For Joey Celestin, the three weeks he spent in jail, accused of murder, have ruined life as he knew it. He lost his job, had to change his son’s school, and eventually moved out of the state. Celestin and then-co-worker Bill Nichols were arrested a...

Down to its last at-bat in the Class AAAA baseball semifinals, Marist staved off elimination with an eight-inning victory against Loganville. After that the War Eagles returned to their dominating ways that led to easy sweeps in the first three round...

  With DeKalb County property tax assessments coming in lower than expected, a pending tax increase could be higher than anticipated. Tax assessments county-wide are down 13.4 percent, and they may drop even further, said Joel Gottlieb, the county

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Through the efforts of Georgia Tech and Ford Motor Company, an Atlanta Public Schools (APS) bus serving Mary Lin Elementary is now green—literally and figuratively. The organizations are partnering on the nation’s first conversion of a traditiona...

Patrons of MARTA at a public hearing in DeKalb last week said proposed fare hikes need to accompany improved services. “I know that there’s a lot of people … who would be willing to go up $3 or $4,” Delilah Black, of Lithonia, said. “Y’al...

Mark and Gina Hill said public school was never an option for them until the Museum School opened in Avondale Estates. That was why they found themselves on the steps of the state Capitol on May 17. The Hills, along with several hundred parents, teac...

Jennifer Harper

The Perimeter Community Improvement Districts have hired an engineer to serve as the agency’s program manager, the PCIDs announced June 2.

 

Jennifer Harper has 18 years experience as a transportation design engineer, project manager and civil engineering inspector and most recently worked in the roadway design group at URS, an engineering firm, the PCIDs reported in a press release.

 

“We are pleased and excited to have someone with Jennifer’s knowledge, professionalism and understanding of the dynamics and importance of transportation issues to assist us as we move the Perimeter Community Improvement Districts to the next level,” said PCIDs President and CEO Yvonne Williams.

Changing the contractors providing city services in Sandy Springs doesn’t necessarily mean wholesale change in the people working for the city, city officials say.

The three new city contractors who will take over as providers of city services on July 1 may choose to retain the city staffers who had worked for CH2M HILL, the former contractor.

“They’re going through the process now. The companies will be interviewing the employees,” said City Councilwoman Dianne Fries. “I would imagine there will be offer letters going out to any they want to retain.”

The council voted May 17 to contract three companies – URS Corp., the Collaborative and Jacobs Engineering Group – to provide city services. From shortly after the city’s start in 2005, those services had been provided by a single contractor, CH2M HILL. City officials said the change would save the city about $7 million a year.

URS Corp. contracted to operate the city’s public works department and Jacobs Engineering Group contracted to run the municipal court and recreation and parks department.

Nicole Buxton, vice president of communications and marketing for the Collaborative, which won bids to run Sandy Springs’ communications and community development departments, says the company does contract work for the federal government and is accustomed to taking over management contracts from other firms.

She said representatives of the Collaborative, which has offices in Boston and California, would conduct interviews with Sandy Springs staff members in early June.

“We expect a majority of those folks will be hired on,” she said. “I would say the majority of folks would remain in the current jobs.”

Ed Shoucair, senior vice president and partner in the Collaborative, said his firm would interview all current city employees who wish to stay on. “It seems like to us there are a lot of talented and hard-working people working for CH,” he said. “The city’s been well-served.”

He said his company will not necessarily employ fewer employees at Sandy Springs than CH2M HILL employed. Reductions in the contract costs, he said, can come from better management and “a more competitive economy than five years ago.”

City officials say that although they aren’t involved in the staffing process, but hope that in the end a sizeable portion of current employees will remain with the city, employed by the new contractors.

“I think we’ll see a lot of the incumbent staff remain,” City Councilman Gabe Sterling said. “I’m hopeful you’ll see a majority of them remain.”

Fries said the reason was the change in contractors was to save money, not because city officials questioned the work done by employees.

“Personally, I hope they’ll all stay on,” she said. “The quality of our work force, of the employees, has been stellar.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Quick look at three contractors

Three companies won the bids on five contracts for Sandy Springs city government services that were previously handled by contractor CH2M HILL.

The new contractors are:

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., a publicly traded company based in Pasadena, Calif., has contracted to operate Sandy Springs’ municipal court and recreation and parks department. Jacobs says it had revenues of nearly $10 billion last year and is “one of the world’s largest and most diverse providers of technical, professional and construction services.” Jacobs boasts it has been in business for more than 60 years and operates more than 160 offices in 20-plus countries.

the Collaborative, a private company with offices in Boston and California, has contracted to operate Sandy Springs’ communications and community development departments. The Collaborative was founded in 1991 and offers transportation planning, design and communications services. The company has 20 to 25 employees.

URS Corp., a publicly traded company headquartered in San Francisco, has contracted to operate Sandy Springs’ public works department. The company was established in 1951, but says its “oldest predecessor company” was founded in 1904. URS says it employs about 46,000 in more than 40 countries and took in $9.18 billion in revenues in 2010. The company says it offers a full range of program management; planning, design and engineering; systems engineering and technical assistance; construction and construction management; operations and maintenance; and decommissioning services.

 

The Dunwoody City Council agreed to postpone approving a city parks master plan at its May 23 meeting, citing a need to smooth out several details.

The decision followed public comments and lengthy discussion of 13 questions about the parks plan prepared by City Manager Warren Hutmacher.

“We’re close, but we need to punt that ball once more,” said Mayor Ken Wright.

The council was able to reach agreement not to build baseball fields at Brook Run Park.

At a previous council meeting, residents spoke out against the plan, pointing out the many old trees that would have to be cut down to build three baseball fields in the park. The issue also divided the council, with several members opposed to the plan.

“We decided among ourselves we could take the ball fields out and put in big, open playable fields,” said City Councilman John Heneghan.

Among other topics discussed by the council was whether Brook Run Park should be designated as a passive park.

Council members disagreed on defining the uses of the park.

“I’m scared it will be used to play politics at a later date,” said Councilman Doug Thompson.

Council members went back and forth on what defines a “passive park.”

Councilwoman Adrian Bonser defined a passive park as a facility that is not used for organized sporting events. “Piedmont Park is considered a passive park,” she said. “That doesn’t mean you can’t move and be active, that all you can do is sit and eat a picnic.”

Some council members felt that defining Brook Run as a passive park would be too limiting.

“Brook Run is supposed to be a community park,” Heneghan said. “I’m not sure we shouldn’t have some kids’ soccer leagues. We’re locking ourselves out of opportunities for recreation.”

Councilman Danny Ross said it’s important to define what type of park Brook Run should be for future generations.

“What I don’t want is for this thing to morph into something where because we’ve got green space out there … we transform it into Murphey Candler Park. That’s not what it was meant to be. This is not a rec center, folks,” Ross said.

Councilman Denis Shortal recommended breaking the park down into a mix of active and passive uses.

“Let’s put a percentage on it so we’ve got general guidelines,” he said.

The council also discussed the merits of retaining the dormitory building at Brook Run Park. Some council members argued that while the building had potential uses, it took up valuable space that is needed for tennis, volleyball and basketball courts.

“If there a valid park use for it, I’d be all for keeping it,” Thompson said. “I’m not sure there’s a demonstrated need for, ‘Well, we might need it later on.’”

Ross said the dormitory building would be a good space for a business incubator that could be run in conjunction with Georgia Perimeter College.

Shortal said he didn’t think it would be wise to remove any viable building from the city’s portfolio.

“We’re talking about destroying a $6 million building, folks,” Shortal said. “Don’t be in such a hurry to ball and chain it.”

Although the removal of some trees was approved at 680 Mountain Way, city officials say too many trees were cut.

A Buckhead man has been charged more than $52,000 by the city of Atlanta for trees destroyed on his property that he says he didn’t even cut down.

Evan Hardin, of 680 Mountain Way, said his neighbor removed the trees from his property line while building a house on land adjacent to his property.

Together, the two property owners, Hardin and Jayu Momaya, were hit with a combined $93,960 in penalties from the city of Atlanta for removing trees illegally.

Momaya, who owns the land at 688 Mountain Way, was charged $41,190. On April 27, the Tree Conservation Commission denied Momaya’s appeal of the fine.

Attempts to reach Momaya for comment for this article were not successful.

Hardin has appealed his penalty of $52,770. The Tree Conservation Committee will hear his appeal June 15, said Kathy Evans, administrative analyst for the Tree Conservation Commission.

“[Momaya] came in and overdeveloped the property,” Hardin said. “The [city] inspector is supposed to have boundaries clearly identified so the contractor can respect those boundaries. In this case, they were ignored. In this case, both the contractor and the city inspector missed that.”

Hardin said the arborist fined him because the trees that were destroyed happened to be on his property.

“When they walked the property and evaluated everything, they started giving fines,” Hardin said. “Even though trespassing was clear and who did it was clear.”

Hardin said he will take legal action against Momaya and the city of Atlanta if his appeal is unsuccessful.

Evans said city officials believed initially that the trees were removed from one parcel.

“I think originally it was levied at a higher amount and then they realized it crossed property boundaries,” Evans said. “It was broken up into the separate owners of each property. It seemed to be one site when the arborist went out.”

The city did grant Momaya a permit to remove some trees on the property.

“There were some trees approved for removal for construction purposes. A large number were also removed in excess,” Evans said.

Evans said there is a fee for cutting down trees, even if it is approved by the arborist.

“There’s a recompense fee that applies to tree removal. … If they’re removed illegally, it’s $500 for the first tree and $1,000 per tree thereafter,” Evans said.

The penalties levied on the Mountain Way property owners are not typical, Evans said.

“I don’t think we very commonly see this many removed that were not approved,” Evans said. “Builders and people in the construction industry are aware. They are typically able to build in those costs of recompense or replacement upfront and try to stay within that plan. If they find conditions change they can always come in and revise the plans.”

Evans said people are encouraged to plant trees when they receive a permit for tree removal. But if they are unable to plant enough trees to offset the number that were destroyed, they pay a recompense fee to the city.

“All of the fines and fees go into a tree trust fund which is used for planting and maintaining trees in the city of Atlanta,” Evans said.

The fines can be issued to either the contractor or the owner of the property when trees are removed, Evans said.

“Certainly if the property owner has an explanation that’s different, they have an opportunity to make that known at the Tree Conservation Committee hearing,” Evans said.

Hardin said he feels as though he has to prove his innocence rather than guilt when it comes to removing the fine.

“You’re sitting at your house and they say, ‘Here’s a $52,000 fine for you,’” Hardin said. “They don’t even show you a document. They’ve never conducted a survey. It has nothing to do with my property. If you’re going to throw a fine like that around, you need to be a little more cautious.”

 

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Rep. Mike Jacobs meets residents during a community gathering at Oglethorpe University to discuss the rationale behind a proposed study of creating a city of Brookhaven.

A proposed study of whether a city of Brookhaven is economically feasible could be completed by October, the man likely to conduct the study told a gathering of north DeKalb County residents.

Ted Baggett of the Carl Vinson Institute at the University of Georgia told scores of residents gathered at Oglethorpe University on May 24 the study would examine potential revenues and the cost of services for a new city in the area.

“We’re not going to take a side,” Baggett said. “We think doing this kind of research is an impartial way to add to the public discussion.”

The study will be released to the public when completed, officials said. It will look at likely borders for a new city and would examine the range of services, such as parks or police, the new entity might provide, as well as potential revenues, Baggett said. He described it as a “snapshot” of a possible city.

Rep. Mike Jacobs, who has proposed legislation creating a new city in the area, said the study probably will examine several possible outcomes. Jacobs has said his legislation is a way to spark public debate over the creation of a new city and requires the Vinson Institute study. He has said he introduced the legislation this year so it could be considered in the 2012 Legislature.

The study could be financed by a nonprofit citizens group created to raise money for the project. Jacobs said he may also be able to find a source of state money to help pay for the study.

“Ultimately, this is going to be a conversation with the community about if you would have a city and what that city would be,” Jacobs said. “There are a lot of different ways this could be done. We can discuss all this as a community.”

Jacobs said he intended for the Vinson Institute to examine three areas. One would be bounded by Chamblee and Dunwoody and extend to include the neighborhoods of Historic Brookhaven and Lenox Park, he said. Another study area would add Ashford Park.

The third study area would include only neighborhoods in the Murphey Candler area and around Silver Lake, an area he said shows “a high level of support… for some kind of municipal option.” If creating a new city wouldn’t work, those areas might want to seek annexation into Chamblee or Dunwoody, he said.

“We’re going study different scenarios,” Jacobs said.

The meeting, called and moderated by Jacobs, drew about 200 residents. Sen. Fran Millar of Dunwoody, Reps. Tom Taylor of Dunwoody and Elena Parent of DeKalb County and Chamblee Mayor Eric Clarkson attended. At times, discussion grew contentious as some residents questioned the need for a new city or wondered what effect creating another city would have on the county at large.

“I’m kind of offended,” Ashford Park Civic Association president Ronnie Mayer told Jacobs. “I’m sitting here and you’re bashing our elected officials and bashing our police department and you’re talking about using state money to fund this. It should all be private money.”

Other residents said they had no complaints with the services they now receive from DeKalb County.

“The question is whether the local citizens want to have another layer of government,” said resident Jim Johnson. “Do we want to have our own city hall, our own jail, have our own police writing tickets?”

But Millar, Jacobs and others at the meeting said the new city could provide residents more efficient delivery of services than DeKalb.

“DeKalb County is a mess,” Millar said.

And Millar, Jacobs and other legislators at the meeting said that if the community does not support the creation of a new city, the effort will fail.

“This is just options here,” Millar said. “There is not a hidden agenda here to create a city next week. Nothing is going to happen until next January.”

Surveillance video feeds from cameras installed along major roads in Sandy Springs will assist officers in combating crime.

Sandy Springs police officers soon will be able to see what’s happening all over town via their patrol car laptops.

The city is improving its camera surveillance capability with Iron Sky, a system that will integrate video and photo feeds from existing traffic and public security cameras and send them to a central “intelligence center.”

Authorized users will be able to access the images from home computers or laptops, said Lt. David Roskind, commander of the police crime analysis unit. Eventually, officers may be able to look at the video feed through smart phones, he said.

Roskind said the system will deter crime and help officers figure out how to respond when a crime is observed on video. The system should go live at the end of June.

Iron Sky, a Houston-based company, has already contracted with several metro-Atlanta cities such as Duluth, Decatur and Norcross, as well as Midtown Atlanta.

One feature of the system will scan license tags and automatically identify stolen cars or other suspicious vehicles, Roskind said. For instance, if a car registered to a sex criminal were spotted at a city park, officers would be alerted.

“We’re letting technology work for us,” Roskind said.

Sandy Springs doesn’t plan to buy any new cameras at first. Traffic and Sandy Springs City Hall cameras will supply most of the video. Patrol car videos will be part of the feed once the current car cameras are replaced.

The city plans to spend about $447,500 for 62 patrol car video systems this year and $112,000 for 18 extra units next fiscal year. The city will also pay about $182,000 to equip the intelligence center — where officers will study the myriad video feeds — and $179,000 for an emergency operations center.

Much of the money will come from drug forfeiture funds. General funds will pay for some of the emergency operations center, Roskind said.

In the first phase, the city will integrate traffic and public camera feeds into the computer-assisted display units. Next, the city will connect the new car camera systems. Finally, the city will seek schools and private companies that want to link up.

College Park has contracted with Iron Sky for about three years, said Ernie Rochester, the College Park police training officer. He said the camera helped the city in prostitution stings as well as code enforcement cases. When people put up illegal signs on street corners, the city can identify and prosecute them. “The cameras are paying off,” he said.

Roskind said officers watching the camera feeds will not be looking out of curiosity. They will be guided by “triggers,” such as 911 calls or suspicious activity. Complaints about being watched could be checked out because the videos will record dispatchers’ activity, he said.

 

Tom Cunningham

School systems and local governments now facing budget crises due to falling property taxes may find the worst is yet to come, according to an official from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

 

Tom Cunningham, vice president and associate director of research for the bank, said declines in property tax revenues usually follow drops in housing prices by several years.

“That bottom hasn’t been reached yet,” he told members of the Buckhead Business Association at their meeting May 26. “It won’t be reached for three years yet. There’s going to be a real problem.”

Officials with city and county governments and school systems in metro Atlanta have watched their property tax digests, the total value of all taxable properties, plummet over the past few years.DeKalb officials expect the county’s tax digest to fall by as much as 13 percent this year. Fulton County’s tax digest is projected to fall by 8 percent, the county’s chief appraiser has said.

“Those governmental units dependent on property taxes are going to have a problem,” he said, “and it hasn’t hit yet.”

Cunningham said despite the government’s tax problem, the economy is coming out of the recession.

“The recession has ended,” he said. “We’re not in an expansion phase. We’re in a recovery phase. It would be nice if things were going faster.”

The recovery has been slow, he said, because people aren’t buying things as they have in similar situations in the past. Cunningham said recovery will require a long process.

“You’re looking at two years to repair balance sheets, then you’ve got a decade [where borrowers and businesses] don’t want to take on risk. … That decreased appetite for risk is a real impediment. It’s not a lot of fun, but it’s where we are. Right now it’s a slog.”

DeKalb County School Board member Nancy Jester is tackling her first school budget as a member of the board. Jester talked with reporter Maggie Lee about her priorities, both on spending and raising more revenue. She and other board members are considering a 2012 budget of about $1.2 billion that authorizes spending $40 million more than last year to avoid teacher furloughs.

DeKalb County School Board member Nancy Jester

Q. What are or were the concerns you have on the budget?

A. The overall concern is: Are we going into reserves too deeply and then not having a plan to replenish reserves? The problem is with all the budget improvements that we’re doing, are we getting ourselves then set up for the next fiscal year to maintain that, or having either to have big cuts the following fiscal year or a revenue increase via tax increase. I will not support a tax increase; I’ll say that unequivocally.

Many of us are concerned that with the budget as it is now, and drawing down the reserve as precipitously as this budget is calling for — while we can do that this year, we’re setting ourselves up for problems the following year. … We’re continuing to see updates of the tax digest [projected sum of property taxes] that continue to say there’s a decline in the digest … and cuts from the state are absolutely on the table, cuts might happen.

Q. Can DeKalb schools sustainably operate without having to have furlough days?

A. Yes. There is a way, things you can fix, things you can cut out, that’s absolutely the case. But your largest line item is going to be personnel for your schools.

The other school systems did two things we didn’t do. Last year when they got some federal dollars in, they put them away to offset some of the problems this year. I wasn’t on the board at the time, but the board at the time voted to use them in the current year that they got them [in 2010]. That doesn’t put us in a positive position relative to those districts that put those on hold for this fiscal year.

Number two, other school districts are not giving back one hundred percent of the furlough days. But it’s an improvement they’re making with the furlough days, not as many … I think teachers nationally are underpaid. I would love to elevate their compensation and prestige across the board. But where I am with my responsibility to the budget is I want to give them back some days but if we give 100 percent of them, I’m not sure that’s the fiscally responsible thing to do. So we’re trying to look at that more closely right now and determine where that stands … [and] I would like to see it differentiated between the teachers and the 12-month staff because I would like to give as much furlough relief to the teachers as possible.

Q. So, going forward, what do you think should be the biggest priorities in a budget?

A. We have to be competitive or we’re not going to get the best and brightest teachers. We already have, let’s be honest, we’ve had some perception issues in the community that work against us for attracting the best and brightest to want to teach in DeKalb. We want to make sure we’re attracting and keeping them. For me, that’s always a budget priority: attract and keep the best talent.

And I’m very concerned about the revenue side from the state. It’s of interest to me. I do not believe we are maximizing our state funding. I don’t believe that we are as attuned to using the formula that the state uses.

Q. What do you mean, the QBE formula [Quality Basic Education, the formula the state uses to divvy money among counties]?

A. Yes, for instance, there are 19 designations that we receive QBE funding for. [Student designations that require specialized attention, like gifted, special needs or English as a second language.]

One of the things you hear a lot on pupil funding is that money is tethered to the kid. I want people to think long and hard about that because it’s really not. It’s tied to the resources to teach that child. For instance if a kid is gifted and doesn’t receive gifted services from a gifted-certified instructor, you don’t count it. If their gifted teacher comes Monday and Friday and snapshot day [the one day the state grabs data for budgeting] is Tuesday and their teacher is at another school, it doesn’t count. Then you have a situation where all the gifted kids at that school don’t get counted for any gifted services…if you’re a gifted kid it doesn’t mean you get the gifted money.

We make money from those teachers that have that gifted endorsement on their certification. So you would want to incentivize those teachers to get that certification. And right now, I don’t think we provide them any funding or any incentive to do that; it’s really on their time and on their dime to get that certification. But then we make money for those segments once they get that endorsement. And it’s quite a bit. And that’s the case in 19 different categories … this is a thing every county does. And it’s pretty complicated.

Q. What are some other things our readers should know about the budget?

A. Right now, on this budget, we need to make sure we’re not setting ourselves up for something bad the next year. That’s just the responsible thing to do, that’s the conservative thing to do. We cannot go hat in hand to the taxpayer.

 

DeKalb Chief Executive Officer Burrell Ellis is slated to give the county Board of Commissioners a plan to plug a possible $40 million hole in the 2011 budget.

Commissioners say Ellis’s plan, expected to be presented June 7, is certain to include a hefty hike in the property tax millage imposed by the county. A few commissioners already are balking at the idea.

If Ellis proposes raising taxes, it would be the second time he has done so this year. In January, the CEO announced a proposed 2.32-mill increase to balance the 2011 budget.

But a month later, the commissioners rejected that tax hike and opted for a 9 percent budget cut for all county departments except police, fire services and the Sheriff’s office.

However, that was before county finance officials in May recalculated the county’s tax digest and found that property values had plummeted 13.4 percent since last year.

DeKalb commissioners say that without further budget cuts it would take a 4-mill increase to cover the shortfall.

Ellis isn’t saying how large a tax hike he might seek, but administration officials clearly are preparing the public for a possible increase in the millage. Administration officials said the CEO also is likely to propose budget cuts.

“It’s been no secret from the CEO. He has said from the very beginning we need a multi-faceted approach to recover our budget,” said DeKalb County spokesman Burke Brennan. “We need to make cuts and we need to raise revenue.”

A 4-mill increase would add roughly $154 to the tax bill on a $200,000 home in DeKalb County.

However, county officials say increasing the millage would likely have little effect on the taxes many property owners currently pay. That’s because tax bill amounts are based on the assessed value of properties. When property values fall, so do the taxes levied by DeKalb County’s government and school system.

Roughly two-thirds of the revenue collected from property tax bills goes to the school system. Most of what’s left funds county government operations.

“There are people who are going to say that we’re going to be paying more in taxes, although we will actually be paying a higher rate,” Brennan said. “On the whole, it’s pretty much a wash.” In some areas of the county, property owners could be paying less in taxes even with a millage increase, Brennan said. In unincorporated DeKalb County, property values have dropped a combined 18 percent in the past year.

DeKalb’s declining tax digest is the latest is a series of budget crises that have put the CEO and the commissioners at odds with each other.

Commissioner Kathie Gannon said the bickering between the board and the CEO must end if the county’s budget crisis is to be solved.

“It would be better if we were all sitting around the table doing this together, but there’s not that spirit of cooperation between the board and the CEO at this time,” Gannon said. “Until that changes we’ll just keep reacting to each other.”

Preliminary work has begun to widen the Roswell Road bridge across I-285, the city of Sandy Springs announced.

Georgia Power crews have started moving power lines, the city said. Once that work is done, Comcast and AT&T also will move utility lines.

Construction is expected to being in July, weather permitting, and the project is to be completed by Oct. 31, 2012, the city said in a May 25 statement.

The project will widen the bridge to allow two left turn lanes which will run the length of the bridge. The project also will widen entrance ramps onto I-285, the city said.

The Georgia Department of Transportation recently awarded a $3.5 million construction contract to C.W. Matthews Contracting Co. Inc. for the project.

Ari Feingold, 9, goggles in place, has no trouble with his underwater adventures as he plays in the Hammond Hills Swim & Tennis Club pool in Sandy Springs on May 30.

Click for Parents may call it summer, but the kids know it’s really pool season

Will Kosobud, 2, finds the hose just as much fun as the water as he plays in the shallow end of the Wynterhall Swim and Tennis Club pool in Dunwoody on May 30.

Click for Parents may call it summer, but the kids know it’s really pool season