TSPLOST Town-Hall Meeting Cancelled

Tuesday night's town-hall meeting organized by State House candidate JoEllen Smith about the proposed TSPLOST has been cancelled. 

Smith told Patch.com she was calling off her event because of a Cobb candidates debate and forum tonight in Marietta. 

That forum, organized by the Cobb NAACP, starts at 7 p.m. at the Cobb government building on 100 Cherokee Street. The NAACP forum also will be shown on TV 23, the Cobb government public access cable outlet. 

Smith's town-hall meeting was scheduled for the Mountain View Community Center and was to have focused on the July 31 one-percent regional transportation sales tax referendum. 

"This debate was scheduled after mine but it is more extensive and I didn't wish to detract from it," said Smith, a Northeast Cobb Republican who is challenging incumbent Don Parsons in the July 31 GOP primary. "I'm quite certain TSPLOST and other tax issues will come up. I encourage all citizens to attend that debate. I will be attending it also."

Another  will come to the  on Wednesday, featuring the four Republican candidates for Cobb Commission Chairman and District 2 commissioner Bob Ott, a Republican who is unopposed. 

That forum, which is open to the public, begins at 7 p.m. It is organized by the East Cobb Civic Association. 

The TSPLOST forum was to have featured Steve Labovitz, a partner at the law firm of McKenna Long & Aldridge, representing the Metro Atlanta Voter Education Network, whose purpose is to educate the public about the TSPLOST referendum.

Spaeking against the sales tax was to have been Ron Sifen, a community advocate on transportation issues the past 17 years. He serves on the Citizens Advisory Committee for the Georgia Department of Transportation's  Revive285 study to alleviate congestion on I-285. He is involved with Cobb County's new transit study.