GwinnettForum | Number 21.26 | April 2, 2021
HERE’S AN INDICATION of just how the Internet has changed one profession. Today attorneys no longer regularly refer to printed law books, but instead refer to law case history online. So, when a law firm was moving recently, instead of carefully restocking their library with books……the company called 1-800-Got Junk to haul off their years-long accumulation of books in their law library. One of the law publishers, The Harrison Company, was formerly headquartered in Norcross.
TODAY’S FOCUS: Northside Hospital, Cardiovascular Group, sign new patient care agreement
EEB PERSPECTIVE: It was great fun to attend a symphony performance, with my granddaughter
ANOTHER VIEW: Make impeachment change to require 55%, not 67%, for conviction
SPOTLIGHT: PCOM Georgia
FEEDBACK: New Tax Commissioner and her proposal concerning tax collections
UPCOMING: Senate action prevents Tax Commissioner to contract for city tax collections
NOTABLE: PCOM names Brian Mann as its chief of simulation operations
RECOMMENDED: The Enlightenment of Angeline by Joshua Berkov
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Georgian Calder Willingham was accomplished writer, wrote The Graduate
MYSTERY PHOTO: Low-level buildings along a waterway are in today’s Mystery Photo
Northside Hospital, Cardiovascular Group, sign new patient care agreement
By Katherine Watson
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. | Northside Hospital and Cardiovascular Group LLC (CVG) announce the signing of a Practice Services Agreement, signifying a major change in cardiovascular patient care and clinical leadership in the Atlanta region.
Sandler
Mitcham
The partnership was finalized earlier this month. Key contributors to the successful culmination of the deal were Debbie Mitcham, president and CEO of Northside Gwinnett Hospitals; Manfred Sandler, MD, executive chairman of CVG; and Lewis Redd, senior executive of the Northside Hospital Heart Institute.
Dr. Sandler says: “CVG is overjoyed and honored to be part of the program going forward. This agreement does not alter any of the current day to day operations of CVG. It only strengthens them. With this partnership and the backing of Northside, our expansion into the future will be more expeditiously possible.”
CVG has been providing invaluable top-class cardiac services to Gwinnett and surrounding counties for more than 30 years.
Ms. Mitcham says that Northside Hospital is committed to developing a premier heart program across its entire system. The primary cardiac hospital will be Northside Gwinnett, which already has well-established cardiovascular and cardiothoracic care programs. In early March, the new Cardiac Care Unit opened at Northside Gwinnett, and other service features will be developed in the months ahead.
She added: “This partnership, with the long-time anchor CVG at our primary heart hospital, Northside Gwinnett, is an excellent addition to our strategic plan for the expansion of cardiac care. We plan to add advanced heart failure care to our services at Northside Gwinnett in the near future.”
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Symphony performance with granddaughter was great fun
Charleston Gaillard Center
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
APRIL 2, 2021 | Presented with two tickets to the symphony, we jumped at the offer. After all, we had not been in attendance at anything much at all during the pandemic, except for two special outdoor church services.
The occasion was last weekend, when visiting children in Charleston, S.C. And it was the Charleston Symphony Orchestra (CS0) we would be attending, as it was to present a concert featuring our favorite composer, Ludwig van Beethoven. They were to play Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony in the vast and beautiful Gaillard Auditorium (1,800 seats). The symphony is featuring Beethoven works during 2021, the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. It will be playing the fan-favorite Fifth Symphony on April 16.
At the Saturday concert, there were few in attendance, actually less than 200, because of socially-distanced seating. The Charleston Symphony had continued to offer concerts during the pandemic, but to a widely-dispersed audience.
This chance to attend the symphony also had another special meaning for me. Accompanying me would be my granddaughter, Ellie, a 14 year old who has talent with the piano. That really made it distinctive and fun, at least for me. She seemed to enjoy her outing.
For the pandemic-stricken year, the Charleston orchestra continued in-person full symphonic performances with live audiences, which were available in person for subscribers, though with limited attendance, in addition to virtual audiences. It is one of the few symphonies in the country to continue to offer live performances, which were made possible by the symphony’s partnerships with the Gaillard Auditorium and the Medical University of South Carolina, as well as patron support. Now in its 84th season, The CSO is the largest resident orchestra in South Carolina.
The Charleston Symphony has weathered the pandemic, though after restructuring. The organization, which has a $3.5 million operating budget, had a deficit for 2021 by almost $1 million in revenue, including an approximate $750,000 loss of ticket sales.
This symphony showcases a broad range of repertoire ranging from some of the beloved classical works to vibrant new music, choral works, opera, and collaborations with world-renowned composers and artists. Additionally, the CSO is visible in the community in smaller venues, performing chamber ensemble concerts during the year at clubhouses, churches, and private venues.
The orchestra was founded in 1936 by Miss Maude Winthrop Gibbon and Mrs. Martha Laurens Patterson. It currently employs 24 full-time musicians.
It gained early fame through the efforts of David Stahl, former music director, who studied under Leonard Bernstein and was known for his interpretation of Mahler‘s works. Stahl served as music director and conductor for 27 years, from 1984 until he died on October 24, 2010, of lymphoma. Stahl was credited with elevating the CSO to a world-class program.
Maestro Ken Lam was appointed music director of the CSO in 2014 and began his first season with the orchestra in 2015. The 2022 season is Lam’s last year with the orchestra. After 2022, the music director role will be filled partly with guest conductors, who will be enlisted for the orchestra’s Masterworks program. A newly created position of artistic director will be taken by Yuriy Bekker, Charleston Symphony’s concertmaster and principal pops conductor.
It was a great evening for Ellie and me, out and about and hearing classical music. And we got back home just after 9 p.m.!
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Make impeachment change to require 55%, not 67%, for conviction
By Jack Bernard, contributing columnist
“President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it.”– Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. | The U.S. Senate abdicated its responsibility as a coequal branch of government when it failed to convict former President Trump of “inciting violence against the government of the United States.” Under the Constitution, a two thirds vote (67 Senators) is needed to convict for impeachment… and the vote count was 57 for and 43 against with all of the no votes coming from the GOP.
After Trump’s impeachment trial, even the GOP’s Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared that President Trump was guilty. However, wily McConnell’s excuse for voting “no” was that Trump was no longer in office at the time of the trial. Of course, crafty McConnell himself was the person totally responsible for ensuring that President Trump was out of office before the trial began. Talk about hypocrisy, good old Mitch sent it to new levels.
His 43 fellow GOP Senators generally used the same lame excuse, avoiding condemning a dangerous demagogue who they are afraid would hurt them in their Republican primary races. It was truly a show of political cowardness by these GOP Senators, ignoring the facts as presented…and their own personal experience when they were cowering as traitorous armed insurgents invaded our Capital, encouraged by President Trump, who took no measures to halt them.
And President Trump’s words and actions were well documented by the House Impeachment managers. Plus, we all heard his outrageous statements on television. And that includes the 43 GOP Senators, many of whom failed to even listen to the House Impeachment managers, but rather spent the time doodling and reading magazines.
There is no doubt at all that the president was clearly guilty, as McConnell stated after the trial. Thus, the Senate failing to convict him (due solely to politics) proves that no President will ever be convicted in an impeachment trial… unless the process itself is substantially changed.
Therefore, the long-term solution should be obvious to any rational observer. Amend the Constitution to lower the number of senators needed for conviction. Not to a simple Senate majority, which could be used to remove a popular President for solely political purposes (like the highly partisan Bill Clinton impeachment trial attempted but failed to do). Rather, make it 55 votes (i.e., 55% versus 67%) needed to convict, which would still require some bipartisanship while not giving one party a veto.
What is required to amend the Constitution? It starts with obtaining a two-thirds majority vote in both the Senate and House of Representatives, no easy feat. Then, 38 of the 50 states must approve it (three-fourths).
Will achieving this goal be easy? No, but every long journey begins with one small step forward. So, let’s not wait until an even worse demagogic, authoritarian president tries to overturn our fragile democracy.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
PCOM Georgia
The public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Established in 2005, PCOM Georgia is a private, not-for-profit, accredited institute of higher education dedicated to the healthcare professions. The Suwanee, Ga., campus is affiliated with Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, a premier osteopathic medical school with a storied history. Doctoral degrees in Pharmacy (PharmD), Physical Therapy (PT) and Osteopathic Medicine (DO) are offered at PCOM Georgia. Graduate degrees at the master’s level can be earned in Biomedical Sciences and Physician Assistant (PA) Studies. Emphasizing “a whole person approach to care,” PCOM Georgia focuses on educational excellence, interprofessional education and service to the wider community. To learn more about how PCOM Georgia is shaping the future of health, visit www.pcom.edu or call 678-225-7500.
- For a list of other sponsors of this forum, click here
New tax commissioner and her proposal concerning tax collections
Editor, the Forum:
So the new Gwinnett County tax commissioner wants to enrich herself at the expense of the citizens of Gwinnett County? And along the way, usurp the authority previously belonging to the county?
Sounds to me like the 21st century Gwinnett County version of a story that’s as old as recorded history.
It would be nice if she and other elected officials would choose to function as fiduciaries and stewards, rather than use their office as a vehicle for personal enrichment. I continue to be idealistic in this regard, hoping we will see such this side of eternity. And trust I am not misplacing my hope.
— Randy Brunson, 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, and include your hometown. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length. Send feedback and letters to: elliott@brack.net
Senate action prevents tax commissioner to contract for city tax collections
Wednesday night the Georgia General Assembly passed SB201 with bipartisan support which prohibits the tax commissioner from negotiating with Gwinnett cities for collection of city ad valorem taxes. The bill’s passage comes after Gwinnett County Commissioner Kirkland Carden’s raised questions about the county’s top tax official over her proposal to personally be paid an estimated additional $110,000 in fees from cities.
After the bill cleared both chambers of the legislature, Carden issued the following statement:
“The provisions in SB201 that prevent the Gwinnett County Tax Commissioner from negotiating contracts with cities to personally pocket huge sums of additional taxpayer money are a win for transparent governance and Gwinnett’s residents. This bipartisan legislation brings an end to a loophole that allowed tax commissioners to use their public office for personal enrichment and financial gain. Now responsibility for city-county contract negotiations falls to the Board of Commissioners.
“Gwinnett’s leadership at all levels and across party lines quickly stepped up to help the cities and the taxpayers of our county. Even in these divided times, we worked together to make sure the people we represent are getting transparent and high-quality government services. I hope this productive and bipartisan dialogue will continue as we move forward as a county.”
Ms. Porter released a statement on Thursday afternoon: “I was elected to serve as the Gwinnett County tax commissioner and I will continue to serve and fulfill my duties.”
The bill now awaits Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature.
County court clerk set to offer free paper ID cards
The Gwinnett County Clerk of Court is now offering free paper copies of identification cards for residents who need a copy to cast their absentee ballot in future elections. Last week, the State of Georgia enacted a law that, in part, requires proof of identification for voters who request an absentee ballot.
Clerk of Court Tiana Garner says: “The right to vote is of fundamental importance and critical to the survival of our democracy. It is incumbent upon all of us to ensure that every eligible person who wants to vote is able to do so.”
The new service offered by the Gwinnett County Clerk of Court will take effect immediately. Gwinnett residents may bring their identification to any Clerk of Court location during normal business hours, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, to receive a free paper copy of their identification. The office locations are:
- The Clerk of Superior and the State and Magistrate Court, located at 75 Langley Drive in Lawrenceville;
- The Gwinnett County Detention Center and the Magistrate Clerk’s Office, located at 2900 University Parkway, Court Annex, second floor, in Lawrenceville; and
- The Gwinnett County Juvenile Court Clerk’s Office, located at 115 Stone Mountain Street in Lawrenceville.
38th Duluth Fall Festival to return this year on Sept. 25-26
The 38th annual Duluth Fall Festival will return on Sept. 25-26, 2021, after last year’s festival was cancelled because of the Covid pandemic. Leading the festival in 2021 will be Gin Willis and Wayne Herman.
Festival officials say that with vaccines becoming more plentiful, they decided to have the festival again this year. The festival committee is now working on a sponsor brochure, which will be mailed to potential sponsors soon.
The Duluth Fall Festival is a winner of the Southeastern Festival Association’s “Best large festival in the Southeast.” Country Living Magazine has also highlighted the Duluth festival, and is the only festival in Georgia that this magazine has cited.
Tuiasosopo is new manager of Gwinnett Stripers for 2021
Tuiasosopo
The Atlanta Braves have named the Gwinnett Stripers’ coaching staff for the 2021 season. Matt Tuiasosopo has been named the seventh manager in Gwinnett history. The 34-year-old Tuiasosopo will be both the youngest manager in Gwinnett history and the first former Gwinnett player to manage the team. As an outfielder and first baseman with Gwinnett from 2016-17, he batted .221 with 19 home runs and 73 RBIs in 178 games.
Tuiasosopo spent 2020 as a key member of the Braves Alternate Training Site coaching staff after the shutdown of what would have been his second season managing Rome. He made his managerial debut with the R-Braves in 2019, earning Atlanta’s prestigious Bobby Cox Award for minor league manager of the year.
Selected by Seattle in the third round of the 2004 draft out of Woodinville (Wash.) High School, Tuiasosopo played a 14-year professional career in the Mariners (2004-11), New York Mets (2012), Detroit Tigers (2013), Toronto Blue Jays (2014), Chicago White Sox (2014-15) and Braves (2016-17) organizations before retiring in 2018.
The balance of the coaching staff will be pitching coach Mike Maroth (second season); hitting coach Carlos Mendez (first season); Coach Wigberto Nevarez, first base coach, (first season); athletic trainer T.J. Saunders (first season); and strength coach Paul Howey (second season).
PCOM names Mann as its chief of simulation operations
Mann
Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine has named Brian Gerard Mann as its new Chief of Simulation Operations. In this role, Dr. Mann will assume broad responsibility for the day-to-day management of Simulation Center and standardized patient operations across all three PCOM campuses. He will be based at PCOM Georgia in Suwanee.
Most recently, Dr. Mann worked as the director of Simulation Education at Campbell University, Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lillington, N.C. In this position, he managed the Simulation Center’s day-to-day operations and created an integrated complete simulation curriculum for both undergraduate and graduate medical education.
Prior to joining CUSOM, Dr. Mann worked as a PA at FirstHealth of the Carolinas Convenient Care, the Cleveland Clinic, and several other leading healthcare organizations in Northeast Ohio. Before becoming a physician assistant, Dr. Mann worked as a firefighter/paramedic and as an emergency department paramedic in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dr. Mann graduated from Cuyahoga Community College as a surgical physician assistant. He then earned his Bachelor of Science in Health Sciences from Touro International University, and a Master’s degree in Advanced Physician Assistant Studies from A.T. Still University in Mesa, Ariz. He most recently completed his Doctorate of Education in Health Professions from A.T. Still University in Kirksville, Mo.
Dr. Mann has been married for more than 20 years to Andrea Pax Mann, DO, the new dean and chief academic officer of PCOM Georgia in Suwanee. They have two children. His hobbies include mindful training, meditation, golf, watching baseball, CrossFit, swimming, and playing with their three dogs.
Two Gwinnett youths win $4,000 scholarships instead of Washington tour
Two Gwinnett high students will receive a $4,000 scholarship from Jackson Electric Membership Corporation…instead of participating in the cooperative’s Youth Tour competition.
Singh
Neblett
Sanai Neblett, a junior at Dacula High School, and Rajveer Singh, a sophomore at Peachtree Ridge High School, were each chosen to receive a $4,000 scholarship in lieu of the annual Washington Youth Tour, which was canceled because of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Neblett, daughter of Georgia and Andre Neblett of Dacula, is a scholar athlete and violist in the philharmonic orchestra. She is a member of the Dacula Leadership Team, Beta Club, National Honor Society and Tri-M Music Honor Society. She was elected student body president for her senior year. She is a youth leader with Diamonds in the Rough, a youth development program for girls, where she participates in weekly mentoring and community service projects. She is a Girl Scout and volunteers with Mending the Gap. Neblett plans to pursue a career in public health as a neurosurgeon.
Singh, son of Jyotsna and Satvir of Duluth, is on the Ridge Rhetoric Debate Team, Spanish Honors Society and Science Olympiad Team, where he is the logistics director. He won an Innovation in Action award at the 2021 Gwinnett Science and Engineering Fair and will compete at the state level. Singh is a certified community health worker, and a rower with the Atlanta Junior Rowing Association. He plans to pursue a career in public health as a physician.
The Enlightenment of Angeline by Joshua Berkov
From Elizabeth Truluck Neace, Dacula: Having read comments on The Enlightenment of Angeline by Joshua Berkov, and thinking it should be hilariously funny, I was eager to read it. As it turns out, the characters in the book are a highly dysfunctional family consisting of a bitter dowager, Angeline, and her brood of two daughters and one son, who are waiting for her to die so they can get her money. While there were a few clever comments, for the most part, the dialogue was caustic. Even with the surprising twist at the end of the book, I was disappointed with this one. Perhaps, it was just not my cup of tea.
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
Georgian Calder Willingham was accomplished writer
Calder Willingham was an accomplished novelist, playwright, and screenwriter who created some of the most memorable characters in the American cinematic and literary canons. Characterized by raw sexual overtones, several of Willingham’s novels are set in the South, with Georgia providing the backdrop for two of his novels, Eternal Fire and Rambling Rose.
Willingham
Born in Atlanta on December 23, 1922, Calder Baynard Willingham grew up in Rome. Upon graduating from high school, he enrolled briefly at the Citadel, a military college in Charleston, South Carolina. His experience there provided him with fodder for his first novel, End as a Man. After completing his education at the University of Virginia, Willingham moved north to New York City, where he associated with many of the era’s literary giants, including Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, and Gore Vidal.
When End as a Man appeared in 1947, Willingham established himself as a leading author in his own right. The novel presented a scathing and lurid assessment of the overblown machismo Willingham encountered at the Citadel. A reviewer for the Washington Post Book World, writing many years later in 1987, called the author “a dangerous sort of writer, mucking about with all sorts of taboos, his dark humor not always covering his tracks.” Obscenity charges were filed but later dropped against the book’s publisher, Vanguard Press, and in 1953, a theatrical adaptation of the novel enjoyed an off-Broadway success. Willingham wrote the screenplay for a 1957 film version of the work, entitled The Strange One, which marked the film debut of actor Ben Gazzara.
Willingham spent the next several years as a screenwriter, working with several prominent actors and producers and cowriting such films as Paths of Glory (1957) and One-Eyed Jacks (1961). Willingham and Buck Henry collaborated on the screenplay for The Graduate (1967), which they adapted from a novel by Charles Webb. The film, starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, became one of the most popular and acclaimed films of 1967, and critics continue to hold it in high esteem. The screenplay earned Henry and Willingham an Academy Award nomination for its fairly ruthless dissection of middle-class hypocrisy, materialism, and lifelessness.
Three years later, Willingham again earned accolades for his screen adaptation of the Thomas Berger novel Little Big Man (1970). Also starring Dustin Hoffman, this comedic drama turns the traditional “heroic” tale of the American West on its head by focusing on the apocryphal life and times of Jack Crabb, the lone white survivor of Custer’s last stand.
Over the next two decades, Willingham continued to write novels and adapt screenplays for television and Hollywood, although never with the same success he enjoyed with The Graduate and Little Big Man. In 1972 he published Rambling Rose, a semiautobiographical account of Willingham’s adolescence in Rome. The story revolves around the sexual tensions that emerge when a rural Georgia family hires Rose, an alluring housemaid from Birmingham, Ala. In 1991 Willingham adapted the novel for film. Starring Laura Dern, Robert Duvall, and Diane Ladd, the film received lukewarm reviews but earned Academy Award nominations for both Dern and Ladd.
Despite his years as a screenwriter, Willingham did not see much value in his work for Hollywood and considered his calling to be that of a novelist. His other novels include Geraldine Bradshaw (1950), Reach to the Stars (1951), Natural Child (1952), To Eat a Peach (1955), Eternal Fire (1963), Providence Island (1969), The Big Nickel (1975), and The Building of Venus Four (1977). He also published a collection of stories and nonfiction, The Gates of Hell, in 1951. As a fiction writer, Willingham worked in a variety of genres, spanning conventional coming-of-age plots to science fiction to narratives about sex and family life. Eternal Fire, in particular, satirizes the tradition of Southern Gothic fiction.
On February 19, 1995, Willingham died of lung cancer in Laconia, N.H. In 2006 the Writers Guilds of America, east and west, placed the script for The Graduate at number 13 on their list of the 101 greatest screenplays. He was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2008.
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia article online, go to http://georgiaencyclopedia.org
Low-level buildings along a waterway are in today’s Mystery Photo
Today’s Mystery Photo is a series of low-level buildings facing a waterway, which may be more significant than you might think. Figure out the location of this photo and tell us about it. Send your answer to elliott@brack.net to include your hometown.
Raleigh Perry of Buford had no trouble recognizing the last Mystery Photo, since he grew up in Chattanooga. “That’s the Market Street Bridge in Chattanooga. If you look behind it, that is the Walnut Street Bridge, and that one has an interesting history. It is now a walk-over bridge, and no cars cross it. And I can remember when there were still signs on that bridge which said, ‘walk your horse.’” The photo came from the late Jerry Colley of Alpharetta.
Allan Peel of San Antonio, Tex., Lou Camerio of Lilburn, and George Graf of Palmyra, Va. also recognized the photo.
Peel wrote: “Today’s mystery photo is of the John Ross Bridge that crosses the Tennessee River between downtown Chattanooga and the Northshore District of Chattanooga. Locals normally refer to the bridge simply as The Market Street Bridge along North Market Street. This bright blue of the bridge wasn’t always its color. Throughout its history, and as recently as 1997, the bridge was painted a darkish, muted green color. Since that time however, the Structures Division of the Tennessee Department of Transport (TDOT) decided to spruce up the bridges in the area and started painting them this brighter, blue hue.”
Graf added: “The bridge is like a movable monumental bridge, and it is one of the largest bascule bridges ever built. This bridge also is unusual because it is a movable braced ribbed through arch bridge. Most movable bridges feature a truss bridge superstructure or a plate girder superstructure. The bridge also enjoys an incredible amount of local significance as it is the only highway bascule bridge in the entire state, in addition to its high level of national significance for its size and unusual design.”
Camerio sent along a 1917 story from Engineering News-Record, which tells of the erection of this bascule bridge as a cantilever bridge. Click here to see this extensive article.
GwinnettForum is provided to you at no charge every Tuesday and Friday.
Meet our team
- Editor and publisher: Elliott Brack, 770-840-1003
- Managing editor: Betsy Brack
- Roving photographer: Frank Sharp
- Contributing columnist: Jack Bernard
- Contributing columnist: Debra Houston
- Contributing columnist: George Wilson
More
- Location: We are located in Suite 225, 40 Technology Park, Peachtree Corners, Ga. 30092.
- Work with us: If you would like to serve as an underwriter, click here to learn more.
Subscriptions to GwinnettForum are free.
- Click to subscribe.
- Unsubscribe. We hope you’ll keep receiving the great news and information from GwinnettForum, but if you need to unsubscribe, go to this page and unsubscribe in the appropriate box.
© 2021, Gwinnett Forum.com. Gwinnett Forum is an online community commentary for exploring pragmatic and sensible social, political and economic approaches to improve life in Gwinnett County, Ga. USA.
Follow Us