Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners voted on several initiatives during their February 20 meeting. Below is a recap of what they approved.
New trail to connect Gwinnett Place Mall to McDaniel Farm Park: A federal grant, if awarded, will help fund a multi-use trail from McDaniel Farm Park to Ring Road. The Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity grant would provide up to $8 million for the project, including a grade-separated crossing over Satellite Boulevard at Commerce Avenue to allow continuous flow of pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
- Grants support police response: Commissioners approved two grants for Gwinnett Police to better serve residents. Funds from the Atlanta Regional Commission through the Urban Areas Security Initiative will provide the department with new technology to expedite intelligence gathering for criminal investigations. A community-based web portal will also allow for a more efficient response to incidents and resource sharing capabilities between law enforcement agencies.
- Proposal for Jimmy Carter Boulevard: Funding is being requested through the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Livable Centers Initiative to support the development of a master plan for the area. The plan will identify strategies to promote new housing types, affordable housing, redevelopment and transit expansion. The plan will cost $400,000.
- Pathway connection: A new pathway will be built along Peachtree Industrial Boulevard from McGinnis Ferry Road to Grand Teton Parkway to connect two existing sections of multi-use path, between the recent extension of the Western Gwinnett Pathway to McGinnis Ferry Road and intersection improvements at Suwanee Dam Road. Commissioners awarded the $549,900 construction contract to 9 Yards Infrastructure, LLC of Suwanee.
Commission raises the salary of chair for 2025
Gwinnett County Commissioners this week approved a measure that would increase the amount that the chairman of the commission is paid. The vote on the proposition means that beginning on January 1, 2025, the salary of the chair will be $205,655.
The chair’s new salary structure is tied to compensation of the sheriff of Gwinnett County, who on January 1 will make $205,655. Previously, Sheriff Keybo Taylor was paid $148,655, plus a $50,000 local supplement. Increased cost of living rates has now made the sheriff’s salary $205,655.
GwinnettForum has long had as one of its Continuing Objectives for Gwinnett County an equitable salary for the county commission chair.
Two students, ages apart, help each other
Emily Borrego and Carlos Delgado; provided.
When Emily Borrego saw a fellow student struggling to log in to his laptop during her first class at Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC), she didn’t hesitate to approach him and offer to help. Carlos Delgado gratefully accepted her offer, and in seconds, she had him signed in. Unbeknownst to the two of them, that seemingly innocuous overture was the beginning of an unexpected friendship that is still growing stronger despite the more than five decades that separate the two: Borrego is 19; Delgado is 75.
“I saw him struggling, and I just figured I’d help,” said Borrego, who lives in Lawrenceville. “It was in an information technology (IT) class, and we are both business buddies. After that, we just kind of became buddies.”
Delgado says: “Emily has a good heart. She likes helping people,” said Delgado, whose rich accent discloses his upbringing in Bogota, Colombia. “I think it’s difficult for some people to deal with people of older ages when they are young. They try to avoid it. That is not the case with Emily. She just saw me as another student who needed help.”
The two came to GGC from separate ends of their lifetimes: Borrego right after graduating from Brookwood High School in 2022 and Delgado after retiring from a career as a Spanish teacher in Atlanta and Fulton County public schools. They quickly figured out that their different perspectives complimented each other, especially when it came to getting through the IT class.
Borrego says it this way: “Literally, all we do is laugh. I help him, but I get to learn from him. We talk about life and find things to laugh about.”
Both students are busy with other classes outside of their IT studies, so they make time on the weekends to meet at a Gwinnett County Public Library, where they spend hours together doing assignments and studying for quizzes.
Delgado’s life journey took him worldwide before he landed in Lawrenceville. After earning a degree in languages from Libre University in Colombia, he moved to Spain to earn a master’s degree in Spanish from the University of Salamanca, the oldest university in the Hispanic world. After that, he immigrated to London, England, where he worked as a telephone engineer for BellSouth for 15 years before accepting a transfer to Miami, Fla. He quickly realized the city didn’t suit him.
“London was cold and the weather is awful there sometimes, but Miami is so hot it’s uncomfortable, and mosquitos would fly in every time I opened my mouth!”
He decided to move to New York City, but on his way there, he stopped in Atlanta long enough to learn that the school systems in the area desperately needed Spanish teachers. That led to a career working for the Atlanta and Fulton County public school systems until his retirement in 2013. He spent the next 10 years, as he puts it, “idling and traveling the world,” but eventually started to crave another challenge.
Borrego came to GGC from the other end of the spectrum, fresh out of high school and unsure of her career path. For now, she’s a business major. “Some people seem to have it all figured out, but that’s not who I am yet,” she said. “I’m still exploring my options.”
WABE, bookstores and libraries offer storytelling
WABE, Atlanta voice for NPR and PBS, is organizing a metro-wide storytelling event, uniting independent bookstores and public libraries across the metro Atlanta area, including Gwinnett County Public Library.
The event, scheduled for Saturday, March 16 at 11 a.m., celebrates the debut of a new storytime series for WABE’s youngest listeners, a podcast where they read stories.
Aisha Greenlee, WABE’s director of Community Outreach, says: “WABE’s inaugural “READ ACROSS ATLANTA” event is intended to not only connect our community to the power of storytelling but also to amplify the role area bookstores and libraries play as gathering spots for all.”
At each event location, readers designated by the library or bookstore will share stories from children’s books from local authors.
The Podcast ‘Where They Read Stories’, which premiered February 20, is a
twice-weekly storytime podcast featuring notable Atlantans and local performers reading children’s books, plus mini-explainers for vocabulary words, historical figures, or other big concepts that deserve a “story within the story.” It is available on WABE.org/podcasts and other podcast platforms.
Over the ground trail coming to new Suwanee Park
In Suwanee, work is progressing on construction of a new park. These uprights provide the base for a 1,200 foot over-the-ground trail around this new 25 acre Town Center on Main Park, near the nearby DeLay Nature park. The trail is west of the Suwanee Library, seen on the right in the background. Suwanee officials are hoping to see completion of the park by late summer.
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