THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2026 · Issue No. 59 · 8 min read
How long should Milton keep your plate data? 52 of you answered.
Plus the city's rule on answering back from the dais, two cameras you found, Roswell backing down, and a new section: The Blotter.
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In this issue Your plate data. Milton keeps it a year. 52 of you voted on how long it should, and most said a month or less. Atlanta writes camera rules Monday. Two cameras you found are on the map. Council Watch. The city’s rule when a councilmember answers a resident from the dais: there isn’t one. Plus Milton’s budget vote Monday. Roswell. Its 56% tax increase is down to about 19% after residents packed the room. Vote Sept. 28. The Blotter. A new weekly section on Milton’s police and fire calls starts Tuesday. Three from Wednesday show how it works. And. Crabapple Fest gets its first stage (and a one-tap question: what are you going for?), a Cambridge student runs a national organization, the last four days of Restaurant Week, Cambridge softball’s seven straight, fall break next week, Oktoberfest at Six Bridges and Shakerag at Matilda’s. |
Top of Mind
the one thing to know this morning
Milton keeps your plate data for a year. Most of you would keep it a month or less. Sunday’s issue reported the city’s setting, up from 30 days. Tuesday we asked what it should be.
Here is what 52 readers said.
| How long should Milton keep license plate camera data? | ||||
| 30 days | 16 (31%) | |||
| Don’t collect it | 15 (29%) | |||
| One year (the city’s setting) | 10 (19%) | |||
| 7 days | 8 (15%) | |||
| 30 months | 3 (6%) | |||
| 52 readers, one tap each, Tuesday to Wednesday. Not a scientific poll. The gold bar is the city’s current setting. | ||||
Sixty percent of the readers who voted want a month or less. Nineteen percent back the current year.
Atlanta writes rules. Mayor Andre Dickens will bring citywide standards for license plate cameras to the Atlanta City Council on Monday, after an audit of more than 100,000 police searches flagged 79 for review.
Milton has 36 cameras and no published standards.
Two cameras you found. After Sunday’s map, a reader told us about a camera at the Lake Haven entrance on Freemanville Road, and on Wednesday another reader pointed us to one on Bethany Bend at the side entrance to the CVS at Highway 9. Neither was on anyone’s map. Both are on ours now, marked as reader finds. See the map. Know another? Reply to this email.
Council Watch
what the city decided, and what it is about to
Answering back from the dais. On Sept. 10 we asked the city what happens when a councilmember answers a resident from the dais. The city manager’s answer, which reached us Wednesday: nothing. The rules give a speaker one turn and no reply, in the meeting or in its record.
He also noted that two questions Sunday’s issue said the city “walked around” had only been sent that Saturday morning; fair enough, they were pending. The city says it will answer the rest of our questions this week.
Roswell blinked. The 56% tax increase we reported Sunday is down to about 19%. After 34 residents spoke against it Monday, every one of them, the Council voted 4 to 2 to advance 5.9 mills instead of 7.732.
The mayor says that isn’t enough for the city’s capital needs; residents pointed at $46 million in reserves; the city says most of that is spoken for. Hearing Monday, final vote Sept. 28. Appen Media has the details.
Milton’s Monday. The Council’s regular meeting is Monday, Sept. 21, at 6 p.m.: the vote to adopt the FY27 budget, and the first presentation of the 2026 millage rate, which staff recommends holding at 4.193. The vote on the rate is Oct. 5. The agenda wasn’t posted as of Wednesday evening; it usually appears by Friday at miltonga.gov. Public comment comes near the top of the meeting. After the last two weeks, you may want to get there early for a seat.
The Blotter
police and fire calls worth knowing, Tuesdays
New in The Roundabout. Milton has never had a police blotter you could read over coffee. Starting Tuesday, it does. Once a week we’ll bring you the police and fire calls worth knowing about, drawn from dispatch traffic and checked before they print.
A dispatch call is a report, not a finding, and we’ll write it that way. Streets, not house numbers. No names.
Three from Wednesday, to show how it reads:
- →Crabapple Road, 6:26 p.m. A customer at Peace Love and Pizza, angry that his order had taken more than an hour, threatened the staff, left, and kept it up by phone. Police were called. Our publisher was in line for a pizza and saw it.
- →Rucker Road, Alpharetta, 5:54 p.m. Police were sent to a home for a reported attempted break-in, with glass broken. The caller described a bearded man with a backpack.
- →Providence Road, 2:53 p.m. Police were called to The Union after a woman of about 80 was found outside, lost, in a flowered blouse.
Something on your street we should look into? Reply to this email. How The Blotter works.
Crabapple Fest Gets a Stage
Crabapple Fest gets a real stage this year, its first. The city is putting it at the southeast end of Crabapple Road, near the Heritage Walk roundabout, for Saturday, Oct. 3.
Three acts: The Hits Squad from 10 to noon, Pick-up Line from 12:30 to 2:30, Audio Vault from 3 to 5.
The KidZone behind the Green grows to three carnival rides, two obstacle courses and a toddler playland. Two food-truck hubs. More than 100 vendors along the road from 10 to 5.
Park at Milton Community Church, Crabapple Crossing Elementary, Northwestern Middle or Milton High and take the free shuttle. Crabapple Road closes around 10 a.m. Friday, Oct. 2, until late Saturday.
Our Crabapple Fest guide has the map, the parking, the shuttle stops and every Best of Milton winner on the route. Bookmark it now; we’ll update it as the city adds details.
Reader poll · One tap What are you going to Crabapple Fest for? Saturday, Oct. 3, 10 to 5, downtown Crabapple. More than 100 vendors, a stage for the first time, a bigger KidZone and two food-truck hubs.
Tap once and you’ll see how everyone else voted. Results Sunday. |
Bragging Rights
Noor Khan of Cambridge High School is the national president of SkillsUSA for 2026-27, one of four Georgia students holding national office in a career and technical student organization this year, according to the state Department of Education.
SkillsUSA is the trades and technical skills organization with more than 400,000 student members nationwide. A Milton kid runs it this year.
Restaurant Week, the Last Four Days
Milton Restaurant Week runs through Sunday, with fourteen restaurants and set menus from $25 to $75.
Our guide lines up each set menu against the regular menu so you can see where the value is. If you’ve been meaning to go, this is the weekend.
The Scoreboard
every game, both schools, the night it finishes
Softball. Cambridge won 15-0 at Centennial Tuesday, its seventh straight, and sits first in the region at 8-0 (15-2 overall), ranked 25th in Georgia. Blessed Trinity visits Thursday at 5.
Milton lost 8-2 at Riverwood and is 8-10, 3-2 in region; the Eagles play at Lanier Thursday at 6:15.
Volleyball. Milton dropped a region match to Alpharetta at home Tuesday, 3-0, and is 20-10. Cambridge swept Chapel Hill and South Cobb, 2-0 each, and hosts Northview at 5 and Sprayberry at 7 on Thursday.
Football. Milton is off this week. Cambridge opens region play at Centennial Friday at 7:30. Milton quarterback Derrick Baker, the Tennessee commit, got the 247Sports treatment this week. Every schedule and score →
The Agenda
public meetings this week and next
Fulton County Schools are on fall break all next week, Monday, Sept. 21 through Friday, Sept. 25.
The Milton library has a fall-break lineup: a Fallout tabletop game Monday at 1:30, cardboard castles Tuesday at 3:30, and an art class Wednesday at 11.
- →Mon, Sep 21 · 6:00 PM: City Council Regular Meeting, budget adoption and the first presentation of the 2026 millage rate (the vote is Oct. 5)
Further out. The hazardous waste drop-off is Saturday, Sept. 26, 8 a.m. to noon at Cambridge High, free with registration.
Crabapple Fest is Saturday, Oct. 3; our guide has the stages, the shuttles and the road closures. The deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 3 election is Oct. 5.
This Week in Milton
the calendar, day by day
Heat first: highs of 93 Thursday and 95 Friday with heat indexes near 100, then storms possible Saturday and Sunday afternoons. An air quality alert was in effect Wednesday.
Thursday, September 17
- →10:30 AM · Stories for Shorties · Milton Branch Library (free)
- →11:00 AM · Community Crochet Circle · Milton Branch Library (free)
Friday, September 18
- →10:00 AM · Rug Hookers and other Fabric Artist Meet Up · Milton Branch Library (free)
- →4:30 PM · Oktoberfest at Six Bridges · Six Bridges Crabapple (free)
Saturday, September 19
- →10:00 AM · Learn How To Play Mah Jong · Milton Branch Library (free)
- →10:00 AM · Composting with Fulton County Public Works · Milton Branch Library (free)
- →2:00 PM · Milton Astronomy Club · Milton Branch Library (free)
- →6:00 PM · Live Music with John Cox at Six Bridges · Six Bridges Crabapple (free)
- →8:00 PM · Shakerag at Matilda's · Matilda's Music Under the Pines
Sunday, September 20
- →Milton Restaurant Week, final day · Participating restaurants across Milton
See the full Milton calendar → · Got an event? Submit it
Also going on in Milton: AR Workshop Adult/Teen Classes, AR Workshop Youth Classes, Adult Pétanque and Adult Soccer (free). Plus 27 more on the activities page.
