The council voted 4-3 Wednesday, with members Annette Lewis, the Rev. Anthony Coleman, and Philip Goldstein opposed, to place the item on the Nov. 3 ballot.
Pearlberg, an assistant Cobb district attorney, told AT on Monday that while he supports allowing voters to decide whether to pass the bond or not, personally he plans to vote "no" on Nov. 3 because of his concern that the bond money would be spent in the Franklin Road corridor, an area he says is beset by crime. The bond does not earmark how much will be spent on each city park.
Pearlberg, whose Ward 4 only has one park (Lewis Park), pointed out that Coleman, whose Ward 5 has 10 parks, is also opposed to the bond. Coleman says a recession is not the time for a tax increase, an argument Goldstein has employed as well.
Meantime, Councilman Grif Chalfant, who voted last week in favor of putting the measure on the ballot, said he would not reveal whether he was going to vote in favor of it at the polls or not. That leaves only Jim King and Holly Walquist as full-fledged bond supporters, and Walquist may well be unseated in the November election, as former councilman Johnny Sinclair is running hard against her.
Such lukewarm council support does not bode well for the bond, politicos say. The rule of thumb for passage of self-taxing referendums like general obligation bonds and SPLOSTs is that the election take place during good economic times and be strongly supported by all members of whatever government board has proposed it. But none of the above applies in this case.
Mayor Bill Dunaway is a strong supporter of the bond - so strong that some are questioning his tactics. He lashed out publicly at Goldstein at Wednesday's council meeting, declaring that Goldstein was not revealing the "real" reason he opposes the bond. That reason, Dunaway continued, was that Goldstein and his family "undoubtedly" own more taxable property in the city than anyone else and therefore don't want a tax increase.
Goldstein replied that it was a shame Dunaway had to resort to character attacks when the facts didn't support him. It was just the latest installment of the Dunaway-Goldstein clashes that have salted both of Dunaway's terms as mayor.
Dunaway also implied at that meeting that the Marietta Kiwanis Club has endorsed the bond, and later sent out copies of a letter from the club's Business and Public Affairs Committee Chairman Sam Kelly of Cobb EMC to Councilman King that Dunaway claimed shows the club's support for the bond.
But the Kelly letter does not endorse the bond, and the club has not taken an official position on it. Rather, the letter merely encourages the council to put the parks question on the ballot for voters to decide.
Kelly told the committee at its meeting last month that Dunaway had asked him to bring up the bond with that group.
Goldstein, who is a member of the club but not of the committee in question, correctly pointed out at Wednesday's council meeting that the club's letter endorsing the holding of a referendum was not the same thing as an endorsement of its passage.
It's not clear whether Dunaway intentionally misrepresented the club's position or just failed to read the letter closely.
IN RELATED NEWS, all seven council members say they will attend Sunday's bicycle ride in Burruss Nature Park. In an effort to promote the parks bond, Dunaway challenged Cobb Chairman Sam Olens to the bike ride during Wednesday's council meeting. Olens has to donate $100 to a charity of Dunaway's choice if the chairman can't keep up with the mayor, and vice versa. The city has recently cleared much of the underbrush at Burruss, which has been a popular spot for gay public sex for decades. The trails were already marked, but the city has smoothed down the dirt to make the three trails more suitable for family bike riders.
Chalfant pledged to wear "full length" spandex while Pearlberg went a step further, saying he'd wear a Speedo. For the sake of the Journal's cameraman and bystanders, we hope they were joking.
Walquist and King also plan to take part, while Goldstein, Lewis and Coleman said they'd make an appearance, but didn't commit to actually riding.
IF THE DOWNTOWN MARIETTA DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY is serious about trying to find a tenant for the first floor of the old Kennesaw House, it picked a funny way of showing it at its meeting on Thursday. The first floor has been empty since former tenant A.G. Edwards moved out at the end of last year, and the DMDA board has been slow to act on repeated overtures from the Marietta Museum of History, which occupies the two upper floors of the Kennesaw House and wants to take over the ground floor as well to boost its visibility and enlarge its exhibit space. It put off any decision about the latest lease offer from the MMH again on Thursday pending “further study.”
But another move by the DMDA almost guaranteed, perhaps inadvertently, that the first floor would be unusable by anyone other than the museum, a DMDA board member told AT off the record. That’s because the board stripped the first floor of the parking spaces that had previously come with the space.
The board agreed (although it took no vote) that the 16-space lot between the Krystal restaurant and the CSX Railroad tracks, which formerly were reserved for the first-floor tenant, would henceforth be reserved for visitors to the city’s Gone With The Wind Museum (a favorite of City Hall and City Manager Bill Bruton), which is just across the tracks next to the Kennesaw House. Until now, roughly the same number of spaces along Powder Springs Street has been reserved for GWTW patrons in the DMDA’s parking lot on the north side of Krystal. The DMDA’s decision did not reserve any spaces in the lots for the first floor Kennesaw House tenant.
“Good luck ever leasing that space to anybody without any parking,” the DMDA member said. “Nobody’s going to touch that now with a 10 foot pole.”
IT WAS the Rev. Dr. Nelson Price, pastor emeritus of Roswell Street Baptist Church, who found two athletes from Cornerstone College in Grand Rapids, Mich., who had gotten lost in the Montana desert.
E-mailed Price to AT: “I rode all over that high desert on a Kawasaki ‘mule’ and found them one at a time. That ride was exhilarating. Up close the high desert is beautiful. The ranch foreman had set a time he would wait before calling in the Mountain Rescue team. I found them 30 minutes before it came. It would have been very easy for me to have gotten lost. The Big Hole Valley where we were is about 5,800-feet. Mount McCartney on the ranch is the tallest free standing mountain in North America at 8,700 feet. I was looking for them in the area next to the base of the mountain.”
THE NEXT BROWN BAG BANTER at the Marietta Museum of History at 11:30 a.m. Thursday will feature Museum Curator Amy Reed sharing stories and remembrances through photos recently acquired during the “Vanishing Cobb” photo drive. Learn about photo preservation and about the historical significance that can be gained from everyday candid shots. Admission is free to members and $5 for non-members. For details, visit www.MariettaHistory.org.
PEOPLE: Marietta Councilman the Rev. Coleman will host a town hall meeting for Ward 5 residents Tuesday from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at City Hall. … Former Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker will speak at the Cobb Chamber’s First Monday Breakfast on Oct. 5. ... Classic rocker Peter Frampton will hit the stage of Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre Wednesday. For more information, or to purchase tickets, call 1-(800)-745-3000, visit the Jennie T. Anderson Theatre box office in the Cobb Civic Center, visit mablehouse.org or all TicketMaster locations. ... Friday’s Mable House concert by legendary Athens band The B-52s was a sellout. Among the attendees were Cobb Commissioners Bob Ott and Helen Goreham, Marietta lawyer Matt Flournoy and wife Joanne, and Marietta landscape architect Will Goodman and his wife, Michelle.
PASADENA TOURNAMENT OF ROSES President-elect Rick Jackson and his wife, Sharon, will visit the Walton Marching Raider Band at 8 p.m. Friday at the band’s annual dress rehearsal as one of 21 marching bands chosen to make the five-mile journey down Pasadena’s Colorado Boulevard on New Year’s Day in the 121st annual Rose Bowl Parade.
Directed by Mike Back, the band will march into Raider Valley in new uniforms at this season’s premier full dress rehearsal. Upon arrival the 213 member band, led by drum majors Katie Halligan, Gil Golan, Andrew Taylor and Akanksha Sharma, will perform the season’s marching program, “Mind Over Matter.” Welcoming Jackson will be Olens, Cobb School Superintendent Fred Sanderson, assistant superintendent Alice Stouder, supervisor of instructional music Gary Markham, school board member Dr. John Crooks, Walton Principal Judy McNeill, Walton Band Director Mike Back and assistant director Jeff Pollock
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