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Gwinnett Daily Post
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MARCH 17 7:35PM
SUNDAY, MARCH 12, 2017
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Vol. 47, No. 102 470622-1
Legislation filed to expand Gwinnett BOC BY CURT YEOMANS
curt.yeomans @gwinnettdailypost.com
The Board of Commissioners for one of Georgia’s largest counties could be growing in the next few years to be one of the largest commissions in the metro area. State Rep. Pedro Marin, D-Duluth, filed legislation
Pedro Marin
Charlotte Nash
this past week to add two new district commissioner seats to the board. If passed,
the commission would have seven seats, putting it at the same size as the Fulton and DeKalb County commissions. A proposed District 5 would be created in south Gwinnett while a proposed District 6 would be created between Districts 1 and 2, Marin said. He said the General Assembly’s Reapportionment Office drew up
each commission district to represent about 135,000 people while letting each current commissioner remain in their present district. “We’ve been talking about this for years,” Marin said. “Then, at the (state legislative) Biennial in December, where we met in Athens, there was a delegation meeting and there was bipartisan support on doing a bill
increasing the commission.” The bill received its first reading in the House on Friday and was assigned to the Intragovernmental Coordination-Local Committee. Marin expects the bill will be a topic of discussion when the legislative delegation holds its annual meeting with commissioners and city leaders at the state Capitol on Tuesday. The bill would create new
seats that would be filled during the November 2018 election, along with the existing District 2 and 4 seats. The new District 5 commissioner would initially have a two-year term, aligning it to join the same four-year cycle as the chairman and District One and Three seats in 2020. The new District 6 seat
See BOC, Page 6A
Lilburn native authors book Doctor offers lessons in life, faith from barbershop BY KEITH FARNER keith.farner@gwinnettdailypost.com
A boy from Lilburn looking for a place to give him a flat top haircut in the early 1990s found a friendship that has stayed with him for more than 25 years. Mike Nelson, now a practicing physician in Athens, chronicles those childhood experiences and what he took as life lessons as part of his faith walk, in a book he’s published called, “A Barber’s Guide to Life, Medicine and Faith.” The Lilburn native and 1992 Brookwood High graduate uses many of the lessons he learned in that Ga. Highway 29 barbershop, with lawn chairs as waiting seats and blackboards that covered the walls, in his career working in an internal medicine and pediatrics practice in Athens. Nelson, 43, described the book as a tribute to his friendship with Mike Read, who died several years ago, and those lessons he learned in that barbershop where he worked as an apprentice barber and filled in for Read when he was on vacation. Nelson also worked with Joe Beatty, a retired police officer and jail warden who lived his dream of opening a barbershop. Beatty’s memorable line to waiting customers at the end of a long line of haircuts was, “I’ll rush when it’s your turn.”
Above, Peachtree Ridge High soccer players look on as Carley Canzoneri pours ingredients into a bag during a meal-packing event on Saturday at the Gwinnett County Fairgrounds. The four-day event, which had more than 4,000 volunteers, looked to pack one million meals for the nonprofit Feed My Starving Children. Below, soccer players Bre Kaplan, center, and Kendall Hoskins, right, dance to the music during the meal-packing event on Saturday. (Staff Photos: Keith Farner)
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The push to raise the number of volunteers was all in the name of reaching the event’s goal of one million meals packed, up from 400,000 last year. In its seventh year, the mobile meal packing event, which was started by Rising Church, has watched daily starvation deaths worldwide drop from 18,000 to 6,200,
Inner peace, strong heart.
Mar king more local 200 news year s
BY
curt CURT Y @gw.yeoman EOMA NS inne s ttda ilypo A st.com 20 s Gw
REGE
keith.farner @gwinnettdailypost.com
LAWRENCEVILLE — Multiplying the number of meals packed in an annual event at the Gwinnett County Fairgrounds takes loads more volunteers. And this year, the event filled its weekend volunteer spots in two days. That’s about 3,000 volunteers out of about 4,600 during the course of four days that continues today for the nonprofit Feed My Starving Children.
See BARBERSHOP, Page 6A
REGE
BY KEITH FARNER
Event looks to pack one million meals for the needy
A Lifetime of Care