ON THE FIRS DAY of fall classes last week, Georgia Gwinnett College students stream past the Daniel J. Kaufman Library & Learning Center on their way to classes, while three students take a break in the shade of a campus tree. Unofficial fall enrollment at the college is 13,455 students. “We constantly strive to be the best,” said President Stas Preczewski. “GGC has become the college of choice for students in Gwinnett County because we hold ourselves to the highest standards. The additions in space and academic programming are manifestations of the college’s vision and mission.” Photo courtesy of Georgia Gwinnett College.
TODAY’S FOCUS: Suwanee wins two Downtown Excellence awards
EEB PERSPECTIVE: The story of Joshie the Giraffe and exceeding expectations
SPOTLIGHT: Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce
ANOTHER VIEW: Taxpayer subsidies help build Amazon’s monopoly
FEEDBACK: Against changing noise ordinance, more
NOTABLE: New website gives updates on new Infinite Energy Center
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Bill Arp (Charles Henry Smith, 1826-1903)
MYSTERY PHOTO: White buildings may look familiar
LAGNIAPPE: A health update
CALENDAR: Intro to finding grants
Suwanee wins two Downtown Excellence awards
Pictured left to right: 2018 Georgia Downtown Association President Carlee Schulte, Paul Beavins, Janis Beavins, David Sullivan, Robin Sulliva and Georgia Downtown Association Board Member Becky Smyth. Photo provided.
By Abby Wilkerson, City of Suwanee
The City of Suwanee recently won Downtown Excellence Awards in the Volunteer and Organization categories at the 2018 Georgia Downtown Association conference at Chateau Elan.
Janice and Paul Beavin, and Robin and David Sullivan were named Volunteers of the Year for their work on the Suwanee Fest Planning Committee.
The Beavins and Sullivans have led a 20-member Suwanee Fest volunteer committee for the past 10 and five years, respectively. The committee meets January through October and includes subcommittees that oversee entertainment, transportation, children’s activities, vendor selection, logistics and festival volunteers. By September, these volunteers have already given countless hours of dedicated and focused volunteer service, including close to 40 hours on the actual weekend of Suwanee Fest.
“I honestly don’t know of a more deserving set of people to receive an award for volunteerism,” said Suwanee Events & Outreach Manager Amy Doherty. “Janis, Paul, Robin and David are the embodiment of exceptional volunteer service. We put a ton of city time, resources, energy, and effort into Suwanee Fest, but it wouldn’t be possible without these four superhero volunteers.”
The Suwanee Welcome Center partnership was selected as the association’s Organization winner. In a joint venture, the City of Suwanee and North Gwinnett Arts Association (NGAA) entered into a partnership in 2016 that allows the NGAA to have much-needed studio and class space in Suwanee Town Center, while also creating and staffing a welcome center for the city. This strategic partnership allows visitors and locals alike to be welcomed to Suwanee not by a boring desk with pamphlets and maps, but with a high-energy, beautiful, art-filled space in Suwanee Town Center.
“The joint welcome and arts center allows the city to have a presence that extends beyond the normal business hours,” said Marty Allen, Suwanee city manager. “City Hall is closed on weekends, which is when a large percentage of visitors are in Town Center. A welcome center affords us the opportunity to serve as ambassadors to visitors and leveraging a collaboration with the NGAA provides a welcoming presence.”
Located at 3930 Charleston Market Street in Suwanee Town Center, the city’s annual contract with NGAA to host the welcome center in the art gallery is funded out of the hotel/motel tax fund, which is intended to go towards such programs. The 2,297 square-foot facility features studio space, art classes and workshops, open studio time, and a gallery.
The Downtown Excellence Awards recognize and promote the outstanding achievements of Georgia’s local downtown development and revitalizing organizations in Georgia’s communities. The Beavins, Sullivans, and NGAA staff and volunteers were honored at a reception and ceremony at Chateau Elan in Braselton during the 2018 Georgia Downtown Association meeting.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
The story of Joshie the Giraffe and exceeding expectations
By Andy Brack, Statehouse Report
AUG. 21, 2018 | With hundreds of thousands of Georgia students back in classrooms, here’s hoping they will have their best year ever, a year in which they exceed the expectations of their parents and teachers, a year in which they work harder to achieve excellence.
If we all exceed expectations, we’ll change the places where we learn, work and play. Imagine if 1.6 million of Georgia’s public school students did better in the classroom. Not only would they perform better in an irritating flurry of standardized tests. But they would also create a more positive, competitive learning environment that might change the pathways of their lives.
The story of Joshie the Giraffe illustrates the importance of doing more than required.
A few years ago, a family vacationed in the Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island in Florida. Upon arriving home, the parents discovered their young son’s stuffed giraffe Joshie didn’t return with them. Joshie, it appeared, was lost. The boy panicked at the prospect of going to sleep without Joshie.
Businessman Chris Hurn told his son Joshie was fine. “’He’s just taking an extra long vacation at the resort, ‘he wrote in 2012 in Huffington Post. “My son seemed to buy it, and was finally able to fall asleep, Joshie-less for the first time in a long while.”
Fortunately, the Ritz Carlton staff found Joshie that night. Hurn asked the staff to take a photo of Joshie in a lounge chair by the pool to reassure his son.
But the staff went way beyond one photo. They took pictures of Joshie all over the property. One photo showed him with cucumber slices on his eyes while getting a massage. In another, Joshie lounged with other stuffed animals and a real parrot. He drove a golf cart on the beach. And finally, as a new member of the hotel’s Loss Prevention Team, they snapped a picture of him watching security footage.
Joshie and the photos soon arrived an album with a cache of hotel goodies. The Hurn family was blown away by how the staff exceeded expectations for guests that had already checked out.
Joshie’s story went viral on social media. But it didn’t end there. Three years later, Joshie got left accidentally in another Florida hotel room. Again, the boy was distraught. The parents couldn’t find another Joshie, so they bought a stand-in giraffe soon named Tucker.
Later that year, the family returned to the Ritz-Carlton. Staffers were saddened to learn Joshie was again missing.
“Later that afternoon someone knocked on the door of our room and handed my son a bag with his name on it,” Hurn wrote in a follow-up column. “ In it was another stuffed giraffe with a small note around his neck introducing him as ‘Jeffie,’ a long-lost cousin of Joshie’s. The note said that while Joshie is off on his worldwide adventures, Jeffie would be honored to be his new companion. It also said he likes warm hugs.”
None of that was in anyone’s job description. But the staff went the extra mile to make a little boy happy. It’s what authors Chris Heath and Dan Heath called “breaking the script” of what was expected with a strategic surprise. They related the story of Joshie in their 2017 book, “The Power of Moments.”
Charleston School of Law Dean Andy Abrams shared the Joshie’s story with faculty and staff as they prepared to welcome students.
“The story is about the commitment of people to not just meet but to exceed expectations, and it resonated for me because it reminded me of the kind of culture so many of you work so hard to nurture daily here at the Charleston School of Law,” he wrote in an email. “It also underscored the impact that your small acts of kindness and compassion can sometimes have.”
For students, teachers, administrators and anyone in a service-oriented business, the inspiring story of Joshie the Giraffe highlights how good things can happen by embracing a lifestyle of exceeding expectations and striving for excellence.
And it reinforces one suggestion my daughters frequently hear about school work: Always do the extra credit. It will always help you.
Andy Brack, editor and publisher of Statehouse Report in South Carolina, offers this column while hi father, Elliott, is recovering. More: See Lagniappe at the end of this Forum.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce
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WILSON: Taxpayer subsidies help build Amazon’s monopoly
By George Wilson, contributing columnist
STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. | The giant company Amazon is growing rapidly, thanks to its aggressive strategy for getting tax breaks.
Indeed, it has gotten about 20 economic development subsidy packages a year since 2012 for its warehouses and data centers—$1.4 billion and counting as of early 2018. That’s not counting the “megadeal” the company clearly expects for its second headquarters, or “HQ2,” that it started auctioning publicly in September 2017. Amazon is not alone. Another giant, Walmart has also racked up huge subsidies along with other large corporations.
In effect, states compete against each other to see which can create the biggest subsidies for giant corporations. Corporate welfare is a good term used to describe this practice. This is often done without public awareness or oversight.
Do you get a whiff of potential corruption? The only way to stop this practice is to have a national law that prohibits this practice. Then the states can get back to competing on who has the best transportation system, the best educated workforce, the best environmental practices, the healthiest work force and the least amount of crime to attract businesses. You know the proper functions of governance other than tax giveaways for the rich.
As “big box” stores decline, their tax dollars are helping Amazon put them out of business. Furthermore, in some counties, tax-break subsidies to Walmart helps put small merchants out of business.
Finally, this is a federal issue and needs study, debate and perhaps legislation to keep our citizens informed in a transparent way.
Against changing noise ordinance
Editor, GwinnettForum:
I am not in favor of extending the use of fireworks to 11:59 p.m. everyday.
I am a veteran and as patriotic as any other American, but, I am also a responsible and respectable citizen who wakes up at 5 a.m. every weekday to go to work. The traditional noise ordinance began at 9 p.m. and ended at 10 a.m, for a reason. This was to allow the opportunity for working citizens and their children to get eight hours of good and restful sleep.
By amending HB-419 to allow fireworks to be used every day until, basically midnight, this is legalizing the inhibition of one of the basic requirements for life and a healthy mental state. This is also providing an excuse for juveniles and young adults to be out causing general mischief at the expense of responsible adults and their children.
This may only be a change of three hours on the books, but this is three hours of missed sleep for me and my family. I am also a dog owner and I can tell you from personal experience that my dogs will bark at every firework that goes off. They are scared and in a high state of agitation when this happens and this contributes, not only to my family not sleeping, but since every other dog in the neighborhood is also set off by the noise, there is a general disturbance in the vicinity of the fireworks and disruption of the whole community.
I can attest that even with the 9 p.m. cutoff, there were frequent violations of the fireworks ordinance, up to and beyond 10 p.m.. It is my humble opinion that the lawmakers of the great State of Georgia should spend less time creating more useless and illogical laws and make it easier to enforce the laws that are already in effect. They might benefit from the mindset of our president and start repealing one or two obsolete and irrelevant laws for each law passed.
The duty of our elected officials is NOT to legislate morality and use their constituents as a social experiment, but to enforce the Constitution of the United States of America and the State of Georgia, and to promote common sense measures that protect the freedoms and safety of the citizens of Georgia.
— Lane Mitcham, Stone Mountain
Suburban women will be key in coming election
Editor, GwinnettForum:
Wake up. Our sleepy election will be a very close one with those who despise Trump and want to have the political virgin experience on one side versus the Trump lovers who see the economic future bright.
The decision-makers are those ladies in the suburbs who don’t fall in either group. Both parties will pound them with advertising and phone calls.
— Byron Gilbert, Duluth
Media should stop covering Trump’s rallies
Editor, GwinnettForum:
Fox News Political Editor Chris Stirewalt suggested on August 3 that news outlets cease sending reporters to President Trump’s rallies, saying their presence allows Trump to use them as a “prop.” Stirewalt added, “This is not helping anybody. Get out of the hall. Leave the cameras, get the reporters out of the hall. Quit letting him use you as a foil.”
This was reported in the Washington Post. Sounds like a good idea to me.
— John Titus, Peachtree Corners
Send us your thoughts: We encourage you to send us your letters and thoughts on issues raised in GwinnettForum. Please limit comments to 300 words. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length. Send feedback and letters to: elliott@brack.net
New website gives updates on new Infinite Energy Center
Infinite Energy Center has launched a new website to provide updates for construction of a new master plan now underway. You can visit the site here: www.ExperienceTheEnergy.com
The first phase of the project includes a seven-level parking deck centrally located on the campus with at least 2,400 spaces to serve guests throughout the campus, according to a news release. The awarded architect is Wakefield Beasley & Associates, and the general contractor is Brasfield & Gorrie. The approximate date of completion of this project phase is fall of 2019.
“We are excited about the start of the project and the opportunity to share the latest updates with the community,” commented Infinite Energy Center’s general manager, Joey Dennis. “This major project represents the compilation of many years of discussions, research and planning with the result to set Infinite Energy Center on the path to becoming one of the top entertainment districts in metro Atlanta.”
Designed to elevate the center as an exciting destination location in metro Atlanta, the master plan includes structured parking, outdoor gathering spaces, landscaping enhancements, and expansion and improvements to the center’s facilities. Also, two joint ventures are planned for the campus which includes a headquarters hotel developed by Concord Hospitality and a new mixed-used entertainment district by North American Priorities that offers dining, retail, office and residential, called Revel.’
In other recent news:
Snellville officials approve pay raise. The Snellville City County has approved a proposal to raise the salaries of the mayor and councilmembers for the first time in 35 years. The increases will go into effect after the November 2019 election, meaning current council member salaries will not increase unless they are re-elected, as mandated by Georgia law. Under the new ordinance, the mayor’s salary would increase from $6,000 to $12,000 and councilmember salaries would rise from $4,000 to $8,000.
Suwanee’s proposed tax rate to remain steady. The City of Suwanee has proposed a millage rate of 4.93 mills, the same proposed rate used in the proposed FY 2019 budget and the same rate used by the City over the past six years. City Council is expected to adopt a fiscal year 2019 millage rate at its August 28 meeting. Because the proposed rate is anticipated to generate a 2.52 percent increase in property tax revenues, due to growth from property value re-assessments, the City will hold three public hearings at City Hall on August 16 at 5:50 p.m. and August 28 at noon and 6:30 p.m. before adopting the millage rate. The proposed 4.93 millage rate will result in a property tax increase of 2.52 percent. The proposed tax increase for a home with a fair market value of $300,000 is approximately $30.24 For more information regarding the City of Suwanee’s FY 2019 budget, please visit Suwanee.com and click the Open Budget icon in the center of the page.
Send us a recommendation or book review
An invitation: what books, restaurants, movies or web sites have you enjoyed recently? Send us your recent selection, along with a short paragraph (100 words) as to why you liked this, plus what you plan to visit or read next. Send to: elliott@brack.net
Bill Arp (Charles Henry Smith, 1826-1903)
Georgia Encyclopedia | In the late nineteenth century Bill Arp‘s weekly column in the Atlanta Constitution, syndicated to hundreds of newspapers, made him the South’s most popular writer. Others surpassed him in literary quality, but in numbers of regular readers, no one exceeded Bill Arp.
Arp
Bill Arp was born Charles Henry Smith in Lawrenceville on June 15, 1826. He married Mary Octavia Hutchins, the daughter of a wealthy lawyer and plantation owner, and started a family that would eventually include ten surviving children. Smith studied law with his father-in-law and then moved to Rome in 1851.
Smith took his famous pen name in April 1861 when, after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation ordering the Southern rebels “to disperse and retire peaceably.” Smith wrote a satiric response to the president in the dialect favored by humorists of the day (“I tried my darnd’st yesterday to disperse and retire, but it was no go”) and signed it “Bill Arp,” in honor of a local “cracker” named Bill Arp. The letter to “Mr. Lincoln, Sir” was reprinted across the South and made Bill Arp a household name. During the war Smith wrote almost thirty more Arp letters for southern newspapers, attacking Union policies, praising the Confederacy, and describing in a humorous fashion his family’s experiences as refugees (“runagees,” he called them) while fleeing from advancing Federal troops in 1864. Arp later criticized the nation’s Reconstruction policies in letters that often expressed a good bit of frustration, even anger.The Arp letters ended in the early 1870s, as Reconstruction came to a close in Georgia.
Smith and his family moved to a farm in Bartow County, just outside of Cartersville. A year later the Atlanta Constitution printed a new letter from Bill Arp, his first in half a dozen years and the beginning of a twenty-five-year series of weekly columns called “The Country Philosopher.” The letter, on the joys of farming, was in many ways different from the Bill Arp of the war and Reconstruction. Gone was most of the dialect (it would never completely disappear), but more important, the subject matter had changed: Arp now wrote delightful epistles of the pleasures of rural life, the comfort of home and family, the independence and strength of Georgia’s common folk, and the bright memories of the days of his youth. Arp still wrote occasionally on political, economic, and social issues, including a number of pro-lynching columns in the 1890s, but it was his “homely philosophy,” as it was called—his writings on the farm and fireside, the past, and various pastoral topics—that made him so popular.
The message of Arp’s Constitution columns was ambiguous. On one hand he promoted the economic growth of Henry W. Grady‘s New South program; on the other hand he criticized many aspects of New South society, and one can read his homely philosophy as implicit criticism of the new age. Perhaps this explains his popularity: he reflected the ambiguous feelings of many other New Southerners.
Smith died on August 24, 1903, and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Cartersville.
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia online, go to http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
MYSTERY PHOTO: White buildings may look familiar
You might have seen these white buildings sometime when you were driving around Gwinnett County. What are where are they? Send your thoughts to elliott@brack.net, with your hometown.
Last issue’s mystery
Congratulations to four eagle-eyed Forum readers who correctly identified the Aug. 14 mystery as the gazebo and bandstand at Hampton Park in Charleston, S.C. Hats off to Fran Worrall of Lawrenceville, George Graf of Palmyra, Va.; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; and Lou Camerio of Lilburn
Worrall wrote that the 60-acre park currently “includes an extensive rose collection, an assortment of specimen trees and shrubs, and a number of water features. The gazebo, which can be rented for events, is a popular wedding venue, and the park’s fitness trail is often used by students from The Citadel.
“In doing a little research, I found that the property was once part of a plantation owned by Col. John Gibbes, a member of a prominent South Carolina family. In the 1830s, the property was sold to the South Carolina Jockey Club and soon became the site for an annual horse race that attracted thousands of spectators from Charleston and beyond. During the Civil War, the property was used as a prisoner-of-war camp; more than 200 Union soldiers died there and were subsequently buried in a mass grave at the site.
“After the war, the Jockey Club disbanded, and the property was disbursed to the Charleston Library Society. For a short time, it served as the site for a large regional trade exposition; when it shut down in 1902, the city of Charleston acquired the property, and it would find its permanent role as a public park.”
Graf provided more detail about the 1901-02 exposition for which the gazebo was built. He wrote, “Several businessmen decided to hold a regional trade exposition in Charleston and bought the land from the Charleston Library Society for part of the grounds. The Expo was considered a failure by many, but in 1902 Teddy Roosevelt came to the event and one year, the actual Liberty Bell made an appearance. Officially called the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition, this event brought new business to Charleston including the American Cigar Company and United Fruit Company.
“Today thousands flock to the closing concerts for Piccolo Spoleto and MOJA festivals with families and loved ones to listen to great music and celebrate community. Next time you are having a picnic in Hampton Park or going for a jog, think about the celebrated history of this land.”
Peel added “the exposition opened on Dec. 1, 1901, and attracted 674,086 attendees during its run. On April 9, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt attended the exposition. Despite the number of visitors, the trade exposition was a financial failure, and it closed on May 31, 1902. The city of Charleston acquired a part of the exposition land for a park. The park is named after the Confederate General Wade Hampton III who, at the time of the Civil War, owned one of the largest collections of slaves in the South. With a national movement taking hold to remove memorials and monuments to the Confederacy, it is likely only a matter of time before Hampton Park gets renamed.
“The bandstand shown in the mystery photo, was originally built and located in the center of the “Sunken Garden”, the grandest landscape feature of the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition. The Sunken Gardens were retained, gradually being scaled down to form today’s “duck pond,” while trees set out in the early the twentieth century have been supplemented with newer plantings. The bandstand remains a focal point of Hampton Park today, nearly seventy acres of green space on Charleston’s upper peninsula.”
A health update from editor and publisher Elliott Brack:
Brack
AUG. 20, 2018 | “Once you are released from Gwinnett Medical Center after a procedure, you are under the care of a home health agency, which visits you in recovery. Sunday we had a visit from a supervisor, who explained what would be happening in the next few weeks. There will be a visit to our doctor in two weeks. Monday a physical therapist spent nearly two hours with us, checking us out, wanting us to walk for six minutes three times a day. And today a home care nurse will be by, checking out vitals, etc. With all this, we’re slowly gaining more strength. Also: so far it’s not boring. Thanks for those who have voiced or sent their concerns and interest, and for their prayers.”—eeb
Intro to finding grants: 12:30 p.m. Aug. 24, Gwinnett Library’s Lawrenceville branch, 1001 Lawrenceville Highway, Lawrenceville. Are you searching for grants, but don’t know where to start? Discover what funders are looking for in nonprofits seeking grants and how to find potential funders. Learn who funds nonprofits, how to approach potential funders, and how to access the Foundation Center Database. Free and open to the public, but registration is required. To RSVP, use this link. For more information, please visit www.gwinnettpl.org or call 770-978-5154.
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