Community News

CITY OF ATLANTA

Downtown Connector lanes to be closed

The state Department of Transportation is closing Downtown Connector lanes this weekend for two projects. It looks like southbound drivers will have it worse, midday today.

Daytime work is to wrap up loose ends on the Connector paving. Overnight work will allow for a major step on the 14th Street Bridge rebuilding: placing beams to hold up the bridge.

The schedule, according to DOT:

Southbound:

> Today from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., crews will close the inside HOV lane and exits connected to it, between 10th Street and University Avenue.

> Also today, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and in a short stretch of road, they will close three inside lanes. That includes the HOV lane, and it goes from Williams Street to Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

> Every night through Tuesday, from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., three southbound lanes, including the HOV lane, will close from 17th Street to 10th Street. On I-75 as it approaches the merge with I-85, crews will close the HOV lane.

Northbound:

> Sunday from 7 a.m. to early afternoon, the inside HOV lane and related exits will close from University Avenue to 10th Street. DOT intends to finish all work before the Atlanta Falcons kick-off at the Georgia Dome at 4 p.m.

—- Ariel Hart

Fate of 1927 building delayed until March

Will the Crum & Forster Building stand or be demolished?

A decision on whether to raze the building at 771 Spring St. has been delayed until March 6. On Friday, Atlanta’s Board of Zoning Adjustment agreed to delay a decision on an appeal filed by the Georgia Tech Foundation of the city’s denial of a demolition permit.

The organization wants to demolish the building, erected in 1927, to make room for expansion plans. Preservationists want the building to remain. The city denied the foundation’s application for a demolition permit earlier this year.

—- Eric Stirgus

CLAYTON COUNTY

Resource center aids foreclosure prevention

The Clayton County Foreclosure Resource Center will officially open today with a free financial seminar.

The workshop will offer tips to prevent foreclosure, along with information about foreclosure intervention programs. It will be held from 9 to 11 a.m. at New Birth South Community Impact Center on Mount Zion Parkway, Jonesboro.

Clayton County has the highest rate of foreclosed homes in the state at almost 10 percent. As of Tuesday, Clayton had more than 2,800 foreclosed homes.

The resource center is run by the Housing Authority of Clayton County and several non-profit organizations. The resource center has also set up a foreclosure hotline at 404-260-3149.

—- Megan Matteucci

Also …

> Schools closed: Clayton County students and teachers will be off Monday-Friday for the Thanksgiving break. School offices will be open Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Administrators are required to work those three days, district spokesman Charles White said. All school facilities will be closed Thursday and Friday.

—- Megan Matteucci

DEKALB COUNTY

Decatur anticipates student increase

In two years, Decatur’s fourth- and fifth-graders could be moved to the city’s lone middle school —- joining the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders already there —- to help the small system weather an expected increase in students.

This is a suggestion from a committee of staff and parents, among other recommendations given to officials this week. The committee was formed to come up with solutions to an expected enrollment increase, especially in lower grades.

According to system officials, the number of city students in kindergarten through eighth grade is expected to grow over the next four years from 1,897 to 2,388. A further complication is the city’s consideration of annexing properties that over the next four years could add another 407 students in those same grades.

The Decatur City Commission expects in December to vote whether to pursue annexation. The committee’s recommendations have been given to Superintendent Phyllis Edwards, who will make her own recommendations to the school board in February.

To see the recommendations as well as supporting documents, log on to the system’s Web site at www.decatur-city.k12.ga.us.

—- Kristina Torres

Standoff in Clarkston ends peacefully

A three-hour standoff in DeKalb County ended peacefully Friday when a police SWAT team found the suspect hiding under a bed.

The incident began shortly after 3 a.m., when police got a call about a man firing a gun outside an apartment at the English Oaks complex on Church Street in Clarkston, according to Clarkston police Chief Tony Scipio.

When officers arrived, the suspect retreated into the apartment, Scipio said. Two women escaped, but a baby and a toddler remained inside, he said. Scipio said the suspect refused to surrender, and about three hours later a DeKalb police SWAT team entered and found the man hiding under a bed, armed with a small-caliber automatic weapon.

He was taken into custody without further incident. Police had not identified the suspect, but Scipio said he was believed to be a Chicago man who was arrested for aggravated assault at the same apartment earlier in the week.

—- Mike Morris

FULTON COUNTY

Sewage spills into river from manhole

A manhole overflow spilled 10,080 gallons of untreated sewage into a tributary of the Chattahoochee River this week.

Fulton County public works responded, and applied lyme and enzyme to an area surrounding the Tuesday spill. Workers determined tree roots had obstructed the line.

The overflow was reported at 99 Dalrymple Road in Sandy Springs.

—- Mary MacDonald

Alpharetta hopes for money to refurbish

The city of Alpharetta is preparing to enter the bond market after the first of the year, this time to borrow money for its share of refurbishing downtown.

The city intends to borrow $8 million to build a parking garage and a town green near Academy and Main streets. The city’s partner in the project, Solomon Holding Co., plans to build retail shopping and offices in downtown.

The project’s financial blueprint blew up when the state Supreme Court threw out tax allocation district efforts. Voters on Nov. 4 resurrected the funding mechanism through a constitutional amendment, providing relief to Alpharetta, which had been trying to find the money some other way.

—- Doug Nurse

Sandy Springs road closed for month

A busy street in Sandy Springs will be closed for more than a month, beginning Dec. 1. Construction to replace a culvert on Northside Drive, between Old Powers Ferry Road and Mount Vernon Highway, will cause the road to be shut to through-traffic between Dec. 1 and Jan. 9.

Detours will be posted during the construction period, and a map is available online at www.sandyspringsga.org.

—-Mary MacDonald

Also …

> Annexation: Alpharetta today will claim part of its own when it annexes property it owned outside the city limits. The 5.5 acres is just south of the city borders next to Mansell Road and Ga. 400. Roswell officials actually discovered the property was an unincorporated island, and traced its ownership to Alpharetta. The wooded property is in a floodplain and is undevelopable.

—- Doug Nurse

GWINNETT COUNTY

Dead Snellville boy’s mom denied bond

An Army wife charged with setting a fire that killed her two young children at her Fort Campbell, Ky., home was held without bond pending a possible death penalty trial.

Thirty-five-year-old Billi Jo Smallwood was denied bond during a federal court hearing Friday in Gainesville, where she has family.

The May 2007 fire at Fort Campbell killed 9-year-old Sam Fagan of Snellville, and 2-year-old Rebekah Smallwood, and injured her husband, Army Spc. Wayne Smallwood. Their toddler daughter, Nevaeh, was not injured. Sam was visiting his mother at the time of the fire.

U.S. Magistrate Susan Cole said she denied bond because Smallwood was a flight risk since the indictment against her was released on Tuesday.

She will be transferred to Kentucky next week to face the charges.

—- Associated Press

Police: Man entered courthouse with gun

Deputies arrested a man Thursday afternoon who tried to enter the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center with a handgun, authorities said.

Phillip Appu, 51, was arrested at the courthouse X-ray screening station.

The .380-caliber pistol was inside some kind of shoulder bag, said Stacey Bourbonnais, spokeswoman for the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department. Appu reportedly told deputies he was going to the Clerk of Court’s office and didn’t know the gun was in his bag.

Appu is charged with carrying a concealed weapon, carrying a deadly weapon at a public gathering and carrying a pistol without a license. He was released from jail Friday on $4,350 bond.

—- Andria Simmons

GREATER ATLANTA

Man in drug case wanted in murder

A 29-year-old Kennesaw man was jailed Thursday night on drug charges and on an Ohio murder warrant.

The suspect, identified as Reginald Griffin, was arrested by the Cherokee Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad (CMANS) for selling the drug Ecstasy.

In a search of a hotel room on Barrett Parkway in Kennesaw, agents seized 170 Ecstasy pills, according to the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.

Griffin, who initially gave authorities a false name, was charged with trafficking in Ecstasy, the Sheriff’s Office said. Later, it was determined that Griffin was wanted for murder in Cincinnati, said Jay Baker, spokesman for ther Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.

—- Nancy Badertscher

Area schools awarded state excellence honor

Sixteen schools in the metro area were named Georgia Schools of Excellence for either improving students’ test scores in reading and math or earning the highest marks on state exams.

State schools Superintendent Kathy Cox announced the 26 statewide winners Friday.

The schools will be honored during a banquet planned for January.

Here are the local winners, listed by county, as provided by the state education department:

> Coweta: Northgate High.

> Cobb: Dickerson Middle, Harrison High, Kemp Elementary, Lassiter High and Timber Ridge Elementary.

> DeKalb: Browns Mill Elementary, Druid Hills High and Kittredge Elementary.

> Fayette: Huddleston Elementary and McIntosh High.

> Forsyth: Otwell Middle, Sharon Elementary and South Forsyth High.

> Fulton: Manning Oaks Elementary.

> Gwinnett: Brookwood High.

—- Laura Diamond