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8 minute read
Council bid
BROOKHAVEN
Funny announces bid for Brookhaven’s District 4 seat
BY SAMMIE PURCELL
Brookhaven resident John Funny has announced he will run for the District 4 Brookhaven City Council seat this November.
Funny, who serves as the chairman for
Brookhaven’s Social Justice, Race and Equity Commission, announced his bid in a press release on June 15.
“I offer our community real world experience and hands-on leadership as I seek their support in electing me to this role,” Funny said in the release. “I believe in Brookhaven and will continue my advocacy to make it the best place in the metro to call home. We all know the impact that policy decisions can have on a community and as your Councilman, I promise to be your voice and your leader to ensure that our interests are fully represented.”
In addition to serving on the social justice commission, which has been tasked with addressing issues of diversity in the city, Funny served eight years on the city’s Planning Commission, which evaluates land-use issues and makes recommendations to the City Council.
According to the press release, Funny has never run for public office before, and is currently the owner and operator of Grice Consulting Group, LLC, a transportation planning and engineering firm.
The District 4 seat is held by Councilmember Joe Gebbia, who announced earlier this year that he would not run for reelection. One other candidate, Dale Boone, has said he will also run for the seat.
Brookhaven businessman John Funny has announced a run for Brookhaven’s City Council. (Special)
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Rock band The Revivalists are set to perform in Brookhaven. (Special)
The rock band The Revivalists will headline Brookhaven’s summer block party on July 30 and 31.
The city announced the event, called the Cherry Blossom Summer Block Party, at its May 4 City Council meeting. The festival is meant to celebrate the city’s resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. The party will take place in the Brookhaven MARTA station parking lot along Dresden Drive and Apple Valley Road.
The Revivalists will take the stage July 31, according to a city press release. Other performers include Better Than Ezra, Jagged Edge, Saleka, and Hunter Callahan. On July 30, the acts will be Rick Springfield, The Amy Ray Band, Baylee Littrell, and Revel in Romance.
According to the press release, the event is also intended to celebrate a “return to normalcy” and to encourage residents to get vaccinated. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who are unvaccinated are still encouraged to avoid large gatherings.
The event will also include food trucks and other attractions. Attendees are encouraged to take MARTA or the city’s shuttle services due to the lack of onsite parking. Masks are required on MARTA and all shuttles. A site plan of the amenities to be added in the city’s new Langford Park at 1174 Pine Grove Ave. (Special/Lose & Associates)
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Brookhaven to kick off planning for Langford Park
The Brookhaven City Council has approved a $130,000 contract with architectural firm Lose & Associates to begin planning the new Langford Park.
During a June 15 meeting, the council approved the contract, which will include engineering, design, permitting, bidding and construction management of Langford Park. The city purchased the property at 1174 Pine Grove Ave. in April of 2020.
At its May 25 meeting, the council approved funding in the amount of $200,000 to move forward with the Langford Park project. According to city documents, the contract with Lose & Associates is already budgeted in the project account.
According to Parks and Recreation Director Brian Borden, the approval of this contract will allow the city to begin the planning process for the park. A future meeting with Lose & Associates will kick off that process, including discussion of the master plan and project goals.
According to the contract, proposed improvements for the park include a looped concrete pathway, a playground, a seating area, and a pavilion that could be used for small events.
The new park will be located in the Brookhaven Heights neighborhood.
Stormwater fees to increase
Brookhaven residents will see their stormwater utility rates rise by $28 this year.
During a June 15 meeting, the Brookhaven City Council voted to increase the stormwater service fee rate from $66 to $94. The original resolution increased the fee to just $73.98, but the council voted to go higher.
According to Chief Financial Officer Steve Chapman, the fund has “basically been drained down to having no fund balance” due in part to a number of emergency stormwater repairs the city has undertaken.
“If you were to just raise it to the bare minimum, of course we would always try our best to create a fund balance going forward,” Chapman said. “As this system hits us with emergency fixes, it makes it more and more difficult to be able to pay for these things without having resources available to do so.”
A city spokesperson said the rate will be effective on the November 2021 tax bills sent by DeKalb County.
Brookhaven starts 9.4 mile paving plan
Brookhaven has started repaving 24 streets across the city.
The paving project will cover nine roads in the LaVista Park area and 15 roads throughout the rest of Brookhaven, according to a city press release. The Brookhaven City Council approved a $3.5 million contract for the project with Allied Paving Contractors back in April, along with a loan of $1.2 million from its General Fund unassigned fund balance to the LaVista Park Special Tax District fund for that area’s paving project.
The first streets to be paved will be Longwood Trace, Sheridan Court, East Osborne Road (from Caldwell Road to Apple Valley Road) and Citadel Drive (from Wild Creek Trail to Briarcliff Road).
City officials say if the project goes as expected, by the end of 2021 Brookhaven will have paved a total of 211 roads since 2014.
New DNA testing in Atlanta Child Murders on hold for unexplained funding issues
BY JOHN RUCH
New DNA testing of evidence in the notorious Atlanta Child Murders cases, a highly publicized effort that was supposed to begin early this year, is on hold for unexplained funding issues.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in 2019 announced the evidence review, as well as a City Hall memorial to the murder victims. The memorial concept has progressed through City Council review, but the DNA testing effort went quiet. The Atlanta Police Department said in January of this year that the testing would begin within 60 days, but now says the work is on hold.
“The investigation remains open and we are awaiting approval for funding to cover the DNA testing of our evidence in this case,” said Officer Steve Avery, an APD spokesperson, in an email. “Once the funding is approved, we will submit the evidence to the crime lab and move forward with the testing. We do not have a timeline, at the moment, but are hopeful we will be moving forward with this soon.”
But Avery was unable to provide any information on the amount of funding needed and whose approval was required, including whether it is from APD’s internal budget or some outside source.
The Atlanta Police Foundation, a nonprofit that funds APD programs, “has no role in this,” according to spokesperson Rob Baskin.
The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and City Councilmember Joyce Sheperd, who chairs the Public Safety and Legal Administration Committee, did not respond to comment requests.
“Atlanta Child Murders” is the collective term for at least 25 African American children and adults found dead in 1979 through 1981 around metro Atlanta, including in the areas of Brookhaven and Buckhead. Wayne Bertram Williams is serving a life sentence in state prison for two of the killings and was suspected by authorities of committing most of the others. But he has maintained his innocence, while some police officers, journalists and family members have suggested others were involved, possibly including the Ku Klux Klan.
The wave of murders terrorized the city as the victims, most of them boys, began appearing in vacant lots, rivers and wooded areas. One victim who was found in a local area was Patrick Rogers, 16, whose body was discovered in the Chattahoochee River on the Cobb County side of the Paces Ferry Road bridge on Dec. 7, 1980, according to media reports at the time. Another was Patrick Baltazar, 11, who was found dead Feb. 13, 1981 in the Corporate Square office park in what is now the city of Brookhaven.
Williams, an African American man, became a prime suspect after police allegedly heard him dump a body off the James Jackson Parkway bridge in northwest Atlanta. In 1982, he was convicted of killing two adult victims. Police alleged that evidence connected him to most of the other killings as well, including those of Rogers and Baltazar, but he was never charged with those crimes.
At the time of Williams’ trial, DNA testing did not exist. He and his attorneys have long challenged the forensic evidence that helped to convict him, mostly involving analysis of hairs and carpet fibers. About 10 years ago, a limited form of DNA testing showed that Williams could not be confirmed or ruled out as the source of hairs found on Baltazar’s body, according to media reports. Similar results were reportedly returned for dog hairs found on Baltazar and other victims that authorities alleged came from Williams’ pet.
The new DNA testing was announced in March 2019 by Bottoms, former Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields and former Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard. The announcement came on the eve of the airing of a television documentary about the cases produced by Will Packer, a prominent movie executive who lives in Atlanta and who was a supporter of Bottoms’ mayoral campaign.
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Above, an image from the trailer for the new true-crime documentary series “The Atlanta Child Murders,” which aired in 2019 on the Investigation Discovery network, at the same time Atlanta and Fulton County officials announced the new review of evidence in the cases.
Left, Wayne Bertram Williams, convicted of killing two men in the “Atlanta Child Murders” case, in a state prison photo.