Community News

ATLANTA

Cabdrivers protest airport conditions

More than 100 cabdrivers marched outside Atlanta City Hall Tuesday afternoon to protest police conduct and to address complaints about conditions at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

The cabdrivers want the city to set aside more parking spaces for them at the airport. The drivers say the lack of spaces forces them to park in the arrival aisles and they often get parking tickets from Atlanta police.

Atlanta Taxi Industry Association President Luke Azubuike said the group wants the city to extend the limit on the time a driver can use a vehicle from eight to 10 years because it is more expensive to buy a new vehicle, particularly in the current economy.

Azubuike said city officials, particularly at the airport, have ignored their concerns.

“The airport has not been able to entertain any of [our proposals],” he said.

Airport spokeswoman Katena Carvajales said in a statement that officials meet monthly with the association and work to resolve their concerns.

—- Eric Stirgus

Morehouse College police chief indicted

Morehouse College police Chief Vernon Worthy has been indicted by a Lamar County grand jury on charges that he held a deer hunter captive, saying he believed the man was trespassing.

Worthy was indicted on charges of aggravated assault, false imprisonment and pointing a gun at another person, said Lamar County Superior Court Deputy Clerk Lesley Kilchriss.

He was not arrested in the incident last November, but his accuser, Nathaniel Rooks, filed an application for a criminal warrant.

At the time, Worthy’s attorney maintained that the incident was a misunderstanding. Worthy was ordered by a Lamar County magistrate judge not to have any contact with Rooks or his family as a condition of his bond.

—- Associated Press

COBB COUNTY

Airport wants to gain international flights

Cobb County’s airport hopes to lure international flights by offering customs services.

Karl Von Hagel, manager of McCollum Field, said Tuesday that the airport could attract an additional 75 takeoffs and landings a year to and from Canada, the Caribbean and beyond.

Now, international passengers must first fly to Hartsfield-Jackson, DeKalb-Peachtree or Fulton County before landing at McCollum. The airport’s charter and corporate customers could save $168,000 annually in takeoff and landing fees by avoiding the neighboring airports, Von Hagel said.

He sent a letter last month to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security requesting federal approval for an as-needed customs inspector. Flight operators would pay the customs fee. Cobb County would pay nothing.

—- Dan Chapman

Whooping cough hits 4 elementary schools

Four Cobb County elementary schools reported 18 cases of whooping cough last month.

The number was larger than the few cases typically reported during cold and flu season, said Joy Wells with Cobb and Douglas Public Health Department.

Coughing students were tested, and those with the infectious cough were treated with antibiotics before they could return to school.

Cobb schools spokesman Jay Dillon said Mountain View Elementary had one case and the rest were concentrated at Garrison Mill, Timber Ridge and Rocky Mount schools. All of the schools are in east Cobb County.

Although the percussis vaccine is required in Cobb, Dillon said there are several reasons why a child isn’t vaccinated, including religion and a student being from another country.

Dillon said the Health Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the schools involved to improve prevention and early diagnosis.

Parents also were notified.

—- Tucker McQueen

Workshop to offer help for unemployed

The Cobb United for Change Coalition will have a free workshop Saturday to help the unemployed find jobs or create their own. Rich Pellegrino, the organizer, also will share recession survival tips.

The workshop will be between 2 and 5 p.m. at the South Cobb Library at 805 Clay Road in Mableton.

For more information: 404-573-1199 or pilgrim1@mindspring.com.

—- Dan Chapman

DEKALB COUNTY

Dunwoody, county sued over billboards

A business has filed a civil lawsuit against Dunwoody, claiming that it should be allowed to erect nine billboards in the city, according to Superior Court records.

Covenant Media of Georgia is also suing DeKalb County, noting that the county could have granted its request for billboards before the city took over those operations on Jan. 1. The county returned the late-December request, saying the application was incomplete.

Dunwoody intends to respond to the suit in the next month, in part by noting that it never received an application from the firm, said city attorney Brian Anderson.

The suit seeks to force the city to consider an application, though in the past, city officials have said approval for large billboards would be unlikely under local ordinances.

—- April Hunt

School zoning to be topic of meetings

Decatur city officials have scheduled two community meetings for later this month to talk about plans to ease overcrowding by reconfiguring school attendance zones.

The meeting dates are next Tuesday and March 25. Both meetings start at 6:30 p.m. and are billed as dual “informational and listening” sessions.

The reconfiguration plans have caused a stir among parents since early indications that officials might move all fourth- and fifth-graders to the city’s lone middle school.

Fourth- and fifth-graders now attend classes in the standalone Glennwood Academy campus. If the plan proceeds, Glennwood would house only kindergarten through third grade.

The move would help the system weather an expected increase in students, particularly in elementary grades.

According to system officials, the number of students in kindergarten through eighth grade is expected to grow during the next four years from 1,897 to 2,388.

—- Kristina Torres

Emory among state’s 3 U.S. grant recipients

The National Endowment for the Humanities has granted $14,500 to fund three Georgia projects this summer. The grants, announced Monday, are part of $20 million the agency awarded to nearly 200 institutions across the country.

The Georgia grants are:

> Emory University, $6,000. The money will help fund “Strom Thurmond’s America.”

> The University of Georgia, $6,000. This is a summer stipend for the project “Race and Children’s Literature of the Gilded Age.”

> Augusta State University, $2,500. The money will help fund “Pride and Passion: The African American Baseball Experience —- A Traveling Exhibition to Libraries.”

—- Mark Davis

FULTON COUNTY

No foul play suspected in body found at river

Authorities believe no foul play was involved in the death of a man whose decomposed body was discovered Monday on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, an investigator with the Fulton County medical examiner’s office said Tuesday.

Johns Creek police Chief Ed Densmore said a fisherman found the body about 20 feet from the river’s edge and about 500 yards from Abbotts Bridge Road.

“It had been there several, several weeks,” the chief said.

—- Christian Boone

Roswell set to begin road extension

Roswell will begin a significant road extension designed to alleviate traffic in the city’s historic Canton Street district.

The extension of Mimosa Boulevard will allow a parallel route to Canton Street and provide additional parking and sidewalk improvements.

The road will be extended north from Magnolia to Webb streets.

A groundbreaking is scheduled for Monday. The $459,000 project, awarded to ACE Grading, is expected to be completed by September.

—- Mary MacDonald

Roswell pushes for bottle cap recycling

The lowly bottle cap is having its star turn.

The Roswell Recycling Center will accept all colors and forms of plastic bottle caps through May. As long as the cap is not bendable, it’s generally acceptable.

Bendable tops —- such as yogurt or margarine lids —- will be excluded, as will pharmaceutical caps.

Accepted will be all forms of rigid, polypropylene plastic —- otherwise known as shampoo, water, soda, ketchup, laundry detergent and peanut butter tops. They can be either screw-on or flip-top.

The recycling center is at 11570 Maxwell Road, Alpharetta.

—- Mary MacDonald

Also …

> Old photos needed: Heritage Sandy Springs is compiling a database of local history, and is seeking historic and relatively modern photographs. To share your pre-1980 photos, donate them to Heritage Sandy Springs or bring them by the offices and allow the staff to scan them.

GWINNETT COUNTY

Senator introduces Snellville legislation

State Sen. Don Balfour (R-Snellville) has introduced legislation to change the makeup of the deadlock-prone Snellville City Council by limiting the mayor’s voting power.

If approved by both chambers, the change to the city’s charter would take effect Jan. 1, after a November election in which three council seats are up for grabs.

“There will not be any more ties,” Balfour said Tuesday.

The Senate could vote on the matter as early as Thursday, with a House vote sometime next week, Balfour said.

The move comes without consent from the often divided six-member council, whose increasingly frequent 3-3 ties have frustrated some residents.

After a Feb. 19 town hall meeting, Balfour gave the council two weeks to decide whether to add a council seat, subtract a seat or limit the mayor’s vote to cases of a tie.

Councilman Tod Warner said Tuesday that Balfour gave no formal notice of a two-week deadline, and he vowed to challenge charter change. “As a Snellville citizen, I will do everything in my power to thwart Senator Balfour’s unilateral decision to change the charter —- not as an elected official but as a citizen.”

—- Shane Blatt

Group wants stadium deal investigated

The director of the Ethics in Government Group has filed papers requesting the Gwinnett County grand jury investigate the county’s dealings surrounding the new minor league Atlanta Braves baseball stadium near Lawrenceville.

At a news conference Tuesday in front of the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center in Lawrenceville, George Anderson said he is leveling the ethics accusations on behalf of Gwinnett citizens who have expressed frustration over the deal, where the cost has now reached $64 million.

Anderson said the main thrust of his complaint centers around the fact that county commissioners approved the expenditures without giving the public an opportunity to comment.

Joe Sorenson, county communications director, said officials had not had time to adequately study the complaint and could not comment.

—- Patrick Fox

Two women killed in Dacula car crash

Two women were killed Monday after the car they were riding in careened off a road in Dacula and smashed into an embankment.

Gwinnett County police said neither the driver nor the passenger of the white BMW X5 were wearing seat belts when the car veered off of Alcovy Road near Ewing Chapel Road about 4:50 p.m. Monday.

Both women were ejected when the vehicle struck the embankment, went airborne and flipped several times, said Gwinnett County police spokesman Cpl. David Schiralli.

The driver, Demetra Lamb, 55, of Lawrenceville and the passenger, Ellen Locklear, 74, of Dacula were transported to Gwinnett Medical Center. They died a short time later from injuries sustained in the crash.

Police do not know what caused the car to leave the road. The accident is still under investigation, Schiralli said.

—- Andria Simmons

Sides in trash case ask for mediator

Attorneys for Gwinnett County and Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful are asking a judge to mediate a settlement in a case filed by two garbage haulers over the county’s failed solid waste plan.

That case, filed by Southern Sanitation and Sanitation Solutions, resulted in an injunction ordering the county to scrap its new waste plan two weeks before it went into effect.

The county and GC&B have appealed that ruling. Superior Court Judge Michael Clark has set the case for trial in early May.

In papers filed this week, the attorneys are asking Clark to gather all sides, including the haulers that were contracted to take over waste collection, and resolve the issue through mediation.

The plaintiffs already have gotten what they were seeking, Fred Green, attorney for GC&B stated in a letter to the court. The county has gone back to its prior plan, and all of the prior haulers are collecting trash in the county, the letter states.

—- Patrick Fox

GREATER ATLANTA

Forsyth County gives rebate to go low-flow

Forsyth County residents will have a small incentive to replace their older, inefficient toilets: a rebate from the county for going low-flow.

The County Commission voted Tuesday to set aside $25,000 to dole out to residents who switch over to low-flow toilets.

Other jurisdictions across metro Atlanta have offered similar rebate or replacement programs.

But in Forsyth County, officials said they didn’t see any big rush since only toilets installed before 1993 will qualify.

“It hadn’t been a big priority for us because so much of our county was built after 1993,” said Barry Lucas, deputy director with Forsyth County Water & Sewer. “We’re not going to save as much as a DeKalb or a city of Atlanta that has a ton of inefficient plumbing.”

Two rebates will be available per household and each will be for either $50 or $100, depending on the type of toilet that is installed, Lucas said.

—- Nancy Badertscher

Also …

> Student sign-up: Paulding County will conduct kindergarten registration today and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at each elementary school.

—- Alexis Stevens