As we mentioned previously, web traffic at East Cobb News reached an all-time high in 2023.
As we close out our news coverage this year, we’ve surpassed 1.7 million pageviews and 900,000 unique monthly visitors for the past 12 months.
Our previous best was in 2020, dominated by coverage of the local response to COVID-19 and a competitive election year.
We didn’t have those things in 2023, but East Cobb News readers visited our site for a variety of timely news stories, features, calendar listings and other information that’s reflected in our yearly roundup of top stories.
We’re doing this in two posts. In this one, we’ll link to those stories and individuals who were among the notable newsmakers and headliners in events taking place in East Cobb.
In a separate post, we’ll share some of our and reader favorites—feature stories, people, the always-changing restaurant and business scene, lifestyle news and more.
These items are in no particular order—this isn’t in a countdown format—and admittedly some of the stories had a countywide impact. But East Cobb residents made their views known, and often took part in some contentious and momentous events.
Anti-Semitic protests/Cobb Israel resolution
Anti-Semitic protestors waved a Nazi swastika flag in front of the Chabad of Cobb synagogue in June, prompting an Ecumenical service at an East Cobb Methodist church that included more calls for stronger state hate speech laws.
After the Hamas-Israel conflict broke out in October, Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell proposed a resolution in defense of the Israelis. But Cobb Muslim and Palestinian citizens heatedly objected, and ultimately commissioners decided not to take up the matter.
Books removed from Cobb school libraries
Not long after a new school year began in August, the Cobb County School District removed three titles from more than 20 school libraries, including some in East Cobb, because they had sexually explicit contents.
Some parents and social advocates complained of censorship and hostility to LGBTQ students, and after a Due West Elementary School teacher was fired for reading a book to her 5th-grade students that the district said violated a new state divisive-concepts law.
Katie Rinderle asked for a public hearing, but the Cobb Board of Education ultimately voted along partisan lines to uphold the termination.
Redistricting lawsuits continue
Squabbles over Cobb commission and school board electoral maps took up most of 2023, and will continue in 2024.
Cobb’s controversial home rule claim for redrawing commission districts is still awaiting court action. In January, Birrell and Keli Gambrill, the other Republican commissioner, were ordered from the dais at the body’s first meeting for refusing to vote.
They claimed that their Democratic colleagues were illegally ignoring lines approved by the legislature but that also drew out East Cobb commissioner Jerica Richardson.
Gambrill filed a lawsuit in Cobb Superior Court but was later dismissed for not having standing; Judge Ann Harris has held two hearings but has not issued a ruling. Richardson, whose term ends in 2024, has announced a Congressional run.
A federal lawsuit challenging Cobb Board of Education electoral maps was filed in 2023, and in December a judge ordered the Georgia legislature to draw new maps by mid-January.
The plaintiffs are alleging that 2021 reapportionment diluted minority voting strength under the U.S. Civil Rights Act. Post 6, which had been in East Cobb, is now confined to the Cumberland-Smyrna-Vinings area.
Cobb school board candidates announce
Two political newcomers have been campaigning for much of 2023 for a seat that’s up next year on the Cobb Board of Education.
It’s the Post 5 seat held by four-term incumbent David Banks, and includes the Walton, Wheeler and Pope clusters.
Republican John Crisatodoro has the backing of prominent business and political leaders in the county, while Democrat Laura Judge is a member of the education advocacy group Watching the Funds-Cobb.
Both are parents in the Walton cluster; Banks, who is 82, said he is undecided on running again.
New Eastvalley ES campus opens
After a few months of delays, the new campus of Eastvalley Elementary School opened to students during the fall break in October.
Cobb school district leaders and the Eastvalley community took part in a ribbon-cutting and tours on the former site of East Cobb Middle School on Holt Road.
The nearly 150,000-square-foot building cost $37 million and features a learning commons with “a top of the line recording studio” as well as a courtyard with two playscapes and a pedestrian track.
Cobb tax assessments/transit tax referendum
In July, Cobb commissioners adopted a fiscal year $1.2 billion budget by a 3-2 party line vote.
The two Republicans wanted a rollback on the general fund millage rate after a sharp spike in property tax assessments that prompted plenty of complaints from homeowners.
Birrell faced the heat from constituents at a town hall meeting at which she pledged to try to get a millage rate reduction. “I need two other votes,” she said.
In December, the same partisan vote applied to establish a referendum in November 2024 for a 30-year, $10.8 billion sales tax to expand transit service in Cobb.
That would include restoring bus service along Roswell Road in East Cobb and from Johnson Ferry Road to the Dunwoody MARTA Station; those routes were discontinued in budget cuts during the recession.
Citizens at a September town hall in East Cobb in September expressed concerns, but a member of Richardson’s “community cabinet” said “the opportunity is now to envision the transit system of the future.”
Barnes & Noble opens/Avenue overhaul
After nearly a year of waiting, book-lovers lined up on a chilly November morning to await the opening of the Barnes and Noble store at Avenue East Cobb.
Acclaimed Georgia author Mary Kay Andrews had the ribbon-cutting honors, and shoppers toured through the shelves and enjoyed treats from the store’s cafe.
It’s the first of a new concept store from B & N with a smaller footprint than its usual stores and with specially-curated selections from store managers responding to local reader preferences.
In September, the retail center’s new plaza—at the heart of its redevelopment—made its debut in a garden-party format, with ticket proceeds benefitting MUST Ministries.
The open-air plaza includes a stage for live music and television screenings, and for shoppers to
A number of new restaurants also announced early 2024 openings, including Press Waffle Co., Peach State Pizza and Round Trip Brewing Co., all located in the newly refurbished area.
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