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Saturday, April 26, 2008
Stop dividing and blaming
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One night Fran Kurtzman ran into her mailman in the grocery store. They talked about the trash and litter in her neighborhood, especially near the entrance.
The mailman said they ought to hold a cleanup day. Invite the neighbors. The event was scheduled for April 20. A notice, written in English and Spanish, was posted. Kurtzman and her house mate, Sue Felsen, passed out fliers in the subdivision, located off Club Drive in Lawrenceville.
“I figured there’d be two of us out there,” Felsen told me.
But on the day of the cleanup, folk turned out in droves. Upwards of 30 or more. They came armed with shovels, edgers and lawn mowers. They worked several hours, giving special attention to a wooded area that had become a depository for bottles, diapers and other trash.
“It was shocking what was hauled out of there,” said Fran’s son, Howard Kurtzman of Atlanta. “I’d never seen anything like it. They made a dramatic difference. Apparently this idea hit home for a lot of people.”
Kurtzman and Felsen were pioneers when they moved into Brooks Landing 20 years ago. The subdivision was culturally diverse, but everybody spoke English. Now it’s undergone a cultural change. Most residents speak Spanish.
But apparently language wasn’t too big of a barrier when it came to the neighborhood protecting its value, shoring up its appearance, caring.
It’s tapered off in recent years, but I used to get a stream of e-mails and calls about neighborhood decay. Some homeowners expressed valid concerns; others just wanted to vent. They’d be angry because some of the people responsible for code violations didn’t speak English. They, the frustrated homeowners, didn’t speak Spanish. I was amazed by the uncanny ability of some venters to size up their neighbors as Mexicans, just by looking at them.
Seldom were there any efforts to talk to the violators, though, to explain things. The issue, along with the resentment, lingered.
Perhaps there’s a lesson in Brooks Landing.
When we walked through the subdivision, Kurtzman pointed out a house whose owner couldn’t care less about upkeep or tidiness. I suggested she, or someone, report it to the county code enforcement office. The subdivision plans to have cleanup days on a regular basis since the first one proved successful. Neighbors have already approached Kurtzman wanting to know about the next event.
“Most people have had such a good spirit,” she said.
Turnout for the inaugural cleanup day moved Felsen to tears.
“I expected two to three people, but they kept coming and coming and coming,” she told me. “Why didn’t we think about this before, about putting a sign up in Spanish and English and say, ‘Please come.’ “
Howard Kurtzman’s a proud son. He was so moved by his mother’s efforts and the response it garnered that he fired off a letter to AJC Gwinnett News.
“What if everyone stopped complaining and took a step toward educating others and uniting people instead of dividing and blaming?” he wrote. “This story made me so proud of my mom and all the people who worked so hard. I hope more people who read this will be inspired to make Gwinnett, Georgia and America the most beautiful place on earth.”
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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