Will Fulton Taxpayers Pony Up For Library System?

By D.L. BENNETT www.ajc.com

Fulton County officials are about to test residents’ commitment to libraries with a proposal to raise property taxes to pay for a huge building program.

Depending on the final numbers, Fulton residents could be asked to raise taxes as much as 0.4 mills to pay for bonds for a program likely to cost more than $350 million.

County commissioner Robb Pitts said he thinks residents are ready for a world class library system and are willing to pay for it.

“Libraries are catalysts for economic development,” Pitts said. “They are gathering places. When was our last bond issue [for libraries]? Thirty years ago. We won’t have this opportunity again. I think the people will approve it.”

The program commissioners will consider Wednesday would build eight libraries, expand two and renovate 24 more at a cost of $225 million. There’s also a proposal to build a signature central library downtown for another $173 million plus land costs.

Library officials expect to spend at least $8 million in yearly operational costs when it’s all built.
The building program started at about $100 million originally last year but has increased as officials have added for land, inflation and other costs.

Pitts suggested the a new downtown library as a last-minute addition to the program. The current building, a boxy, concrete structure with a foreboding, nearly windowless facade, was designed in the brutalist style by noted architect Marcel Breuer nearly 30 years ago.
“Until now, I had never really focused on how ugly that thing really is. If you walk around three sides, it’s all concrete,” Pitts said.

Pitts hopes it can be sold to offset the cost of the new 300,000-square-foot central library. A new central library would also allow library officials to subtract from this proposal the $34 million to renovate the downtown library already in the main program.

John Szabo, library director, said commissioners will have to decide at what point the building program becomes so ambitious that voters reject it solely on cost. “That’s a good debate to have,” he said.

Commissioners need to approve a program Wednesday so a resolution calling for a referendum can be drawn up and approved in two weeks. County lawyers said that timing is needed so the final program can be put on the November ballot.

As planned, the program renovates or builds new libraries in almost every community around the county.

George Ragsdale, who lives in Milton, said he was excited the program calls for building a library in the north Fulton city. However, he’s not sure the program is well thought out or whether the new central library is a good use of public money.”They’ve mismanaged so many things so much. … I’m not willing to invest in it,” Ragsdale said.

Dan Young, who lives in the Sandtown just south of Atlanta, said he would vote to increase his taxes to improve libraries.”I don’t mind extra taxes for things that have results you can see and broad benefits,” Young said.

Milton’s Children Stories is a new addition to Accessmilton.com for 2008. The goal of this section is to encourage memories between you and your children through the use of creative writing that will be shared both in this newsletter and the website. Provided we receive enough entries throughout the year, Accessmilton.com

will then publish a book with all entries listed. This book, titled “Milton’s Children Stories / Vol. 1″ will be for sale through this website. All proceeds will then be donated toma beneficiary decided upon by the authors of the book. Here are the rules:

1. Children must be no older than twelve years of age.
2. Your child must choose from one or more of the characters listed below when writing their story:  a horse named “Liberty”, a dog named “Caesar”, a cat named “Whiskers”, a rooster named “Fredrick”, a pig named “Samson”, a bull named “Max”, a goat named “Billy”, a hen named “Jessica”, a rat named “Norm”, a deer named “Brea” , an opposum named “Amy”, a raccoon named “Baron”, or a coyote named “Jack.”
3. Drawings of the story are encouraged.
4. Parents are contacted via phone prior to our publishing any piece sent to Accessmilton.com.
5. All stories should be sent to the following: magnoliamedia@yahoo.com / Subject Line: Milton Children Stories.

A Hero In Our Midst.

Miltonian Eddie Moore.

by Tim Enloe; AM Staff.

I first met Eddie Moore in the Fall of ‘06. He was one of my opponents the in race for the first District 4 City Council seat. It’s a unique experience when running for office; wondering who your competition truly is. As I came to know Eddie through that process, he was always kind to me and my family and very likeable. It was easy to see the goodness in his heart.

When the voters had their say and another was chosen, we kept in touch talking about the goings on in Milton and enjoyed sharing ideas on how we could make our home town even better.

One similarity that we shared was our support for the Fire & Police Departments. Knowing this, he called me this past summer with a wonderful idea – the city needed a police dog, yet the budget was very tight with not much room to spare.

Eddie had been speaking with some of our city staff and wanted to create a campaign to raise funds for our first four legged officer. I loved the idea and we started raising awareness immediately through word of mouth as well as this newsletter.

Raising money is never an easy affair and this proved yet again to be true in this case. After the Milton Round-Up this past Fall, we were still miles apart from the ten thousand dollars needed.

Milton Officers Kiel & Silva.

A month or so passed and the November 28th issue of The Milton Herald hit my driveway. As I scanned over the front page, I came to a picture of Milton Officer Brian Kiel and his new partner; Silva the Police Dog! “What ?” I thought. “How could this be?” No sooner did I ask myself that question when my eyes fell upon the answer. It read “Silva’s deployment was made possible by a $10,000 donation from Imani Environmental Group owner Eddie Moore.” I was in awe.

Recently, Accessmilton.com caught up with Mr. Moore. When asked about his generous gift to our city, he simply replied “It was a wonderful opportunity for our corporate family to contribute to the overall well being and safety of the citizens of Milton.”Few words with so much action behind them.

As I debated on how to close this piece, I jumped over to Webster’s Dictionary in the hopes

of generating some creativity. I stumbled upon the following:

HERO: / noun – 1 a: a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability b: an illustrious warrior c: a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities d: one that shows great courage.

Little did I realize that A Hero was in our midst.

NOTE: K-9 Picture Courtesy of Appen Newspapers / www.northfulton.com

Milton Resident Shares His Concerns About Crabapple Change.

I’m writing because the future of Crabapple Crossing is taking shape over the next month, and it seems that very few people are paying attention.

This letter is an attempt to fill in the blanks in communications about the process that takes to the future, the stakes in the decisions we are making right now, and to pose some critical questions that I believe must be answered before anyone can begin to make an informed decision on what we want for Crabapple.

I know going in that some of what I am saying is wrong. Where that is the case, somebody PLEASE correct me. I think we are all going to pay the price for the current confusion.

The Milton Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee (CPAC) held the first meeting on Nov. 19 to gather opinions on what residents wanted Crabapple Crossroads to be. All of 50 people showed up; a sizeable number of those were developers.

Two more meetings are to follow. The next, on Monday Dec. 3, is a “workshop” to fine tune the results of the first meeting. The final meeting, I believe, is to finalize what happened in the first two.

The deadline for completion of this phase is the end of January. That document will be come part of the Milton Comprehensive Plan, which is to be completed by the end of May.

Focus: the Crabapple Comprehensive Plan.

The focus of the meeting was the Crabapple Comprehensive Plan, which has had an unfortunate history. There are many twists and turns, but the short version will help create the baseline for what comes next.

The Plan was commissioned by Fulton County and created over two years by academics, professional planners with community input from two advisory groups and surveys. The objective was to allow development, but in a way that protected the character of the Milton area.

It was adopted by the Fulton County Planning Commission in 2003. You can get a sense of what it was supposed to be, by going to Crabapple Crossroads of the Northwest Fulton Overlay District (Scroll down to Page 40 for the Crabapple section.)

In the final hours before zoning authority was handed over to the new city of Milton , Fulton County approved 16 projects. The people who were on those original citizens groups say the projects were rubber stamped in total disregard of the Plan; density, architectural standards, traffic, green space – every thing that that was supposed to reflect what Milton is supposed to be. Nobody seems to want to talk about how it happened, what the 16 projects are, and who the developers are who have taken advantage of Fulton ’s last-minute benevolence or, as some say, revenge.

In 2004, Fulton County designated Crabapple as a “neighborhood node.” That means, I believe, that the entire area could have 100,000 square feet of commercial and retail, and 100,000 square feet of office space – commonly referred to as the 100,000/100,000 rule.

Here is where things get interesting.

All of that commercial/retail and office density has been used up by the 16 approved projects – about 25 to 30 percent of which has actually been built. The rest are approved and cannot be changed.

That essentially means that from now to completion of the entire Crabapple area (on the East sides of Birmingham Highway and Broadwell Road ), no more commercial/retail or office buildings can be built.

Milton has already turned down one proposed project on Mayfield Road on that basis.

So: the big issue is that much of what happens going forward in the remaining build out of Crabapple, depends on what happens to the 100,000/100,000 cap. Generally speaking, developers want to lift it; residents aren’t sure what it means.

Change or not to change

Milton now has two options: change the Crabapple Plan, which would likely affect the cap, or keep the Plan as it is. Option two would likely limit the ability to build new restaurants and shops, which people want. But it would also prevent the building of multi-story office buildings, which people don’t want.

First meeting, unfortunately, added to the confusion

Most people, including me, came away from the first meeting more confused than when we went in.

The presentation was given mainly by a planner from BRPH, the firm Milton has hired to create the Milton Comprehensive Plan.

Unfortunately, his Power Point presentation was made to be viewed on a computer and not a projection screen. It made very little sense to most of us there. It failed to address many of the questions that people have. Given the level of our collective knowledge at the time, I don’t believe we knew the questions to ask.

The CPAG members repeatedly stressed that the meeting was for citizen input.

But to provide that input, these are some of the questions that most of us need to have answered.

What are the 16 projects already approved in both the Alpharetta side and the clear-cut section? What will it look like? What are the set backs? What is the amount of green space? How much commercial will there be? What kind will it be? Where will it be? What is the density of the housing? How will the things we can’t change impact what is to come?

My understanding at the meeting was that this information would be provided by link on the Milton site. I have not been able to find it.

Where exactly will the next phase of development be located? Again. My understanding was that this information would be accessible from the Milton site.

Who are the developers who are doing the 16 projects, where are they from, and how many of them want to built in the next phase?

Is the land available or for sale, or will there be legal battles?

Is the 100,000/100,000 rule a suggestion, a guideline, a regulation?

If Milton decides to abide by it, can it be challenged in court?

And if it is challenged, would it be challenged generally, or by individual zoning request?

Is it possible that developers who want to challenge the rule to get more density in the next phase are among those who took all the density in the first phases?

Why do we have to move so fast on the Crabapple part of the plan (to be finished in January) when the Milton Comprehensive Plan isn’t scheduled to be finished until May?

Suggestion #1: slow down

We should not start the meeting on Monday assuming everyone there knows enough to make informed suggestions. Stop and answer the above questions and others that I am sure people will have.

Suggestion # 2: Show up.

A turnout of 50 people, many of them developers, is a sad representation of this community.

I realize that many don’t live near Crabapple. But this is our downtown. It’s going to be something special, or it’s going to be another jam-packed, soulless Atlanta intersection. It’s going to be something much better what we have seen in the high-density, architecturally jumbled first phase of development, or it is going to be more of the same.

Sincerely,

Bill Ruffin
Six Hills

Milton Teen Proves “Average Joe’s” is anything but Average

by special Access Milton correspondent

Brennan Stratton

A Milton teen, fresh on the heels of his first year at UGA, proves that “making a difference” can include embracing differences and learning from one another in a unique mentoring program underway at the Ed Isakson Alpharetta YMCA. Brennan Stratton, 19 and a Junior this Fall, conceived the idea of a special mentoring program that would include area teens and encourage turning back stereotypes by engaging interest in service projects, camaraderie and examination of relevant social topics, sometimes in a recreational outing. Think “Outward Bound “with a social service spin .

As a specially selected Intern last summer in the Y’s Teen Center, Brennan participated in its “Mission Atlanta” outreach program that sought to bring area teens into service projects aimed at addressing needs many North Fulton teens don’t experience on a daily basis. The experience was just another eye opener for the teen who hails from Cleveland, Ohio, and whose family sought to teach early on that service to others and an openness to differences and exchange create a balanced outlook in life. “I can remember spending one Thanksgiving in Cleveland helping serve food at a soup kitchen as a volunteer. Any one of us, regardless of income, can be humbled. It helps you appreciate and value what you have.” Pretty heady stuff for a 19-year-old.

Brennan recognized a need to plug in area teens which gave them a place to come together and discuss relevant topics besides the make and model of the car that

sits in the Milton driveway next to us. What sprang from his idea and experience was “Average Joe’s,” presently comprised of 15 teens from the ages of 13 – 18. They meet weekly and their makeup presently represents four faith denominations, five ethnicities and a whole lot of discussion. Topics addressed ranged from the ongoing war in Iraq to peer pressure to relationships to respect issues of the opposite gender.

“Yesterday, we discussed college planning and the suggested curriculum to take at the high school level. It’s all about having a goal in life.” If the definition of mentoring is leading by example, Brennan’s goal obtained his first year of college was a perfect 4.0. He hopes that mentoring by example will help define and shape “Average Joe’s.”

Brennan will tell you he is a dual Business/Spanish major, but he appears to be a Social Worker in the making and a good one at that. Besides recognizing a need, he developed a plan, itemized a budget, sought approval consensus from Y management and implemented a program. He remains in touch with participants throughout the school year and is hoping to engage the interest of the Athens YMCA with establishment of same program. “It will make for a busy year!” he added.

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