The Gwinnett Historical Restoration and Preservation Board is seeking nominees for its second Preservation Awards. The Board seeks to recognize a person or organization that has contributed greatly to the historic restoration and preservation of Gwinnett County sites, artifacts, oral history, written historic documentation or care of such items. Nominations are due by September 19, 2022.
All age groups are encouraged to apply and/or nominate. Details such as nomination criteria, how to submit application, deadline, etc. are explained in the application. Click here to pull up that form.
The first Preservation Awards were announced in 2018. There were 18 Gwinnett groups and individuals inducted into the new Preservation Hall of Fame during an event at the Isaac Adair House in Lawrenceville.
The following families, individuals and groups were honored: The Hutchins, Livsey, Nash, Hudgens, and Williams families. Individual honorees were Alice McCabe, Annette Williams Tucker, James Flanagan, James D’Angelo, Marvin and Phyllis Hughes, Marvin Nash Worthy, Robert Bowman, Charlotte Nash, and Wayne Hill.
Organizations recognized included Gwinnett Historical Society, the Hooper-Renwick Legacy Preservation Committee, the United Ebony Society, and the Gwinnett Historical Restoration and Preservation Board.
Lawrenceville promotes 2 staff members to new positions
The City of Lawrenceville has promoted two senior staff members. Barry Mock, assistant city Manager and public works director, will take on the additional duties as Downtown Development Authority executive director. Keith Lee, formerly the director of finance, is the new chief financial officer.
Mock
Mock has worked in the engineering and planning field since 1995. He directs seven departments with 120 employees and manages an operating budget of $101 million and $15 million in capital projects. As the Executive Director of the Downtown Development Authority (DDA), Mock works with the DDA Board to revitalize downtown Lawrenceville through smart land use planning, land banking, carefully curated retail, business retention, and the strategic execution of the people’s vision for a vibrant and inclusive urban center.
He joined the City of Lawrenceville in 2017 and has served as the staff liaison to the DDA since 2019. Mock is a member of the Gwinnett Rotary Club, serves on the board of directors at Hebron Christian Academy, and is a 2020 graduate of Leadership Gwinnett. He holds a bachelor of science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech.
Lee
Lee has worked in local government since 1997, serving the Barrow County, City of Roswell, and City of Lawrenceville communities. He served on the Advisory Board for the Center for State and Local Finance at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University. While at the City of Lawrenceville he has played an instrumental role in improving the City’s Bond Credit Rating and has facilitated the adoption of Fund Balance Policies and Debt Management Policies to improve and manage the City’s financial position. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia and the Florida Institute of Technology.
Local architectural firm announces promotion
Walker
New director of engineering for Lindsay Pope Brayfield (LPB), an architectural firm in Lawrenceville, is H. Taylor Walker Jr. of Norcross. A graduate of Georgia Southern University, he has been designing HVAC, plumbing and fire protections for 27 years, including 17 years with the Lawrenceville firm. These systems have gone into hotels, schools, restaurants and governmental buildings. Walker is a native of Atlanta, who with his wife, Katy, has lived in Gwinnett since 1998. He is a member of ASHRAE, the ASPE and is a LEED accredited .
Gwinnett jury awards plaintiffs $1.7 billion, largest ever in Georgia
On August 19, a jury in Gwinnett County answered the question left pending by their verdict rendered the day before: what amount of punitive damages should be imposed against Ford Motor Company for selling 5.2 million “Super Duty” trucks with a dangerously weak roof that would crush down on occupants during a rollover wreck. The unanimous jury imposed $1.7 billion in punitive damages against Ford.
This is the largest verdict by far against a defendant in Georgia history – eclipsing the previous verdict of $457 million in the Six Flags case 24 years ago.
Plaintiffs’ legal team included, in addition to Jim Butler of Butler Prather of Columbus; Gerald Davidson of Mahaffey Pickens Tucker of Buford; Mike Terry and Laurie Ann Taylor of Bondurant Mixson and Elmore of Atlanta; Dan Philyaw of Butler Prather; and paralegals Kim McCallister and Sarah Andrews plus investigator Nick Giles, all of the Butler Prather firm.
The jury returned a verdict for Plaintiffs Kim and Adam Hill for the wrongful deaths of their parents, Voncile and Melvin Hill, and for pain and suffering by their parents after the rollover wreck of their 2002 Ford F-250 on April 3, 2014. That verdict totaled $24,030,500. The jury apportioned 30 percent of the damages against Pep Boys, a tire distributor that mistakenly installed the wrong size, or “load range,” tires on the Hills’ truck in 2010.
That mistake caused the right front tire to blow out, causing the wreck. Undisputed evidence at the trial showed the wreck was survivable, and the crushing of the roof caused the injuries that lead to the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Hill. Pep Boys settled in 2018.
The case has been litigated for several years, and was tried for three weeks in 2018 until Ford’s violation of a multitude of Court Orders forbidding Ford from injecting into the trial arguments the Court had excluded caused the Gwinnett State Court to grant a mistrial. The Court subsequently sanctioned Ford. This second trial also lasted three weeks.
The retrial was delayed because Ford filed an appeal to the Georgia Court of Appeals, which dismissed the appeal as illegitimate. Ford then petitioned the Georgia Supreme Court to review the Sanctions Order; that Court denied the petition, 8-0. The pandemic intervened and caused further delay.
In an attempt to get the case tried again quicker, Plaintiffs filed a formal waiver of jury trial. Ford refused and insisted on a jury trial.
A Hill family spokesman said: “The Hill family is thankful to the jury for their verdict, and glad to get this phase of the litigation over with, finally. An award of punitive damages will hopefully warn people riding around in the millions of those trucks Ford sold, was the reason the Hill family insisted on a verdict.”
During the first trial Plaintiffs had submitted evidence of 69 prior similar wrecks with rollover, roof crush, and killed or injured victims. In the four years since Ford caused the mistrial in 2018 more people were killed or injured in such wrecks, and at the second trial Plaintiffs submitted evidence of 10 more such wrecks. Ford declined to say how many more other similar incidents were known to Ford.
Scholarships, awards highlight governor’s GC&B address
Scholarships and awards were key elements of the annual Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful Governor’s environmental address, where Gov. Brian Kemp spoke in Gwinnett last week.
A number of scholarships were presented to recent high school graduates and Georgia Gwinnett College students. GGC’s Brian Land and Ngoc Lan Thanh Le were each awarded $2,500 scholarships from Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful, and former Green Youth Advisory Council members – Daniel Jung and Logan Zimmerman – were each awarded $2,000 Gwinnett Clean & Beautiful Jim Steele Environmental Education Scholarships.
The winners of the 2022 Environmental Consciousness and Stewardship Awards were also announced. They are:
- Green Community Partner of the Year: Gwinnett County Police Department, for its efforts to help GC&B combat graffiti, illegal dumping and urban camping;
- Jim Steele Education Award: Lovin Elementary School for its textiles recycling, composting and community garden initiatives;
- Green Government of the Year: The City of Lawrenceville for its citywide sanitation and recycling efforts;
- Volunteer of the Year: Angela Hamlet for her tireless devotion to keeping her community clean and beautiful, including the adoption of four roads through the Adopt-A-Road program; and
- Connie Wiggins Legacy Award: Jim Steele – longtime COO of Gwinnett County’s Board of Education, as well as charter member, former board chairman and emeritus board member of Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful. This was awarded posthumously and accepted by Adele Steele – who created and funded the GC&B Jim Steele Environmental Education Scholarship in honor of her late husband.
- Click to hear the governor’s address.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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