GwinnettForum | Issue 15.91 | March 4, 2016
THIS OUTDOOR CONCRETE TABLE TENNIS TABLE was an Eagle Scout project for Sims Lake Park in Suwanee. It was built by Boy Scout and Suwanee resident Andrew Winton. At left is Gray Brinson and an unidentified player. For more on how Scouts help Suwanee, see Notable below.
TODAY’S FOCUS: Lots of Activities Coming Up at Duluth’s Southeastern Rail Museum
EEB PERSPECTIVE: Here We Go Again: Total of 60 State and Local Offices Open This Year
ANOTHER VIEW: WXIA Tells Position of Senator Unterman and Her Employment
SPOTLIGHT: Peach State Federal Credit Union
FEEDBACK: One Goldwater Republican Plans To Sit Out Presidential Election
UPCOMING: Plant and Wildflower Symposium in Tifton
NOTABLE: Scouts Provide City of Suwanee with Multiple Projects
RECOMMENDED: Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Marquis de Lafayette, 67, Completes 400 Mile Trek across Georgia
TODAY’S QUOTE: Way That The Right Looks Upon the Left
MYSTERY PHOTO: Classical Building Seems Imposing; Just Where Is It?
Bundle of activities coming up at Duluth’s Southeastern Rail Museum
By Randy Pirkle
DULUTH, Ga., March 4, 2016 | Spring is coming… here is your sneak peek ahead for activities at the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth.
The Southeastern Railway Museum’s annual Caboose Days event on April 2-3 will offer all sorts of activities for kids, and adults alike. Among the activities will be a caboose hunt, food, a kids’ craft corner, caboose slide show, temporary caboose tattoos, and rides on a restored antique handcar, which are often featured on special days.
Photo by Thom Logan.
This year, Caboose Days will also feature the return to public access of two caboose restorations, Georgia Railroad 2866 and Norfolk and Western #500837. N&W 500837 was built in 1940 for Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway as class C19 #837. Acquired by Norfolk and Western 1964, it was donated in 1989, it will be placed in service on the museum’s demonstration train ride, replacing Clinchfield RR #1064 which is slated for restoration work. Georgia RR 2866 was converted from a 1945 steel boxcar in 1970. Its bay window caboose was used to carry passengers in mixed train service on the Georgia Railroad. It was donated 1982 and will be placed on exhibit.
The museum will operate April 6-9 (Wednesday through Saturday) the week of local school’s Spring Break (April 4-8).
The museum will host the Duluth Historical Society’s annual plant sale on April 16 from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. adjacent to the depot. It will also host a Boy Scout Merit Badge Clinic with the Piedmont Division NMRA in the main building. The museum will also host the Duluth Community garden boxes this year with the Duluth Historical Society.
In May, the museum will host Duluth Historical Society’s special military exhibit in the depot; and participate in the annual Duluth Art Week mid-month including hosting Plein Air artists for Paint Duluth leading into art week. Wrapping up Art Week (April 13 for the museum) will be National Train Day with extra activities. The museum’s second annual Fast Track 5K fundraiser on May 28 will kickoff Memorial Day weekend with a patriotic themed race followed by Duluth events on the town green.
The museum will give each student visiting the museum between May 25 and June 4 a free train ride when the student presents their report card with at least one grade of “A” (or equivalent representing the highest possible standard) for this school year.
June 11-12 the museum will host its annual Locomotive Celebration. This event focuses on the museum’s collection of locomotives (both steam and diesel), and this year will include dedication of the museum’s newest acquisition, a 50 ton GE center cab that’s being used on the demonstration train ride.
The first session of the museum’s annual summer day camp will be June 20 -24, while the second session will be July 18-22. The theme this year is Railroads around the World and is designed for ages 4 -12 where we’ll explore railroads and trains from 5 continents in our ½ day sessions. Throughout the quarter the museum’s education department will host tours, field trips, and our 2nd Thursday pre-school programs.
The 1871 Duluth Depot has been restored onsite and now features a variety of exhibits both permanent & travelling. Permanent exhibits include artifacts from the museum’s collection. Traveling exhibits include artifacts from and/or organized by the Duluth Historical Society including an exhibit related to neighboring cities titled “Cities of the Rail.”
Located at 3595 Buford Hwy. in Duluth, the Museum follows a seasonal schedule; days and hours of operation are available on the website.
- For more information, visit www.SoutheasternRailwayMuseum.org or phone 770-476-2013.
Some 60 local and statewide offices are open this political season
By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher
MARCH 4, 2016 | So you’re thinking with the presidential voting Tuesday we are done with politics for a while? Well, it’s merely the opening of the season, as soon the local campaigns will be all around us.
Qualifying for local and state offices begins for both the state Republican and Democrat Parties on March 7, with March 11 being the last date a candidate can qualify to run for office in Georgia. The actual primary voting date for these offices will be May 24.
If you want to run as an independent on the General Election ballot, the earliest date you can file your candidacy is June 27, with the closing by noon July 12. Voting in the General election is on November 8, for local, state and national offices.
So, by the end of next week, we’ll know who the local candidates are.
These offices are open in Georgia and Gwinnett, and there are a lot of them:
- U.S. Senator: Senator Johnny Isakson’s term expires this year.
- Three U.S. Representatives: Currently Hank Johnson, Rob Woodall and Jody Hice represent Gwinnett.
- Nine statewide offices, from governor to Public Service Commissioner.
- Seven Senators, representing all or parts of Gwinnett.
- State Representative: 18 offices. At least three incumbents have said that they would not run for office again.
- County officials: District Attorney, Probate Court Judge, Clerk of Superior Court, Tax Commissioner, Sheriff, Chief Magistrate.
- County Commissioners: Up for re-election will be Chairman Charlotte Nash, Jace Brooks and Tommy Hunter.
- Board of Education: Members Carole Boyce, Dr. Mary Kay Murphy and Louise Radloff are up for re-election.
- State Court judges: Four (of six) terms expire this year: Emily Brantley, Shawn Bratton, Carla Brown and John Doran.
- Superior Court: Six (of ten) terms expire this year: Kathy Schrader, Randy Rich, Karen Beyers, Ronnie Batchelor, Melodie Snell Conner and Warren Davis.
Whew! That’s a ton of candidates! A total of 60 candidates! It’s going to be a banner year for Gwinnett citizens to review a lot of backgrounds to determine who is best for many a political office. We would bet at least half the candidates draw opposition.
Again this year, GwinnettForum will issue invitations to all challenged candidates to spend 30 minutes with them to get to know them, and to offer them space in this publication to present their unedited 100 word views on their candidacy, at no cost to any candidate. That means with this many offices open, that we will be seeing (we hope) lots of candidates this year. Afterward, we’ll endorse those we think will be best for the individual offices.
And with the presidential election, it’ll be a busy and we hope productive year.
* * * * *
Along this line of thought, lo and behold: the Gwinnett Democrats are beginning to stir. There is a Women In Politics fundraiser by Gwinnett County Young Democrats on Saturday, March 12 at Cornerstone Coworking, 279 West Crogan Street, in Lawrenceville.
* * * * *
There’s about one more week of Standard Time: in 2016, Daylight Saving Time begins in the United States on Sunday, March 13.
But if you are flying to Europe, their “Summer Time” doesn’t begin until Sunday, March 27. During those two weeks, time zone differences between most of the States and Europe will be one hour less than usual. Remember for Daylight Saving Time, clocks are turned forward one hour. Thanks to Larry Zani of Kaiserslauten, Germany, for this reminder.
WXIA-TV tells position of Senator Unterman and employment
By George Wilson
“Steal a little and they throw you in jail; steal a lot and they make you king.”—Bob Dylan
MARCH 4, 2016 | Wikipedia states that “Crony capitalism is a term describing an economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, or other forms of state interventionism.”
Nowhere is this more evident than in the state capitol. As an illustration, here is one example.
Georgia State Senator Renee Unterman (R–45th District, Sugar Hill/Buford) is chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. She is also an executive with a health insurer that has a billion dollar a year state Medicaid contract, according to state financial records. (See this link.)
WXIA TV discovered the senator’s dual role. It reported: “The state of Georgia adopted a managed care program for Medicaid in 2005, the same year Sen. Unterman took a job with one of the winning bidders, Amerigroup.”
Senator Unterman told the television station: ““When I went to work for Amerigroup, they already had the contract. I started working at Amerigroup in 2009.”
However, the station reported that “Unterman’s financial disclosures back to 2005, the latest year for which there are accessible records, show she listed herself as a corporate executive with Amerigroup in that year.” Then she added: ““It wasn’t 2009, I’m sorry, I got the date wrong,” the senator said. “It was 10 years ago.”
They also reported “Amerigroup Georgia was paid $1.1 billion last year by Georgia’s Department of Community Health, according to state finance records.” Those records show Amerigroup is the third-highest paid state vendor. The largest is Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Georgia, also owned by Amerigroup’s parent company, Anthem. Also, this company recently received a significant contract for state health insurance.”
Furthermore, WXIA said: “Unterman’s current financial disclosure lists her employer as Anthem – which Georgia paid more than $3.4 billion in tax money in 2015, according to state records showing payments to Anthem subsidiaries Blue Cross-Blue Shield and Amerigroup.”
Senator Unterman was on the committee that made the ethics rules so none of this may be unethical under the current setup.
In conclusion, it is strange rather strange that she only added this employment information to her biographical information after the recent inquiry?
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Trump candidacy causes despondency for Goldwater Republican
Editor, the Forum:
In reading GwinnettForum today about Trump, I know my party is headed into very dangerous waters. I call myself a Goldwater Republican and have voted for my party’s candidate in every election since 1964.
I cannot under any circumstances vote for Donald Trump. He is not qualified to run our country at a time when we need a strong leader. I also fear his narcissistic leadership. I also cannot vote for either of the Democratic choices.
Bottom line: for the first time since 1964, if Trump is the candidate, I will not vote for the presidential nominee from my party. You can’t know how much it bothers me not to vote, but a non-vote this year is my only choice. God help us!
— Beverly Lougher, Lawrenceville
High praise for photograph exhibit at St. Edward’s Episcopal Church
Editor, the Forum:
Today I took my wife to see a classic photographic exhibition of the really gifted husband and wife team of Steve and Connie White of Sugar Hill. This was my second visit to St. Edwards Episcopal Church on 737 Moon Road, just off Scenic Drive in Lawrenceville to see this fantastic exhibition.
Their work is Gwinnett’s answer to Ansel Adams, in all sincerity. You will be astounded.
This is a mixture of wild-life and landscape as seen in their many travels to such places as Montana, Monument Valley and Jekyll Island. The shots of moose butting heads and American eagles in different poses are spectacular.
I had been to two previous exhibitions of Steve and Connie’s at Pinckneyville and George Pierce Park which were first-class shows in every respect and this one will not disappoint you.
This exhibition will run from now until April 1, 2016 and the viewing hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays but closed on weekends. There are 20 prints on display so it won’t take much time to view them all at the same time. This show made me want to pack up my bags and head for the Rockies! We are fortunate to have this high quality of art in our own backyard.
— Frank Sharp, Lawrenceville
Get to hear author whose grandfather was the “Butcher of Plaszow”
Editor, the Forum:
On March 1, at the Ahvath Achim Synagogue, Jennifer Teege, author of My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me, a Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past, shared the story of how she discovered her family’s roots.
At age 38, Teege found a book and discovered that her grandfather was Amon Goeth, the vicious Nazi commandant depicted in Schindler’s List. Reviled as the butcher of Plaszow, she began to understand as she learned more about him, that given the chance, her grandfather really would have shot her.
In a low key and yet personal and riveting style she shared the horror and fear she experienced once she realized the role her grandfather played in the deaths of many Jewish people during World War II. Pictures of her family, specifically her mother and her Grandmother along with her grandfather and others were displayed as the talk progressed.
There were approximately 150-200 people at the event. I was one of three African Americans present, though it was mostly a Jewish audience, many of whom were grandchildren of those who died in the camps. If you have not yet picked up this title that the library owns please do so. It is an important read.
— Karen Harris, Stone Mountain
- Send Feedback and Letters to: elliott@brack.net
Native Plant and Wildflower Symposium is March 23 in Tifton
South Georgia Native Plant and Wildflower Symposium will be held Wednesday, March 23, in Tifton. The presentation titled “Operation RubyThroat” will be the topic. Bill Hilton is a dynamic speaker and presenter. He will have just returned from a birding expedition to Belize, and will have a lot to share. His website is www.hiltonpond.org.
Other presenters will be bringing up to date, timely, research-based information on their topics. Water issues- always important- will be up for discussion, while a graduate student will share her findings on the effect non-native species can have on butterfly populations is very pertinent. The website, www.sgnpws.org, has all the details about the symposium.
Scouts provide City of Suwanee with multiple projects
After eight months of planning, four work days, and countless hours of preparation, Girl Scout Troop 2440 has completed work at the Suwanee Harvest Farm, as well as the Sugar Hill community garden at Pirkle Park, towards a Bronze Award, the highest honor a Girl Scout Junior can achieve.
The 11 Scouts – all fourth and fifth graders at Riverside and Walnut Grove Elementary – worked for the better part of the last year, focusing on rehabilitating Harvest Farm’s butterfly garden. The troop also created and installed folk art of the United States flag for both parks, after noticing that Scouts frequently hold ceremonies in these areas and that there was currently no flag present.
Girl Scout Maya White says: “We trimmed back some trees that had started behaving like bushes.”
Visitors to Sims Lake Park may have noticed a new addition to the park in the form of a concrete ping pong table. Sixteen-year-old Boy Scout and Suwanee resident Andrew Winton recently completed the project to earn his Eagle Scout badge. The construction of the table took four days to complete, including the mixing of 78 bags of cement – each 80 pounds each – that went into the creation of the table.
Winton says: “A lot of my friends built benches for their projects. I was looking for a unique idea that I was interested in. Originally I was going to build checker tables out of wood, but I came across this idea on while researching the wooden checker tables.”
Suwanee Police re-Accredited by Georgia law enforcement agency
The Suwanee Police Department has once again achieved State of Georgia Law Enforcement Certification. Experienced law enforcement professionals from outside agencies inspected the Suwanee Police facilities, examined policies and procedures, and audited files built for each of the 129 certification standards to verify compliance. Chief Mike Jones believed the state certification to be important, and began pursuing the distinction upon taking office in 1999; Suwanee received the endorsement for the first time on January 9, 2000. Certified agencies must file annual reports attesting to their continuing compliance and identify any instances of significant non-compliance, as well as go through a reassessment process every three years. City of Jefferson Chief Joseph Wirthman presents Suwanee Chief Mike Jones with a plaque upon the department’s successful Georgia Law Enforcement recertification. The Suwanee PD is also accredited by the national Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.
Confederacy of Dunces
A novel by John Kennedy Toole
The year Confederacy of Dunces came out, back in 1980, I wrote a short review of it. Here’s excerpts from that review: The author of this new book, John Kennedy Toole, was born in New Orleans in 1937, and died in 1969. (His mother published the book posthumously.) The characters are ludicrous, not insane, though perhaps borderline. They create a swatch of uproar and humor, set in New Orleans, finding themselves in one exasperating situation after another. Yet the one who stands out and is the focal point of the book is Ignatius Reilly, full of education and imagination, fat and sloppy, smart and confusing, lazy and demanding. He pushes a “weenie” cart, stuffs foot-long hot dogs by twos-and-threes, yells at characters in movies (which he attends daily), while devouring several boxes of popcorn, Milky Ways and other foodstuffs. The book earned a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981, and is considered a cult classic. –eeb
An invitation: what books, restaurants, movies or web sites have you enjoyed recently? Send us your recent selection, along with a short paragraph (100 words) as to why you liked this, plus what you plan to visit or read next. –eeb
Marquis de Lafayette, 67, completes 400-mile trek across Georgia
Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834), came to the United States from France at the invitation of Congress and toured all 24 states between August 1824 and September 1825.
Lafayette had fought in the Revolutionary War (1775-83) at the crucial Battles of Brandywine in Pennsylvania and Yorktown, Va., in 1781. In his old age, he hoped to attend ceremonies for the 50th anniversary of Boston’s Bunker Hill in 1825. His friend, U.S. president James Monroe, prompted Congress to extend the invitation for Lafayette to visit the United States one final time. To honor the last surviving Revolutionary War major general, Georgia Governor George M. Troup arranged an elaborate journey across the state from the coast and the inland cities to the Creek lands in the west.
Arriving in Savannah on March 19, 1825, the 67-year-old Lafayette disembarked from his steamboat to a salute from the Chatham Artillery and the cheers of the crowd. The most poignant moments of his stay in Savannah came when he laid the cornerstones for monuments honoring two other Revolutionary War heroes, Count Casimir Pulaski and General Nathanael Greene.
Accompanied by his son, his secretary, and Governor Troup, Lafayette traveled up the Savannah River by steamboat and arrived in Augusta on March 23. In both Savannah and Augusta he received delegations of French descendants. He extended his overnight stay in Augusta by an additional day to allow time for a public banquet and a ball. The general, suffering “a fatigue,” presided over the ball seated beneath a canopy of silvered lace.
Lafayette’s party traveled inland from Augusta on the Milledgeville Stage Road. The road was so treacherous with potholes and ruts that the four-horse carriage nearly broke down, and the general became ill from the jolts. After resting overnight in Warrenton, Lafayette continued on to Sparta and then to the capital, Milledgeville, where he arrived on March 27.
He met first with Revolutionary War veterans; Lafayette was delighted to find the man who helped carry him off the battlefield at Brandywine, where he had been wounded. Governor Troup hosted the general at an outdoor supper and ball in the emptied state capitol building.
The schedule then called for Lafayette to travel the 120 miles from Milledgeville to Fort Mitchell, on the Alabama side of the Chattahoochee River, in two arduous days. Accordingly, he left the capital early on March 29, and reached Macon by midday. Lafayette paused for lunch with the townspeople but journeyed on that afternoon to the Old Creek Indian Agency in western Crawford County.
Travel west of Macon was through Creek lands, where both roads and accommodations were primitive. The coach, scraping bottom in a gully, nearly shattered. The party’s progress was also slowed by a thunderstorm in present-day Marion County, where Lafayette joined a group of Creeks at a tavern to dry his clothes in front of the fire.
Miles away from their destination of Fort Mitchell, the entourage spent the night in bark-covered log cabins at a stage stand in present-day Chattahoochee County. The next day, March 31, Lafayette finished his 13-day, 400-mile trek across Georgia and crossed the Chattahoochee into Alabama. Lafayette completed his circuit of the nation that spring by visiting all the southern and western states before returning to Massachusetts for the Bunker Hill celebration in June 1825.
In 1836 the county seat of Walker County was named LaFayette in his honor.
- To access the Georgia Encyclopedia online, go to http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
Classical building seems imposing. But just where is it?
This edition’s Mystery Photo has a classical look about it, in a setting that seems spacious and pleasant. Can you figure out where this photo was taken, and what goes on inside those walls? Send your idea to elliott@brack.net and include your hometown.
Ruthy Lachman Paul of Norcross identified last edition’s Mystery Photo, sent in by Frank Sharp of Lawrenceville, as the Basilica in Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
George Graf of Palmyra, Va., sent in some additional information: “The church was destroyed in the 614 siege of Jerusalem by Sasanian king Khosrau II. Its foundations were recovered in 1899 when architect and buildings manager of the Diocese of Cologne, Heinrich Renard investigated the site. During his visit to Jerusalem in 1898, Kaiser Wilhelm II bought this piece of land on Mount Zion from Sultan Abdul Hamid II and presented it to the ‘German Union of the Holy Land.’ According to local tradition, it was on this spot, near the site of the Last Supper, that the Blessed Virgin Mary died. Construction took only 10 years beginning in 1900 and the basilica was dedicated on 10 April 1910.
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- MORE: Contact Editor and Publisher Elliott Brack at: elliott@gwinnettforum.com
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