COMMUNITY
SCENE
YOUTH
Communities across DeKalb and the nation will be marking National Night Out with cookouts, parades and visits from law officers. 3
Former Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga will headline the island nation’s anniversary celebrations in metro Atlanta. 8
Face painting will compete with free immunizations and hearing and vision screenings at the annual Family Fun Day at Oakhurst Medical Center’s Stone Mountain office. 9
Neighbors against crime
Copyright © 2010 CrossRoadsNews, Inc.
Independence celebration
July 31, 2010
Family fun fair
Volume 16, Number 14
www.crossroadsnews.com
Access to nasty South River denied Reprieve
for soldier’s mom facing foreclosure By Carla Parker
Curtis Parker / CrossRoadsNews
The polluted South River was the topic of conversation Thursday among trail walkers (from left) Cornel Whitney; his wife, Lorraine; and Edith Reid.
DeKalb’s signs skirt pollution, but carry threat By Jennifer Ffrench Parker
After weeks of people swimming and frolicking in the polluted South River, DeKalb County government finally pulled the plug on recreational use of the river. On Monday, in the wake of a frontpage story about the river’s contaminated condition in the July 24 issue of CrossRoadsNews, county workers erected five signs along the banks of the river. The signs at the parking lot at the new South River Trail head at Panola and Snapfinger roads in Lithonia prohibit access to the river and warn violators that they will be prosecuted. By Wednesday, police had strung yellow caution tape blocking access to the river. Walkers using the trail Thursday said it was about time. For weeks now, as temperatures soared into the high 90s, families and children had been flocking to the river to cool off and hold cookouts on the river’s sandy Panola Shoals. Cornel Whitney of Ellenwood, who was walking with his wife, Lorraine, on Thursday, paused to read the signs. “I knew the river was dirty, but how it was prepared, that’s kind of inviting people,” he said, gesturing to the large sandy “beach” area. “I have lived here for a long time so I know, but a lot of people didn’t. Somebody should have told them not to go in the river.” The 18- by 24-inch county signs posted along the river’s bank, do not tell people why they can’t go in. They only say: “For your safety, access to waterway is prohibited. Violators will be prosecuted.” “That’s so vague,” Whitney said. “They should just state the fact: ‘Polluted waters, stay out.’ ”
DeKalb County posted five signs Monday prohibiting access to the South River but didn’t say why.
Jennifer Ffrench Parker / CrossRoadsNews
John Pitt, who was beginning his walk Thursday morning, said that the hotter it got this month, the more people showed up at the river. “You should have seen it on Sunday,” he said. “There were people everywhere. It’s been busy down there. The Fourth of July, there were so many people down there, cooking out and cooling off, you
couldn’t find parking space.” Whitney said it’s a shame that people can’t use the South River, which has three waste water treatment plants for DeKalb County and the city of Atlanta dumping into it. Because of high levels of fecal coliform and PCBs, the river has been on the Georgia Environmental Division’s list of impaired rivers since the 1990s. The EPD says that people who get into the water and eat large amounts of a fish from it are at risk of becoming sick from stomach and other illnesses. “What they need to do is stop the effluent getting into the river and clean it up,” Whitney said. “Somewhere down the line, this water is used for drinking. It’s also not fair to the people downstream.” Edith Reid, another Ellenwood walker, said the county should clean up the river for the children. “When kids were in the water, they were happy,” she said. “When kids see the water, they want to get in. They should clean it up so that the kids can enjoy it, and the adults can too.”
Patricia Roberts, mother of Spc. Jamaal Addison, the first Georgian killed in the Iraq War, got a little reprieve Thursday in the foreclosure of her Lithonia home. Roberts, who was packing Wednesday to move after her family’s Fairington Road condo was foreclosed on by SunTrust Bank, doesn’t have to move on Aug. 2 – the day set aside by Patricia Roberts DeKalb County to honor her son. State Sen. Vincent Fort, who visited Roberts at her home on Wednesday, intervened on her behalf with the bank and said SunTrust offered an extension on the deadline. “Right now the eviction is on hold,” said Fort, who has been at the forefront of the fight for banks to modify mortgage loans for homeowners. “She has been meeting with her lawyers, and her lawyers have been meeting with SunTrust Bank.” The bank foreclosed on the condo, owned by Roberts’ 77-year-old mother, Constance Walcott, on June 1 after the family fell behind on the mortgage payments and the homeowner association fees. Walcott was working as a secretary in 2003 when she bought the condo but had to retire last year because of health problems. Roberts, who adopted her grandson, Jamaal II, when her son died, worked as a clerk with the DeKalb County Sheriff ’s Department but had to leave that job because of a bout with lung cancer and difficulties scheduling child care around her job shifts. Fort said that Roberts told him that she feels “encouraged” after the extension. “She was under a lot of pressure before but is doing better now,” Fort said. Addison, 22, graduated from Lakeside High in 1998. He was killed in Iraq on March 23, 2003, when his military convoy was ambushed. His mother started the Jamaal Addison Motivational Foundation in October 2003 to support a learning environment for children and families to foster personal growth and build character. The downtown Lithonia post office was renamed the Jamaal RaShard Addison Post Office on Aug. 2, 2008, in Addison’s honor, and Aug. 2 is known as Jamaal Addison Day in DeKalb County.