Cobb County

Deaths from opioids have dropped nationally, but fatal overdoses are a top concern in Georgia. One police department is trying something new: instead of locking them up, officers are steering people who overdose into treatment.

On this edition of Political Rewind, competing visions for creating a better future for Americans are being showcased in Atlanta this weekend.

On Monday of last week, Andy Miller shared breaking news discovered by Georgia Health News and WebMD. Their investigation revealed that two facilities, one in Smyrna and one in Covington, have been releasing high levels of ethylene oxide, a gas that causes cancer. These facilities have been releasing airborne toxins in Cobb County for decades.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s administration is investigating after a Georgia Health News and WebMD report alleged airborne toxins are in Cobb County. Local officials and the company are also responding. Get an update from GPB’s Ross Terrell.

An Alabama company wants to mine for heavy minerals in southeast Georgia about four miles from the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. The proposal from Twin Pines Minerals promises 150 to 200 jobs, but it’s also raised serious environmental concerns. On Second Thought hears about the issue.

“Shut it down!”

These words echoed through the auditorium at Campbell Middle School in Cobb County, where more than 200 concerned residents crammed in for a meeting Tuesday night with Sterigenics and elected officials.

Fatal drug overdoses in Cobb County dropped year over year according to new data, but  officials aren’t comfortable calling the drop a trend. 

According to the Cobb County Medical Examiner’s annual report, 2018 drug deaths dropped by nearly a quarter from 2017. Opioid related fatalities dropped by more than half. But overdose deaths were almost twice as common as deaths from car crashes.

Seventy years ago, Cobb County was a bustling place of commerce, but what it needed was music.

The county had only one 4-lane highway and six — that's right six — schools, but none of them taught music education.

That's where Ken Stanton Sr. changed everything.  

Cobb Commissioners approved changes to CobbLinc Tuesday. It’s the county’s public transit system.

It just keeps happening. Oversize vehicles continue to crash into the 7-foot warning beam installed to protect the Concord Covered Bridge in Cobb County.

SunTrust Park opened in the Spring of 2017. It doesn’t yet have two full seasons of Atlanta Braves baseball, but the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday released a fiscal impact study of the stadium and surrounding areas.

With American politics more polarized than ever, most Americans have at least one thing in common going into midterms: they tend to stay home on Election Day. In fact, as NPR political reporter Asma Khalid has found, midterm elections have not drawn a majority of voters to the polls since the early 1900s. She set out to find out why.

• Cobb County Could Close Parks, Libraries
• Augusta Commissioners Pass Smoking Ban In Public Spaces
• DeKalb County Mega-Church Pastor Resigns
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Georgia ranks near the top nationally for having the most human trafficking cases.

Data compiled by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center shows that this year alone, Georgia has the seventh highest rate of cases. Most involve sex trafficking.

Legislation is working its way through Congress to give prosecutors and sex trafficking victims a way to take legal action against websites, like Backpage.com, that welcome ads for prostitutes. However, some companies worry this measure could hurt the tech industry.

On this edition of Political Rewind, as qualifying continues for the 2018 Georgia elections, the 6th District Congressional Race draws a surprise Democratic candidate.  The race may now become a referendum on gun control.  At the State Capitol, time is running out for Cobb County leaders to decide whether they want to join a highly-touted regional transit funding plan.  Plus, the ACLU accuses a Georgia sheriff’s office of hosting a conference featuring a known anti-Muslim, a poll that shows one GOP candidate for governor gaining support, and why House Speaker Paul Ryan is coming to Atlanta.

Cobb County is the last metro county in Georgia with a white majority. But it’s expected to become "majority minority"—more than 50 percent non-white residents—in the next four years. Politically, the reliably Republican county is shifting to largely Democratic, and may flip in the upcoming 6th Congressional District election. We talk about the changing electorate in Cobb with Andra Gillespie, Political Science Professor at Emory University.

One of the biggest questions metro Atlantans have had about the opening of SunTrust Park is traffic.

The new 42,000 seat stadium sits at the intersection of two major interstates – I-285 and I-75.

But local officials say they’re prepared.

When the Atlanta Braves announced their move to the suburbs in 2013, some skeptics foresaw an exodus of residents fleeing game day traffic and crowds.

Four years later, Cobb County home sales are outpacing other metro counties.  

Atlanta is currently constructing two new stadiums, Mercedes-Benz Stadium in downtown Atlanta and SunTrust Field in Cobb County. Although the allure of a shiny new building is exciting for some, others are growing tired of the sacrifices Atlanta is making to create these billion dollar projects.

GPB's own Don Smith adds another installment to our "Gripe Bag" series and vents his frustration about Atlanta's fascination with athletic structures. 

The Atlanta Braves are currently in the basement of MLB standings with only 15 wins this season. The team is banking on their move to SunTrust Park in Cobb County next year to galvanize the fan base. But rising costs to the construction project, along with several money saving cuts to traffic-reducing infrastructure, may only increase the congestion that Cobb County is already notorious for.

We talk with Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Dan Klepal and blogger Angie Scmitt of Streetsblog USA about the mounting problems surrounding the controversial stadium project.