Chairwoman Lisa Cupid leads her latest Dog and Pony show

Cupid fights with fellow Commissioners and calls South Cobb area ‘shady’

The Commissioners of Cobb County sat through a protracted and lengthy Dog and Pony debate before they approved South Cobb’s Wallace Park as the site for a soccer “mini pitch” over the heated objections of county Chairwoman Lisa Cupid.

Cupid spent the better part of the meeting exchanging verbal blows over the soccer park location with District 4 Commissioner Monique Sheffield. Cupid was pitching Riverside EpiCenter, in the Six Flags area, as the location for where “she” wanted the park to go. Sheffield wanted Wallace Park and led the conversation as to why that location was better for the people in the area.

Cupid was not willing to accept any pushback on what she wanted and was pretty upset that what she wanted in South Cobb was being denied. Seeing her control waning, Cupid then demanded more public input to be collected before taking a vote. Some say Cupid wanted the extra time to rally her small community contingency group that does her bidding, but time was not on her side this go around.

The small-scale project’s location led to verbal jousting by Cupid. Her usual bad temperament made an appearance as she yelled at both Sheffield and Commissioner Kelli Gambrell. The two dared to ask staff about a meeting Cupid referenced about the park. Cupid “supposedly” held a community meeting to obtain their input years ago when she was commissioner, but strangely enough, she did not want anyone checking her work.  

Cupid’s demands regarding where she wanted the park and request for more time to go back to the community were ignored as the remaining commissioners agreed with District 4 Sheffield, who represents the area, and wanted the location to be Wallace Park.

Cupid, who represented the area before she ran and won the chairman’s race, has never shown this much interest in South Cobb, so many were perplexed by her sudden interest in where the park landed. Others say Cupid continues to act like she controls District 4 and gets to determine what happens in the South Cobb community. 

At some point during the Cupid and Sheffield verbal jousting, Cupid turned the conversation to which part of South Cobb was more dangerous than the other, describing the Wallace Park area as “shady.” Cupid said she’s taken her sons to basketball lessons at Wallace Park and felt the need to keep her “head on a swivel.” “It’s not the safest to put this deep in the park. There’s been a shooting out there at least on one occasion.”

Sheffield and Cobb parks staff disagreed with Cupid and felt Wallace Park was a better area because the park is already an established location where children already play.

Families who live around the area of Wallace Park were offended to learn about Cupid’s description of their community. Others say Cupid should know better, but when she wants something, Cupid doesn’t mind shelling out some insults to get her way. 

In our research for this article, we found out that Cupid was not as enamored with the Six Flags area as she now pretends to be. In a May 2014 article with an on-line site called MOXIE, Cupid had some rather unpleasant things to say about the Six Flags area too.

In Cupid’s own words, here is an excerpt from the article:

“…little did she (Cupid) know, her subdivision was right next to one of the highest crime-ridden areas in the county. …Day after day she did what most of us do: she complained and she struggled. Commissioner Cupid did not allow gunshots she heard near her home or the crime rate alone to scare her into leaving the town. Lisa wanted to represent the concerned citizens who lived in the Six Flags area and surrounding South Cobb areas.”

As reflected in the excerpt, Cupid lived in the Six flags area of South Cobb before she moved last year to a prestigious and “safe” location in Vinings. Many families in these areas that have been ignored and left to deal with the violence wish they had the same luxury of moving as Cupid did once she was elected to Chair.  

Interestingly, some from the community say the locations being debated, Wallace Park and EpiCenter, are just minutes from each other, so location should not be a major issue. Calling the areas shady is a major issue and people do not like it. 

They say, if you are currently the Chairwoman, who was also the district commissioner for this area for a number of years, what have you done to change the environment from ‘shady’ to one that you would allow your children to play in? South Cobb deserves a soccer park and South Cobb deserves safe communities in all areas. Most importantly, South Cobb deserves leadership who will do something about it.

Here is a suggestion Chair Cupid – use the next work session to debate how to make it safer for the citizens living in the shady areas of South Cobb instead of calling our communities negative names.