Holiday weekend news you can use

Don't forget that the Cobb County government is closed today for the first of five budget-balancing furlough days and Monday for Memorial Day.

If you aren’t heading to the beach, lake or mountains for the holiday weekend, you might want to swing by on Saturday for the summer opening of the Tolleson Pool. Located at 3590 King Springs Road, the pool opens at 11 a.m. Saturday and will be open seven days a week through Aug. 14.

Pool admission is $3 for kids 16 and under and $5 for adults. Individual season passes are $50 for residents and $75 for non-resident. A family pass is $100 for residents and $130 for non-residents. For more information, see here.

If you are skipping out of town for the extended holiday weekend, you might want to get home by Tuesday afternoon so you can attend the Cobb County Board of Education's public forum on the fiscal 2012 budget at the Central Office on Glover Street in Marietta. The forum will start around 6:30 p.m. after a salary hearing at 6. And if you think from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and from the Georgia School Boards Association have taught the school board all it needs to know about openness, check out this report from the Marietta Daily Journal.

It recaps a bizarre moment from the May 19 meeting when the board separated two names from the personnel report and held a different vote on them. The board and its attorney, Clem Doyle, went through a lot of verbal gymnastics to avoid identifying the two, new principals Joshua Morreale of and Susan Galante of . It was an amazing example of trying to maintain secrecy while making a decision that legally had to be done in public.

The MDJ also has a nice story on Vinings resident Robert Rice, who will be awarded the Legion of Honor Medal by the French government today in a private ceremony at the High Museum of Art. It is France’s highest military accolade and is being given to Rice for his efforts as a World War II U.S. Army staff sergeant in helping free six French cities from German occupation.

- East Cobb Patch Editor Wendy Parker contributed to this story.