OPINION: Our eerie New Normal calls for thinking outside, in lot

That was then. This is now, an eerie era in which regular existence has been upended in a dazzlingly short period of time.

Each day brings episodes of how life goes on as we increasingly silo in place, collective breaths held, waiting for what’s next.

The parking lot election was another vignette of our Evolving New Normal.

Here’s a couple more that I’ll get to in this column: A mail carrier refused to have her temperature taken before entering a senior citizen tower, so she turned and left, mail undelivered. And Atlanta’s sanitation workers are grumbling that they have been left out of being allowed hazard pay, which is being afforded to some other departments.

But first, back on Highland Avenue, the vote was the finale to a four-month process in which some residents pressed to get historic designation from the city to protect themselves from gung-ho development. The mile-wide neighborhood sits on the eastern edge of the Beltline and includes the new Murder Kroger Towers (or whatever they call it).

The effort had some fierce pushback, especially from a fellow named Tom Carmichael, who owns the Highland Inn and many other properties, including the long row of gray, three-story apartment buildings that line Highland and North avenues. Carmichael worries such designation might tie his hands for what he wants to do with his properties, so he printed up some placards telling residents — especially those in his apartments — to vote no.

Carmichael has closed off the Inn’s old ballroom because of the coronavirus outbreak, so the neighborhood association was left looking for a place to finish the election and hold its monthly meeting. And since there was no room at the Inn, a parking lot had to do.

Jerry Finegold, a two-year resident who was surprised to be voted in as the neighborhood group’s president-elect during the December meeting, told me there were some calls, mostly from the anti-historic-designation residents, to cancel Wednesday’s meeting. But he said the deadline for the historic process was looming. He said they would distance themselves and would use masks, gloves and hand sanitizer.

“We’ve encouraged everyone to vote by absentee ballot, which is the responsible thing to do,” said Finegold. “And we asked people to respect people’s space.”

Board member Lisa Malaney told me, “This seemed like a nice, safe place to meet where we could have social distance but still have Wi-Fi.”

As the voting time came to a close, a group of young residents who live in some of Carmichael’s apartments walked down the street, stopped in a bottle shop to buy some libations for later, and then lined up 6 feet apart to cast their ballots on a card table. About 10 residents lingered around the parking lot until the voting ended and a very short meeting was called to order and then to a close.

The next day, Finegold told me that given the state of health affairs, more than 90 percent of the 358 residents who voted did so by absentee ballot. Absentee voting started 12 days earlier, but that was a long time ago and everything has changed. Finegold recalled what he heard the owner of a restaurant chain say while being interviewed on TV. “He said, ‘On March 6th, I was reporting a record year. Now I’m shuttering all my stores and laying off 4,000 workers.’”

The vote to create a historic area was overwhelming: 3-1. But who knows if there is still the urgency. People might not be building anything new for a while.

In other news, Chris Peterson, who manages Mount Vernon Towers, a senior center in Sandy Springs, said they recently started taking the temperatures of all visitors about a week ago. You’ve got to be 100.4 or less to enter.

On Wednesday, a mail carrier came to the building and refused to take the test from a no-touch forehead thermometer. The mail carrier said she expected to be above that temp because she’d been working hard.

Peterson said the postal worker’s supervisor was “uncooperative,” telling him, “If you’re going to test her, she’s not going to deliver the mail.” The carrier then left, not delivering mail to the 300 residents there.

“I’d rather they not get mail than die,” said Peterson, who added that another carrier came Thursday and delivered some mail.

I could not contact a postal supervisor, but I got a message saying the service is following all directives of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And finally, I got a call from an Atlanta garbageman who said the city needs to step up and give them hazard pay, as has been designated for some emergency workers, including police.

"Our job is dangerous," said the worker, who asked that his name not be used. "We have people hit by cars all the time. All sorts of things happen. Our job is more dangerous than police." (Stats do show this to be true.)

He said Atlanta residents often don’t bag their trash, as they should. Still, the trash collectors must collect it.

“We’re expected to show up and get the job done,” he told me. “It’s important to get the garbage picked up. Get it away from people.”

A little more than a year ago, I wrote that guys on the back of the truck start at $14 an hour and drivers make about $3 an hour more. That’s $29,000 and $35,000, respectively, much closer to the poverty line ($25,000 for a family of four) than to the metro area’s median income ($53,500).

As it turns out, low-paid workers are now among those on the front lines of the viral battle.

“We don’t know what’s going on when we empty your garbage cans,” the sanitation worker told me. “People leave Kleenex out, all kinds of stuff is in there. Who knows what it is. Who is sick? Who isn’t? We’re the ones who are forgotten about.”

» MORE: AJC comprehensive coverage of the coronavirus pandemic's impact in metro Atlanta and Georgia