Comprehensive plan hit with additional delay

Updating Forsyth County’s 20-year comprehensive plan is now on hold. County commissioners voted to delay transmitting their five-year update to a state agency for review until after an April 13 public hearing.

The decision came after speakers during a public comment period took issue with how alterations in two single-family residential categories as well as a master planned district category were being handled. Commissioner Cindy Jones Mills also raised concern about whether input to the plan was sufficiently broad-based, contending that a homeowners coalition which met recently seemed to have more influence than comments submitted from elsewhere. Commissioner Laura Semanson countered by saying that input came from a much broader sampling.

The 5-year update called Foster Forsyth takes the plan out to the year 2037 and carves the county up into 11 “character areas” with a number of development nodes contained within each. The longrange document was originally supposed to be handed off in late 2016 but commissioners halted the process so that incoming commissioners Semanson and Rick Swope could weigh in.

Surplus fire gear will go to Pickens County

Hoses, nozzles, hand tools and other equipment declared surplus by Cherokee County Fire & Emergency Services will be transferred to a volunteer fire department in Pickens County.

The Cherokee Board of Commissioners recently approved the equipment transfer to the Bethany-Salem Fire Department in Jasper. Bethany-Salem is one of Cherokee’s mutual aid partners, providing assistance as needed to the northern end of the county.

The deal includes 135 lengths of hose ranging from 1.5 to 5 inches in diameter and 25 to 100 feet in length, 15 nozzles, two deck guns, six axes, two pike poles and two ladders, among other gear.

SwiftReach accepting signups for alerts

The SwiftReach Swift911 notification system has been implemented by the Cobb Department of Public Safety to distribute alerts.

SwiftReach is a high-speed emergency notification system that alerts residents to emergency situations, including severe weather, missing and endangered persons or significant road closures due to fatality accidents or other unplanned incidents in the local area.

The program has the capability of delivering prerecorded messages to the entire county via landline telephone, cell phone, email and text messaging.

The system uses a publicly available list of phone numbers that can be removed or updated by residents and businesses.

To opt-in and provide contact information for this service:

A sign-up portal that is available on the Police, Fire, EMA and Public Safety pages at CobbCounty.org.

Get the Swift911 Mobile App by texting the word “Swift911” to “99538.” The response text will be a link for the Swift 911 app in the app store.

Information: Department of Public Safety page at CobbCounty. org and click on the SwiftReach icon.

Powder Springs Town Hall meeting: Preliminary Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Overview. 7 p.m. Tuesday. Ford Center, 4181 Atlanta St., Powder Springs behind the library. CityOfPowderSprings.org.

“Citizen Response to Active Shooter Events” by the Marietta Police Department. 6:30-8 p.m. March 15. Free. Council Chambers, Marietta City Hall, 205 Lawrence St., Marietta.

Receive instruction about how to prepare for and respond to being trapped inside a building during an active-shooter event. Learn several simple steps to assist law enforcement response and limit the number of potential victims accessible to the shooter.

Participant discretion is advised since this presentation includes some videos and audio recordings from actual events that, even while edited, may be difficult for some people to watch or hear.

Register: mpdcrase.eventbrite. com.