CHIPPER TIME: Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful (GC&B) needs volunteers for its annual Bring One for the Chipper, set for Saturday, January 21 at Bethesda Park, from 8 to 11 a.m. GC&B is proud to have hosted one of the largest “tree-cycling” events in the State of Georgia for the last 30 years. It is now getting ready to host its 31st installment of Bring One for the Chipper. The event takes donated cut Christmas trees and transforms them into mulch for use in landscape projects throughout the county. Bring One for the Chipper volunteers can include individuals, families (volunteers must be 14 and older), school groups, civic groups, companies, and neighborhood associations – among others.
To volunteer, interested parties must register online at www.GwinnettCB.org and download a Volunteer Release Form to bring with them to the event. Questions about Bring One for the Chipper may be directed to gwinnettcb@gwinnettcb.org or 770-822-5187.
IN THIS EDITIONTODAY’S FOCUS: Widening Gap Obvious Between Gwinnett and Rest of State
EEB PERSPECTIVE: Catching Up with the News; Michael Thurmond To Head DeKalb
ANOTHER VIEW: President Bush-2 Outlined Immigrant Strategy Years Ago
SPOTLIGHT: Howard Brothers
FEEDBACK: Enjoying GwinnettForum Although No Longer Gwinnett Resident
UPCOMING: Snellville Has New Portals About Towne Center Project
NOTABLE: Gainesville Theatre Alliance Has Plays, Stage Tours in February
RECOMMENDED: Re-Reading the Classics
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Scenes of the South Inspire Notable Artists During the 1940s
TODAY’S QUOTE: Chinaberry Climbing Challenges Her To See the End of the World
MYSTERY PHOTO: Be Careful and Detect the Clues in This Issue’s Mystery Photo
LAGNIAPPE: Emory University Commemorated in Photo from Orlando Massacre
CALENDAR: Authors Plan Visit Through Gwinnett Library
TODAY’S FOCUSWidening gap obvious between Gwinnett and rest of state
(Editor’s Note: this first appeared in the web site, troubleingodscountry.com. –eeb)
By Charles Hayslett, Atlanta, Ga. | Here’s an easy way to understand the widening gap between Metro Atlanta and the rest of Georgia.
Hayslett
Compare all 56 counties of interior South Georgia to Gwinnett County alone.
Gwinnett County’s 2013 population was estimated at 859,304 – just under three-fourths of the 1.16 million people living in our 56-county South Georgia region.
But despite that population disadvantage, Gwinnett County:
- Generates more income and contributes more in taxes than all 56 counties of South Georgia combined. According to IRS data, Gwinnett County’s total income for 2013 was $21.2 billion versus $17.4 billion for South Georgia. Similarly, Gwinnett County taxpayers paid $2.5 billion in federal taxes while South Georgia taxpayers contributed $1.7 billion.
- Consumes substantially less in social services than South Georgia. In 2013, as one example, Gwinnett County consumed less than a third as much in Medicaid services than South Georgia. The federal share of South Georgia’s Medicaid costs totaled $927.6 million; Gwinnett County, $266.2 million. The picture for SNAP (food stamps) and other social benefits is similar.
Is home to significantly more college graduates than South Georgia. Based on data compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (ERS), there were 175,290 college graduates in Gwinnett County over the period 2009-13 versus 110,576 for all of South Georgia. This hasn’t always been the case. As recently as 1990, Gwinnett County and South Georgia were basically tied in this category: 65,281 for Gwinnett and 63,073 for South Georgia.
- Sends more students to University System of Georgia colleges than all of South Georgia. This is also a recent development. A decade ago South Georgia still sent significantly more kids to college than Gwinnett County – 5,117 versus 3,762. But by 2011 they were basically tied. South Georgia sent 5,498 kids to college while Gwinnett County sent 5,493, according to University System of Georgia data. Since then the gap has widened steadily, and in 2015 Gwinnett County sent 1,100 more freshmen to University System colleges than South Georgia.
- Is substantially healthier than South Using premature death rates as a proxy for health status, Gwinnett County is about twice as healthy as South Georgia. The 2015 YPLL 75 rate (years of potential life lost ) for the 56-county South Georgia region was 9,823.3; for Gwinnett County, it was 5,163.2 (with YPLL 75 rates, the lower the number, the better). In this category, South Georgia has actually gained a little ground over the past 20 years. It’s improved about 5.4 percent over that period while Gwinnett County has been essentially flat. But South Georgia’s numbers in this category are abysmal while Gwinnett County’s are pretty close to optimal, especially for a county as large and diverse as it is. For 2015, Gwinnett County’s YPLL 75 rate was the fifth best in the state, and it has consistently been in the top tier of counties in this category.
- Produces about half as many criminals as South Georgia. In 2015, according to Georgia Department of Corrections data, South Georgia sent more than twice as many people to prison than Gwinnett County did: 2,403 for South Georgia versus 1,049 for Gwinnett. The picture for new probationers is similar: 5,956 for South Georgia versus 2,630 for Gwinnett County.
In a future post, we’ll take a look at political and cultural trends in Gwinnett County and South Georgia.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Catching up with the news; Michael Thurmond to head DeKalb
By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher | Let’s crank up the old Catch Up app for today. We’ve been holding back on these few items, and give them life today.
ONE PERSON wrote with their outlook for 2017: “Keep your fingers crossed.”
THERE’S ONE REASON we suggest that government may be looking up in DeKalb County: they have some new players in the game, which bodes well for them. All too often in recent years, DeKalb has been suffering through some bad governmental and political situations. One reason for our thoughts that DeKalb is on the up rise is because of the election of a most capable public official as their CEO: Michael Thurmond.
Over the years, in every elected and appointed position that he has held, Thurmond’s work has been exemplary. We particularly remember when he was appointed as superintendent of DeKalb County schools, he quickly balanced the budget, which was out of whack by $14 million dollars. He soon had an $80 million surplus.
Impressed, we asked him what was his secret for balancing the budget so quickly. His answer: “First thing I did was read the budget.” He found ways to quickly cut the excesses, and put the DeKalb schools on the road to recovery.
Thurmond is a graduate of Paine College (major in philosophy and religion), the University of South Carolina School of Law, and has studied at Harvard at the Kennedy School. He has been a Clarke County state representative, then was Georgia Labor Commissioner for three terms. He most recently was an attorney in private practice in Atlanta with Butler, Wooden and Peak.
FROM KAISERSLAUTEN, Germany, Larry Zani sends us this message of a program someone might want to apply for which might be a plum.
For all persons whose ancestry is from the Trentino region of northern Italy and are between the ages of 18 and 35 years of age, the province’s government offers an exchange program which offers an excellent opportunity to spend a period of time in Italy.
- For more information, go to the English language website here. You can get the application form here. The deadline for application is 28 February. Wouldn’t it be great if someone from Gwinnett got this chance!
BETSEY DAHLBERT AND PAUL ALLEN will soon will have the Lilburn distillery in full production by the springtime. Their focus market is Gwinnett and counties north of it. Betsey says their immediate marketing strategy is “We’re in Gwinnett, you’re in Gwinnett, drink our vodka!” They plan to use as many locally-produced ingredients and locally-purchased paraphernalia (even the bottles and labels) as possible. Their goal is for every place serving alcohol in Gwinnett to stock their products.
DOES IT BUG YOU when you hear a performer doing a pretty good job, and at the end the audience claps, hollers, whistles and stamps their feet like it was the performance of the century? We hear this reaction often when we think the artist did so-so, not stupendously great. After all, every act is not a show-stopper. Or is it merely that there are those in the audience who think every artist should get wild applause. Unfortunately, this can lead to giving the performer more credit than they should have. What’s wrong with mere polite applause when the performer is not great?
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
President Bush-2 outlined immigrant strategy years ago
By Jack Bernard, Peachtree City, Ga. | A recent Gallup study examined long-term trends in immigration attitudes among Americans, a topic perhaps of particular interest to those in Gwinnett County. Surprisingly, it found that the number of Americans who wanted immigration decreased had not changed much in 50 years. Only 38 percent of Americans currently (7-16) want a decrease in immigration versus 33 percent in 1965.
Bernard
Even more astonishing is the fact that in 1965, only seven percent of Americans wanted immigration increased…and that number has now tripled to 21 percent. Demographically, even 20 percent of non-Hispanic whites want immigration increased.
The percentage of Americans seeing immigration as “good” is an amazing 72 percent, up from 62 percent in 2001. So much for the media frenzy touting the groundswell against immigration.
Why do Americans view immigration positively? Certainly, the fact that we are a nation of immigrants has something to do with it.
All of my grandparents were immigrants. I am a retired senior vice president with a publicly held firm. Two of my children are physicians and the other is a successful small business owner. Certainly, immigrants have made this nation what it is today.
There are many other reasons why most Americans support legal immigration. But, what about illegal immigration?
With the Trump candidacy, illegal immigration has become a very visible issue. Based on media coverage, one would think that the American public was up in arms about waves of Mexicans taking jobs from hard working citizens. “Build that wall, deport them!”
But, if you thought that, you would be dead wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The illegal issue is not as clear cut as some politicians would have us believe. A surprising 66 percent of Americans do not want either deportations or a wall (Gallup, 7-16).
The vast majority of Americans, 84 percent, support allowing illegals to become U.S. citizens over time. Even 76 percent of Republicans agree!
Children of the ’60s will remember these lyrics to a popular Bob Dylan song: “Ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.”
With Donald Trump getting elected and Bob Dylan getting a Nobel Prize, let’s consider a reinterpretation of the words to Maggie’s farm. Who works on that farm when Americans refuse to do so? In Georgia the real life answer is un-documented immigrants.
We can build all the walls we want to, but so long as there are jobs here that do not pay enough to attract American citizens, illegal immigrants will come here and take them.
In his 2007 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush outlined a comprehensive strategy:
- The United States must secure its borders.
- We must hold employers accountable for the workers they hire.
- To secure our border, we must create a temporary worker program.
- We must bring undocumented workers already in the country out of the shadows.
- We must promote assimilation into our society by teaching new immigrants English and American values.
It is sad that his party did not support his very reasonable solution to the immigration crisis, which has just gotten worse due to Congressional inaction.
It is even sadder that his party continues to believe that the sole solution is building a wall and having Mexico pay for it.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Howard Brothers
The public spiritedness of our underwriters allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. The public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Today’s sponsor is Howard Brothers, which has retail stores in Alpharetta, Doraville, Duluth and Oakwood. John and Doug Howard are the ‘brothers’ in Howard Brothers. This family owned business was started by their dad, and continues to specialize in hardware, outdoor power equipment and parts and service. Howard Brothers are authorized dealers of STIHL, Exmark, Honda and Echo outdoor power equipment. They are authorized Big Green Egg, Traeger Grill and YETI Cooler dealers.
- Visit their web site www.howardbrothers.com.
Enjoying GwinnettForum although no longer a Gwinnett resident
Editor, the Forum:
The two lead pieces in today’s Forum (by Norman Baggs and Elliott Brack) are perfect examples of why I remain a loyal reader of the GwinnettForum, even though I am no longer a resident of Gwinnett County.
Norman Baggs’ analysis of the “fake news” phenomenon is accurate, fair, balanced and very well-presented. And so is your introspective analysis (“Trump administration may be turning point“) regarding the mistaken portrayal by many journalists of the shifting political winds during the most recent presidential election cycle. I appreciate your journalism!
— Al Swint, Tucker
Hillary was a “Gonna Be President Someday” for a long time
Editor, the Forum:
In a recent edition, Elliott Brack said, “All this was during a time when it appeared that the front-runner was Hillary Clinton, who had a proven and well thought-out platform.”
The truth was she did not have a “well thought-out platform.” Back in the spring of her 2008 campaign, she and her people went to a weekend retreat to put together what her message was.
David Axelrod said pretty much the same thing during this spring. He asked, “Why is she running?”
She had been “gonna be president someday” for a long time and she still did not have her message?
— Alex Ortolano, Duluth
Send us your thoughts: We encourage you to send us your letters and thoughts on issues raised in GwinnettForum. Please limit comments to 300 words. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length. Send feedback and letters to: elliott@brack.net
UPCOMINGSnellville has new portals about Towne Center project
On Friday, the City of Snellville rolled out several new online portals to keep citizens up-to-date on the progress being made on the city’s planned Towne Center and to encourage public feedback as the project moves forward.
Snellville’s new webpage, www.snellville.org/the-towne-center-snellville will serve as an online hub for Towne Center updates and residents can visit www.snellville.org/the-conversation to ask questions or provide feedback in real-time. In addition, the city has launched new social media feeds on Facebook (www.fb.com/thetownecenter), Twitter (@TheTowneCenter), and Instagram (@TheTowneCenter) – all devoted to Towne Center updates.
Mayor Tom Witts says: “As we turn the Towne Center at Snellville proposal into a reality, citizen engagement remains our top priority. In addition to participating in our Town Hall meetings, we urge local residents and business owners to find us online and offer their feedback on new developments of this community-driven project.”
Snellville’s planning for the Towne Center began in 2007 and the city recently unveiled updated plans for the vision after soliciting input from citizens across the city.
Within the last year, the Snellville Mayor and Council have taken significant steps to make the Towne Center vision a reality.
The city rolled out their proposal for a re-location of the Elizabeth H. Williams library to a new state of the art facility that will include a City Market in the Towne Center. The library is proposed to be funded by 2016 Special Local Option Sales Tax dollars when approved by county leaders.
Late last year, the Council passed development code updates that were formed with citizen input that would guide the development standards of the Towne Center. This was the most vital step yet in moving the Towne Center plan forward. Code updates will continue in 2017.
New chapter of DAR being formed in area around Braselton
A new chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution is being formed in the Braselton-Houston-West Jackson County area.
Ladies in the area 18 and older are invited to a meeting on February 4 at 10:30 in the Braselton Library Meeting Room to find out if they are related to the Braseltons, the Adams or the Smiths or all families in between so as to qualify for DAR membership. There will be DAR members and genealogists on site to help navigate the pedigree of your family. Discover your heritage and become part of this lineage society.
The National Society of the DAR was founded in 1890 to promote historic preservation, education and patriotism. Its members are descended from the patriots who won American independence during the Revolutionary War. The DAR has more than 177,000 members in approximately 3,000 chapters worldwide. Members are committed to volunteer service, serving more than 12.5 million hours in communities throughout the world in the last three years. To learn more about today’s DAR, visit www.DAR.org.
NOTABLEGainesville Theatre Alliance has plays, stage tours in February
Gainesville Theatre Alliance’s (GTA) annual February Festival will feature two plays performing simultaneously, this year on February 14-25. The February 2 Stage Tour of Much Ado About Nothing will feature director and UNG professor Elisa Carlson and include cameos by set, costume and lighting designers showcasing the research and inspirations for creating new and vivid memories of the classic play.
GTA, a 37-year collaboration between the University of North Georgia and Brenau University, will offer a Stage Tour two days earlier of the other play on the Festival, Godspell, which will perform on the Brenau campus.
Beginning on Valentine’s Day, northeast theatre-goers will listen in on secret and hilarious conversations at a costume ball, a grand courtyard, a jail and a wedding celebration that appear and disappear in the intimate space of University of North Georgia’s-Gainesville’s Ed Cabell Theatre. And at 6 p.m. on February 2, Gainesville Theatre Alliance will offer a free peek behind the scenes to see the layers of design, direction and performance that make one of Shakespeare’s best loved comedies seem like a simple, delightful romp.
While the Stage Tour is free, tickets for each production range from $12 to $26 depending on seat location and can be purchased on the website, www.gainesvilleTHEATREalliance.org, or by calling the GTA Box Office at 678-717-3624, Monday through Friday from 10 am to 4 pm.
Patrons are advised not to dally, as GTA’s most recent musical production of Beauty and the Beast sold out every performance weeks before opening day.
RECOMMENDEDRe-reading the classics
From Susan McBrayer, Sugar Hill: Have you ever read a book at different times in your life and wondered if it were actually the same book? I have. Reading is a two-way partnership. The author presents a message and the reader takes in various aspects of it, depending on where he is in his own life. Every time you read a book, you may hear something new. When I was in high school I was force fed The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and got very little out of it other than how provincial those Puritans were. I re-read the book 20 years later and thoroughly enjoyed it. The book was the same. I, however, was different. During the last few years, I have been re-reading the classics and appreciating them more. My challenge to you is to pick up a classic and give it a second chance. It may just be a different partnership now.
- 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
Scenes of the South inspire notable artists during the 1940s
(Continued from previous edition)
James Routh, a native of New Orleans, La., created several lithographs in 1940 based on sketches made that year during a tour of the South, which was supported by a Rosenwald Fund fellowship. One of these lithographs, Mississippi Delta, is housed at the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens. Routh studied at the Art Students League with Sternberg and painter Raphael Soyer, and under the guidance of Will Barnet at the League, he learned how to print lithographs. He and Barnet printed lithographs for both students and established artists alike at the League.
The rhythmic topography and everyday scenes of Georgia also inspired Nell Choate Jones, an artist with a modernist emphasis on color and line in her landscapes and cityscapes. In the 1930s and 1940s she often visited Marietta and Ansley Park in midtown Atlanta, and she also traveled to Savannah. Born in Hawkinsville, Jones moved with her family to Brooklyn, N.Y., at a young age. In the late 1920s, critics admired her picturesque landscapes of France and Woodstock, New York; however, in the 1930s her local southern subjects aligned her with the nationwide trend of the American Scene. Jones studied at the Fontainebleau School of Art in France and trained in England and New York. She thrived as a painter and organizer, exhibiting frequently and chairing various art organizations, including the National Association of Women Artists and the Brooklyn Society of Artists.
Topography and what she saw as the “picturesqueness” of the land and its peoples—especially African Americans—were the main subjects of her southern paintings, as exemplified in her Georgia Red Clay (1946), which is housed at the Morris Museum of Art. Executed with bold contours and vigorous shapes, her canvases feature muscular roads and trees and a modernist emphasis on color and line.
Lamar Dodd, a painter, professor, and administrator born in Fairburn and reared in LaGrange, trained at the Art Students League with well-known artists George Bridgman, Jean Charlot, John Steuart Curry, Richard Lahey, and Boardman Robinson. Dodd started teaching art at the University of Georgia in the fall of 1937 as artist-in-residence and later became chair of the art department, building it extensively through the years and remaining its head until 1973.
He gained recognition early on, winning an award for a painting shown at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1936 and exhibiting work in New York and Atlanta. His paintings of the South, especially Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee, during the 1930s and early 1940s emphasize the forms and lines of the landscape and underscore its evocative atmospheric effects, as seen in his Copperhill (1938), which is on extended loan to the Georgia Museum of Art.
(To be continued)
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia online, go to http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
Be careful and detect the clues in this issue’s Mystery Photo
You might find two or three clues about this edition’s Mystery Photo. But you might have to look carefully. Send in your thoughts to elliott@brack.net and be sure to include your hometown.
The reliable George Graf of Palmyra, Va. was the only reader recognizing last edition’s Mystery Photograph, sent in by Scott LeCraw of Suwanee. George wrote: “It is only my guess, but I think it is Boothbay Harbor, a town in the county of Lincoln, Maine. Boothbay Harbor’s population remained surprisingly stable (approx. 2,000) in the 30 years from 1970 to 2000, though a modest decrease was reported in 2010. In the summer, tens of thousands of tourists roam the Harbor’s streets and frequent its restaurants and tour boats. The town hosts the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, a private, non-profit research institution. Funded primarily by federal grants, it cooperates with the Maine Department of Marine Resources in operating a Library and Information Center to support researchers, students and visiting investigators.”
Photographer catches sight of pennant recognizing Emory University
The latest Florida massacre reminded Roving Photographer Frank Sharp of a recent visit to Orlando, Fla. where while there he took a picture of the memorial at the Pulse night club massacre, now closed with a fence around it, where 49 people were killed. He noted he saw an Emory University pennant commemorating that medical school’s involvement in helping victims of the attack.
CALENDAR
Free Photography Workshop at Hamilton Mill Library Branch, 3690 Braselton Highway, on January 18, at 10:30 a.m. Join the Georgia Nature Photographers Association for this informal talk and Q&A photography workshop. They will provide information about cameras, editing software, and tips for getting better photographs with the equipment you already have.
State of Duluth Address: The Honorable Mayor Nancy Harris will deliver the Annual Duluth’s “State of the City” address on Monday, January 23 at 7 p.m. at the Red Clay Music Foundry. Reserve a free seat at http://tinyurl.com/DuluthSOC. The doors will open at 6 p.m. This address will take the place of the regularly scheduled Council work session
Rotary Career Exploration Night at Norcross High School will be on January 26 at 6 p.m. Nine panels of people will provide students with information on their work. The event will be at the Norcross High Cafeteria. For more details, contact Jay Lowe at 404 272 2633.
Author Lisa Gardner will be in Gwinnett for an appearance on February 1 at the Norcross cultural and Community Center at 7:30 p.m. Gardener is a crime thriller novelist with over 22 million books in print. Her latest novel, Right Behind You, is part of her F.B.I. Profiler Series. Four of her novels have become movies for the small screen, and she has made appearances on TruTV and CNN. Books will be available for purchase and signing courtesy of Eagle Eye Book Shop. For more information, visit www.gwinnettpl.org or call 770-978-5154.
(NEW) Author Eloisa James will visit Barnes and Noble in Peachtree Corners on February 7 at 4 p.m. as part of the Gwinnett Library’s author series. James writes historical romances for HarperCollins Publishers. James is a RITA award winner—the top award in the genre of romance fiction.
(NEW) Author Amber Brock will visit Barnes and Noble in Peachtree Corners on Wednesday, February 11, at 3 p.m. as part of the Gwinnett County Public Library’s author series. She writes historical fiction novels set in the glamorous 1920s. She teaches English at a girls’ school in Atlanta,. Brock will speak to fans and aspiring authors about the writing and publishing process and book promotion strategies as well as her book, A Fine Imitation. This event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase and signing.
Plant sale: The Gwinnett County Cooperative Extension office is offering varieties of Blueberries, Blackberries, Raspberries, Figs, Apples, Pomegranate, Goji Berries, Native Azaleas and other landscape plants as part of their annual sale. This year Pecan Trees and the big Titan blueberry, which produces blueberries the size of quarters, have been added to the list of pre-ordered options. Supplies are limited so please order early. Orders will be taken through March 7, 2017. Order forms may be obtained from: http://www.ugaextension.org/gwinnett, or by calling 678-377-4010 to request a form be mailed to you.
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