GwinnettForum | Number 20.62 | Aug. 18, 2020
THIS IS A BIRD’S EYE VIEW of last week’s Mystery Photo, which is Empress Catherine’s Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, a gift from her husband, Peter the Great. This view was sent in by Natalya and Jim D’Angelo of Lawrenceville. She is originally from Russia. For more detail on the last Mystery Photo, see below.
TODAY’S FOCUS: Feels Mountain Park Area is Rural Oasis inside Bustling Gwinnett
EEB PERSPECTIVE: How You Can Get a Speeding Ticket Without a Policeman Around
EEB PERSPECTIVE: Here’s a Simple Way To Ensure Your Ballot Gets Counted in November
ANOTHER VIEW: Life, Liberty and Property: Using Your Rights Speaks Volumes
SPOTLIGHT: Mingledorff’s
FEEDBACK: Send us your thoughts
UPCOMING: Gwinnett Chamber Is Supporting Extension of E-SPLOST Vote in Fall
NOTABLE: Jonathan Patterson Is Sole Finalist for Fayette County Superintendent
RECOMMENDED: Countdown 1945 by Chris Wallace
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Only Two Quilts of Harriet Powers, Georgia Artist, Survive Today
MYSTERY PHOTO: There’s More Than Meets the Eye in Today’s Mystery Photo
LAGNIAPPE: Korean-American and Gwinnett Chamber Agree to Alliance
CALENDAR: Mountain Park Community Association Plans Zoom Meeting Thursday
Mountain Park area is rural oasis inside bustling Gwinnett
(Editor’s note: The following comes from a Gwinnett resident who enjoys living in the Mountain Park community. The author was born in Columbia, S.C., and moved to Atlanta when he was 12. He is a graduate of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. and is now retired. He was for years a program development person in the electric utility business, working on efficient and renewable energy. He has served on the board of the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, and is currently president of the Lilburn Cooperative Ministry. –eeb)
By Phil Davis
MOUNTAIN PARK, Ga. | Atlanta is busy! Over the years, we have lived in Buckhead, Sandy Springs, Roswell, East Cobb, Norcross, and Decatur. All busy. Earlier, the space between DeKalb and Snellville was farmland, but the subdivisions were underway. The Mountain Park community formed around the intersection of Rockbridge Road and an old trading trail, Five Forks-Trickum Road.
Davis
We moved here as our family grew and the kids joined various activities. We were tired of the endless traffic and density of East Cobb. Initially unaware of Mountain Park, friends built a house here, and asked us to keep an eye on it. That is how we discovered this wonderful community 30 years ago.
Today, Mountain Park is a “Census Designated Place” numbering about 12,000 people, just north of the mountain. It is in unincorporated Gwinnett and has no city focus. Instead there is an intersection of retail activity, then wonderful parks with their athletic associations, 31 churches, and the schools of the Parkview cluster. These are the centers of activities, and they support an active, family-oriented lifestyle. The area boasts languages, backgrounds, and customs from across the world, but the unifying factor is love of family.
The quality of Parkview High School is the most cited reason people move here. They stay for the quality of life. Natives would tell you that traffic is awful, but it is far less intrusive than north, south, or west of Atlanta or even east of us. Residents work hard to stay informed and involved through various formal and informal groups. They want to preserve the lush tree canopies, to attract durable small businesses, support the schools, and promote the community. Occasionally, we must remind the County Commission that we are here, since Mountain Park is sometimes referred to as the forgotten corner of Gwinnett.
The unincorporated and incorporated part of Mountain Park in Gwinnett (9n red)
That also is a good thing. Because Mountain Park can be a little sleepy, it very much is a quiet oasis with a rural character. Newcomers tend to stay, so we get to know each other, our children, and even which pet belongs to whom. Despite the relaxed nature, there is plenty to do. Downtown Atlanta is an easy drive (compared to any other Outside the Perimeter area). Along the way there’s Tucker, Decatur, Emory, Virginia Highlands. Close by, we have the developing center of Lilburn with its greenway and park, restaurants, and shops.
Mountain Park also has the Lilburn Cooperative Ministry. Soon, it will observe 26 years of helping families in crisis. Our Co-op stepped up to unprecedented need with the COVID pandemic, job loss, and school closures. Normally assisting 50-60 families per week, that number jumped ten-fold. Area churches, civic groups, and residents stepped up support, so no family lacked for food and shelter.
Our area also boasts Park Springs, Georgia’s first and its premier continuing care retirement community. This is a true community within a community on the eastern border of Stone Mountain Park. Mountain Park is small, but it is one of the most complete communities in the metro for young, old, and those in between.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
How you can get a speeding ticket without police around
Camera in gray box in Norcross.
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
AUG. 18, 2020 | You may get speeding tickets in some places in Gwinnett with no policeman around. Three Gwinnett cities now have “speed box cameras” in school zones that will issue speeding citations around schools in Duluth, Norcross and Lilburn. The Gwinnett County Police Department is also considering a contract for the speed cameras for use around public schools. Snellville is expected to erect the speed-checking units soon.
You may have noticed the new box-like structures along roadways near schools. The boxes are really cameras with technology to catch vehicles speeding near school districts. Citations are issued if the vehicle is going at least 11 miles per hour over the posted school district speed.
The cameras come as a result of House Bill 218 (2018), allowing the use of speed cameras in school zones. The cameras are installed at no cost to the local government by RedSpeed USA, of Lombard, Ill., an American firm with ties to an English company. RedSpeed gets 35 percent of the revenue from the speeding citations, while the balance of the funds goes to the cities and are earmarked by the bill for public safety improvements. Over 100 municipalities in five states have installed their cameras.
In the brief period that the cameras were operational in Duluth, that city generated $23,091.25 from RedSpeed last year in speeding fines. The cameras are installed around five schools in Duluth.
Norcross Police Chief Bill Grogan says that the cameras were installed in Norcross during the first quarter this year, just prior to the school shut down because of COVID-19. “No tickets have been issued yet since schools are doing digital learning. Cameras are only active when school is in session. When schools are back in session, we will start with a warning period and begin issuing citations after that.”
Chief Bruce Headley of Lilburn realized that there were speeding problems, often around schools, plus on other roads. An independent study showed that “We had 1,400 ‘super speeders’ going more than 15 miles per hour above the speed limit. But time we got the program going, because of the coronavirus, there was no school, so we haven’t found much revenue yet. We’ll see once school starts again.”
Redspeed also makes speed vans, pole-mounted red light cameras, and school bus stop photo enforcement systems.
If you get a citation from RedSpeed, you have the option to pay your fine online. Tickets given by police officers also typically come with points against a driver’s license, while the camera tickets do not.
Greg Park of Kansas City represents RedSpeed in Georgia, and says that the company has 41 customers in Georgia, with an office in Roswell. “We can show that the installation of these cameras really slows speeders. With school re-opening, we’ll soon be back up and running”
One of the benefits of cities using the speed cameras is that they can monitor the speed limits on roadways (around schools) so that police officers can be assigned other duties. “And all this,” Park says, “without any cost to the cities.” When citations are issued, they have been verified twice by RedSpeed employees before the citations go out from the local government. If a person getting the citation wants to contest it, they must appear in the municipality court.
It’s all done as a safety improvement around schools, and from one hour before the school is open, and until one hour past the school closing.
Look for more of these school zone cameras throughout Georgia in coming years.
A simple way to ensure your ballot gets counted in November
All the hullabaloo of whether ballots will be counted in the November election because of postal delays, is mere smokescreen causing confusion.
There’s a simple way if you want to vote by absentee ballot to make sure your vote is counted. Here’s what you do: once you fill out your absentee ballot, simply TAKE it to either the Gwinnett Elections Office in Lawrenceville, or during the Early Voting Time, drop it in one of the special ballot collection boxes at these locations. That way you’ll sidestep wondering if the Post Office is delivering your vote, for you will have delivered it yourself.
You can also drop off absentee ballots on election day, but only at the Elections Office before 7 p.m. You may apply now for an absentee ballot at this web page.
You see, it’s that simple. Don’t let all the talk about the funding of the post office confuse you.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Life, liberty and property: Using your rights speaks volumes
By Alex Tillman
VALDOSTA, Ga. | English political philosopher John Locke coined the phrase , “Life, Liberty, and Property.”These are natural rights that are divine rather than man made. His ideas influenced the American Revolution and the adoption of the Constitution. It appears that Americans have forgotten the power of these natural rights.
Tillman
We look to the government to correct the ills of society. We protest or complain in the belief that some large entity will deliver us from injustice. Locke was right. Our natural rights of life, liberty, and property are the real sources of power. We need to remind ourselves of the power of individual choices.
We have life. A society is not laws, governments and businesses. A society is people. Each of us has just as much life as any other person.
We have liberty. We have the natural right to follow our own paths. How we use liberty in our lives affects our communities more than anything else. The power of individual choice is infinite.
We have a right to property. Property is not limited to the ownership of land or a business. Property is our paychecks. Each of us chooses how to spend or invest our dollars. Each life has the liberty to control their property. Each of us has the power of the purse.
We have forgotten how we are empowered by our natural rights. In a sense they make us equal. The concept of free choice is the great emancipator.
Life, liberty, and property within the free enterprise system is the real change agent in society. Personal choice is a beautiful thing, yet we have forgotten this.
Locke
To use a sports analogy, everyone is a free agent. As free agents, we choose our destiny in all areas of life . Collectively, how we lead our lives by the choices we make determines our own public policy. It is time to revisit our natural rights to use them for the greater good, rather than demanding others to make changes for us. If you are waiting for the government or some other large institution to save society, you must have a lot of patience.
Free agents vote with their feet. Two feet can say more than one tongue. If free agents don’t like their jobs, they move on. If they don’t like their neighborhoods, they move. If they don’t like their schools, they find another one. Free agents are not complainers. They are doers. Complaints are commonplace. What they hear goes in one ear and out the other. When free agents use their feet and leave in large numbers, that gets people’s attention.
Complaining is easy. Voting with your feet requires commitment. Changing jobs or careers, selling a home, or changing schools is a pain. It has never been easy to be a rebel. Free agents are rebels. They change society. Can you recall any famous complainers from history?
John Locke understood mankind and society. He knew that exercising one’s natural rights trumped any bill of rights. He kept it simple.
You have but one life. Use it. You have liberty. Use it. You have property. Use it. Your actions as a free agent is more powerful than a protest march or voting. Choice speaks volumes.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Mingledorff’s
The public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Today’s featured sponsor is Mingledorff’s, an air conditioning distributor of the Carrier Air Conditioning Company. Mingledorff’s corporate office is located at 6675 Jones Mill Court in Norcross Ga. and is proud to be a sponsor of the Gwinnett Forum. With 37 locations in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and South Carolina, Mingledorff’s is the convenient local source with a complete line for the quality heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and refrigeration parts and supplies you need to service and install HVAC/R equipment. Product lines include Carrier, Bryant, Payne, Totaline and Bard.
- For all of your HVAC needs, and information on the products Mingledorff’s sells, visit www.mingledorffs.com and www.carrier.com.
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Send us your thoughts
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Gwinnett Chamber supporting extension of E-SPLOST vote
The Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce is supporting a Gwinnett educational SPLOST vote scheduled for the November 3 ballot. President Nick Masino made the announcement following a recent board meeting, saying: “Our county’s success can be directly tied to the quality of our schools. The E-SPLOST is not a new tax. It is an extension of the existing one cent sales tax which allows our schools to upgrade and provide technology, access and distance learning for all students and helps close the achievement gap.”
The Gwinnett County School Board has voted to call the referendum on the E-SPLOST extension. If approved, the E-SPLOST will also be used to expand schools and athletic facilities and make needed transportation investments.
Sean Murphy, chairman of the recently-formed Gwinnett Kids Count campaign for the passage of the extension, says: “Every facility in the Gwinnett County Public Schools and Buford City Schools has benefited for more than 20 years from E-SPLOST investments. Next year we lose more than $100 million in state funds because of the pandemic. The E-SPLOST continues our schools’ exceptional education and equity and access for all our public schools’ students. Every family or employer who hires a graduate will benefit. We appreciate the Chamber’s endorsement and urge voters to vote yes and invest in our schools’ and our county’s future.”
The Gwinnett Kids Count campaign was formed to build support for the E-SPLOST referendum. In addition to Murphy, campaign leaders include Norwood Davis, campaign treasurer and chief financial officer of 12Stone® Church. For more information about the Gwinnett Kids Count campaign, visit www.gwinnettkids2020.com.
Gwinnett accepting application for 2nd COVID-19 grants
Gwinnett County is accepting applications for a second round of COVID-19 Grant Funding Opportunity program allocations for nonprofit and faith-based agencies helping respond to immediate local needs related to the pandemic.
The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners has currently set aside $31.5 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) funding for local nonprofit and faith-based agencies to be distributed in at least three phases. The first phase, awarded in July, saw $13.3 million distributed to 104 agencies, and grants officials anticipate another $10.4 million to be shared in the second round. The deadline for applying for the second round of grants is Aug. 28.
Grants are being awarded in two categories: assistance for community needs and assistance for nonprofits. Assistance for community needs focuses on emergency food assistance, housing and utility assistance, healthcare services, childcare, transportation, education and other needs. Grants for nonprofit assistance addresses increased staffing needs, medical and personal protection equipment and supplies, and facility and technology enhancements.
Patterson is sole finalist for Fayette County superintendent
One of the Gwinnett County Public Schools associate superintendents is the sole finalist to become the superintendent of the Fayette County Public Schools. He is Jonathan Patterson of Dacula, 48, a native of Gwinnett. The Fayette Board of Education is expected to name him their new superintendent at the August 24 meeting.
Patterson, who has spent his entire life in education. He says he fell in love with this when teaching science courses at Carrollton High School. Patterson is a 1989 graduate of Central Gwinnett High School. He earned his bachelor’s degree from West Georgia University, his specialist’s certificate from the University of Georgia, and his Ph.D. from Mercer University.
Teaching biology, chemistry and physics, he has been in Carrollton, South Forsyth, and Dacula High Schools. He spent one year as an assistant principal in Buford, and was later an assistant principal at Dacula. His first principal’s position was at Alton Crews Middle School, before serving as principal at Norcross High for six years. He has been the associate superintendent for curriculum and instructional support for eight years.
Patterson is married to the former Shannon Messer of Wedowee, Ala. They have two sons, Bradley, 20, and Davis, 16. They attend Gwinnett Church.
Great Georgia Pollinator Census will be held Aug. 21-22
Gwinnett Community Services encourages residents of all ages to participate in the Great Georgia Pollinator Census on August 21-22.
The project offers a fun and safe way to spend time outside and learn about different insect pollinators. Participants simply count how many insect pollinators land on a blooming pollinating plant for 15 minutes then upload the results online. Residents can do so on their own or at a free event where staff will provide an insect pollinator identification guide and counting handouts and assistance. Visit GGAPC.org to upload counts or for more information.
Reagan Medical Center partners with APEX Spine
Gwinnett-based Reagan Medical Center has entered a partnership with APEX Spine and Neurosurgery. APEX has co-located, and is now serving patients, in Reagan’s Hamilton Mill, Grayson and Johns Creek facilities, and a new office in Alpharetta.
APEX offers comprehensive treatment for brain and spine issues, including back pain, brain and nervous system disorders, tumors and other common afflictions.
The APEX physicians are the only neurosurgery trauma specialist group practice in Gwinnett County and have been serving patient needs for more than six years. Their doctors include:
- Robert Ayer, of Sodus, NY, an undergraduate of Boston University and its School of Medicine. He completed his residency at Loma Linda University Medical Center and Swedish Neuroscience Institute. He is a resident of Suwanee.
- Bethwel Raore, born in Nairobi, Kenya, whose undergraduate degree is from Grinnell College. He is a graduate of the Creighton University School of Medicine and completed his residency at Emory University. He and his family live in Duluth.
- Mairaj Sami, born in Lexington, Mo. And a graduate of the University of Michigan. His medical degree is from Indiana University School of Medicine, with his Residency at the University of Kansas Medical Center. His family resides in Buckhead.
- Dave J. Seecharan of Memphis, Tenn, a graduate of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, with his medical degree from the University of Tennessee. His residency is from the University of Kansas Department of Neurosurgery and he lives in Duluth.
Countdown 1945, by Chris Wallace
From the day Harry Truman heard of the death of FDR, 116 days before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, this book dramatically counts down key events day by day. It’s fascinating. It involved people like Robert Oppenheimer and those involved in the Manhattan Project, through individuals working at Oak Ridge, insights into scientists at Los Alamos, the Potsdam Conference, and everyday life in Hiroshima before the bomb. It focuses on Col. Paul Tibbets, who forged the fighting unit that bombed Japan from B-29s, and eventually piloted the airplane Enola Gay (that was his mother’s name) which dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan. It’s a history lesson about this country seeking to find an end to World War II, and the awful consequences that development of splitting the atom created. Veteran journalist Chris Wallace makes for electrifying reading in telling this story.—eeb
An invitation: what books, restaurants, movies or web sites have you enjoyed recently? Send us your recent selection, along with a short paragraph (150 words) as to why you liked this, plus what you plan to visit or read next. Send to: elliott@brack.net
Only 2 quilts of artist Harriet Powers survive today
Harriet Powers is one of the best-known southern African American quilt makers, even though only two of her quilts, both of which she made after the Civil War (1861-65), survive today. One is part of the National Museum of American History collection at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The second quilt is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Mass. The cotton quilts consist of numerous pictorial squares depicting biblical scenes and celestial phenomena. They were constructed through applique and piecework and were hand and machine stitched.
Powers was born into slavery near Athens on October 29, 1837, and lived more than half her life in Clarke County, mainly in Sandy Creek and Buck Branch. The first of the Powers quilts was displayed in 1886 at a cotton fair in Athens, where Jennie Smith, an artist and art teacher at the Lucy Cobb Institute, a school for elite white females in Athens, saw it. She asked to purchase it from Powers, but Powers declined to sell it. Smith remained in touch with Powers, however, and five years later Powers, having financial difficulties, agreed to sell the quilt for five dollars. At the time of the sale Powers explained the imagery in the squares, and Smith recorded the descriptions along with additional comments of her own.
The history of the second quilt is less clear. One account indicates that the wives of Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta University) faculty members saw the first quilt in the Cotton States Exhibition in Atlanta in 1895 and decided to commission a second quilt by Powers. Another account suggests that the second quilt was purchased by the same faculty wives who may have seen it at the Nashville, Tenn., Exposition in 1898. Regardless, the faculty wives presented the quilt to the Reverend Charles Cuthbert Hall of New York in 1898, while he was serving as the chairman of the board of trustees at Atlanta University. Subsequently, the folk art collector Maxim Karolik acquired it from Hall’s heirs and donated it to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Powers’s quilts are remarkable for their bold use of applique for storytelling and for their extensive documentation. Her use of technique and design demonstrates African and African American influences. The use of appliqued designs to tell stories is closely related to artistic practices in the republic of Benin, West Africa. The uneven squares suggest the syncopation found in African American music.
Only one image of Powers herself survives. The photograph, made about 1897, depicts her wearing a special apron with appliqued images of a moon, cross, and sun or shooting star. Such celestial bodies appear repeatedly in her quilts and are often carefully stitched in complex ways, indicating their importance to her. These images may have related to a fraternal organization or had religious significance to her. Powers’s interpretations of both quilts have survived, though they are likely influenced by their recorders. Powers herself probably was illiterate and may have used the quilts as visual teaching tools for telling biblical stories.
In January 2005 Cat Holmes, a doctoral student in history at the University of Georgia, discovered the grave of Harriet Powers, as well as that of Powers’s husband and daughter. The headstone, which was uncovered at the historic Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery in Athens, reveals that Powers died on January 1, 1910. She was inducted into the Georgia Women of Achievement in 2009.
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia article online, go to http://georgiaencyclopedia.org
There’s more than meets the eye in today’s Mystery Photo
There’s more than meets the eye in today’s Mystery Photo. There’s a story associated with this residence. Figure it all out and send your ideas to elliott@brack.net, including your hometown.
The answer for the last edition’s Mystery Photo was easy for Natalya D’Angelo of Lawrenceville. She’s from St. Petersburg, Russia, so easily spotted the photo. “That is a view of the chapel cupolas at Catherine Palace, Tsarskoe (Tsar’s Village), Selo, about 30 kilometers south of St. Petersburg. A magnificent restoration of the 1756 Rococo Palace, it is a popular tourist destination for foreign visitors as well as Russian families. It was occupied by the Nazis during World War II and used as a headquarters until they had to retreat in 1944, but not before they did everything they could to desecrate and destroy it, as they did with other palaces and historic structures.”
Susan McBrayer of Sugar Hill noted: “The palace was a gift to Empress Catherine I from her husband, Peter the Great. At that time, it was a just a modest two-story building but their daughter, Empress Elizabeth, is the one who oversaw the lavish creation it later became. As a young woman, Catherine (originally called Marta) worked as a domestic servant and eventually became the mistress of Peter the Great before marrying him and bearing him 12 children.”
Others recognizing it included Hoyt Tuggle, Buford; Jim Savadelis, Duluth; Jim Cofer, Snellville; Lou Camerio, Lilburn; George Graf of Palmyra, Va. and Allan Peel of San Antonio, Tex.
Korean-American and Gwinnett chambers agree to alliance
The Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce and Korean-American Chamber of Commerce of Atlanta have agreed to participate in an alliance and made it official at its August board meeting. This Memorandum of Understanding is meant to encourage and further collaboration between the two parties to best serve their members and the diverse community. Signing the document were, from left, Ju-Hwan Choi, 2020 Board Chair, Korean Chamber; Simon Lee, President, Korean Chamber; Nick Masino, President and CEO, Gwinnett Chamber; and Tammy Shumate, 2020 Board Chair, Gwinnett Chamber.
Mountain Park group plans Thursday Zoom meeting
Public Meeting of the Mountain Park Community Association will be Thursday, August 20, from 7-9. The meeting will be online via Zoom. The district commissioner, Ben Ku, will be online. The two candidates for chairman of the Gwinnett County Commission, Nicole Love Henderson and David Post, will also be online. The Zoom link is https://zoom.us/j/95902475887?pwd=T29wSnJ0L2F0REJCTU1WcUt0bGZVUT09#success
While the password is 859926. You can also access by telephone at 888 270 9926, conference code 831009.
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