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September 2008
Homeowners stung by fee
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some Gwinnett residents will have to pay to close accounts with their garbage hauler.
On Monday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Allied Waste Services is assessing its customers a $23.50 fee to close out their accounts before Jan. 1. That’s when the county will switch to a mandatory system in which the government selects garbage haulers for residents.
Allied Waste Services has said the fee is necessary to help account for the $1 million it will take to store and collect waste containers that the company had previously distributed to its customers.
The county can’t do a thing to stop the fee. Gwinnett County is moving to a mandatory, county administered trash-hauling system to curb dumping. They think their way will be cheaper for residents, too.
We shall see.
What do you think about customers of Allied Waste Services being saddled with a $23.50 fee?
Do you think a county-run, trash-hauling system will be better, cheaper and cleaner for Gwinnett?
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Community volunteers’ impact felt in every party
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
People line up outside the Norcross Cooperative Ministry before the doors open on the days it serves the public. Their needs vary — food, money for utility bills or the rent, and jobs. It’s a scene repeated at Gwinnett’s other cooperative ministries, located in Lilburn, Duluth, Lawrenceville, South Gwinnett and Northeast Gwinnett.
And given our sour economic state, there’s an uptick in clients.
“We’re seeing about 900 to 1,000 families a month,” said Leslie Buchanan, job services coordinator at the Norcross co-op.
It’s volunteers and staff members such as Buchanan who make nonprofits tick. The community organizers. The civic-minded. The volunteers and do-gooders. All represent duty and patriotism, the so-called American tradition.
In the current mad race for the White House, though, their sacrifice has been ridiculed, ruled inconsequential in the scheme of life, even less so in the governance of a gigantic government.
Don’t tell that to Shirley Cabe, executive director of the Norcross co-op, which just turned 20 years old. A Norcross native, she’s a founding member of the agency.
I always expect to hear from Cabe during the holidays, when demand dwarfs donations. She usually asks me to help spread the word:
“Christmas gifts and canned goods are needed. Please donate.”
If anybody knows what community means, it’s people like Cabe. They know people of all walks — what’s on their minds and in their hearts and souls.
For them, it’s not about polls. It’s about networking, strategizing, appealing to all aspects and agendas of the community to help the downtrodden.
To make a difference.
What better way to learn a community, city, state or nation than through a grassroots prism? What better way to prepare yourself to deal with all stripes of people, of different incomes, experiences, and perspectives?
Cabe wasn’t in the office when I called a few days ago. Unusual.
“She actually took a vacation,” the receptionist told me.
So I talked to Buchanan, the job services director. She became a volunteer seven years ago, then eventually joined the staff. Despite the job title, she still puts in volunteer hours at the agency on Mitchell Street.
“There is a need in the community,” she told me.
What Gwinnett residents such as Buchanan and Cabe contribute in the form of community service extends beyond party affiliation.
Feeding the hungry, finding jobs for the unemployed and helping a family keep shelter speaks volumes. You may not like the purpose they serve, but the nobility of such service requires no defense.
And it definitely shouldn’t be mocked.
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If students aren’t in school, teachers can’t teach
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week, DeKalb County school officials got the attention of neglectful parents when they arrested and charged nine of them because their children weren’t attending school.
Under Georgia law, a student is considered truant after five unexcused absences.
In Gwinnett, district spokesperson Sloan Roach said penalties and interventions have helped curb the truancy problem. Use of the legal system hasn’t been necessary, she said.
Of course, you have to attend class to learn the subjects, but how far should school systems go in ensuring that kids show up?
Were DeKalb school officials right to jail the parents, or over-reaching?
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Mind made up? Go vote
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To avoid the expected long lines, I plan to cast my vote this week for the next president of these United States.
Gwinnett County residents can vote 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at 455 Grayson Highway, Suite 200 in Lawrenceville. Call 678-226-7210 for more info.
Other metro Atlanta counties have opened up offices for early voting as well.
How many of you plan to take advantage of the opportunity?
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Barbershop appeals to entire family
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A female customer sat in Juton Gatewood’s chair while some of the other barbers used profanity and degraded women.
Naturally, the customer took offense. So did Gatewood, 31, of Suwanee. He asked them to stop. They ignored him.
It was a straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. It led Gatewood to do what he’d dreamed of doing for some time. Open his own barbershop.
Essential Cuts, located at 5550 Lawrenceville Highway in Lilburn, has four barbers, including Gatewood.
And here’s what’s appealing about it: It’s family friendly. Designed to be that way. So when I don’t feel like fiddling with the clippers, I can take my son there and not worry about what has become all-too-common in too many businesses, not just barbershops.
Profanity-laced lyrics on the stereo. Scantily-clad women on magazine covers. And, especially in barbershops, loud barbers and customers who engage in some of the most crude and indecent conversations imaginable.
If this happens at Essential Cuts, be assured of one thing: Gatewood will squash it. After all, it’s his shop, livelihood, reputation and, in his words, his “part of America” that would suffer.
“I got kids,” said Gatewood, referring to 5-year-old Tyler and 9-year-old Juanita. “I don’t like [subjecting] my kids to a lot of stuff. My children should be able to go to certain places and not have to deal with certain types of behaviors.”
At the previous shop, Gatewood was an independent contractor. He tried occasionally to talk to the offenders about their behavior — how it looked, its negative impact on the bottom line. He wanted the guys to think about their actions from a customer’s viewpoint.
“If they took the time to think how they would feel if it were their momma or their daughter, or their kids, and someone was talking this way in front of them,” he said. “But people just don’t think anymore. It’s their mentality, the way they were raised. No respect for other people.”
Gatewood started cutting hair in his hometown of Anderson, S.C., when he was 15. He recalled a neighborhood barber who wasn’t too swift with the scissors and blade.
“This dude didn’t know how to cut any hair,” Gatewood told me. “One Christmas, I just decided I wasn’t going back to his shop. I asked my mom to buy some clippers and my God-brother asked his mom to buy some. I’ve been cutting ever since.”
He has an engineering background, but after two layoffs in one year, he decided to take another route and try something he knew like the back of his hand. Now, he owns the shop.
“It’s the greatest thing that has ever happened to me,” he said. “It feels like you’re part of something, like you’ve got part of America. I just want a family atmosphere so everybody — regardless of color, race, creed or any of that — can come in, get a haircut and feel like they are somebody in this shop.”
I am somebody.
How about you?
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More violence, but fewer property crimes in 2007
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The FBI released its 2007 Uniform Crime Report this week. Gwinnett’ s stats, provided by the Gwinnett County Police Department, show violent crimes (rape, murder and aggravated assault) increased from 1,890 to 1,945 between 2006 and 2007.
Overall, violent crimes have increased 12 percent since 2004, according to information in today’s AJC.
So far this year, though, 2008 police stats show a marked decrease in violent crime. For example: Between Jan. 1 and July 23, there was a 15 percent drop in robberies and aggravated assaults, the article stated. And there’s been one less homicide - 22.
Do you think the downward shift in violent crime will continue?
Commenting is closed, but will resume later.
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‘Safety zone’ doesn’t feel very safe
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The girls were playing on a hill. Their mother was near the batting cages, waiting for softball practice to start. Her two daughters were in plain sight, near the edge of a clump of trees.
Apparently, that’s where the stranger was hiding and waiting.
Robert Davis didn’t know what to think when his 10-year-old daughter approached him. Softball practice was about to begin at Collins Hill Park in Lawrenceville. Davis coaches the team that his daughters, ages 8 and 10, play on. Maybe she’d forgotten her glove, he reasoned.
No. She told him a man had jumped out from the stand of trees and tried to grab her. She’d screamed. Her 8-year-old sister had raced to her aid, and the man darted away.
Ask practically any father what he’d do if someone commits a horrific act against his child. The first thing many will say, often without hesitation, is that they’d flat-out kill the suspect. Davis has said as much. Yet when tragedy came close, he reacted differently.
“Your only reaction is, ‘My kid is safe. My kid is OK,’ ” he told me. “You don’t even think about chasing after the guy. When I talked to a police sergeant, he said everybody has that same reaction. He said he’s seen burly dads almost in tears because they didn’t even think about going after the suspect.”
The Davises reported the Aug. 19 incident to authorities. Gwinnett police recently released a sketch of the “person of interest.” No one has been apprehended in connection with the attempted kidnapping.
The family is trying to return to normal. Scars remain. Their 10-year-old daughter used to be the one willing to accompany younger kids to the restroom when they dined with friends in restaurants. No more.
“She’s getting better,” said her mom, Kimberly. “I hate this. It happened so fast, and they were within my sight.”
Call it a sign of times. A sad reality.
Davis almost sounds apologetic when he talks about what it was like in his own childhood, as if the words are cliche. But the fruit his tale bears needs savoring. It puts current society in context. It makes all of us, but most of all parents, wonder what kind of world their kids will inherit.
“On Saturday mornings, I got up, fixed a bowl of cereal and was gone — off in the woods; down in the creek at the blackberry patch; riding my bike; at this friend’s house or that friend’s house,” he said. “And I thought nothing of it. Now it’s completely different.”
So different that parents stand guard as best they can, even though they can’t offer 24-7 protection. A few minutes is opportunity aplenty for someone up to no good. Just look at what happened to this Lawrenceville family. On that day in the park, walkers and joggers were passing by on the trail. People were everywhere.
“She could have thrown a baseball and hit a dozen different parents,” Davis said. “We have always been careful, but there were certain places we thought were OK. We always thought of the park as a safety zone. There is no way I could let my kids live the childhood I lived. And that’s what’s sad.”
Innocence lost.
Never a jaded topic.
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Seven years later, Sept. 11 memory still fresh
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’d just walked into the office . TV news had broken about the first plane’s crash into one of the World Trade Center Towers. Minutes later, when it was clear there’d been a terrorist hijacking, an editor sent me out to get reaction.
I interviewed a group of World War II vets who often had breakfast at what used to be Roy’s Classic Diner in Norcross.
“You can’t stop them,” said Marty Freedman, referring to the enemy. “You have to eliminate them.”
Our country changed drastically after terrorism hit home. A phrase was coined to reflect the new mood and attitude of America, its people, government, and world status.
The “new normal.”
Here we are seven years later, on the anniversary of that awful day. No one will forget what took place.
Do you remember what you were doing and where you were when you first heard the news?
Now fast forward to today, 2008.
How do you reflect when the anniversary rolls around? Is it just another day? Or something else?
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Can’t live without my radio
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’ve all been there.
You pull up to a traffic light. Tunes are blasting from the car in the next lane. Noise pollution, some call it.
Well, authorities in the city of Marietta apparently are sick and tired of the ear-rattling bass. Starting Friday, Marietta police will issue a $135 fine to people who blast their car stereos. It’s a crackdown in response to complaints.
Could a Gwinnett municipality be next in line to lay a fine on noise?
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Trips into the city too busy to hate
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The sense of doom has been dispelled. Falcons, 34. Lions 21.
Maybe the tide has turned.
But here’s what I want to know, and actually it has little to do with the Falcons or whether they have a winning season. (I wish the team well.)
It has more to do with the city of Atlanta as an attraction. How often do you - Gwinnett readers in particular - go into the city?
And if so, for what purpose?
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Stadium costs rise in tight times
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My house needs new kitchen cabinets as well as bathroom fixtures. But in this sour economic climate, big-ticket projects like that have to be put on hold.
However, if I ran my house the way some county leaders run their governments, contractors would already be on the job. That type of illogical budgeting and planning has landed Gwinnett County in a fix over construction of its minor-league stadium. The county plans to spend another $19 million to complete the venue under construction on Buford Drive near I-85 in Lawrenceville.
The additional money represents a 50 percent increase in the initial $40 million construction price. Commissioners OK’d the spending increase Tuesday without public comment. They said they didn’t need to hear from us because it was a straightforward decision; without the extra taxpayer money, the project would cease.
In January, county officials announced the stadium project amid much hoopla and hype. Then, I wrote a column saying a top minor-league affiliate of the Atlanta Braves might create an identity for a ‘burb that’s been a mess of strip malls and cookie-cutter subdivisions.
Like others, I championed the greater good for the community, even though Gwinnett’s 776,380 residents were never asked about the project. County officials had said no property tax increases would be needed to fund the facility. The assumption was that the estimated cost of construction was within range.
But as time goes on, a growing stench surrounds the project.
In April, we learned from records obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act that officials had indeed talked about the possibility of a small property tax increase to finance the AAA complex. In July, we were told the stadium was on schedule to be finished by the April 2009 opening day of the International League, and that it was free of cost overruns.
Now this — a $19 million dip into the reserve fund. This at a time when the county has imposed a hiring freeze for nonemergency workers, the tax commissioner’s office works a four-day week to save on energy costs and the county may have to cut costs or raise taxes to account for slowing revenue growth.
But let’s not be pessimistic.
Maybe the stadium will stop eating money. Maybe it will finish under budget and be a success like the Gwinnett Arena. Maybe it will pay for itself from day one, as County Administrator Jock Connell claims.
Right now, though, all I can compare this project to are those upgrades for my home, the ones that got postponed till a better day.
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Kenerly didn’t buy land months before stadium deal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
AJC reporters Michael Pearson and Patrick Fox have run down the claims posted to this blog that Gwinnett County Commissioner Kevin Kenerly purchased land near the stadium three months before the deal was revealed to the public. They have found that the claims are incorrect.
Posts at this blog and at baseball economic J.C. Bradbury’s blog claim that Kenerly purchased the land in October 2007 - after county officials began secretly scouting for land for a new stadium but three months before the decision became public.
The land is located along Laurel Crossing Parkway, a little less than a half-mile north of the stadium site.
But Gwinnett County property records show the October 2007 transaction actually involved Kenerly selling half of his 50 percent stake in the land to his partners in the property venture; Mansour Properties LLC, operated by John Mansour; and Lifestyle Family Group LLC, run by Sam Leveto.
The records also show the partnership, including Kenerly’s company, has owned the site since 1996. That was long before the stadium was a point of discussion and before, even, construction of the nearby Mall of Georgia.
Incidentally, the land is closer to another stadium site considered - and ultimately rejected - by Gwinnett County. That site is a 65-acre parcel at Buford Drive and I-85 owned by the Orkin family.
Kenerly’s land is adjacent to that property.
Kenerly, who works as a real estate investor, told the Atlanta Journal-Constititution Thursday that he’s not interested in buying any land along the Ga. 20 corridor, including any near the stadium.
“With the way the economy is right now, I don’t think anybody is looking to purchase land,” he said.
He sold half of his ownership of the land in October to raise cash, and said he would like to sell the rest of it as well.
“I’m trying to unload everything,” he said.
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Gwinnett stadium eats money
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Gwinnett County Commission has voted to spend another $19 million on its new baseball stadium. They did so Monday without taxpayer input.
The stadium will now cost $59 million, a nearly 50 percent increase. Ouch. Looks like the county’s field of dreams is eating up a lot of money at a time when many of us are pinching pennies.
My Saturday column will deal with my take on the stadium issue. Read it in the print edition of The Atlanta-Journal Constitution.
Until then, though, I’d like for readers to share their views on the matter.
Please feel free to post your comments.
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