TODAY'S ISSUE
Suwanee adopts Mississippi town to help recovery
By Lynne DeWilde
Special to GwinnettForum.com

MARCH 14, 2006 -- The City of Suwanee has adopted the City of Long Beach, Miss. in order to assist that community as it recovers and rebuilds in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Last fall, Richport Properties asked the City of Suwanee to partner with them and help identify a small Gulf Coast community in need. Richport is nearing completion of a Hurricane Relief House in the Suwanee Stonecypher neighborhood. Proceeds from the sale of the home, anticipated to be about $35,000, will be donated to Long Beach.

Mayor Nick Masino says: "We've all been touched by reports from the Katrina-stricken Gulf area, by the overwhelming destruction and the enormity of all that remains to be done through the rebuilding process. We've all wished we could help in some way. Richport Properties found a way to make a significant difference, and the City of Suwanee is proud to be part of their effort, even if only in a small manner.

He adds: "The Suwanee community looks forward to long-term opportunities to build a sister relationship with Long Beach, and to assist that community as they work to rebuild their city and their lives. It's the least we can do."

Suwanee already has begun planning a community auction to raise funds for Long Beach. In addition, Suwanee is exploring ways that its staff and residents can volunteer for week-long spring "mission" trips to Long Beach being planned by volunteers in Beaufort, South Carolina.

Long Beach, a coastal city of approximately 16,000 (18,000 before Katrina) located near Gulfport and about 65 miles east of New Orleans, was devastated by the August 29 hurricane. Camille, which struck the area in 1969, was a more ferocious storm, says Long Beach Mayor Billy Skellie, but Katrina was much more devastating because of floodwaters.

"The water went places it had never been before," says Skellie. "It destroyed homes that were 200 years old. People had felt that they were safe five blocks inland."

Among the municipal structures destroyed in the storm were city hall, the police department, recreation building, Little League fields, public works building, three parks, library, building permits office, water department, and water and sewer infrastructure. Mayor Skellie, who came to Suwanee March 3 while in metro Atlanta to visit his brother, says that 35 percent of the city's businesses were destroyed and 800 single-family homes have been assessed as 75-100 percent destroyed and another 900 with severe damage.

The City of Long Beach has lost 55 percent of its tax base and like many communities in the Gulf region is struggling to make ends meet until FEMA reimbursements are made and other federal and state aid becomes available.

ELLIOTT BRACK
Gwinnett leads state in circulation from its library system
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher
GwinnettForum.com

MARCH 14, 2006 -- Gwinnett County, being as big as it is, second in population only to Fulton County in Georgia, virtually automatically leads the state in many categories. Today let's make a quick comparison of library systems of Georgia.

Brack

Gwinnett leads the state in library circulation, circulating nearly twice as many books, tapes, downloadable books, etc., than any other library system. Gwinnett circulates 6.3 million items annually, compared to 3.7 million for Cobb County, the next highest in circulation.

What accounts for the high Gwinnett library circulation? We asked the professional, Gwinnett system library director Jo Ann Pinder, and got the following answer.

"It really is because we listen to what our public wants, and have that the same day that book stores have. We want to have our items in a timely manner. Our staff wants to make sure we have what our public wants. For instance, our staff reads popular magazines to see what books are recommended. When authors write a new book, we order it before it is published, to make sure it is available that day. When a local newspaper writes about a book, we make sure we have it. We try to give our customers the service they demand."

Right now, Gwinnett operates 12 libraries, and has more libraries coming on line. The new Dacula library will open on April 15, , while Grayson will be open in 6-9 months. Our next library will be at Hamilton Mill, for which we are getting $2 million from the state, and should open in 2009.

What this means, of course, is that the Gwinnett library circulation will stay atop the state in circulation, we project, with these new libraries.

One figure in the library statistics struck us. Tiny Thomas County Public Library, down in Thomasville, leads the state in per capita circulation, a whopping 15.33 books per capita circulated for its area population. The Mountain Regional Library in Young Harris comes in second with 10.51 per capita, followed by Gwinnett at 9.13 per capita.

Nancy Tillinghast, director of the Thomasville library, says their staff works hard at "giving our patrons what they want." She adds: "We give one-on-one service, and we know our patrons by name and ask about their lives. We smile. We may be the only person that they see in a day, so why not show them a pleasant smile?" She also told Jo Ann: "We want to make (our patrons') visit a good one, so they will want to come back."

The Thomas library also has a policy that helps circuation, we bet. Ms. Tillinghast says: "If there are more than seven patrons on a waiting list, we order another book for them," so that patrons don't have to wait to read the best sellers.

Up in Young Harris, Donna Howell, director of the Mountain Regional Library System, feels their high circulation is the result of several items. "We have a large retired population of well-educated people, and our area has fewer options for other types of entertainment and leisure activities." She, too, mentions "great personal service." Her area, she says, has a high number of people home-schooling, who "check out literally hundreds of items each month."

Ms. Howell also thinks her area is "woefully undercounted" on population, since "at least 40 per cent of the population are never here on April 1 when the census is done, and never included in population estimates. They spend several months in other states with warmer weather in the winter, and spend their summers here."

Over and over, from the Gwinnett, Thomas County and Young Harris libraries, we heard references to "service." While other factors are no doubt part of the high per capita circulation, we bet it's that close attention these libraries pay to serving their customers that puts them atop the library circulation in Georgia.

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FEEDBACK
3/14: Congress raises its pay, but won't raise minimum wage

Editor, the Forum:

In the past nine years, workers making the minimum wage haven't gotten a single raise. While the wage of $5.15 an hour has stayed the same, its value has dropped sharply, putting workers further and further behind.

Since 1997, the annual salary for members of Congress has gone up by $31,600 because it voted eight pay raises for itself. Just this year, Congress gave itself a $3,100 raise but nothing for workers making the minimum wage.

The Fair Minimum Wage Act would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour in three steps:

* $5.85 60 days after enactment.
* $6.55 one year later.
* $7.25 one year after that.

Raising the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour would mean an additional $4,370 a year for a full-time worker, to help pay rent, electricity or tuition to further their education.

-- Ralph Greene, Snellville

UPCOMING
Service gives map view of your town at turn of century

Want to know what your block looked like at the turn of the century? Did your Victorian bungalow once have a porch or a barn out back? Was your favorite restaurant once a livery stable? Historical fire insurance maps for more than a hundred Georgia towns and cities are now accessible online via the Digital Library of Georgia.

The digital collection consists of 4,445 maps by the Sanborn Map Company® depicting commercial, industrial, and residential areas for 133 municipalities. Produced between 1884 and 1922 and originally designed for fire insurance assessment, the color-coded maps relate the location and use of buildings, as well as the materials employed in their construction. The maps indicate which city utilities--such as water and fire service--were available.

William Gray Potter, UGA librarian and associate provost, says: "Fire insurance maps document the changing face of towns and cities, providing highly detailed information for each neighborhood and block. The Library of Congress web site refers to them as 'probably the single most important record of urban growth and development in the United States during the past one hundred years.'"

The Sanborn Maps database is a project of the Digital Library of Georgia as part of Georgia HomePLACE. The project is supported with federal funds administered by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Georgia Public Library Service, a unit of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. The maps represented are from the University of Georgia Libraries Map Collection. The website is: http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/sanborn.

NOTABLE
Veteran fireman Knopick is new Gwinnett fire marshal

Gwinnett County officials have selected Ed Knopick to serve as Gwinnett County Fire Marshal. Knopick is a 25-year veteran of Gwinnett County Fire and Emergency Services and has a bachelor's degree in fire science and safety. His office will coordinate and ensure compliance with fire codes. In addition to building plan reviews and permits, fire planners and fire inspectors work with business and dwelling owners to interpret and conduct code compliance inspections. This area also enforces compliance with state and county burning regulations. The Fire Marshal's office is One Justice Square in Lawrenceville

Thompson cuffs SB 529; says immigrants come here to work

State Sen. Curt Thompson (D-Norcross) said this week that Senate Bill 529, adopted by the Senate, might score political points but will have virtually no effect on the influx of illegal immigrants into Georgia.

"Supporters of this legislation are patting themselves on the back for 'getting tough‚ on immigrants,'" Thompson said, "but its passage actually does little more than protect the status quo."

Thompson and a group of other Senate Democrats have sponsored separate legislation that would pull the business license and/or impose stiff fines on large companies that hire undocumented workers. They offered those provisions as floor amendments to SB 529 on Wednesday, but the changes were voted down.

"Immigrants come to Georgia because they will have a better opportunity to earn a higher standard of living than they had in their own country," Thompson said. "By not seriously addressing the employment issue, Senate Republicans chose to stick their heads in the sand regarding the real source of the illegal immigration explosion."

Thompson added: "They don't come here for welfare checks, they don't come here to get a tooth pulled and they don't come here to go to the University of Georgia. Folks who risk life, limb and jail to cross our borders do so to work. As long as there are jobs available to them, they will continue to do so."

RECOMMENDATION
The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman

Reading The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century, opens your mind to the many mind-boggling technical and social changes going on in our world. Friedman's main thesis is that the emergence of the Internet and adoption of it wholesale by many previously undeveloped countries makes these places equal in performance of tasks to developed countries. Therefore, the world is changed forever, when a Bangladesh or Chinese or Icelandic engineer, doctor, or backroom telephone operator doing the same job that can be done in developed areas…and often doing it far cheaper. The New York Times columnist centers part of his focus on the changes that have taken place since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the 9/11 attack on the United States. This is fascinating reading, delving into many of the individual companies (GE, Costco, Wal-Mart, smaller firms) changing our world. He puts you near sleep sometimes, but awakens you with a start with his insights. Definitely worth reading.

-- eeb

• An invitation: What Web sites, books or restaurants have you enjoyed? Send us your best recent visit to a restaurant or most recent book you have read along with a short paragraph as to why you liked it, plus what book you plan to read next. --eeb
  
  

GEORGIA TIDBIT
Battle of rice boats was first threat on Port of Savannah

McIntosh

The arrival of British warships in the Savannah River in January 1776 caused the first crisis in Savannah. The Council of Safety, convinced that Savannah was the object of the British incursion, placed Governor James Wright under house arrest and instructed Colonel Lachlan McIntosh to take charge of the defense of the city. There followed the so-called Battle of the Rice Boats on March 2-3, 1776, when British warships seized rice-laden merchant ships in the Savannah harbor. That was their purpose and not the capture of Savannah. The fleet sailed with the rice and with the fugitive Governor Wright and his chief councilors.

In the absence of the governor , the next provincial congress met in Augusta and proceeded to draft a simple frame of government called "Rules and Regulations" that went into effect on May 1, 1776. The congress elected Archibald Bulloch president and commander in chief of militia. George Walton joined Lyman Hall and Button Gwinnett as Georgia delegates to the Philadelphia convention in time to sign the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

• To access the Georgia Encyclopedia, go to http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
  
  

THOUGHT OF THE DAY
Finding out what we really should be laughing about

"At first, I only laughed at myself. Then I noticed that life itself is amusing. I've been in a generally good mood ever since."

-- Columnist Marilyn vos Savant (1946 - ).

• Another invitation: What's your favorite saying? Share with others through GwinnettForum. Send to elliott@gwinnettforum.com.
  

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