COMMUNITY
FINANCE
SCENE
Transit officials got an earful of suggestions and complaints at a “Meet MARTA Day” at the Kensington Station. 2
The new Hibachi Grill & Supreme Buffet on Memorial Drive offers everything from salads and seafood to fried chicken and french fries. 5
Asian cuisine, dance, music and games will be among the offerings at the seventh annual Rice Festival at Stone Mountain Park. 6
Messages for MARTA
Food for every palate
Culture on display
EAST ATLANTA • DECATUR • STONE MOUNTAIN • LITHONIA • AVONDALE ESTATES • CLARKSTON • ELLENWOOD • PINE LAKE • REDAN • SCOTTDALE • TUCKER
Copyright © 2011 CrossRoadsNews, Inc.
October 1, 2011
Volume 17, Number 22
www.crossroadsnews.com
DeKalb seeking $297 million more for I-20 Rail Project By Mary Swint
It was standing room only at the Atlanta Regional Roundtable community forum at the Maloof Center in Decatur on Wednesday.
additional $297 million for a total of $522 million to build a rail line from Indian Creek DeKalb County wants MARTA station to Wesley Chapel Road. more money for the I-20 On the Roundtable’s draft project list Rail Project, and this week under consideration since Aug. 15, the $6.14 DeKalb CEO Burrell Elbillion expected from the sales tax over 10 lis and commissioners years is divided among 118 projects. Only asked the Atlanta Re$225 million is allocated on the list for the gional Roundtable for an I-20 project, which will take $500 million extra $297 million. to build. To get that money, To secure more funding for one project they pitched competing Burrell Ellis means less money for others. proposals to reduce allocation for Ga. 400 At the Roundtable’s Sept. 28 meeting, Elinterchange improvements or for the Clifton lis pitched an amendment to the draft project Corridor rail projects. list to shift the $297 million from four Ga. On Tuesday, the Board of Commissioners 400 projects in DeKalb County. unanimously approved a resolution asking for the I-20 Rail Project to be awarded an Please see RAIL, page 2
Jennifer Ffrench Parker / CrossRoadsNews
Porter Sanford Portrait Unveiled Arts champion’s image will hang in center’s lobby By Jennifer Ffrench Parker
Porter Sanford’s name has graced the community and performing arts center on Rainbow Drive since it opened in December 2008. Now the image of the late Super District 7 DeKalb commissioner, who championed the arts during his two terms on the board, is finally there. On Thursday, DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis and the DeKalb Board of Commissioners unveiled a portrait of Sanford before more than 300 invited guests. Sanford’s widow, Bobbie, who had fielded questions over the years about the absence of his image at the center, said it was time. “I am elated and so excited,” she said. The portrait, which was created by Dr. Lee Ransaw, a Stone Mountain-based artist, will hang in the lobby of the 30,000-squarefoot center next to the plaque bearing the names of the commissioners who approved the construction of the center. David Manuel, the center’s executive director, got the ball rolling on the portrait soon after his arrival at the center in December 2010. “I just felt it was important to know who Porter Sanford was and there was not image of him at the center,” he said. “What better way to do that than to have his portrait there.” Ransaw, who is a professor of arts at Morris Brown College, is also a Sanford family member. “He is the brother-in-law of my daughter-
Carla Parker / CrossRoadsNews
DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis (with mike), Bobbie Sanford and her grandson, Jason, and others admire the portrait of Porter Sanford at the arts center.
in-law,” Bobbie Sanford said. He drew the portrait from a 2004 photo of Porter Sanford before he took ill with cancer and died on Feb. 9, 2006. Art center supporters chipped the $800 to pay for the portrait. The Board of Commissioners voted in July 2008 to name the 500-seat center for Sanford after citizens petitioned it.
While he was on the Board of Commissioners, Sanford led the effort in 1999 to set aside $3 million for an arts center in South DeKalb. The $17.2 million facility opened on Dec. 19, 2008. Thursday’s protrait unveiling also doubled as the launch of the center’s “Inaugural Circle,” made up of patrons who donate $100 and above to the new nonprofit Porter
Sanford Performing Arts & Community Development Corp that will fund-raise and support the center. Guests at the event were asked to join that circle. Bobbie Sanford praised Manuel’s efforts, energy and vision. “We have a gem in David,” she said. “With his expertise and energy, we are on our way to making it a world-class arts center.”