Q&A: Cobb Chairwoman Lisa Cupid on the 30-year Transit Tax

On Nov. 5, 2024, Cobb County will vote on approving a 30-year, 1% sales tax to fund public transit projects. Cobb’s sales tax would increase from 6% to 7%.

The Mobility Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (M-SPLOST) would collect $11 billion to construct 108 miles of rapid bus routes, half a dozen new transit centers and a countywide system of on-demand “microtransit” service.

Learn more at mdjonline.com/transit .

The transit tax has been spearheaded by Cobb Chairwoman Lisa Cupid and her fellow Democrats on the Board of Commissioners.

The MDJ sat down with Cupid for a Q&A on the transit tax. Topics covered include the tax’s purpose, length and goals, the projects proposed, ridership and more.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Marietta Daily Journal: Thanks for taking the time. Let’s jump into it. In a nutshell, why should Cobb citizens vote for this M-SPLOST?

Lisa Cupid: OK, well, I can share with you that I’m in a tough position in answering that question, leading on the side of advocacy versus education. But I can share with you that generally, for our SPLOST programs, they provide significant investment in our county that enable us to better serve our citizens. And I believe that if we were to look at transit investment similarly, it’s going to augment transportation services for our citizens beyond what we have today.

We’re fortunate that we’ve had a transit system operate in Cobb County for the past 30 years that has helped to get citizens through the county and throughout the region, but we know that there’s opportunity to make that existing system more efficient, as well as to add additional transit investment that will augment that experience for our citizens.

In addition to doing that, there’s opportunity for us to add additional projects, I think, that will help to improve transportation for everyone. … My phrase is “being all in,” and I look at this as being an M-SPLOST for all. Whether or not you’re taking transit or not, our goal is to provide transportation, is to improve transit options and the transportation experience for everyone here.

Now, I’ll be very specific for the rider. I am adamant about us optimizing transit here for particularly those who are dependent on transit. I was not in Cobb County government in 2011 when we had the budget cuts, but I was in the audience when we made those cuts, and I know the hurt that it has caused many of our citizens to have a service that they’ve depended on, to see it removed.

And so there’s opportunity to reestablish Cobb County as a place where everybody has access to opportunity throughout the county. And when you don’t have access, not just via roads, but through a robust transit system, you’re basically cutting off people’s opportunity to experience the same levels of opportunity and enjoyment of this county that others have, because they have a vehicle. So that’s something that’s very near and dear to me.

Also, back in 2017 there was an assessment of our riders here in the county, and it found that 80% of our riders were utilizing transit to go to work or to go to school. And in a county where we pride ourselves in being a very educated county, and a county where we perceive ourselves as being very business-friendly and economically focused and thriving, it would only make sense to ensure that there is a reliable way for people to have economic and academic advancement in this county. So transit, to me, it’s a definite tie-in to that.

And then again, looking at economic development. Economic development is largely buoyed by travel and tourism here in this county, and also by retail. And a lot of those positions have persons who are not as robustly paid as others, and who are not only having a more difficult time of living near their place of employment, but getting to their place of employment, because of traffic. And we have the opportunity to make work more proximate and accessible to them, and to make employees more accessible to our businesses, so they can have a reliable workforce.

So for me, that’s important. I can continue to go on. So those, again, are for the transit-dependent. And then I’ll go a little bit deeper into looking at demography for what I perceive transit-dependent populations are, which are always perceived to be low-income persons here in the county.

I look at our young people who are looking to get to work. I think of people like my son, who just got his first job, who calls me and my husband during our work day to figure out how he’s going to get to his next day’s work or next day’s training. And we have to be creative in how he gets to work. And sometimes when we can’t take time off of work to get him there, he depends on Uber. By the time that he pays for his Uber rides, he’s barely making any money from that job. And we know that the experience of him working is more valuable than the money that he gets, and transportation costs are a cost that we can eat, as a family. But for those families that depend on those types of service-oriented jobs, they are making very tough decisions about how they’re going to pay to get to work, because they don’t have access to, not only reliable, but affordable ways to get to work.

And you know, we can go from the younger end of the spectrum to the older end of the spectrum, and look at our seniors who are approaching ages where driving is not as easy as it used to be. And where they’re having to make decisions about how they can get to things that they used to freely be able to get to, whether it’s for essential services or for recreation or just to even connect with their friends or relatives. And having a more robust transit system like the one that’s being contemplated in our program, particularly on-demand transit, I think helps to make those opportunities possible, so that they can continue to fully participate in Cobb County.

So those are just a few of the reasons. There are many others that I could list. Reducing congestion by having more people get out of their cars. The example of on-demand transit, you have more people depending on one vehicle, as opposed to everybody having their own vehicle. I also think from an environmental perspective, again, getting people out of their vehicles is something that can help reduce our carbon footprint over time.

And you know, just the practicality of it and the cost of it, Cobb County is expected to grow about 25% to 2050, a population of over a million people. And can you imagine having cars for that growth with our current road system? I just don’t think we’re going to build our way out of making congestion any less of an issue than what it is today. At some point you have to start looking at other options.

With our zoning hearings, I remember there was a day where our zoning hearings used to last all day because we were constantly building. Those days are few and far between, because most of Cobb County is built up already. But yet, people continue to move here and live here. And our young people, they’re aging, they’re driving, and they need a reliable way to get to work.

Then I think there’s a transit-choice rider. So, I lived in the Six Flags area, my husband was an attorney working in Midtown, and he would sometimes choose to take transit, whether or not we had a car that was in the shop, I think that was often the reason why he did it. But I remember having an internship when I was in law school in the Five Points area. It was quicker, less stressful and less costly for me to take transit. I didn’t have to deal with crossing I-285, and I didn’t have to pay to park once I got to work.

So to me, I had a car, and I could have chosen to take it, but taking transit was a more attractive option for me, and I think that there are other reasons why transit could be a more attractive option for some people. It may not be their sole use of getting around the county and the metro region, but it could be something that they choose to do.

MDJ: I think one of the biggest concerns people have is the length. Could you briefly make the case for why 30 years makes sense, and not five or 10?

Cupid: So 30 years ago was … 1994, which perhaps for some people may have seemed like a lifetime ago. For me, it still very much feels like yesterday. And I share with you the example of some of our citizens that were transit-dependent, who were significantly impacted when we decided to shift money away from our transit system. These are people who’ve made life decisions on where they’re going to live and where they are going to work based on the network that they thought would be readily available to them.

Yesterday, even somebody who was in opposition to transit yesterday at our BOC meeting, said “transportation, or transit, is like infrastructure.” It is. We can build a house or move to an apartment and pick a job based on the road network that gets them there. Many people have chosen to live, move, and create their life around a system that they thought would be readily available. So not having that dependency over a reasonable amount of time can create a significant amount of instability for people that utilize transit.

Also, I think when there’s opportunity to leverage federal dollars, if we are not showing that we’re committed to sustaining an asset, it makes us less attractive for investment, when there are other communities that have indicated that commitment. And why put millions and millions of dollars investing in something that you know is only going to be there for a short amount of time?

Again, if we are getting to the point where we recognize transit as infrastructure, you don’t think I’m going to put in million dollars towards a road, and then that road’s not going to be there five or six years from now. People are making life decisions on connecting from point A to point B, and it makes sense to make sure that that’s stable. Not just from an accessibility perspective, but from a funding perspective. And we truly limit ourselves to access dollars that will help sustain our system over time if we are not considering a serious time frame of maintaining that system.

MDJ: The centerpiece of the project list is bus rapid transit, arterial rapid transit, microtransit. Why go with those instead of rail, for instance?

Cupid: That’s a good question. I think a lot of it comes down to dollars, and what you can get with those dollars. So rail could be considered, but the cost of rail would have really limited our options when it came to this SPLOST. And I think one thing that we grappled with initially was, do you want to create a program that provides coverage throughout the entire county, or connection through the region? And if our focus was on connection through the region, then we could have invested money perhaps in looking at rail. But that would have limited all of the other options.

I think there was interest to, again, make sure that we are creating opportunities for people throughout Cobb, not just outside of Cobb to the region. And I think that BRT provides a balance for that, and maybe a runway to a rail investment. Because something else that’s important to consider when you think about the amount of dollars that are invested in the system is, do you have the ridership to sustain it? And if we put in BRT, it will show us whether or not that ridership is there or not before we come and invest the significant amount of monies required for rail. Now if ridership is just through the roof, and it looks as if rail could be sustained, I think then it becomes easier to justify that greater expense and try to attract those dollars once we’ve proven those numbers.

But until then, it makes sense for us to see what works with lesser investment. And it also makes sense to make sure that we are connecting people throughout Cobb. To me, again, I keep harping on the challenges I’ve seen of people who live here who were really impacted in 2011, because those were my constituents when I served here. And I’ve talked to them, I’ve gotten a chance to really become an advocate when I’ve seen just how hampered they were when those systems were taken away. And when I talk to citizens, and even just talk about the opportunities in Cobb — imagine if you’re a high school graduate in south Cobb and you want to go to Kennesaw State. How likely is that for you, without having a reasonable connection, to get there? So we’re not just talking about the impacts of those who are harmed by the system, but we’re also talking about limiting opportunities that people could have right here in our county.

MDJ: You mentioned ridership. CobbLinc has seen that go down quite a bit over the past decade or so. It was going down before the pandemic, and then COVID hit, it really went down a lot and hasn’t recovered. How confident are you that if we build this new system that it will be widely used?

Cupid: So, I can’t necessarily agree with you — I’d have to depend on staff — of the decrease in numbers prior to the pandemic. I know oftentimes people compare 2022 to 2012, and I feel like, how can you compare a time during the pandemic from a time that followed budget cuts in 2011? So I think there’s some nuances around the time frames that (aren’t) being captured.

What I can tell you is that we expanded our transit system when I came on board as a commissioner. We put in on-demand transit. … We added Route 25, I think Route 25 came from south Cobb to the east Cobb area, and that became one of our better performing routes out of other systems, based on need and interest.

And I think if we spend the time to invest in optimizing our system, that the ridership may actually be there. And so it’s difficult for me to say ridership has gone down when I’ve gotten calls and I’ve seen numbers to show that there was interest, even prior to the pandemic, on increasing transit. When we put in on-demand transit in 2014, I started to get calls from Acworth about considerations for putting in on-demand transit there. So again, it’s difficult to say that those things would have generated the interest that they did unless there was a desire for it.

Ridership decreased during the pandemic, but some areas decreased more than others, and I think it’s important to look at optimizing routes and being mindful of those that are transit-dependent. Because a lot of the routes that were better sustained were the areas where you had essential workers, people that couldn’t afford to not go to work, people who may be dependent on those hourly, service-oriented positions. And so I think that it’s important to be mindful of how we’re serving those populations as we move forward.

But again, I just think it’s hard for me to rely on data about ridership going down in the past. And to be honest, I don’t lead in my position looking at the past, I think about the future. I think about the future of Cobb County. Now, the past is a good indication sometimes of where things are for today and where things may be in the short term, but there are also a lot of factors and indicators that show that ridership could increase.

I’ve talked to you about those demographic populations, job centers, young people, not even just those who are transit-dependent like my son, but even young people who are in college and are able to drive, are now choosing other ways of getting around and having their own car. Employers are moving to job centers where there’s transit, and so I think it’s very important.

And that gets back to the 30-year number as well. It’s important not to be shortsighted in what we’re doing, because if we always keep planning for the past, we’ll never be able to keep up and prepare for the future. And every time I get asked, “Why not five or six years?” that’s what I essentially feel like I’m being told to do. But then I’m being told that Cobb County should be a leading county. How do you lead? You lead by thinking about the future.

MDJ: Obviously, the transit-dependent, that’s a chunk of the population. But I would think also, the goal with this new system is to attract riders of choice. The goal is to attract people who might not be using it now, and to make it compete, so that it can be as quick as driving.

Cupid: Good question, I think maybe a leading question. Because I don’t necessarily think the goal is to compete or to attract people who don’t use it. I think when there is a service that’s provided, the service (is) being provided for a reason, because there is interest, or there may be a need.

I don’t necessarily think, and I’ll use again, my personal example, my husband rode transit, that someone was thinking, “I’m going to compete for Craig Cupid’s use of transit over his car.” But it was an option that was available to him so that he can be able to get to his position. Same way when we build trails or we build roads, building another transportation choice. If I build a bike lane, that doesn’t mean I’m trying to compete with the vehicle. It means that I’m giving somebody another mode that they can get from point A to point B.

So, you know, can ridership grow by people choosing to do it? Yes. Is the intent to be competition? I don’t necessarily think so. I think, though, you do want a service that does attract riders, and to me that means having a good, quality, well-connected system. You have to have a system that takes people from where they are to where they want to go. And so in that vein, if it attracts people to use it, I think that’s great. I think there has been consideration of a number of different types of users that could utilize this system once it’s built out.

MDJ: Some of the other critics have said, with inflation and some of the other things going on now, it’s not a good time to add a new tax. Sales taxes are regressive in that people that are low-income, it hurts them the most. So why should that be the financial instrument?

Cupid: When has ever been a good time to raise taxes? I have never heard anyone, in the times of growth or recession of this county say, ‘This is a good time.’ The time to invest is when you are ready to seize the moment on where you’re trying to go. We’ve invested in the Braves stadium at a time when we were not servicing our counties at pre-recession levels. We did it because somebody thought about the future of what that could do for the county, and that was for something that was for a sports amenity. So now we’re talking about something that is akin to infrastructure here in the county. When is there a more sound time to do it? And based on that example, why should that have been given the green light so readily, but yet this be given the lack of support?

Your paper came behind and supported the stadium when it was being proffered, but I have never seen so many negative examples, or negative reports, about why this shouldn’t be supported. But yet the promise was seen in that 30-year investment. Why can’t the promise be seen here on something that has the ability to uplift this county, not only for those who are in need, but those who are our choice opportunities, and those businesses that want to invest here and for our region, that has the ability to move forward by being better connected? I just haven’t seen that, and I’m grappling with that. I really am.

MDJ: In the past, Cobb has had referendums where people rejected transit. How do you plan to court the more skeptical voters?

Cupid: I can say the only time that I know that Cobb has — well, I wasn’t here when MARTA was put — I don’t know if MARTA was ever put on a ballot. I don’t perceive that it was from past conversations. The only time I’m aware of is in 2012. And the region, primarily, rejected transit. I can’t necessarily say for Cobb, and I think there are a multitude of reasons why; that may not necessarily be akin to what’s going on today. And I don’t necessarily think it was so much a rejection of transit. I think for me, being a citizen, and even feeling like I was reading the tea leaves, I think there was just a general disconnect on, what does this mean for me?

I think that there has been a lot of time and effort to educate our citizens about what could be included in a M-SPLOST for this county. And I think that the skepticism may be a little bit different than the skepticism of the prior transit initiative that didn’t move forward.

I think here there’s a broader skepticism towards a lot of things, transit being one of them. And I can’t even necessarily say transit in itself is where people are skeptics. Because in 2018, I didn’t have the number of people that are coming up to the county and speaking against transit then as they are now. In 2018, Cobb County was part of the M-SPLOST bill that moved forward. Nobody said Cobb County shouldn’t be there, in fact, we brought the leaders of that bill to Cobb County, and we honored them for it. So we honored them here. We honored them for putting that forward. But we dishonor the application of it, here in our county. It’s very odd to me. If there was such great skepticism, why didn’t it start there to say, “This should never have been done for Cobb County.” But that didn’t happen until it had legs in this administration, not even when the past administration was contemplating it. That’s frustrating to me, and it makes me think that there’s a skepticism that far exceeds transit on its face, that there are other complicating factors to this.

And again, I think some of it gets back to what you said. There’s never an appetite for a new tax. Whether it’s investing in stormwater infrastructure, whether it’s investing in this. And that was a fee, not necessarily a tax. But it’s hard to say that taxes are something that Cobb County just gets behind or rallies behind, unless they see the value of it. And one area that I think that they’ve seen the value of it is in our traditional SPLOST program and in our educational SPLOST. Perhaps over time, they’ve seen the development that comes from that. So perhaps because this is new, that could be one of the complicating factors. There has never been a M-SPLOST, we usually have it (for) six years, it’s different. And I can understand that. For things to be different and for things to change, I think there’s sometimes just a natural human response to that that doesn’t necessarily support it. But again, it’s hard for me to really view the skepticism that is being shared about this M-SPLOST program similar to the 2012 rejection of that transit investment.

MDJ: You mentioned previous SPLOSTS, and the past several have been approved. Those have also had the support of the mayors, the Cobb Chamber, some of those groups. Do you feel like they are supportive of this M-SPLOST? Or do you feel like it’s a harder sell to get the business community or the Cobb mayors on board?

Cupid: I’ve been here for two SPLOST programs, so I’m just trying to put that in perspective. I do believe that there is support in the business community for the SPLOST program. I think we’ve seen that through the investment of our CIDs in the educational element. And that is comprised of businesses. And I can’t perceive that they would invest in it if they didn’t believe that this was worth educating our citizens about. So you said the business community and what else?

MDJ: The mayors, or the cities.

Cupid: This is a little bit, again, this is different, and I think there’s some complicating factors to that. With our regular SPLOST program we typically have … proportioned the receipts of the SPLOST program to their city populations. With this SPLOST program, I think the proportion is different, it’s for a subset of the dollars that are with the transit-plus projects, like the road improvements, the sidewalks. And so that element of it may be a little less energizing, because that proportion is different.

And we also are dealing with, frankly, House Bill 489 discussions at the same time, which I think are providing a complicating element to it. And then, I’ll go back, we were trying to put this forward in 2022 … and there was an interest for them to support a five-year transit SPLOST. And there were concerns that this would be a competing program with the general SPLOST that’s there. And that concern is still out there today. So again, it’s hard for me to compare this to past SPLOSTs. It’s just, this is a new program that’s being put forward, and those other SPLOST initiatives were different in how the cities were receiving the return for me to compare their support for that with their support for this.

MDJ: If the M-SPLOST passes, will there still be a general fund contribution to the transit budget?

Cupid: I hope not. There shouldn’t be.

Drew Raessler, Cobb DOT: That’s what we’ve planned.

MDJ: We were at an event where someone asked Drew, if you don’t spend money from the general fund on transit, will you roll back the millage rate to make up for that? Is that in the cards at all?

Cupid: That’s a good discussion to have. Right now our goal is to ensure that we’re ready for this referendum on Nov. 5, but I think there’s opportunity to think about what success looks like, and the opportunities that come with this crossing the finish line.

MDJ: Will existing general purpose lanes be removed to use as bus-only lanes?

Cupid: I’ll defer to DOT to respond.

Raessler: That’s not been what we’ve proposed. We’ve proposed for it to be new lanes, and that where new lanes could not be accommodated, that it would be in an existing lane. But a lot of those project-specific details are to be determined in the specific planning and engineering stages.

MDJ: Gotcha. So when you say that if they could not be accommodated, they just use the existing lanes, would that existing lane just be a lane that the bus drives in or would it be a bus-only lane?

Raessler: What I was referencing there would be shared lanes. The priority would be, for BRT, the vast majority would be in dedicated lines. Again, there may be some physical, environmental constraints that cause that to then be a shared lane, is what we’ve planned and put forward and proffered to the public. The public will have an opportunity to weigh in and be part of that project development as it goes along, should the program be approved?

MDJ: In the project list, you have $1 billion for transit-supportive stuff — pedestrian, bike lanes, trails and whatnot. Some people say there should have been more. Why not?

Cupid: I’ll have to defer to staff.

Raessler: Sure, we did a lot of community outreach, commissioner outreach, public outreach, to determine what the opportunity was. There is a need for the program to all be focused on transit, on the transit system, providing good access to the transit and better operations for the transit system. And in the weighing of opportunities, there’s certainly a lot of competing interests anytime a SPLOST program is put together. And so certainly there are things and opportunities to look at how all that weighs out, and this is how it came out the other side of both the technical and community process.

MDJ: The education campaign that Kimley-Horn is conducting, you guys did allocate money from the general fund for that, from reserves. Has that ever happened before with SPLOST, or has it traditionally just been the CIDs’ contribution?

Cupid: I can’t tell you, I think the way it’s been approached is a bit different this time. Or is this the same construct? I can’t recall that.

Raessler: I can’t say with authority, because I wasn’t in this role.

Cupid: Yeah, and I remember even one year having the CTP (Comprehensive Transit Plan) and us having conversation around having an outside consultant being involved with the public outreach of that, and there was a dollar amount already assigned to it, and I remember them coming back to want to increase it, and there was a controversy around increasing it at the time. But … I just don’t know the histories of the CIDs participating in a SPLOST. But I can share with you my general concern is that we did have a 30-year SPLOST program, and it was worth making sure that people were educated about what was in it. And so I definitely felt as if we should be very intentional about that, and making sure that we had resources dedicated to that, whether internally or externally.

MDJ: At the time, I think you were concerned that the $287,000 might not be enough.

Cupid: Yes.

MDJ: Do you still feel that way? Do you plan to try and spend more on that?

Cupid: It’s hard to know, and it’s hard for me to put in context. … I do know they’re doing some outreach right now, and there’s more to come. Right now I don’t have any concern. I think over time, time will tell. I do know there are a lot of community meetings that are going on, but I do believe we should be reaching people in non-traditional ways to let them know about this M-SPLOST. So yes, we do have town hall meetings, those are traditional and we’re going out to the public. But also meeting people where they are is very important.

MDJ: Transit tends to be built in denser corridors, density tends to follow transit and highways and whatnot. If the M-SPLOST passes, is there any consideration that you might look at your zoning map, your zoning code, and along the BRT lines, try and encourage more density, more development?

Cupid: Please interject if I’m wrong, but I believe even some of the BRT routes have been contemplated where that density may exist, so that those routes could be sustained. And so I don’t necessarily see tweaking existing land use, but I believe there’s land use classification amongst portions of BRT that are conducive to supporting additional density, development. You look at our commercial areas, our regional activity centers, would be areas you would want to consider, areas that I think would be consistent with having more vehicle throughput already today, would be areas to consider. I can’t necessarily say there wouldn’t be zoning changes.

I don’t think we’re looking at BRT to change the character of Cobb. I think we’re looking at BRT to augment the county that we have here today. Which is why different modes are being considered. This is why in west Cobb, or throughout the county, we’re considering on-demand transit, versus putting in new bus routes or BRT in areas that are less densely developed. You can correct me if I’m wrong.

Morgan Simmons, Cobb DOT: I was just going to add that part of the Federal Capital Investment Grant Program, which is the funding that we would be pursuing for BRT, is that look at, how do we adopt some land use changes and adjustments? Because to your point, density helps to make transit services run a lot better. And vice versa. And so part of us being competitive for that funding would be to show that as a county, and with the cities as well, that those particular services would be traversing through, that they are in fact on board with that service, and those types of policies that would be supportive of transit.

MDJ: Will the M-SPLOST projects, if passed, improve congestion, reduce traffic?

Cupid: Now I feel like an attorney with that infamous answer: it depends. I believe getting more people out of their vehicles and utilizing a shared transportation mode helps to reduce congestion. A lot of this is going to depend on the transit riders’ response. But I believe, again, there’s no way that we’re going to be able to build enough roads to get us out of congestion, that there’s got to be different alternatives that are considered to get people throughout the county and throughout the region. I think over time, that is certainly likely. … What we would hope is that congestion wouldn’t be made much worse over time, with transit. It is certainly my hope again (that) people will see this as a viable option. Do you want to add to that?

Simmons: I think that it’s about choice, and giving people a viable choice to get out of their cars. And if you’re able to do that and allow for the option to be able to, I don’t want to say compete, but be able to be just as much efficient as you getting in the car to get to the store, get someplace, and the bus is able to do that, or that mode is able to do the same thing, then that’s the goal, to give people that choice, so that they can lean towards that option.

MDJ: If this passes, do you consider the M-SPLOST to be your biggest legacy as county chair?

Cupid: There are so many initiatives I’m working on. This is certainly one of the most significant undertakings, but I’m hoping that my greatest legacy will be making Cobb County better than what it was when I started. And this is from my first year of service as a commissioner, from when I started back in 2013.

MDJ: Anything else you want to mention?

Cupid: No — I felt I was very passionate when you asked me a question about 30-year SPLOSTs and energy around that. …. The thought about this being a 30-year investment, it’s funny how many articles I did not see when we had our last 30-year investment in the county, and how so many articles and controversies I’m hearing about this 30-year investment. This is not the first time the county has contemplated a 30-year investment.

And again, we are finally looking at implementing House Bill 930. It just is odd to perceive all of the grandeur and all of the praise that came when this was passed, and then to see when you finally look to utilize it, all of the challenges here. … There generally is an appetite to not support any taxes, even if the taxes means it’s a greater digest and your millage is flat. And I think that it makes it difficult for us to view expenditures here in the county as an investment towards services, an investment in the county and the future of our county. And I would love to see us collectively have a different shift in the work that we do collectively, in thinking about how we are investing and making Cobb County as great as it can be for everyone. And so that’s a mindset shift. It’s not just a mindset shift that I think that should take place outside of our walls, I think it’s a mindset shift within our organization. But if there’s any frustration, it’s the fact that, at some point, we’ve got to look forward in how we do things. And this is a great opportunity that we have to do so.

MDJ: That’s a good place to wrap up. I appreciate the time.

Cupid: Thank you, likewise.