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TODAY'S ISSUE
Suwanee working to building new parks and super playground
By Lynne Bohlman DeWilde
Public Information Officer, City of Suwanee
Special to GwinnettForum.com

SEPT. 5, 2003 -- In a way the City of Suwanee has come full circle with its open space initiative. It was citizens who first insisted, through the comprehensive planning process the City undertook four years ago, that trees and open spaces be preserved and that residents have access to additional parks and recreation areas.

In November 2001, Suwanee citizens put their money where their heart is, voting overwhelmingly to approve a $17.7 million bond referendum to acquire and preserve open space and develop recreational areas.

Today, having purchased 200 acres through its open space program, the City has shifted momentum from acquisition to development of distinctive recreational spaces. The City is once again turning to its citizens for guidance and assistance. Three new parks are currently under construction or in design, each intended to meet distinct needs.

Designed to be a downtown-style park, Town Center Park, at the corner of Lawrenceville-Suwanee Road and Buford Highway, will open late this fall. With its open spaces, pathways, carefully placed trees, and terraced amphitheater, Town Center Park will serve as the community's primary gathering place.

The City is embarking on a $300,000 "fun-raising" Suwanee Better Parks Campaign to raise money for a specially designed interactive fountain to serve as a crowd-pleasing landmark. A citizen-based committee is offering sponsorship opportunities and organizing a community event that will feature a live and silent auction. Contributors can "adopt" various Town Center Park elements, including garden areas, lamp posts, benches, bike racks and naming rights for the performance stage and fountain (for $750 to $25,000 and up). The Suwanee Better Parks Campaign live/silent will be held November 21. For more information about the Suwanee Better Parks Campaign and sponsor opportunities, contact Denise Brinson at770/945-8996 or denise@suwanee.com.

Last month the City kicked-off efforts to construct a super playground, which was inspired by our children's imaginations and is to be built in the spring by community volunteers. To create our one-of-a-kind playground, Suwanee has contracted with Leathers & Associates, an Ithaca, N.Y.-based company that specializes in custom designed, community-built play structures, such as those at Wills and Webb Bridge parks in Alpharetta.

Leathers, in cooperation with Norcross planning firm Jordan Jones & Goulding, will be consulting with schoolchildren and the community throughout the design process. The next step later this fall will be "Design Day," during which the playground design will be formulated and sketched with input from children and other stakeholders. It will ultimately be unveiled at the end of the same day during a community celebration.

Between now and the anticipated construction this spring, volunteers, tools, and materials will be organized and the site prepared. To participate in the playground effort or for more information, contact Kristi McCarley at 770/945-8996 or kristi@suwanee.com.

Suwanee Creek Park

This 85-acre site at Buford Highway and Suwanee Creek was the first tract purchased through the open space initiative. The site includes a great deal of wetlands and will remain largely in its natural state.

Construction is beginning on a parking area, meadows, unpaved trails, public restrooms, and a pavilion, and the park eventually will be a great place for family reunions, team parties, picnics, and throwing a Frisbee. The park also will serve as the trailhead for the Suwanee Creek Greenway, the City's multiuse trail system, for which a two-mile extension also is under construction.

ELLIOTT BRACK
Intensive presence can chase away lurid sex parlors
By Elliott Brack
editor and publisher
GwinnettForum.com

SEPT. 5, 2003 -- New York is known for many things. Over the years, the city has made an effort, in particular, to be aggressive in the control of its taxi fleet. Perhaps Gwinnett can take a lesson from New York in this.

To become a taxi operator in New York, you must have the savvy, the skill and the political connections to get a "medallion," the license to drive a taxi within the city. It is not easy. Not only does the city makes it difficult to obtain, but it then does a good job of making sure that the taxis are clean and well run. You don't want to cross the taxi commission!

Now Gwinnett has an emerging issue of the sex-for-sale services masquerading as "health spas." This is not just something taking place in one part of the country, but spreading throughout the entire Gwinnett area, and coming out of Atlanta.

So-called "spas" openly advertise. Some might as well as be saying "prostitution house" instead of "spa."

As of the moment, Gwinnett officials tend to be wringing their hands, lamenting "what to do?"

Make it difficult to get a license for "spas." Not only that, once a license is granted for a "spa," make every effort to vigorously enforce every regulation. Once a violation of any little type is noted, in the wiring, the plumbing, air conditioning, or certainly concerning crime, close the place down.

Reuben Greenberg took similar tactics in Charleston, S.C., to make that city one of the safest in the country, with "Intensive policing." If a place was determined to be shady, he simply stationed a policeman in front of the location. (What self-respecting business could complain about an officer of the law standing in front of his business?) As a result of this intensive, round-the-clock policing, whatever was happening at that address, whether it is a crack house, a prostitution parlor, or whatever, dried up. Customers didn't come around a place where the police were so visible.

If Gwinnett could concentrate its bureaucracy on elimination of these questionable "spas," no doubt many would dry up, too. It will take a concentrated effort of building inspection, policing, licensing, et al, to generate the atmosphere to where these questionable businesses would rather locate somewhere else.

These days Gwinnett officials say they are re-wording their ordinances concerning spas. Whatever the county comes up with, we hope the cities of the county adopt a similar ordinance, so a spa won't leave a county jurisdiction and flee to a city with a looser law.

But mainly, it's not the wording of a spa ordinance that can be employed. Tougher enforcement of all regulations, whether they be the fire code, building inspection, and other governmental regulations, can chase away these sex parlors, if rigorously enforced.

It's not rocket science. It's just the government doing a better-than-average concentration of its power, to improve a neighborhood.

These rat holes of spas don't help the county any. They spew and generate illegal activities. We need them cleaned up. The county government must simply have the stomach to do it.

FEEDBACK
9/5: Convenience or a nickel; how much will the masses take?

Editor, the Forum:

There is a commercial playing on TV that has a man walking, rather briskly, through his office with a coin held high between his thumb and index finger. "We saved a nickel on our transactions--- we saved a nickel!", he animatedly expresses to his fellow co-workers.

It is not until he bumps into one of his bosses that his shared excitement is returned. "We do 'X' (can't recall the exact number) transactions a month", the boss utters to himself as he calmly smiles in anticipation of his company's newfound money.

The point: to the masses a nickel may not be much; to the one passing the plate collecting all the nickels, it could represent a small fortune. This is an excellent business practice when a company can pull it off. It is called "invisibly adding to the profit."

Gasoline companies apply a similar (but in reverse) method all too often as holiday driving seasons approach. They count on collecting nickels and dimes from the masses knowing that one Jerry Q. Public won't protest too loudly and purchase their product anyway.

To some what is a "limp in your get-along" is a "classical ballet" to others. In Georgia, consumers complain. Here in Louisiana, the oil folks smile. Is this "market balance"? I don't know. I do know though, I am one to drive around to find the cheapest gas when they start playing these games, inconvenient or not.

And by the way, George W. and Dick C. are not responsible for this. The petroleum industry has been doing this since those two fellows were pups.

-- Jerry Queen, LaFayette, La.

(Editor's Note: Jerry Q. Public?-eeb)

9/5: Displays in Alabama appear to be more idolatry

Editor, the Forum:

Life valuing activity facilitating justice for ALL people will go further to honor and perpetuate the justice seeking tradition of Hebrew Scripture than will public displays of dissatisfaction void of life valuing activity facilitating justice for ALL. Recent displays in Alabama appear to be idolatry rather than faithfulness to a justice seeking God.

-- Rev. Nanci Hicks, Norcross

9/5: Those who drive slowly on left on expresswaysYS ON LEFT

Editor, The Forum:

Don't know how many weeks I am behind with this.

Yes, drivers are inconsiderate by sitting in the right lane when others may want to turn right on a red light. Yet I also don't want to sit in the left lane as the fourth or fifth in line. I do think about moving to the left lane if I am the first through third coming to the light.

THE REAL PET PEEVE IS: Drivers throughout the United States who drive in the left lane on the expressways, no matter what the speed. This is a major cause of accidents that cause drivers behind them to have to weave to the center and right lane to move ahead in the traffic. You (the editor) know that if in Europe, you drive in the left lane with someone behind you flashing his lights; you would be bumped off the road. Most states in this country have a law requiring "Slow traffic keep right", but it is not enforced.

-- E. F. Stuart, Norcross

CALENDAR
Chamber plans programs on transportation, diversity

University Parkway Alliance Executive Director Steve Parks will be providing his insight into the progress being made on improving the Highway 316 corridor to interstate / limited access standards at the upcoming Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce's Transportation and Environmental Forum. It will be September 9, at 8a.m. in the John D. Stephens Education Room of the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, located at 6500 Sugarloaf Parkway in Duluth.

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The Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce will offer its first Diversity Seminar September 10 from 7:45 a.m. until 3 p.m. at the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce building in Duluth. Topics include Gwinnett's changing demographics, connecting cultures, legal issues, diversity as viewed by government, education, business and community panels.

Cost of the seminar is $45. Advanced registration and payment is required prior to the day of the program. For more information, contact Meghan Beard at (770) 232-8816 or meghan@gwinnettchamber.org.

SAR Chapter to meet Sept. 11

The Sons of the American Revolution will hold their monthly meeting on Thursday, September 11, 2003 at Ryan's Steakhouse, in Lawrenceville at 7 p.m. The speaker is Ms. Shelby Watson, Georgia State's first Regent for the Daughters of the American Revolution. Ms. Watson's topic will be center on the Georgia signers of the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution.