Forsyth County Commissioners gave T-Mobile a conditional use permit to build a 199-foot tower off Spot Road, near Dahlonega Highway in Cumming, Ga.
T-Mobile South, LLC., had requested a conditional use permit to build the 199-foot tower on a 10-acre property currently zoned A1, or agricultural, in northwest Forsyth.
The tower was approved with certain landscaping modifications the community had requested.
The cell tower would be erected on a 1-acre leased section of the property.
There are more than 100 cell phone towers throughout Forsyth County.
Commissioners voted 3-0 on April 7 to approve the tower. Commissioners Todd Levent and Pete Amos were absent.
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 9:11 AM
The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus and civil rights icon Joseph Lowery filed a lawsuit March 28 to dissolve the newly created cities of Milton, Johns Creek, Sandy Springs, Dunwoody and Chattahoochee Hills, as well as the potential Milton County, claiming they violate the rights of minorities within their districts.
"By their creation, voting strength of African Americans within these cities has been diluted beyond the maximum Constitutional level. This has effectively taken the right to vote away from these African Americans," reads a statement on the group's website, www.justiceingeorgia.org.
The suit makes a point that few minorities serve as elected officials in any of the new municipalities, adding, "Minorities inside of each newly created [Municipal Voting District] lose their elected leadership, and no longer enjoy the voting rights held prior to the creation of the [Municipal Voting Districts]."
That "elected leadership" refers to the predominately black county commissioners of Fulton and DeKalb. The lawsuit's argument claims that the newly formed cities concentrated power in the hands of the large white populations within the cities.
Johns Creek council member Karen Richardson, who is African-American, is the only non-white elected official in the new cities.
North Fulton legislators downplayed the lawsuit's merits.
"If it wasn't going to waste taxpayers' money, I'd say it's laughable," said state Sen. John Albers (R- 56). "There is no basis for the lawsuit."
He pointed out that the most recent census shows the ethnic makeup of the new cities has increased in diversity, not decreased, since forming. The cities of Milton and Johns Creek both have almost a 10 percent black population, while Sandy Springs has 20 percent. Chattahoochee Hills is almost a third black. The cities have sizable Asian and Hispanic populations as well.
Mayors of the new cities were less outspoken than Albers.
Milton Mayor Joe Lockwood said his city is looking at the lawsuit and are taking the allegations seriously.
"The city continues to study the lawsuit," Johns Creek Mayor Mike Bodker said. His city will keep track of the progress of the lawsuit to see if there is any action that needs to be taken. Bodker did not speculate on the lawsuit in question but said if the city needs to defend its charter and the residents' right to self-governance, it will.
The lawsuit also calls out the possible creation of Milton County as further detrimental to the rights of minorities in North Fulton.
The arguments of the lawsuit rely on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which forbids Southern states with a history of discrimination from redistricting without Justice Department approval. Lowery alleges that, by creating the new cities, the state violated the Voting Rights Act and did not allow the rest of the county to vote on the issue. Only residents in the area that would become cities were allowed to vote on the issue. Albers said the state received Justice Department clearance before elections were held to form the cities.
Lowery made similar allegations late last year against Sandy Springs and their effort to opt out of the restrictive VRA, which again required approval of the Justice Department.
Several voters of Johns Creek and Dunwoody were also named as plaintiffs in the case. They could not be reached for comment by our deadline.
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 9:08 AM
The Atlanta-Fulton County Library System will hold a meeting April 12 at 7 p.m. in Milton City Hall to discuss what residents would like to see in the planned city library.
The meeting will be held in City Council Chambers, Suite 107 E.
Site selection for the new library, currently in the hands of the Library Board of Trustees, is ongoing. The board will send its recommendations to the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, who ultimately make the decision. Milton's new library is tentatively scheduled to open in 2013.
"Community input has been and will continue to be of critical importance to the success of the Library Bond Program, and a successful Milton Branch Library project is one where the residents of Milton have had the opportunity to provide their input on what they would like to see in their new library," said John F. Szabo, director of Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System. "I am incredibly excited about the Milton project, because I know there is great enthusiasm for public library service in the community, and it is exciting to be building a library in an area where we have not previously had one."
Milton's library will be one of eight new facilities outlined in Phase One of the system's plan. Funding comes from a 2008 referendum passed by voters.
"I'm very excited for the opportunity to have a Milton library, and I know our residents are too, based on the response we've gotten," said Mayor Joe Lockwood.
Labels: milton, Milton City, milton city council, milton county, Milton Library
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 9:07 AM
Years after Milton and other cities were formed, the group of legislators and other supporters file a federal Voting Rights Act lawsuit.
By Bob Pepalis and Peter Cox | Email the authors | March 29, 2011
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UPDATED 1:30 p.m.: The Georgia Black Legislative Caucus wants to dissolve five cities–including Milton–that it says were formed in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act, and it wants to make a preemptive strike against formation of Milton County.
But an Alpharetta City Council member who sits on a Milton County advisory committee said the cities were pre-cleared by the U.S. Justice Department.
The caucus sued Gov. Nathan Deal in federal court over claims that forming new cities that include Milton and Johns Creek was a violation of minority voting rights.
(Read a copy of the federal lawsuit.)
Sandy Springs State Rep. Wendall Willard says he does not see any basis for the lawsuit.
“It’s surprising that they’ve sued the state. They haven’t sued the cities,” said Willard, who is also attorney for the City of Sandy Springs. “They claim a dilution of voting power, but in fact there hasn’t been any dilution. The people who live in these cities still have the ability to vote, as they have in presidential elections, state elections, county elections–now we’ve added for them the benefit of voting in a local election.”
The caucus seeks to dissolve the charters of Milton, Johns Creek, Dunwoody, Sandy Springs and Chattahoochee Hills, as it claims each was formed in violation of the Voting Rights Act and state legislative procedure. The caucus wants a preemptive strike against the formation of Milton County as well.
"By their creation, voting strength of African Americans within these cities has been diluted beyond the maximum Constitutional level and grossly in excess of the more restrictive provisions of the VRA. This has effectively taken the right to vote away from these African Americans," the caucus said in a Web site devoted to this case, Action in Justice for Georgia.
"The state committed these violations by creating super-majority white neighborhoods and communities within previously existing local government bodies (counties), in which, African-Americans have historically maintained dominant political control," the group's release said.
"We have a growing minority population in Sandy Springs which we’re very pleased with. People find it a good place to live, which it is,” Willard said.
Year 2010 Census data showed Sandy Springs' population as 66.7 percent white; 19.9 percent black and 11.9 percent Hispanic The city's overall population jumped by nearly 8,000 since 2000 to 93,853.
Milton's population of almost 32,000 is 78 percent white, with approximately 26 percent of the population identifying itself as a member of a minority or ethnicity. (The numbers don't seem to match because some people's heritage is of more than one race.
Rodney Strong, a co-counsel on the suit, said the suit is based on the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
“We think it’s a pretty classic voting rights claim,” he said.
However, Jim Paine, a member of the Milton County Initiatives Committee, said the U.S. Justice Department pre-cleared all of these cities before charters were adopted. The committee was set up at the request of state legislators in North Fulton to act as an advisory committee to interact between citizens and the lawmakers.
"I think I'm astounded at the fact that these people are about five or six years too late on this," said Paine, who also is an Alpharetta City Council member.
"I have to say I think it's just grasping at straws here," Paine said.
"Now, if they just want to make a lot of noise the fact that the people in North Fulton County are very interested in self governance, and tired of dysfunctional county government, tired of lawsuits, cheating scandals within the county government and want to form their own local county government, that's what they are trying to block," he said.
Strong said the act requires many southern states to submit any changes in voting guidelines to the U.S. Department of Justice prior to making decision on such change.
The changes were pre-cleared in each case, but Strong said it has been documented that under the Bush administration many clearances regarding voting rights were made by political appointees rather than people who’ve spent their careers with that branch.
“I would add that there were a number of allegations regarding undue political influence over the supposedly independent decisions about voting rights,” he said. “I think it makes sense that we bring this suit and we look into the decisions that were made.”
Also key to the suit, he said, is the bypassing of including Fulton County and DeKalb County officials when creating these cities.
The suit said that local residents in the municipal areas were able to vote on a decision to incorporate, but not the residents in the county.
Strong said that Georgia has a tradition of having subcommittees from areas affected by such changes vote on the issue before it is sent to the legislature. For example, when Dunwoody was proposed, it was not brought to a delegation of DeKalb County legislators, but rather went directly to the full legislature.
“In this particular case, they bypassed the local delegation,” he said. “The reason they bypassed the local delegation, which was majority African American, was that they would not have approved the creation of these new municipalities.”
Strong said he and others have been working on this case for more than a year.
Paine said one quote in the Black Legislative Caucus news release describes what people in North Fulton are doing: "The right to vote is the right to control everything from taxes to government services."
"That sentence right there is exactly what we in North Fulton County are looking for. It's the ability to govern our own local area and we're looking for no more and no less than that," he said.
"That's all we are asking to do, control our own destiny and government services," Paine said.
The move for a Milton County won't happen this year in the legislature, Paine said.
"But I will say this: The desire from citizens, voters in North Fulton County, for self government, and to have an accountable and responsible government is not going to go away. Milton County will go before our legislators next year.
It's not a movement or something that's going to blow away at all. In fact it's gaining in strength and momentum as more and more cases of problems with Fulton County are uncovered, month after month, week after week," Paine said.
"The movement is there and will be continuing next year in the state legislature," he said.
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 9:11 PM
The Forsyth County Sheriff's Office Narcotics and Vice Unit served search warrants on two area businesses, shutting down illegal gambling operations, on Saturday, March 26.
Four people were arrested in both businesses, which were alleged to operate gambling machines and pay out cash payments to players.
Hammond's Crossing Exxon, 3375 Keith Bridge Road was served with a search warrant and the business owner, Nahidul Hassan Khan was arrested and charged with commercial gambling, a felony and operating a gambling place, a misdemeanor.
An employee of the business, Mohammed Zahangir Alam, was also arrested and charged with one count of commercial gambling, a felony.
Mokaddes Hassan Khan, turned himself in Tuesday at the jail. He faces one count commercial gambling.
Investigators have also served a search warrant on Save Money Food Mart, 3671-B Hutchinson Road near Veterans Memorial Boulevard.
Ana Lilia Noriega, 36, was charged with three counts commercial gambling.
Investigators seized more than $13,000 in evidence of gambling enterprises. The arrests and seizures are the result of a two month investigation relating to illegal gambling at commercial locations in Forsyth County.
Additional arrests may be pending.
Labels: Cumming
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 9:04 PM
