Cobb School District transportation chief Rick Grisham responded to a Dec. 17 piece by MDJ columnist Laura Armstrong that raised concerns about the treatment of bus drivers by management and the condition buses are being kept in.
WATCHFUL wrote: I saw a letter sent from Michelle Luckett the executive assistant to the superintendent of cobb county schools to (MDJ columnist) Ms. Laura Armstrong demanding retractions to some of Mrs. Armstrong's statements in her column. One of which being the statement about Mr. Grisham getting bonuses and pay raises. Ms Luckett states Mr Grisham never recieved bonuses and actually took a $4,880 pay cut, but when you go to the state auditor Russell Hintons web site, the salary shown does show an $8,200 raise for 2009 from what he made in 2008, these figures by law are shown and up to date supposedly. So who is misrepresenting the truth? Ms. Armstrong, Ms. Luckett, Mr. Grisham, or the state auditors department? Come on Cobb County, alot of falsehoods coming out! Whats next????
The City of Marietta will not be leasing any parking spaces in the new deck the county is building just off Marietta Square.
Dissing Ability wrote: What on earth makes you think visitors to the Square do not use the current parking deck? Do you monitor it? Do you watch where people go after they park?
The first two floors are designated "public parking" - Cobb County employees are forbidden to park in those spaces and those spots don't exactly sit empty. Visitors are most certainly using them. As a Cobb County employee who began work in Cobb in 2004, I waited 15 months for an assigned parking space in that deck and during much of that time I was forbidden to pay $3 as a "visitor" to park there. Why? Because the spaces had to remain available for visitors to Marietta Square. With the 2-hour visitor parking unavailble to me as well, I parked at the Public Library on Roswell Road and did quite a daily hike to my office building. Visitors to the Square park illegally on a daily basis, using handicap spaces, courier parking spaces and unpatrolled juror parking lots. Cobb County employees (with the exception of a few rogue workers who refuse to follow rules) park where they're told, and pay out of their bi-weekly paychecks to do so. Also, where exactly would you propose the County put in "off-street" parking lots for Cobb County government buildings? Do you see a lot of real estate available for that purpose? I don't. Kudos to Cobb County for doing what the City of Marietta can not or will not do in providing additional parking for employees and visitors alike.
The City Council has killed a proposal to lease its seven-acre Aviation Sports Complex to a private baseball group for the next 20 years without ever bringing the matter to a vote.
I want that deal wrote: Marietta would be crazy to let a field go for 20 years. Pumping 800K over 20 years is nothing when a private owned business would reap all the benefits, not Marietta. That is like the city giving me an old restaurant for 20 years and promising to put 800K into it over the next 20 years then giving it back. But I make all the money and keep all the money.
Silent Majority wrote: Wow! What a wasted opportunity to help out Marietta HS baseball. And they blew it. This could of helped out as a major feeder program for the high school for years to come seeing that Perry Parham has been defunct for years. They can't even keep a consistent head coach let alone try to build a feeder program to help them. What a sad state of affairs for Marietta baseball especially when you had a private entity willing to do what it had to take to invest 800k over the next 20 years to build something great.
Good luck Marietta wrote: Let's see? Have a private organization pump $800,000 in to a dilapidated, at best, facility that hardly ever gets used, or have it sit there even longer doing nothing! What a short-sited knee-jerk reation to a perfectly good plan to improve an area that is a complete eye sore. Not to mention, the group of baseball minds that would be running the facility are the best around. It looks like this was a poor decision for "Thunder" to make a statement in his first few days in office. Good luck Marietta!
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Get your facts straight. According to CCSD's website, Mr. Grisham took a pay cut to become the Transportation Director halfway through a school year. Prior to that, he'd been a high school administrator. AND, the Open Georgia data reflects FISCAL year info, not calendar year.
Frankly, the TRUTH didn't fit your template, so you simply propagated falsehoods based on lazy research. Thank goodness YOU aren't in charge of our schools' buses!!!