The bike tour is part of the mayor's attempt to tidy up the image of Burruss and adjacent Wildwood parks, which have been known for years as pickup places for gay men seeking anonymous sex. With a vote coming Nov. 3 on a $25 million parks bond referendum, and with its prospects very much in doubt, Dunaway and City Hall have mounted a high-profile effort to persuade voters that the two parks are safe places for families.
Perhaps in hope of generating some advance publicity for the bike ride, the mayor has been indulging in some "smack" - i.e., trash talk - in the last few days, like a cut-rate Don King.
First, Dunaway challenged Olens to donate $100 to a charity of the mayor's choice if he can't keep up with him, and vice versa. On Wednesday, Dunaway announced Roswell Mayor Jere Wood will join the fun.
"He will be wearing Spandex - unfortunately," Dunaway said.
AT hears Wood will give Olens a lift to the park since he has a bike rack on his vehicle and Olens does not. Dunaway's e-mail also took a stab at Smyrna's mayor, though it's not clear why.
"I would invite Max Bacon, but I don't think he ever graduated from a tricycle," Dunaway wrote.
Friday morning, it was Olens' turn to trash-talk.
"Bill: We're close to buying 2 mules for Hyde Farm," Olens e-mailed. "Would you like to borrow them at Burruss until we open Hyde? Sorry they can't ride a bike, even with training wheels."
Dunaway replied with another dig at Bacon and one at former east Cobb Commissioner Joe Lee Thompson.
"Thanks for the offer," wrote Dunaway. "I would suggest you name one 'Max' and the other 'Joe Lee.' Then see if they can pull together."
Sam, on the smack-back: "You should be nicer to Joe."
AT thinks this is getting way off track, er, off trail. All seven city council members are expected to show on Sunday, and at least two other county commissioners (Bob Ott and Woody Thompson).
COBB SCHOOL BOARD Chairman Dr. John Abraham admitted he made a mistake by calling for a mysterious five minute break in the middle of an Aug. 12 debate over changing the grade in which the system administers the nationally normed Iowa Test of Basic Skills from eighth grade to seventh.
Recall that board members David Morgan and Alison Bartlett were outraged that Superintendent Fred Sanderson had sneakily slipped into the board’s strategic plan the change in which the Iowa test is given this year, changing it from eighth grade — the grade in which it has been given for more than a decade — to seventh grade. (Shifting the Iowa test by one grade delays any comparisons with other systems by a year or two because it does away with the district’s baseline.)
During that Aug. 12 meeting, Morgan called for a vote to change it back to eighth grade, but before a vote could occur, Abraham called for a five minute break, prompting the board members to vanish behind closed doors, except for Morgan and Bartlett. Abraham tells AT that it was not a “potty break,” but that he wanted to speak with Associate Superintendent Dr. Steve Constantino about the Iowa change. Abraham insists that he just spoke to Constantino and not to any of the other board members backstage.
Abraham took issue with the MDJ over its editorial on the subject this week, contending that we were wrong when we said he and the others had “huddled” with Constantino in a secret meeting. However, Abraham did say in light of the new transparency measures the board adopted at that very meeting, he should have held the conversation with Constantino in public, given that Constantino sits just feet from the board’s dais with a microphone in front of him.
Meantime, Abraham continues to accuse Morgan and Bartlett of failing to read all 33 pages of the June version of the strategic plan, saying they would have learned of Sanderson’s change had they bothered to do their homework.
SEVERAL READERS who commented on the MDJ’s Around Town blogsite this week said they were astounded to read in Tuesday’s AT that now-departed Marty Littleton, the Marietta Redevelopment Corp.’s real estate hunter, lives in Alpharetta and not Marietta. Well, they might do back flips after learning that MRC Executive Director Reggie Taylor lives in Paulding County, not Marietta — the city he was hired to help revitalize.
Taylor’s residency in Paulding was confirmed for AT by City Manager Bill Bruton.
Taylor, an official with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, was hired by Bruton in February 2008 at a base salary of $85,000 in addition to a $250-a-month car allowance to head Marietta’s rejuvenation effort and was given a rare two-year contract to help turn around Marietta’s fortunes.
Marietta taxpayers paid $5,000 of Taylor’s moving expenses to bring him from Rockford, Ill., that state’s second-largest city, to Paulding. You might say his decision to plunk down in Paulding rather than Marietta, or at least Cobb, was not exactly a vote of confidence in the city’s future and was a funny way to say thank you to local taxpayers who rescued him and his family from the bitter Midwestern winters.
City Hall old timers recall how former Councilwoman Betty Hunter, whenever she was involved in the hiring process, was insistent that department heads reside in Marietta.
“Betty was a bear,” said one.
MEANTIME, ACCUSATIONS ARE IN THE AIR at City Hall stemming from last Saturday’s AT report that Littleton’s real estate license had expired. In Tuesday e-mails to the MDJ, both Bruton and Taylor stated that the first time they learned of Littleton’s expired real estate license was the Friday afternoon of Aug. 14, the same day AT dialed Littleton to ask about it.
Yet Littleton said Friday he informed Taylor and the MRC panel that interviewed him in March that he had an inactive license.
“Reggie knew from the beginning,” Littleton contends.
Councilman Grif Chalfant, who serves as the liaison to the MRC, believes Littleton correct.
“I think Reggie is mistaken,” Chalfant said.
Chalfant said as soon as he learned of Littleton’s inactive license a few months ago he told Taylor to make sure Littleton activated it. While that never happened, Taylor did indeed know about Littleton’s expired license, Chalfant said.
But two top city officials who were at the job interview (Chalfant was not) say Taylor is correct — that Littleton did not mention his license had lapsed. The two are City Attorney Doug Haynie and purchasing manager Nancy Cheshire, both of whom confirmed to Bruton on Friday that Littleton did not mention his lapsed license during the interview, Bruton e-mailed AT.
“(Haynie) told me that if Marty had mentioned that he did not have a license, the interview would have immediately been stopped because the license was a requirement in the RFP,” Bruton wrote.
Taylor was also at the interview. A fourth city official who took part in the interview, MRC member/secretary Mark Gibbs, could not be reached Friday for comment.
CLARIFICATION: Tuesday’s AT reported that the 16-space DMDA parking lot between Krystal and the CSX tracks was to be converted for parking for visitors to the city’s Gone With the Wind Museum just across the tracks. But Mayor Dunaway tells AT that the spaces in question will be reserved for employee parking for workers at the GWTW museum, the Marietta Museum of History and the Marietta Welcome Center. Those workers have been parking in the DMDA’s other lot between the tracks and the North Loop.
The spaces in the lot behind Krystal had been used by the first-floor tenant of the Kennesaw House, but since that tenant, A.G. Edwards, left late last year, many people have been parking in that lot for free, according to Dunaway. The Marietta History Museum, which occupies the top two floors of the Kennesaw House, is hopeful of moving into the first floor as well.
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