From ClarkHoward.com:

Different schools work better for different kids - August 17, 2004

Charter schools are independent public schools, and for the most part they perform very well. The schools use non-traditional teaching methods. And the thinking is that kids who come from mediocre schools could potentially thrive in charter schools. But apparently the U.S. Department of Education kept statistics hidden about how these schools are doing, according to the New York Times. The statistics showed that kids in public schools tested better on average than those in charter schools. The testing sample was fourth graders from students in the two different schools. That’s not to say that all charter schools don’t work. Clark talked recently about a charter school in Washington D.C., where 100 percent of the students were going to college. Clark likes charter schools because they’re innovative and because schools will simply go away they don’t do well. We need continual monitoring of all schools to find what works and what doesn’t work. We spend so much money on school taxes every year that we owe to ourselves and our kids to have an honest discussion about it.

What is your opinion about charter schools? Charter schools in our area?

Thanks to www.clarkhoward.com for the article exerpt.

POSTED: 3:54 pm EST February 25, 2006

MARIETTA — Cobb County police on Saturday asked the public to be on the lookout for a red pickup truck involved in a deadly hit-and-run.

David Alexander Overduijn, 21, of Marietta, was killed when he was struck by the truck while walking on Bells Ferry Road at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday.

Witnesses told police the truck sped away heading south, ran a red light turning left onto Cobb Parkway, and disappeared.

Police said the truck was a late 90s or early 2000 model Nissan Frontier.

It will be missing its antenna and an outside mirror and have damage to the grill and headlight on the passenger side.

Dunaway touched on several of the city’s redevelopment projects, which will raise the tax base in parts of Marietta from $22 million to $335 million in an area dominated by low-income, WWII-era housing.

“This tax base increase will be one hell of a return on our TAD investment,” Dunaway said, referring to a special tax allocation district. “We have forecasted an over 10 percent increase in our tax base in the next six to eight years.”

Thanks to Brendan Sager from the AJC for this article

It looks like Marietta Lawyer Hap Smith is recalling stories of eventful things in Whitlock Heights these days. Everything from Horse Stories to back yard football is happening in Whitlock Heights… [read the full article]

There was a paddock behind J.F.Shaw’s home where daughter Linda learned to ride and won awards at shows at Larry Bell Park and other places, he said.

Up the street on Hickory Drive, Virginia and Steve Tumlin Sr. kept “Dusty,” a horse given to their daughter Harriett. One day, son Steve “Thunder” Tumlin Jr. and a neighbor, young Wyman Pilcher, slipped Dusty out of his stable for a lark and rode him down Bouldercrest to Charlie Laubaucher’s home. When Norma Laubaucher answered, Smith said Thunder rode the horse straight in the front door.

On Walnut Drive, popular Marietta Square clothing storeowner Lilo Leiter raised her sons, and today her grandson lives in her remodeled home. Around the corner, her son, Frank Leiter, and wife Liza are building a magnificent home on developer Banks DuPre’s now-drained lake next to the Marietta City Club golf course.

It seemed that DuPre’s front yard was an eventful place. In addition to Jack Wilson’s automobile crash, it was also the site of another wreck by teenager and now CPA Mike Colquitt, son of late Dr. Al Colquitt, who overturned his car, in which buddy Larry Wills was a passenger. Both teens hustled home on foot. The DuPre front yard Sunday afternoon became a football field, Smith recalled. Scripto exec Dick Morawetz organized a touch football game with fathers and sons that became a regular weekly event with players that included George Dozier and sons George Jr. and Robert Dozier.

Ok, so I am for re-development and growth as much as the next guy, but I just have to ask myself….does anyone even consider the traffic implications of this? Tonight it took me just over 45 minutes to go from Stilesboro and Barrett to the Avenues at West Cobb….enter a new huge work/live/play complex and what do you get?

Well…that should be an easy answer. In my opinion, the Cobb County infrastructure isn’t ready for this as cool and fun as it sounds. I know it will in the end get approved so I am not complaining at all because like I said, I am all for growth and development/redevelopment. We just have to be considerate to traffic…something that on a macroscopic level is lacking big time in West Cobb and Paulding. Just like in Field of Dreams. “If you build it, they will come”

By Kimberly Starks

Marietta Daily Journal Staff Writer

MARIETTA - A developer who plans to build a mix of restaurants, retail and residential housing on a 112-acre farm in west Cobb will ask Cobb County Commissioners today to reverse an unfavorable recommendation.

The Goodman Co. has revised its site plan to build 400 houses, including 156 senior cottages and condominiums, on Bullard Farm near Dallas Highway. The new plan also reduces 299,500 square feet of retail development on nearly 42 acres to 262,000 square feet.

The Cobb Board of Planning Commissioners unanimously rejected the company’s rezoning application Feb. 7. Since the planning commission is a recommendation board, Cobb commissioners will vote whether to approve the latest site plan during today’s 9 a.m. rezoning hearing.

The meeting will be held in the Cobb government boardroom at 100 Cherokee St. in Marietta.

View the full article here >>

This application allows you to locate a desired parcel within the city boundaries of Marietta. Search for a parcel by the owners name, address or Tax Identification number.

About three years ago, my wife and I started looking for property in the Marietta area. The thing that took the most time for us was the fact that we had to drive all over the city to see things. This process was indeed one of the greatest parts about looking for property in the Marietta area - the local scenery and charm of the city.

As we looked around, I found myself trying to keep track of all the properties we looked at that day in a three-ring binder. At the time, we didn’t take digital pictures of the homes and I was at a loss to keep track of what the property looked like and exactly where it was located.

After doing some basic searching, I stumbled across one of those quiet, unknown tools that has saved me hours of time over the past three years when I am researching properties in the Marietta area. Enter the City of Marietta’s Parcel Query Mapping Application.

This tool is hands down the best thing since sliced bread. Every Marietta realtor needs to have this application bookmarked in their favorite browser (FireFox). If you are doing any property research this tool will provide invaluable information. Quick access to Cobb Tax records, Property/Plat info, easy search for Cobb Courthouse docs related to the property. You name it, this Parcel Mapping Application will give it to you.

Every realtor should check it out today!

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Source: AJC.com
Marietta files countersuit against landowner

By BRENDEN SAGER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/17/06
The city of Marietta filed a counter claim Friday against one if its own officials who first sued over a property dispute.

Bill Hagemann, a Marietta Housing Authority board member, sued the city in October over rezoning for an 18-acre redevelopment at the Wynhaven apartment complex near to the Marietta Conference Center on Powder Springs Street.

Hagemann owns several acres of land next to the proposed project, which Hagemann claims would be adversely affected by the Wynhaven development, his lawsuit said. Hagemann’s suit challenges a rezoning in September that allows for dense residential construction at the Wynhaven apartments.

Original plans from developer Pacific Group called for 375 condominiums with a market value of $80 million. Plans have been scaled back to attached single-family townhomes, city officials said, but Hagemann’s lawsuit has put the entire development on hold.

“The existence of the lawsuit is a temporary impediment to construction and development of the project,” said Pacific Group Attorney Garvis Sams. “We continue to hope for a negotiated settlement.”

The city’s counter suit, filed Friday, makes several claims including that Hagemann’s lawsuit is costing city taxpayers additional money. Wynhaven is located within the city’s tax allocation district, an area where certain developments can qualify for city bond funds to incentivize urban renewal.

The city’s suit says: “Hagemann’s lawsuit will or may be an impediment to the … bond financing,” potentially raising the city’s cost of capital. The counter suit further claims that the blighted Wynhaven property, and the additional police services its residents demand, cost taxpayers an additional $900,000 annually in city services.

Peter Olson, Hagemann’s lawyer, said the city’s claims are meritless.

“By taking this action we lose city tax dollars — I never heard of such a claim,” Olson said. “I’ve never heard of case where you’d sue someone for tax revenue lost. It’s all some attempt to intimidate Bill into not exercising his rights as a property owner.”

This site is dedicated to things in Marietta, if it happens we want to know about it. If you have any suggestions for the site, please let us know! Since this is my first post, I will go ahead and tell you about my favorite place on the square - just where Whitlock Avenue starts. What better thing can there be than a killer calzone and a company salad. Check out the Marietta Pizza Company for some of the best eats on the Marietta Square!

Just a buildup to gridlock

Published on: 02/09/06 : Source: AJC.com

Dallas Highway is a straight shot west heading away from Marietta Square, taking dead aim at the Paulding County line. It follows the same path through historic old homes and stately oak trees as two-laned Whitlock Avenue in Marietta; it opens up briefly to four lanes around the new high school and then shrinks again to two lanes through a sliver of the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

But beyond that point, Dallas Highway is open for business — four big lanes with narrow, grassy medians tracking through “Big Box” power centers, housing the likes of Home Depot, Lowe’s, Target, Pike Family Nursery, Publix and Kroger. The road deposits and collects traffic in and out of The Avenue West Cobb, one of those old-is-new-again outdoor shopping malls.

Read the full story on the AJC.com