WELLNESS
SCENE
Oakhurst Medical Centers marks National Health Center Week by breaking ground for its new complex in DeKalb. 7
The Burundi Drummers will help Clarkston celebrate the grand opening of renovated Milam Park and National Night Out. 9
Health care observance
Clarkston block party
EAST ATLANTA • DECATUR • STONE MOUNTAIN • LITHONIA • AVONDALE ESTATES • CLARKSTON • ELLENWOOD • PINE LAKE • REDAN • SCOTTDALE • TUCKER
Copyright © 2012 CrossRoadsNews, Inc.
August 4, 2012
Volume 18, Number 14
www.crossroadsnews.com
CrossRoadsNews wins seven awards for outstanding journalism CrossRoadsNews was the big winner at the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists’ 30th Pioneer Black Journalist Awards on July 29. The weekly DeKalb newspaper swept the competition for print media with circulation of up to 100,000. It won all seven categories that it entered, and two of its reporters – Jennifer Ffrench Parker and Donna Lewis – tied in the Soft Feature category. Jennifer Parker, the editor and publisher, said the awards demonstrated that even small newspapers can do good journalism. Each week, the community newspaper,
CrossRoadsNews publisher and general manager Jennifer and Curtis Parker (center) and staff pose with Pioneer Journalists awards.
which has a full-time staff of only five and a circulation of 28,000, breaks news and produces original stories about DeKalb institutions and people. The AABJ journalism awards come in
$5,000 check for writer Ffrench Parker. The AABJ entries were judged by the Houston Association of Black Journalists. In the Community/Public Affairs category, “Plethora of Tires Spurs Kayaker to Action,” a story written by Ffrench Parker about kayaker Richard Grove’s efforts to clean up the South River, was the winner. That story also won the Photojournalism award for photographer Curtis Parker. In the Deadline Reporting category, the the wake of the newspaper’s winning the Miller Coors Messenger Award in June at the newspaper’s story “I Thought I Was Going National Newspaper Publishers Association to Die” about Erin Ingram’s testimony in the Summer Conference for its story “Cell Towers Going to Schools.” That win included a Please see AABJ, page 3
DeKalb, Region Reject T-SPLOST
Photos by Curtis Parker / CrossRoadsNews
At left, District 3 Commissioner Larry Johnson, state Rep. Howard Mosby and School Board member Jay Cunningham celebrate the defeat of T-SPLOST while watching returns at Java Delight in South DeKalb. Above, DeKalb NAACP President John Evans (left) confers with state Sen. Vincent Fort at Manuel’s Tavern in East Atlanta while awaiting results of vote on election night.
Proponents, foes vow to head back to table to craft viable transportation plan By Jennifer Ffrench Parker
The controversial penny sales tax for the transportation referendum went down like a ton of bricks on July 31. Metro Atlantans voted 62.7 percent to 37.3 percent to defeat the Transportation Special Purpose Local Options Sales Tax. Region wide, more than 416,230 people voted no. The yes votes numbered 247,970 in the 10-county Atlanta area. DeKalb voters narrowly defeated the measure with 51.3 percent, or 64,689, voting no to 61,374, or 48.7 percent, voting yes. An analysis of the voting shows that precincts in Central and North DeKalb voted in higher percentages against the T-SPLOST. Statewide, most T-SPLOST referendums, which would raise $19 billion if approved district by district, met wide margins of defeat. Only three of 12 districts approved it.
Opponents hailed Atlanta’s landslide no vote as a clear message that voters are tired of taxes and of being left out of the process. They said the vote offers an opportunity for the region to return to the table to craft a solid transportation plan that can fix the region’s traffic problems with a fair and sensible mix of rail and road projects. DeKalb NAACP President John Evans, who fought the plan from the start, said the people spoke loud and clear. “People want to be part of a real plan for the betterment of the region,” he said. “What kind of system are we going to have? How much rail? MARTA ought to be the hub of anything we do. We need to get input from everyone, not just elected officials and the fat cats. And when you have the right stuff, you can think about how you are going to pay for it.” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who fought
for passage of the referendum, was visibly disappointed when he addressed supporters election night. He said he is not giving up. “The voters have decided,” he said. “But tomorrow I am going to get up and work just as hard to change their minds.” Reed and Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, thanked the business community, which contributed $8 million for an aggressive media campaign to pass the referendum. Williams said that coalition was a first for the region and that it would look to the future. District 3 Commissioner Larry Johnson, who along with District 5 Commissioner Lee May were in the forefront of DeKalb’s opposition to the plan , said the large no vote means that we must return to the table. “We have to go back and start over,” he said. “We have to do it the right way. When
we were telling them that it wasn’t right, they wouldn’t listen. We just have to go back to the table and work it out.” Johnson said that South DeKalb needs rail and that any new plan must include rail for the area that has supported MARTA for 40 years. with its own penny sales tax. May said the referendum failed because voters did not see projects on Lee May the list that were worth the additional tax burden. “Today, working families need rail more than ever to reduce their transportation costs and a MARTA rail line extended to South and Central DeKalb should be a part of that Please see T-SPLOST, page 5