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Thursday, August 9, 2007
Long-timer feels Gwinnett has hit the skids
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This column was supposed to be about Smitty Highsmith, a Snellville retiree who handcrafts wooden portraits of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq as appreciative tokens for their families.
Unfortunately, Mr. Highsmith took ill late Tuesday and called to cancel Wednesday’s visit by the Badie Tour. We’ll reschedule.
For today, I have Joe Nieves, an AJC Gwinnett News reader, to thank for a column topic that probably concerns many people with a local ZIP code.
Nieves of Duluth has lived in the county for nearly three decades. In the past 10 years or so, though, he barely notices the county he fell in love with.
Call it the “too much/too many syndrome.”
Too many people, too much crime, too much traffic, too much of a decline in quality of life, he wrote in an e-mail.
“My God, so soon a county goes down the drain. … That breaks my heart.”
Makes him mad, too.
“I blame the politicians for all that goes wrong,” he continued. ” … Property values drop due to the gangs, people not caring about their homes and people selling cheap.”
I moved here from Orlando in 1997. That year, Gwinnett and its unincorporated communities had 11 murders. Last year, there were 40 homicides, a figure that may well be broken given the current pace.
Lee, my brother, lives on the south side of Atlanta. Whenever we talk, the subject of Gwinnett’s crime usually comes up.
“There’s always something going on in Gwinnett,” he says. “Always in the news.”
When I speak to civic groups, I invariably get asked for my take on the county — where it’s going. I struggle. It’s hard to peer into the future and see roses when so much of the current news begets thorns.
“Gwinnett County is NOT GREAT,” wrote Nieves, who used capital letters. “The sign should come down from the water towers.”
You tell me: Is Mr. Nieves overreacting or on point?
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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