Councilman Jones brought his kid. Which was convenient, as the Woodland Park Guy brought gifts that were custom made coloring books and crayons detailing their struggle with the city. The younger Jones did have some pretty cool shades.
The only proper business this meeting was the road closures for the Taste of Kennesaw. The Taste of Kennesaw is set for November 7th, and so the core of the city including Main Street, Watts to Little General Cloggers, J O Stephenson to Little General Cloggers, and the railroad crossing at Cherokee are all closed from that Friday to about midnight on Saturday.
The Chief of Police didn't do the Crime Stats as he was acting interim associate assistant city manager. But, generally speaking for the first nine months of 2026 crime is running hotter than 2025 did. 1,064 crimes to 993. But traffic citations were down and arrests were up, which is nice.
History Kid went up to speak, talking about someone who is buried in the cemetery for spooky month. This time is Joanna Roberts, whose father moved the family from the Carolinas to be the first Governor of the Nebraska Territory. He didn't last very long, catching a bad case of death shortly after taking up the post. So, Joanna didn't stick around. At some point she moved to Kennesaw, and married here. She died on the family farm in 1914, which coincidentally became Kennesaw State University half a century later. You can go see her grave on the Life at the Cemetery tours that there still are (a few) tickets left for.
One of the local grandmothers wanted to remind everyone to vote, but also she is concerned about all these E-bikes. They go much too fast and she almost hit a little boy a couple months back. Furthermore, she heard that last Monday a kid actually got hit at 41 and Jiles. There has to be something that the city can do to keep stuff like that from happening.
The Woodland Park guy brought gifts and a sharp tongue. He said that he asked the head of parks and the former city manager about things many times and didn't get any straight answers. They said it wasn't in the budget and it wasn't possible to get things installed, but now the signs that were supposed to be at the park were installed just this past week. So was it in the budget? Did they lie about it being budgeted? Or was work done without it being in the budget with that money coming from somewhere? That seems incompetent to him. Also, he is pretty sure that the neighbors who are against the revitalization of the park dumped a bunch of trash in the creek is just signed up to clean up through the "Adopt a Creek" program, and that's gross and spiteful. He was also confused as to why it cost him $750 to get the mayor's hand-written notes from previous meetings and $150 for an E-Mail saying communications were unavailable due to "attorney-client privilege". Why is communication so expensive?
Mr. Mayo wanted to thank the council for the installation of the signs for the park. It was a step in the right direction, but he can't help but feel that the rules are being applied selectively and inconsistently. Communication feel like pull of teeth and nothing happens for a long time and then everything happens without so much as a heads up. He blames the mayor for the problems communicating and the slow rolling of everything.
The Chief of Police wearing the had of the temporary interim assistant junior City Manager had a turn. He appreciated the multi-disciplinary work done to make Pigs and Peaches and success. There seems to be many fewer complaints about organization this year, and there were no incidents to speak of.
This one was a short one. A very short meeting. So short that some college students turned up to complain about a pothole as the meeting ended. Unfortunate. What as more unfortunate was that the pothole they were complaining about was in unincorporated cobb to boot. I pointed them to the county's SeeClickFix and hope that is a good enough start.
