GwinnettForum | Number 21.04 | Jan.15, 2021
DULUTH’S SOUTHEASTERN RAILWAY MUSEUM has announced a five year, $1 million Fast Track to the Future campaign objective to upgrade the museum. See more details in Upcoming below. Among the items at the museum is this Savannah and Atlanta Railroad steam engine 750, a 4-6-2 model, with 69 inch driving wheels built in 1910 for the Florida East Coast Railway, which powered their “Railroad that went to sea” on the Key West extension. When the Key West route was abandoned following the 1935 hurricane, FEC had a surplus of power and S&A purchased this unit. It was featured in the movie Biloxi Blues and was donated to the local museum collection in 1962.
TODAY’S FOCUS: Lawrenceville to get new themed downtown library
EEB PERSPECTIVE: Three key issues will come before Georgia Legislature this year
ANOTHER VIEW: New polling technique, deep canvassing, proving effective
SPOTLIGHT: The 1818 Club
FEEDBACK: Is 14th Amendment a better way to restrict Donald Trump?
UPCOMING: Duluth’s Railway Museum plans $1 million fund campaign
NOTABLE: Dr. Andrea Mann new dean at Suwanee campus of PCOM
RECOMMENDED: The Rain in Portugal by Billy Collins
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Georgia food and beverage firms now national companies
MYSTERY PHOTO: Peaceful location may offer clues
CALENDAR: MLK donation drive is Jan. 16
Lawrenceville to get new themed downtown library
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. | A new library will be coming to Lawrenceville as the capstone of the SouthLawn development, city officials said this week. The new library will be at the site of the former Hooper-Renwick School, which was Gwinnett County’s only African-American public school for several decades.
This new library will be part of the Gwinnett County Public Library system, through an intergovernmental agreement between the city and the library system. It is expected to cost approximately $10-12 million, depending on bid for construction, with an anticipated opening date of early 2023. Cas Architecture of Lawrenceville submitted the preliminary design of the library.
Lawrenceville Mayor David Still says: “We are delighted to see this important piece of our community’s history preserved. This is local government at its very best — a creative partnership between city and county sparked by a dedicated committee of community volunteers.”
It will also be the first themed library in the Southeast, points out Gwinnett County Commissioner Marlene Fosque. “It will incorporate cultural and historic objects and artifacts with the library’s resources and information. The new library will encourage people of today to learn about the history of segregation and desegregation in Gwinnett County through the stories, accomplishments and personal items from people who attended the Hooper-Renwick School in years past.”
Gwinnett County will utilize the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) to fund construction costs and the City of Lawrenceville will provide the land, 3.8 acres, at no cost. The approximately 25,000 square foot themed library will honor the legacy of the former Hooper-Renwick School through architectural design elements, exhibits about the school’s history, as well as segregation and desegregation in Gwinnett County. Both the City and County will fund the construction and operation of the exhibits.
Details of the new facility are:
- The library will be constructed by renovating 11,400 square feet of the existing facility and constructing a new approximately 13,600 square foot addition, which will include a second-floor entrance facing Neal Boulevard.
- Twenty original windows on the front façade of the original building will be restored to their original appearance.
- Architectural design elements of the Hooper-Renwick School will be incorporated into the Library design.
- The building will meet the minimum LEED standard of “certified” as defined by the U.S. Green Building Council.
- The new Library will include approximately 1,500 square feet of community space, accommodating approximately 100 people and equipped with a sink and counter space for food preparation.
- The County will be responsible for the management of the new facility.
In addition, the City will provide streetscapes, sidewalks, pedestrian lighting, landscaping and on-street parking. A final name for the facility will be selected by the County with input from the City.
The City has agreed to pay the County a sum of $1,695,000 to cover its share of costs and expenses to develop and construct the new Library.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
3 key issues will come before Georgia legislature this year
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JAN. 15, 2021 | Look out for at least three big issues to come before the Georgia Legislature this year.
The most important issue will be the reapportioning of the U.S. House of Representatives, and also both the Georgia Senate and House. That’s why this years’ Legislature will have more sway over our state than do most year’s terms as it determines voting districts. In effect, the Republican Party will have super influence for the next 10 years since the GOP will control how district lines are drawn.
The other two major items we see the Legislature taking on are:
- Rural broadband impact: let’s push for Georgia to offer its rural areas far better access to the internet world, and in effect, a better connection to broadband, so that these communities can greatly improve their economic conditions.
- Elections: changes in the way Georgia’s elections are conducted. Our state needs to make sure people are not disenfranchised in any changes proposed.
In reality, the elections of 2020 were amazingly efficient. We say that since there were several challenges to the elections, though these challenges did not produce any significant realignment of voting.
When the Covid pandemic arrived in 2020, it led to how Georgians voted. In both the primary, the General Election, and the runoff races in January, a majority of Georgians stayed away from the polls on Election Day. They choose either to vote an absentee ballot, or went to the polls in the three weeks prior to Election Day. A smaller percentage of people voted on election day than ever before in Georgia.
Take the voting in Gwinnett as an example. We’ll use the David Perdue-Jon Ossoff contest as an example, though the Kelly Loeffler-Raphael Warnock race has similar results. Look at these methods:
Number voting on election day: 97,082
Number voting in advance: 171,033
Number voting absentee: 101,533
Provisional ballots (mostly military): 742
Those manning the 159 precincts in Gwinnett on election day had it relatively easy. Only 26.2 percent of all those voting choose to go to the polls on that Tuesday. Nearly three-fourths of the votes in Gwinnett either marked ballots in advanced voting or used an absentee ballot.
This says that the voters in Gwinnett, for whatever reason, thought it was either easiest, or best, or most reasonable, to vote prior to election day. Of course, the pandemic may have played a big part in this decision not to go to the polls on election day. It is also an indication that Gwinnettians like the choice they have in voting.
The current Georgia voting regulations are a product of a 2005 newly-empowered Republican Party, setting out the method to vote by absentee ballot. Yet when in 2020 Democrats got more than twice as many absentee votes than Republicans, the GOP started raising questions about the voting process, and suggested changes were needed to it.
So what can we expect from the Republican-controlled Legislature this year? Look for the GOP to find some way to make it harder to vote by absentee. But they should go slow on drastically changing the voting procedures, for all across Georgia, it appears that the people like having choices on how to vote. Restricting such a process is unwise.
One change might make sense: requiring some form of photograph identification prior to getting an absentee ballot.
But overall: watch it when the Legislature starts changing our Georgia voting rules. After all, the elections went smoothly this year.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
New polling technique, deep canvassing, proving effective
By George Wilson, contributing columnist
STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. | Now as organizers we have embraced another tool that they hope will continue to engage Georgia voters: deep canvassing.
Last month People’s Action — a national network of 37 state and local grassroots power-building organizations — announced a deep canvassing operation to help turn out voters in Georgia’s Senate runoffs. Deep canvassing in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic involves 10 to 15-minute candid, two-way phone conversations in which the canvasser and the potential voter reflect on the emotionally significant experiences that shape what’s at stake for them.
In short, it’s important to connect with people’s most immediate conditions.
A 2017 study found that the traditional tools of political outreach like short phone calls, brief door-to-door canvassing, and TV ads have a minimal effect on changing the mind of a typical voter. But research has found that deep canvassing — extended, empathetic conversations with the goal of countering prejudice and shifting beliefs — done in person or by phone can have a profound effect on the hearts and minds of potential voters.
The group released results from a deep canvass experiment it conducted in 2019 focused on immigration policy showing that the method is about 102 times more effective at moving individual voters than traditional voter outreach efforts. As part of the experiment, People’s Action engaged in deep canvassing among white, working-class voters in rural Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania to show the technique can effectively combat the use of “strategic racism” to manufacture fear and division. The study found a shift in voter opinion for including undocumented immigrants in expanded social safety net programs like Medicaid, with eight new supporters of including undocumented immigrants in these programs for every 100 deep canvass conversations.
“Folks are trying to divide us along all these different lines, but we really think when we come together across lines of race and class, we can do some pretty amazing things as a country,” said Mehrdad Azemun, People’s Action’s lead strategist. “It’s not really about debating; it’s about basically creating space for a person to make their own choice.”
The organizers are currently focusing on Georgia’s rural voters and others who are less likely to turn out for the runoff election. However, they emphasize they’re invested in connecting with voters not just for this election but for the long haul.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
The 1818 Club
The public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Today’s underwriter is The 1818 Club, named for the year that Gwinnett County received its charter. The 1818 Club is a member-owned, private dining experience providing the best in food, service and meeting accommodations for its members. Whatever your business or social dining needs, the 1818 Club has the proper facilities, recently renovated, to gracefully host your gatherings.
- 100-seat formal dining room open for breakfast and lunch.
- Capital Room open for breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as cocktails.
- Three private rooms which can be used for dining or meeting space. AV is offered in each room.
- 220 seat Virgil Williams Grand Ballroom, divides into three sections, all with AV.
- Gwinnett Room for upscale dining, with Frankie’s menu available.
Our top-notch service team enhances your experience by providing a sophisticated social atmosphere, engaging events and a full serving of dining and entertainment opportunities. If you want an urbane and central site to entertain people, consider joining the 1818 Club. For more details, visit https://www.the1818club.org/Home.
- For a list of other sponsors of this forum, click here.
Is the 14th Amendment a better way to restrict Trump?
Editor, the Forum:
Impeaching Donald Trump again may place another unique stain on his record, but it won’t prevent him from running for office again. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, two professors, Bruce Ackerman of Yale and Gerard Magliocca of Indiana University, suggest using Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to our Constitution. It would bar Trump from holding another Federal office if he is found to have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the Constitution.
This action could be accomplished by a simple majority vote in both Houses of Congress declaring that Trump engaged in such action by encouraging the attack on the Capitol. Trump could only run for office again if a future Congress voted by two-thirds of each House to remove such disability. That would be a high bar to overcome.
Using this method has several advantages. It would not require the Senate to hold a trial, which would come with disadvantages. The trial could result in Trump’s acquittal, which he would broadcast endlessly. It would delay Biden’s efforts to have his Cabinet confirmed and divert attention from the nation’s other pressing issues. It would further divide the country when the new President is trying to bring the country together.
If the House has voted to impeach the president, I do not see why at some future time Congress could also move forward to invoke the 14th Amendment preventing Donald Trump from holding Federal office again. He has sought only to divide, never unite. Our country has had enough of that.
— John Titus, Peachtree Corners
Readers respond on the riot at the Capitol last Wednesday
Editor, the Forum:
I always enjoy your perspective. Today’s perspective and post is appropriate and a very good summary of the more recent political difficulties in the United States of America. I am thankful to live in Gwinnett where the extreme difficulty of this last year did not have a major impact other than to cause great concern.
— Louis Young, Lilburn
Editor, the Forum:
Thank you for your moral clarity and courage writing January 12 perspective in the Gwinnett Forum. Undoubtedly you will get hate mail and lose a few subscribers/sponsors.
If our media and most leaders do not seek truth in our country, we will be going down a path that will lead to our destruction.
— Doug Heckman, Peachtree Corners
Editor, the Forum:
I was so appalled at what happened at the Capitol last week, I reached out to a friend of mine that lives in England. He’s had quite the careers in his 70+ years – shipping, antiques, writer, photographer, and huge traveler. In other words, he’s very well rounded.
His comment back to me was: “It was an affront to your democracy, all the president will achieve is to damage the Republican Party and lose respect for America around the world. Red neck extremists don’t make America look good. ”
I could not have said it any better!!
— Mickey Merkel, Berkeley Lake
Editor, the Forum:
Thank you so much for your Op/ed on the riot in Washington. You nailed it. I fluctuated between being heartbroken, nauseous and angry as I watched these events unfold. And, you are correct, to place this event squarely at the feet of No. 45.
Thanks again for stating the obvious so eloquently.
— Mary Kay Jordan, Lawrenceville
Spanish flu of 1918 made a difference in her life
Editor, the Forum:
The effect of the Spanish Flu made a difference in my life. My great grandfather, Joseph Leonidas Moor, and my grandmother, Emma Olivia Lovely Moor Payne, died in that pandemic. They lived in what is now known as the Payne-Corley House in Duluth.
My mother, Frances Payne Corley, was 20 months old when she lost her mother. I never knew my grandmother. Pandemics rob us of our loved ones and our heritage.
In the future, people like me will deal with the same impact of loss. I send love and caring to all of those people.
— Betsy Corley Pickren, 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
Duluth’s Railway Museum plans $1 million fund campaign
The Southeastern Railway Museum (SRM) has announced the Fast Track to the Future campaign to underwrite a new five-year $1 million initiative to expand and enhance the Museum.
Over the next five years, through the Fast Track to the Future program, SRM will:
- Enhance: SRM will develop a classroom at the Museum to host elementary, middle and high school classes visiting to study transportation.
- Improve: SRM will redevelop and revitalize the Museum’s collection of historic railway locomotives and cars to enhance the visitors’ experience.
- Modernize: SRM will develop a new Master Site Plan to better portray the impact of transportation on our country; make the Museum grounds more visitor friendly, while improving safety and security.
- Expand: SRM will recruit a full time professional executive director to implement the dynamic Fast Track to the Future program.
The Southeastern Railway Museum Board of Trustees launched the Fast Track to the Future campaign in October following months of strategic planning as well as a comprehensive feasibility analysis.
John Pollock, an SRM board member, says: “Fast Track to the Future is a dynamic program that will meet the current and future needs of the Museum and the thousands of visitors they serve. SRM and all of our volunteers have done an outstanding job over the last 35 years. Now, this new five-year program will take this Museum to the next level. The Fast Track initiative will enable us to do so much more in a better way.”
The Southeastern Railway Museum is located at 3595 Buford Highway, one mile south of the Duluth city center.
New housing community offers 58 town homes near Lawrenceville
A new built-to-rent town home community, Parkland Springs, is now underway at 1510 Duluth Highway in the Peachtree Ridge High School district. It offers 58 town home opportunities for the Lawrenceville area. The rear entry stacked townhomes offer two or three bedrooms and a one-car garage. It is being built by Parkland Residential, headed by Jim Jacobi. Prices range from $1,900 to $2,200 a month, and are from 1,630 to 1,950 square feet.
Mann is new dean at Suwanee campus of PCOM
Mann
Dr. Andrea Pax Mann has been named the dean and chief academic officer of the Osteopathic Medicine program at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine Georgia effective this spring. In this position, she will direct and oversee the activities of the Clinical and Biomedical Sciences departments, as well as deliver policy and curriculum.
Dr. Mann most recently served as the assistant dean for clinical education, chair of pediatrics, and associate professor of pediatrics and internal medicine at the Jerry M. Wallace, Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine, Buies Creek, N.C. She has 20 years of experience in academic medicine at the dean’s level.
Dr. Mann is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English with a minor in Biology. She earned a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Erie, Penn., and completed an internal medicine and pediatrics residency at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, her hometown.
Prior to her role at Campbell, Dr. Mann worked as an attending physician at Senders Pediatrics, South Euclid, Ohio, a 10,000 patient private practice. She was also a research assistant at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio.
She is married to Brian Mann, who has been named chief of PCOM Simulation Operations, a position that will report to the provost and serve all three PCOM campuses and multiple healthcare professional programs. The Manns, an internationally ranked CrossFit athlete, a high school honors student and an aspiring physician.
Mitchell promoted to chief deputy tax commissioner
MItchell
Gwinnett County Tax Commissioner Tiffany P. Porter has appointed Denise Mitchell as Chief Deputy Tax Commissioner. Mitchell has served since 1998 at the Tax Commissioner’s office, moving from Accounting Supervisor to Accounting Manager and finally to director of Finance and Accounting in 2013.
During her seven-years in Finance and Accounting, Mitchell earned a statewide reputation for strong management and flawless accounting for the $1.5 billion that flows through the office annually.
Prior to joining the tax commissioner’s office, Mitchell was with Marriott Residence Inn for five years.
Mitchell earned a master’s degree in Public Administration in 2008 from the Keller Graduate School of Management at DeVry University, and a bachelor’s degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management from Georgia State University. In 2002, she earned a local government manager certification from the University of Georgia.
Mitchell has two grown daughters and one granddaughter. She and her husband live in Snellville. Since 2008, Mitchell has taught English as a Second Language at Gwinnett Tech.
The Rain in Portugal by Billy Collins
From Karen Harris, Stone Mountain: American poet laureate (2001-2003) Billy Collins (born in Manhattan, N.Y. in 1941) has written a whimsical collection of poems that speak to life’s ironies and wonders. The poem Rain in Portugal speaks to an idea that poetry does not have to rhyme to tell a story that can be enjoyed for what it is and what it conveys. For Collins everything in life has a poetic essence be it a weathervane, a cat, a time, as depicted in the poem The Day After Tomorrow. His poetry seems to identify the nature of the subject he selects with enjoyable and provocative results. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York.
An invitation: what books, restaurants, movies or web sites have you enjoyed recently? Send us your recent selection, along with a short paragraph (150 words) as to why you liked this, plus what you plan to visit or read next. Send to: elliott@brack.net
Georgia food and beverage firms now national companies
Foodways, a comparatively recent term, is the study of the procurement, preparation, and consumption of food. Put another way, foodways is the study of what people eat and why they eat it.
Such Georgia food and beverage companies as the Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, RC Cola and Tom’s Peanuts (later Tom’s Foods) of Columbus, and the W. B. Roddenbery Company of Cairo (maker of various cane syrup and peanut products) came to prominence in the 20th century, selling their goods in the international marketplace. Concurrently, the movement of Georgians from farms to cities and suburbs spurred an increased reliance upon prepackaged foods and a spike in the number and quality of restaurants.
In 1916 Greek immigrant James Mallis opened a hot dog stand in Macon called Nu-Way Weiners. (Editor’s Note: yes, weiner is not normally spelled that way, but that’s the way the neon sign had it years ago, and the founders didn’t want to pay for a correctly-spelled sign—eeb.)
Fresh Air Barbecue opened in 1929 as a roadside stand in the community of Flovilla, in Butts County. In 1943 Mrs. Wilkes took over the reins of a boarding house in Savannah, serving Georgia standards to railroad men. In the 1950s Atlanta’s “Deacon” Lydell Burton opened Burton’s Grill, serving fried chicken, collard greens, and hoecakes, a modern-day replication of the traditional midday groaning board.
Fads have also affected Georgia foodways. The late 1960s signaled the national debut of the term soul food, arguably a politicized renaming of the foods long savored by black southerners.The term was in vogue at the same time as soul music and other celebrations of black southern life. By the early 1970s soul food began moving upscale as restaurants like Atlanta’s Soul On Top O’ Peachtree opened downtown on the thirtieth floor of the Bank of Georgia Building. In 1976 the United States elected a farmer named Jimmy Carter from the south Georgia town of Plains as president, and the nation was soon smitten by the foods of his home state, especially peanuts and grits.
During the later years of the twentieth century, a growing national fascination with regional foods found a foothold in the South, as cookbooks were published touting “new southern cooking.” Restaurants serving updated takes on traditional recipes (fried green tomatoes topped with crab and pecan-crusted catfish, for example) opened in Atlanta and elsewhere. Ironically, farmers, responding to this trend, began planting older varieties of vegetables and fruits that might have been recognizable to a Georgian of 100 years ago.
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia article online, go to http://georgiaencyclopedia.org
Peaceful location may offer clues
Here’s a peaceful location that may be a clue to where this photograph was made. Send your answer to elliott@brack.net and include your hometown.
First reader to recognize the most recent Mystery Photo was Lou Camerio of Lilburn. He immediately spotted the Copenhagen, Denmark, City Hall. The photograph came from Mickey Merkel of Berkeley Lake.
Our steady George Graf of Palmyra, Va. has some reason to easily identify the city hall photograph, as he explains: “This is Copenhagen City Hall, headquarters of the municipal council of Copenhagen, Denmark. A few facts about Denmark:
- The average tax rate in Denmark is 49 percent
- The Danish alphabet has three letters not found in the English alphabet: Æ, Ø, and Å. All three are vowels, and they come after the letter Z in the Danish alphabet.
- First acknowledged in 1219, the Danish flag remains the oldest national flag in the world still in use by an independent nation.
- The Danes enjoy salty licorice with a cold glass of milk and also really like pickled herring.
- On average, it rains every second day.
- Our son, Mike, was an exchange student to Denmark in 10th grade, fell in love and a few years later married Inge and moved there permanently. We now have three grandchildren in their 20s living and working in Denmark.”
Allan Peel, San Antonio, Tex. tells us that “The clock tower is 350-feet high and is one of the tallest buildings in Copenhagen. Visitors can climb the tower to an observation deck some 300-steps up.
“This building is actually the fourth city hall that Copenhagen has had. The first one was built in 1479. The second city hall was occupied in 1728 and was also lost to a fire in 1795. The third City Hall was completed in 1815, in what is now the Copenhagen Court House, located just a couple of blocks away from the current city hall.
“In addition to the tower clock, the City Hall also houses Jens Olsen’s World Clock, an advanced astronomical clock that was built in 1897 and consists of 12 movements which together have 15,448 moving parts. The fastest gear completes a revolution every ten seconds and the slowest every 25,753 years. In addition to the time, it is geared to display lunar and solar eclipses, positions of the stellar bodies, and a perpetual calendar. And, as long as it continues to be wound once every week, it will continue to display this information for the next 2,500 years!
“You may have seen the Copenhagen City Hall on your TV set. The site has been used for “scenes in Danish popular tv series like The Killing and Borgen.”
MLK donation drive is Jan. 16
In celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Gwinnett County is partnering with the United Ebony Society to host a drive-thru donation drive Saturday, January 16 to collect items for senior nursing facilities and homeless outreach organizations. The event is scheduled from 11 a.m to 2 p.m. at Moore Middle School, located at 1221 Lawrenceville Highway in Lawrenceville. The weekend will continue with two virtual events held January 17 and 18, both starting at 1 p.m. Click this link (several service projects) for details.
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