THERE HAS BEEN NO SHORTAGE of school-board watchers in the past decade who have monitored the Cobb school system like hawks - and who have screeched loud and often about the board's plans for take-home laptops, ever-earlier school-start dates and dumbed-down grading systems. They have been so focused, and so vocal, that board member and former Chair Dr. John Abraham - a particular target of their ire thanks to his flip-flopping on his campaign pledge to support a late-August school start - tagged them with the epithet "The Committee of the Miserable," and christened one of their ringleaders, outspoken Kathy Angelucci, as "Kathy Angrylucci."

Even though Abraham had tapped into that network of activists to give him credibility as a reform candidate in 2006, he and former foe (but now ally) Superintendent Fred Sanderson have said the "committee" is so small in number that it could comfortably fit inside a phone booth. Also heaping scorn on the board-watchers have been board members Holli Cash, David Banks and Chairwoman Lynnda Crowder-Eagle.

But Team Sanderson got roughed up at the polls during Tuesday's party primaries. Abraham's hoped-for successor, political insider and former Iditarod racer Bill Borden, got the bum's rush from north Cobb voters and will be spending the coming cold winter nights cozying up with his Huskies instead of ensconced with fellow board members in closed-door executive sessions. Sitting in his place at the board table - and hopefully not behind closed doors - will be Angelucci.

Voters also chose Scott Sweeney rather than retired Dodgen Middle School principal Jim Snell for another board seat, suspecting that Snell might be under Sanderson's sway.

But now guess what? LCE and Cash reportedly are already wooing Angelucci, having placed several "kiss-and-makeup" calls in her direction.

Said another board-watcher, LCE and Cash "still don't get it. The party is over."

Retired Gen. Joe Redden left the Cobb superintendent's job in disgrace. Now Sanderson and his team have been rejected and repudiated.

"The only question is how much more damage they can do to our schools before they finally go," the board-watcher said.

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SPEAKING OF BORDEN, who markets himself as a motivational speaker and role model for students, he never got around to calling Angelucci to congratulate her on her landslide win, which would have been the classy thing to do.

Meanwhile, Snell did the right thing on primary night, dialing Sweeney to concede and offer his congratulations. Knowing how toxic Team Sanderson was, Snell had tried to distance himself from them, but unsuccessfully. As one observer noted, "Fred and Lynnda are one heck of a load to tote."

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LCE AND CASH aren't the only ones pitching woo at Angelucci and Sweeney. So is Banks, who is known for his odd remarks and in the past had a habit of sending caustic emails to Angelucci in response to her criticisms and letters to the editor. Now he's singing a different song, wanting to fill her and Scott Sweeney in on board business.

Retorted a close Angelucci supporter, "She has forgotten more about Cobb schools than Banks will ever know."

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Cobb school board watchers say loose-tongued Democrat Cash embarrassed herself yet again during Thursday's school board meeting.

Noticing her Republican opponent Tim Stultz, an IT business analyst, in attendance, Cash exclaimed to the room, "Oh look who's finally at a board meeting. Now if we can just get him into a school."

Cash is known to hover at Campbell High School where her children attend and where she is described by some as "a bull in a china shop."

Stultz, of Mableton, and his wife, Jodi Stultz, a special education teacher at Lost Mountain Middle School, have two children, an infant and a 3-year-old. BRENT BROWN, chairman of the Marietta Museum of History, can't understand why the Marietta City Council isn't showing more support for its museum.

On July 14, the council voted to slash funding the museum receives from the hotel-motel tax from the $179,751 it received for fiscal year 2010 to $128,579 for fiscal year 2011.

"Make no mistake the cut is huge and will hurt, if not cripple the city's museum and its future," Brown said.

Council members Annette Lewis and Jim King, who led the charge in targeting the museum's funding, "don't really understand tourism and what we bring to the city, especially the Square. With us taking over the Aviation Museum we have the potential of bringing large amounts of tourism dollars to Marietta, yet they seem to be incapable of understanding this fact," Brown said.

The museum has already cut one position and with this latest round of cuts it will likely have to cut more staff positions, "which could mean less tours, less hours of operations, less tourism dollars. We have asked repeatedly for the entire city council to come see what they have and listen to our mission, yet only a few care to."

In fact, King went so far as to suggest the museum sell off one of its historical flags to bring in dollars.

"That was one of the most single disappointing comments in this whole process. It showed such a lack of respect for history. And to be so flippant about it!" Brown lamented.

To be fair, Mayor Steve Tumlin, and Council members Philip Goldstein, Grif Chalfant and Johnny Sinclair have been sympathetic to the museum. But they have been outvoted, Brown said.

"The fact remains that the city owns this museum and should support it and that means finding budget money from other city funds, not simply just this hotel-rental car tax," Brown said.

It was not lost on museum supporters that Councilman Van Pearlberg, who sits on the museum's board, failed to rise to the museum's defense while King and Lewis were targeting it.

Brown said he thought Pearlberg was a friend, and he was initially excited to have him join the museum's board.

"His being on the council I hoped would help. His love of history is incredible," Brown said, yet, "This simply has not been to our advantage or success."

"The raw truth is (Pearlberg) has missed all the most recent board meeting and planning sessions and since we only meet every other month as a board, it doesn't take too long to get out of touch," Brown said.

So does Brown want Pearlberg off the board?

"I think any member of the board that fails to attend the majority of meeting needs to step aside," Brown said.

For years the museum has occupied the second and third floors of the antebellum Kennesaw House without a lease from the Downtown Marietta Development Authority, which owns the building. MMH officials have attempted to lease the first floor of Kennesaw House from the DMDA, ever since developer Wes Godwin terminated a lease he had on it in January 2009. Since then, the first floor has remained vacant.

In May the DMDA proposed a triple net lease for the entire building. Brown, CEO of Chesley Brown Companies, Inc., a 1,000-employee security firm based in Smyrna, said he's asked his company's law firm, Brock Clay, to review the lease pro bono, and expects to turn it over to the DMDA with a counter offer in a week or so.

But now that the council has slashed the museum's funding, he's not sure the museum can afford to rent the entire Kennesaw House after all, or undertake the costs of developing the ground floor, he said.

"The city council has just made it incredibly difficult for us to accomplish that because you're adding the cost of the lease with the huge hit they're expecting us to take and the numbers don't work," Brown said.