cobb County political icon.

In January, Democrats Jon Ossoff (left) and Raphael Warnock won U.S. Senate runoffs by beating Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.

That put the upper chamber of Congress in Democratic hands, forging a 50-50 tie, with new Democratic vice-president and former Sen. Kamala Harris presiding as President of the Senate.

Republican turnout soured after former President Donald Trump claimed voter fraud in Georgia, where Democrat Joe Biden was certified as the winner of the 2020 presidential race by less than 12,000 votes.

Loeffler had served only a year after being appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp to succeed Johnny Isakson, the Republican from East Cobb who retired due to health issues.

On Dec. 19, Isakson died at the age of 76, after fighting Parkinson’s Disease diagnosed in 2015, the year before he won his third term in the Senate.

Isakson served a total of 45 years in the Georgia legislature and Congress, and was praised for his commitment to bipartisanship.

His memorial service is scheduled for Jan. 6, 2022, the first anniversary of the storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters who were attempting to prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 election results.

Rebuild Sprayberry rally
Parents pushing for a new main campus building got their wish in November after the Cobb Education SPLOST VI referendum passed easily.

In the November general elections, Cobb voters extended the local special-purpose local-option sales tax to fund school construction, maintenance and technology projects.

Cobb Education SPLOST VI will begin on Jan. 1, 2024 and will continue through Dec. 31, 2029, raising $894 million for the Cobb school district.

Among the major projects on the list will be a new main classroom building at Sprayberry High School, as well as classroom additions at Kincaid, Mt. Bethel, Murdock, Sope Creek and Tritt elementary schools in East Cobb.

Also in November, the Georgia legislature held a special session to conduct Congressional and legislative reapportionment.

Among the major changes made to those lines was redrawing the 6th Congressional District, which includes most of East Cobb.

Since 2019 that seat has been held by Democrat Lucy McBath, but the new lines include part of Forsyth, Dawson and Cherokee counties that likely will create a Republican-held seat.

After the lines were finalized, McBath announced she would be running in 2022 in the 7th District, which contains most of Democrat-leaning Gwinnett County.

The new 11th District represented by GOP U.S. Rep. Barry Lowdermilk also will include some of East Cobb.

The new legislative lines will split East Cobb into four State Senate seats and retain five State House seats.

However, incumbent Republican House members Sharon Cooper and Matt Dollar were drawn into the same new District 45.

Dollar, the principal sponsor of East Cobb Cityhood legislation to be considered in 2022, announced he will not be seeking re-election next year.

In January, the Cobb legislative delegation will draw new lines for the four districts of the Cobb Board of Commissioners and all seven posts of the Cobb Board of Education.

For more politics and elections news, visit our special page.

Other Top East Cobb 2021 posts:

 

Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!

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!

Top East Cobb 2021 stories: Anti-Semitic graffiti at schools

by
Pope HS swastikas
Graffiti scrawled in a boys lavatory at Pope High School in September 2021.

Swastikas and “Heil Hitler” messages were scrawled on the bathroom walls of two high schools in East Cobb in September, prompting an outcry from the local Jewish community, and leading to the passage of a resolution condemning the actions by the Cobb Board of Education.

The messages at Pope and Lassiter high schools were similar, but the responses to them by school officials triggered different reactions in the community.

Rabbi Larry Sernovitz of Temple Kol Emeth in East Cobb spoke to Pope students but he and other Jewish leaders said the Cobb school district’s response was inadequate. In a letter to the Pope community, principal Thomas Flugum didn’t specify the anti-Semitic nature of the graffiti.

At Lassiter, principal Chris Richie was specific in a letter that went out to the school community, and further denounced the “deplorable symbols and language.”

Later, the Cobb school district issued a response that didn’t make a reference to anti-Semitism but only to “hate speech” and urged “families to talk to their students about the impacts of inappropriate and dangerous trends circulating on social media.”

The incidents took place apparently as part of a stunt on the Tik Tok social media app in which students vandalize school property and boast about it.

But Jewish leaders said the incidents showed that an educational program teaching about anti-Semitism was needed. The Anti-Defamation League of Atlanta, among others, called for the Cobb school district to reintroduce its “No Place for Hate” materials.

Other Top East Cobb 2021 posts:

That did not happen, but school board chairman Randy Scamihorn attended a Yom Kippur service at Kol Emeth, and in October he introduced a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and racism.

The resolution passed by a party-line vote after some members and citizens complained that the matter was added to the agenda late, and saying that the district still needed to do more to address acts of hate in the school system.

A student at Pope was brought up on disciplinary charges that the district did not explain; the district did not indicate any similar punishment for the incident at Lassiter.

Related stories

Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!

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!