GwinnettForum | Number 23.91 | Nov. 19, 2024
FORMER AND FUTURE First Lady Melania Trump has sent two notes recently to Suwanee Artist Anita Stewart. For more detail on these notes, see Lagniappe below.
TODAY’S FOCUS: Woodruff grants $80 million to Georgia State
EEB PERSPECTIVE: Small business is Gwinnett’s backbone of workforce
SPOTLIGHT: Howard Brothers Outdoor Power Equipment and Hardware
ANOTHER VIEW: Read Thomas Jefferson letter to “Monsieur Brack”
FEEDBACK: Remembers Murphy from attending editorial meetings
UPCOMING: Nonprofits get $4.95 million in Rescue Act Funds
NOTABLE: Allen awarded Growth Council’s excellence award
RECOMMENDED: 49th Parallel, movie on Amazon Video
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Impact of Anglican Church goes beyond religion
MYSTERY PHOTO: Decked-out figures commemorate….what?
LAGNIAPPE: Suwanee artist gets notes from future First Lady
CALENDAR: See Norcross through photography at Norcross Gallery
Woodruff grants $80 million to Georgia State
By Mark Lannaman
Saporta Report
ATLANTA, Ga. | Georgia State University just received its largest financial gift ever — an $80 million donation from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, which is set to define the campus for the future.
The announcement came this past Tuesday, November 12. The donation will make the bulk of a total of $107 million going towards campus upgrades as part of the “The Building Pathways for Success Initiative.”
The imagined vision for the upgrades will connect two major parks on campus, Woodruff Park and Hurt Park, and add more greenspace to the urban campus. To do this, the longstanding Sparks Hall building will be demolished.
It was only a few years ago, back in 2021, that the university saw one of its latest large renovations when it demolished its Kell Hall building to make way for a new greenway running through campus.
The announcement this week seemingly reinforces the school’s commitment to transforming its campus into something more traditional-looking. It comes just a few months after the school launched its “Blue Line,” a 3.7 mile marked walking path that sought to “connect the campus, create distinctive quads, build a better sense of place and, ultimately, become a destination in itself at Georgia State.”
“The Woodruff Foundation, one of Georgia’s greatest philanthropic institutions and one of downtown’s most important partners, is entrusting us and our University System of Georgia colleagues to act boldly over the next two years to realize a new vision for our downtown campus,” says Georgia State President Brian Blake in the university’s announcement.
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Small business is Gwinnett’s backbone of workforce
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
NOV. 19, 2024 | By now, most people in Gwinnett know that the county’s population totals more than 1 million people living within its borders.
But here is another astounding figure: more than half of those people are employed. To be exact, as of September 2024, the labor force in Gwinnett County, Georgia was 517,604 people, with 501,577 employed. The unemployment rate in Gwinnett County was 3.1 percent, which is lower than the long term average of 4.52 percent!
For years, we kept up with the largest employers in Gwinnett. These days Partnership Gwinnett has those figures. Now look at which institutions are the biggest in providing jobs for the Gwinnett area:
OPERATION ……………………. WORKERS
-
- Gwinnett Public Schools……… 23,000
- Northside Hospital …………….4,650
- Gwinnett Government ……….4,000
- Publix Dist. and Mfg. …………2,800
- Georgia Gwinnett College ….1,515
- Primerica ………………………..1,500
- Piedmont Eastside Hospital ..1,200
- WIKA ………………….. 807
- Price Industries ………………700
- Boehringer Ingelheim …….575
Note that the 10 biggest firms only employ 40, 747 people, less than 10 percent of the Gwinnett County workforce.
- Now click on this link from Partnership Gwinnett:
This shows that another 45 firms in Gwinnett have at least 260 employees. That adds up to at least 11,250 workers, but most of those firms have between 260 and 500 employees. As a ball park number, if that totals to 20,000 employees, that still accounts for only about 12 percent of the total employed in the county.
Perhaps you see where we’re going: about 75 percent of those employed in Gwinnett work for the companies who are the backbone of our country’s stability: small businesses, that is, with firms with less than 250 employees. And if we could pull up the statistics, we would suggest that 50 percent of the total workforce in Gwinnett is employed by companies with less than 100 workers.
Yes, that’s what makes the always-powerful Gwinnett economy so wonderful: thousands of people employed by small businesses. From the service world, to finance, retail trade, professional people and many, many diverse newcomers from all over the world, that’s what makes up the majority of companies providing work places in Gwinnett.
There is no single company, should it fall on bad times, could cause major problems for Gwinnett. And there is no single industry that might slowdown and cause major problems in the county.
That’s why the Gwinnett economy continues to be so robust and has for so long.
That’s a mighty message that our county sends to neighboring communities and one that makes other parts of the country envious of what we have in Gwinnett.
Thank you, Mr. or Mrs. Small Business Owners. There is no doubt that you are the backbone of our county economy.
Of course, it helps to have these major employers around. But most people get their livelihood from the much smaller companies.
Now you know.
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Howard Brothers
The public spiritedness of our underwriters allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Today’s sponsor is Howard Brothers Outdoor Power Equipment and Hardware. John and Doug Howard are the “brothers” in Howard Brothers. This family-owned business was started by their dad, and now John and Doug’s children are helping to lead in the business. Howard Brothers has locations in Alpharetta, Athens, Doraville, Duluth, Lula, Oakwood, and now store no. 7 in Dallas. They specialize in hardware, outdoor power equipment and parts and service. Howard Brothers are authorized dealers of STIHL, Exmark, Honda, Echo, and other well known brands in the green industry. Howard Brothers is also an authorized Big Green Egg dealer, and is one of the only Platinum Traeger Grill dealers in the state of Georgia.
- Visit their web site www.howardbrothers.com.
- For a list of other sponsors of this forum, click here.
Read Thomas Jefferson letter to “Monsieur Brack”
By Andy Brack
Charleston City Paper
CHARLESTON, S.C. | The title of the page on the Library of Congress website got my attention: “Thomas Jefferson to Brack, March 2, 1788, in French.”
For some reason – who knows why? – when tooling around on the library’s website in the spring, I entered my last name into the search engine and got that unexpected result.
The one-page letter is splotchy, obviously written in ink, perhaps with a quill since fountain pens didn’t become popular until the 1800s. It’s hard to read and in French, not my best language. But I could tell it was written in Paris, that Jefferson was thankful about something and that it was addressed to a Monsieur Brack. And Jefferson’s signature – affixed just a few years earlier to the Declaration of Independence – was recognizable and clear as a bell.
I contacted Steven Tucker, the teacher at James Island Charter High School, and suggested students might have fun taking a crack at it, noting “it might be something more familiar to people who are reading French.”
Tucker was all-in, taking it on as a mini-project for his students and himself. A handful of students saw the letter as a puzzle “but with the level of the language and blurriness, it was difficult to complete.” So Tucker shared the letter with some friends – here and when he was in France over the summer. They were able to figure out most of the letter, making educated guesses where it was the most blurry. It certainly caused some interesting conversations (we hope over a good bottle of wine.)
Apparently, the subject of the letter was some lost mail – yes, there were problems with that at the founding of the country, too. Jefferson wrote that he sent a servant from Paris to Calais to collect some “gazettes,” which could have been bound newspapers or official government documents. But somehow, the package “was seized from an address of his that you are looking for. He told you of the horror and the anguish that this fact took on him during a month.” Anyway, the letter thanked this Monsieur Brack for his help in trying to find the documents.
One clue in the letter was of a man named Petit or Pitet, which Tucker said was hard to read. According to the letter, Petit apparently was the servant (“mon domestique”) who was trying to figure out what happened to the gazettes.
So we headed over to the trusty internet again, surprised to learn that Jefferson employed a butler who ran his household named Adrien Petit, according to the Monticello website. Petit was a native of Champagne who entered Jefferson’s service in 1785 when serving as minister to France. Interestingly, Jefferson so valued Petit that he persuaded him to leave France and join him in America in 1791. Three years later he retired and returned to France.
That made me look again at the letter and realize that it was dated 1788, not 1808, as the translators assumed (yes, it’s very blotchy). And then everything fell into place – Jefferson was serving as a diplomat in Paris, wanted some information and sent Petit to get it, but it got lost. He wrote this Brack from Paris trying to figure out what happened. It’s not clear where Brack was – all of our family appears to come from the United Kingdom – but because the letter was in French, Monsieur Brack must have been somewhere in France.
Mystery solved! (Even though the gazettes are still missing). Many thanks to Tucker, his students and his colleagues for assisting on the quest.
- See the letter in French at: https://www.loc.gov/resource/mtj1.009_0067_0067/
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Remembers Murphy from attending editorial meetings
Editor, the Forum:
Reg Murphy was a unique man and great contribution to Atlanta and the nation. I also met him at Mercer. When he came to Atlanta, I wrote him about a political issue and of all things he answered it. After that, I asked him to speak to the DeKalb County Jaycees which he did on more than one occasion.
But my fondest memory was being invited to his editorial meetings at the Constitution. I was shocked at this. He said: “Just drop in: they are open.” I attended only a couple, because of my work schedule. I was able to see his insight and care for bringing all people into the equation. That always stayed with me. Man-o-man we could use his wisdom today.
– Ashley D. Herndon, Oceanside, Calif.
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Nonprofits get $4.95 million in Rescue Act Funds
Gwinnett County Government has selected 65 nonprofits that serve critical needs to receive a combined total of $4.95 million in nonprofit capacity building grant funding.
These funds — provided to Gwinnett by the United States Department of the Treasury through the American Rescue Plan Act — will be used to help nonprofits increase their effectiveness and enhance their impact on the community. See the list of firms by clicking HERE.
Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners Chairwoman Nicole Love Hendrickson says: “Nonprofits do vital work in Gwinnett to address the unique and individual needs of our diverse community, We’re proud to use ARPA dollars to support these 65 organizations, and we look forward to seeing the positive impact they will make with access to additional resources.”
Gwinnett will manage and distribute $4.95 million in grant awards, providing the selected nonprofits with either capital support or operational support to assist in program enhancements and organizational growth that will allow them to better meet the needs of the residents they serve.
Capital support focuses on projects that improve capacity by fulfilling a capital need such as equipment, software solutions and vehicles. Operational support focuses on the provision of technical assistance and learning modules to improve the nonprofits’ ability to provide necessary services and achieve their goals.
The $4.95 million for 2024 came from the original $181,855,587 announced earlier in Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (CSLFRF) by the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) as authorized through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
Cannon to serve on board studying A-I
Gwinnett Technical College President Dr. D. Glen Cannon has been appointed to the newly formed Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) Commission on Artificial Intelligence in Education. The SREB commission is comprised of leaders in government, education, and business who are charting a course on how artificial intelligence is used in classrooms and how to prepare a workforce that is being transformed by technology. The commission is tasked with developing recommendations for Southern states in using AI in teaching and learning, K-12 and postsecondary; developing related policies in K-12 schools, colleges, and universities; and preparing students for careers in AI.
Gwinnett budget for 2025 totals $2.65 billion
Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners Chairwoman Nicole Love Hendrickson presented her proposed budget last week to guide county government spending for the 2025 fiscal year. The proposed budget for 2025 totals $2.65 billion. For 2023, the county budget was $2.52 billion. That’s a 5.15 percent increase over 2023.
The 2024 budget consists of a $2.1 billion operating budget and a $542 million capital improvements budget, which includes funds from the County’s Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax program.
Chairwoman Hendrickson said the proposed budget addresses challenges facing the County, including health care, affordable housing and sustainability. “By investing in public safety, infrastructure and economic opportunities, we’re prioritizing a safe, thriving and prosperous future for everyone.” Initiatives included in the proposed budget will advance key public safety projects such as enhancing E911 communications and introducing community service aides to support the Police department.
Allen awarded Growth Council’s excellence award
Two CID directors were honored recently by the Council for Quality Growth, at its 15th Annual Community Improvement District (CID) Recognition Event. Honored were Joe Allen, executive director of Gwinnett Place CID, and Dan Buyers, board member of Town Center CID.
Over 150 regional leaders and CID professionals gathered at the Jewel Box at Assembly Studios, in the heart of the Assembly CID, to recognize the leadership shown by Allen and Buyers a over their long CID careers, and to celebrate the work of CIDs throughout the metro Atlanta region and state of Georgia.
Joe Allen received the Council’s 2024 CID Professional Excellence Award. Allen played a key role in the creation of the Gwinnett Place CID in 2006 and has served as Executive Director since. He is a pro-active CID leader, committed to the Gwinnett community and advancing a shared vision for an internationally diverse, livable urban center. Allen is actively leading redevelopment efforts around the former Gwinnett Place Mall.
He has overseen the creation of a new master plan that will revitalize the mall site and surrounding community. In partnership with Gwinnett County, Allen and his CID are working to transform the mostly vacant area into a place with housing, retail, green space, and offices. Recently, the redevelopment plan made local news with the announcement that an additional 23 acres would be purchased by Gwinnett County to expand and accelerate the revitalization.
Dan Buyers is a Partner at McWhirter Realty Partners, received the 2024 John Williams CID Leadership Award. This award is given to a CID leader that has volunteered their time to serve a CID, usually as part of its Board of Directors. Buyers has served on the Board of the Town Center CID since its inception in 2012. He is credited for his involvement in the South Barrett Reliever and Skip Spann Connector, projects designed to decrease traffic congestion around Town Center during peak hours. Buyers helped to organize and implement the first ever CID bikeshare program in the state, providing 24/7 rental access to the community. He was also involved in the CID’s Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure (EVCI) Study for Town Center to develop strategic direction for the area.
How about this: A Gwinnett ghost wins an award!
Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners was awarded the 2024 Outside the Construction Box Award by the Intelligent Transportation Society of Georgia at its annual awards meeting. It won the award for setting up ghost intersections on Peachtree Parkway (Georgia Highway 141). These ghost intersections parallel Georgia Department of Transportation facilities and use advanced monitoring, detection, data capture, and movement ID allowing them to simulate and test how emerging ITS technologies will work in live scenarios. The City of Peachtree Corners previously won this award in 2019 with the opening of Curiosity Lab.
Park wins second term as House Democratic whip
The Georgia House Democratic Caucus re-elected Minority Whip Sam Park (D-Lawrenceville) to serve as the House Minority Whip for the 2025-2026 legislative term. This job is responsible for monitoring legislation as it moves through both chambers of the General Assembly and helping the members of the Minority Caucus better understand the details of bills and resolutions. This is Minority Whip Park’s fifth term in the Georgia House of Representatives and his second term as the Minority Whip.
49th Parallel, movie on Amazon Video
This 1941 British propaganda film is a significant find, telling a story most of us know nothing about. A German U-boat sinks a Canadian freighter in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and high-tails it to Hudson Bay, where they figure the Canadians will never look for them. But Eskimos see the U-boat above water, and alert the Canadian Air Force, which sinks the U-boat. Earlier six Germans were put ashore in search of provisions. They raid a Hudson Bay Company trading post, kill a float plane pilot, steal the plane and fly south before running of gas and crashing. They find temporary lodging at a German Hutterite farm community, but continue toward Vancouver to catch a freighter. There’s even a scene from Banff, Alberta. Eventually, the story turns back east through Winnipeg and Toronto to the ending with a twist at Niagara Falls. This is a movie well worth seeing.—eeb
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Impact of Anglican Church goes beyond religion
The impact of the Anglican Church, or Church of England, in Georgia reaches beyond religion, for it was largely due to the political influence of the church’s key members that the English established the colony of Georgia in 1733. Before the American Revolution (1775-83) Anglicans constituted the largest and most influential group of Christians in Georgia.
Anglicanism originated in the 16th century, when King Henry VIII left the Roman Catholic Church to establish a new state church. At the time Georgia was founded, anyone holding a political position in England was required to be Anglican.
The charter establishing Georgia as a colony was formalized in 1732, with a Board of Trustees B appointed to guide the new enterprise. One-fourth of the 21 Trustees were clergy. Although there was some discussion of the establishment of the Church of England as the official church of Georgia, groups of various religious persuasions were permitted to worship in the new colony. The Trustees appointed Anglican clergymen to serve the new colonists, however, and saw to it that 300 acres were provided for the support of an Anglican church in Savannah, including a parsonage and cemetery.
The Trustees also established charity schools to ensure that children understood the Anglican catechism. Teachers were supervised by Anglican clergymen, but children of all faiths were invited to attend. (Indians; Sephardic, or Spanish-speaking, Jews; Huguenots; and Moravians were among those living in the environs.) One of the prime results of these charity schools was the ready acceptance of English as the official language of Georgia.
Perhaps the best-known Anglican priest in Georgia’s history is John Wesley, appointed by the Trustees to serve as rector, or the priest in charge of a parish, of Savannah’s Christ Church in 1735.
Twenty-three-year-old George Whitfield, another early Anglican missionary priest in Georgia, gained fame for his eloquent sermons and departure from staid liturgical Church of England rites. Although he was rector of Christ Church, Whitefield devoted so much energy to founding and supporting the orphanage called Bethesda, near Savannah, that the Trustees soon found another priest for Savannah’s Anglicans.
John Wesley’s brother, Charles Wesley, served as resident minister of Frederica for a brief time in the 1730s, and by 1751 August and Savannah each had an Anglican clergyman in residence. By the 1770s more than half of Savannah’s residents were members of the Church of England, and a good number of others were spread throughout the colony. Unwilling to leave the faith when the colonies revolted, Anglicans in America formally reconstituted themselves in 1789 as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Other than political affiliations, the tenets of the faith were not changed, and Anglicans in America are generally known as Episcopalians.
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia article online, go to https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
Decked-out figures commemorate….what?
Here are two figures all decked out apparently commemorating something big, in front of a massive building. Your job is to figure out what this is all about. Send your answer to ebrack2@gmail.com and include your hometown.
The last mystery photo was easily spotted by a few regulars. Jay Altman of Columbia, S.C., wrote:
“It is the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a national monument and tourist attraction erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, former President of the Republic of China. It is located in Taipei, Taiwan. The monument, surrounded by a park, stands at the east end of Memorial Hall Square.’ The photo came from Susan McBrayer of Sugar Hill, who said that it “was taken last week by Sharon LeMaster of Decatur.”
Others responding with the right answer were George Graf, Palmyra, Va.; Stewart Ogilvie, Rehobah, Ala.; and Allan Peel of San Antonio, Tex., who added: “The site was built to memorialize the former president of the Republic of China (ROC), Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975). Construction of the memorial began on October 31, 1976, the 90th anniversary of Chiang’s birth. The hall officially opened on April 5, 1980, the fifth anniversary of his death.
“Once again, researching the history behind today’s mystery photo led me down a rabbit hole as I never really knew or understood the history between China and Taiwan. I learned that it was the ROC that controlled Mainland China before 1949. In the fall of 1949, the ROC government retreated to Taiwan and surrounding islands after the Chinese Communist Party (CPP) took over mainland China and founded the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Since 1949, the ROC, now commonly known simply as ‘Taiwan.’ has only controlled Taiwan and nearby islands.”
- SHARE A MYSTERY PHOTO: If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!) Send to: ebrack2@gmail.com and mark it as a photo submission. Thanks.
Suwanee artist gets notes from future First Lady
Suwanee artist Anita Stewart has received not one, but two notes, from Melania Trump. Earlier this year, Anita sent a drawing of Melania’s son, Barron, using graphite to draw his portrait. In a letter to her, Anita said: “I told her not to worry, that God would take care of her husband just like He took care of Job. I sent her a card depicting Job being thrown overboard. This was in April before the bullet pierced his ear instead in July.” This is one of two notes Stewart has received from Ms. Trump.
See Norcross through photography at Norcross Gallery
See Norcross through photography. The exhibit Norcross: Our City is on display through December 7 at Norcross Gallery and Studio. These photographs, taken by local lensmen, give a glimpse into the everyday life of Norcross. The studio is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m Thursday, Friday, and Saturday or by appointment. The exhibit is free. The gallery also hosts ongoing classes, including Daytime Open Studio sessions on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Figure and Portrait Study sessions on Tuesdays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Messiah sing-along: Join with Lawrenceville Presbyterian Church and members of Gwinnett Symphony Chorus to start the Christmas season: A Messiah sing-along! This will take place on Sunday, November 24, at 3 p.m. This event is FREE to all and all are welcomed. Audience members are invited to sing or simply sit back and enjoy the performance. (Choral scores will be provided.) Singers interested in joining the choir may attend the rehearsal held at the church Sunday, November 17, from 6-8 p.m. Scores provided.
Improve Your Writing Craft: Learn how to improve your writing craft with award-winning author and Emory University creative writing professor Tiphanie Yanique. Books will be available for sale and signing. The program will be at the Snellville Branch of Gwinnett County Public Library on November 23 at 11 a.m.
The Lilburn Holiday Tree Lighting is scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday, November 23, in City Park. Performances will be at the bandshell from local school groups. There will be arts and crafts booths, and a selection will be from food truck vendors. Kids can take pictures with Santa, listen to stories read by Mrs. Claus, and enjoy a ride on the Lil’ Holiday Train, among other activities. The big tree in Lilburn City Park will be lit at dark, marking the start of the holiday season!
Ring in the winter holidays in Peachtree Corners with the annual Tree Lighting at The Forum. This year’s event offers family-friendly activities, crafts and live performances on The Plaza’s main stage, all leading up to the lighting of the big tree. This will be November 23 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
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