About 80 people representing local businesses on Monday rallied their support behind the Braves move to a new stadium in Cobb County.
The press conference, held at the foot of the stadium site, was held one week in advance of a Cobb County commission meeting, at which the county’s political leadership is expected to approve several draft agreements with the team and hire a construction manager to oversee the $622 million stadium project.
John Loud, president of Loud Security Systems and founder of the Cobb Home of the Braves, said his group has placed six billboards around town in support of the commissioners vote next week. The billboards read: “Braves A Home Run for Cobb County.”
“You want to know the support, we’re on a mound of dirt where construction has begun, and we’ve got 80 to 100 people here,” Loud said. “This is not a small gathering of people saying we’ve got all these problems. We all think the Braves are a home run for Cobb County.”
That comment was a swipe at a group called Cobb Citizens for Transparency in Government, which has held several press conferences to criticize the county’s investment in the new stadium and the county commissioner’s handling of it.
Don Keller, president of Bluesky Exhibits, a Marietta business with a production facility in Atlanta, said he’d be interested in moving his company closer to the Braves site.
“We are lucky, and I think we need to start showing some positive support about how lucky we are,” Keller said.
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