Cobb commissioners to tour proposed park land

By Mary Lou Pickel

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Cobb County commissioners will begin touring two dozen properties this week to decide which might become public parks.

The commission will consider 29 parcels for purchase as part of the county's $40 million parks bond issue. They will have to narrow the list in the weeks ahead, as the current list of parcels totals about $60 million.

Many of the properties are in northeast Cobb and several larger properties are located on the northern and western borders of the county.

"We have a variety of properties, some large and some small, some high and some on flat land," said Bob Ash, director of Cobb County's Public Services Agency.

A parks bond citizen advisory committee spent the summer looking at about 244 properties to determine which land would best suit the county.

The citizens group has proposed buying about 300 acres in the Lost Mountain area off Dallas Highway in west Cobb, near Paulding County. It also recommended about 150 acres near Sweat Mountain in north Cobb, near Wigley Road and Township Trace on the Cherokee County border.

Long-time Cobb parks advocate Paul Paulson nominated one of the parcels near Lost Mountain.

"When you look from the top there, if you look out to the west you can see the mountains in Alabama; and then to the east you see an incredible view of Atlanta and Midtown and Buckhead," he said. "You can see everywhere from up there."

One of the smaller properties nominated is 2.7 acres owned by Linda Dodd Lay, the daughter of former Georgia Tech coach Bobby Dodd and ex-wife of former Cobb County Commissioner Joe Lee Thompson. Her land near downtown Vinings had been listed at $1.7 million and has a home, carriage house, creek and a waterfall. It was the site of the old Four Roses whiskey distillery founded in the late 1880s, Lay said.