Birrell Town Hall Follows Tax News

1. The weather is simply summer today: sunny with a high of about 92 and little or no wind and an overnight low around 67, according to the National Weather Service. The bad news is that we have a Code Orange air-quality alert for the first time this week.

2. County Fire Chief Sam Heaton and Police Chief John Houser will join county Commissioner JoAnn Birrell for a from 6:30 to 8 tonight at the . Transportation and also will be topics. Northeast Cobb Patch editor Julia Harris will be there to provide coverage.

3. We jumped the gun a bit on a couple of regular weekly features on Northeast Cobb Patch, so if you’re eagerly awaiting Bites Nearby and House Hunt, wait no more. Bites Nearby this week visits the Cuban Diner, while House Hunt offers six homes in the area. 

4. You still have reasons to return to Northeast Cobb Patch today, including a rundown of Fourth of July events in and around Northeast Cobb and a report on a new member of the football staff.

5. Cobb County shouldn’t have to dip into fund reserves to balance the current budget after all, Board of Commissioners Chairman Tim Lee told the Marietta Daily Journal on Wednesday after the Board of Tax Assessors finalized the tax digest for the year. The MDJ reports that the total value of real and personal taxable property came in at $29.71 billion, down 5.47 percent from 2010. That’s an improvement from the Tax Assessor Phil Hogsted predicted in April and the county used when balancing a revised budget, which itself was better than the early projections of a 9 percent to 10 percent decline that had the county administration and the Cobb County School District preparing for fiscal doomsday. The digest dropped about 7 percent last year.