Below are minutes for the March 11, 2003, meeting of the Atlanta Downtown Neighborhood Association. Notes were written by ADNA Secretary Wendy Darling.

Introduction

In this month's meeting, ADNA once again focused on quality of life and public safety issues, bringing in City Solicitor Jacob Daughtry II, from the City of Atlanta's Community Court, who told the story of the court, the working of the justice system, and participated in a Q&A session with residents as well as GSU Police.

Welcome & Introductions

ADNA President Dorthey Hurst offered a welcome and had everyone in the room introduce themselves. This week we had residents from more buildings that ever: Kessler City Lofts, Metropolitan, Muse's, Healey, 90 Fairlie, 123 Luckie, Centennial House, Museum Tower, Peachtree Tower and probably a few more!

We were also pleased to have some non-resident visitors, some familiar (Zelda Mitchell, Lavoyed Hudgins, GSU police officers), a couple of people looking for neighborhood approvals on permits, plus our featured speaker , City Solicitor Jacob Daughtry II.

Committee Reports

ADNA has a number of committees and a number of them made reports to members:

• Downtown Neighborhood Festival Committee
  Jennifer Henderson had some great news related to the annual Downtown Neighborhood Festival:
  • Hard work of fundraising has helped to land sponsorship commitments from New Field, ING, and Coca Cola.
  • Tony Stewart, Downtown resident & artist, is helping out not only by providing artwork for the festival advertising campaign, but by offering up for say 25 limited-edition signed prints of a wonderful Downtown scene. Each print is priced at $200 and the money raised will go directly to ADNA.
  • Glass Menagerie fundraiser -- Beth Haynes has arranged for residents to be selling Theatrical Outfit tickets ($35) for the March 28th show, money to benefit the festival, plus ticket-buyers get to go to a private cocktail party at 90 Fairlie. Details available in a downloadable flyer, http://www.atlantadna.org/pdfs/menagerie.pdf. Details will go out on the list.
  • For more information and/or applications related to the festival, see the festival web site.

• Planning, Zoning and Land Use Committee
  Caleb Racicot presented a wrap-up of the committee's first month and outlined the main issues the group is going to focus on:
  • Monitoring and participating in the development and passage of the new Downtown SPI zoning.
  • Pushing for improvement in the Downtown parking situation, particularly looking for increased on-street parking, enforcement/marking of loading zones for residents and businesses, and night-time parking.
  • Long-term project to have Fairlie-Poplar designated as a local historic district with specific protection against demolition.
  • Following the situation of the adult business / massage business trying to get in on some property near Centennial House.

• Welcome / Newcomer Packet Committee
  In absence of Patti Clark, Wendy Darling reported that the committee is currently working on printing out the letters that will go out to the neighborhood offering coupons and pointing to the Welcome Packet, which will be available on the ADNA web site. For more information, contact committee leader Patti Clark, Kimchee110@msn.com.

• Treasury Committee
  ADNA Treasurer John Mount made a quick report on our group's two bank accounts. Present balances show the Festival's account with $5,139 plus around $11k pledged from sponsors. The ADNA account has $1,655.

• Community Advocacy Committee
  ADNA Vice-President Patrick Busko put in a plug for the Community Advocacy Committee, which is right now, Patrick Busko. The committee would basically take charge of dealing with issues, interacting with the City, Atlanta Police, GSU, the homelessness commission, and acting on behalf of the neighborhood as a voice and bringing back information to ADNA. The Community Advocacy committee would also be heavily involved in ADNA communications, doing things like sending letters to newspapers, writing companies or businesses, etc. To get involved, contact Patrick at pbusko@busko-davis.com.

• Membership Report
  ADNA is always looking for additional members. Next month we'll be hosting a membership event that will be both a social and a chance to hopefully get more people signed up.

Getting On A Committee
Everybody is welcome to join up to any committee. To lead a committee, you need to be an ADNA member. To sign up, email downtownatl@hotmail.com.

President's Report

ADNA President Dorthey Hurst gave a run-down of some of the meetings and events she was involved in since the last meeting.

• Attended leaders' meeting put together by Atlanta City Council President Cathy Woolard. Got to meet many of the City's Commissioners, who are all now being held strictly accountable by Mayor Shirley Franklin.
• NPU-M, our Neighborhood Planning Unit meeting. Three issues came up which needed to go before ADNA so we could have member voting and make recommendations. All three issues were presented to the group and voted on as follows:
  • Tour de Georgia: Holly Mull presented on a brand-new 600-mi. bike staged race, modeled on Tour de France and taking place April 22-27. The race finale will be taking place in Atlanta April 27th, with a circuit race beginning and ending by Centennial Olympic Park, with racers riding the circuit 9 times -- 119 miles. Streets will be closed, although intersections will be opened to let vehicles cross once packs of riders have passed. Holly provided a map and brochures, then answered a few questions, including residents from Centennial House who were concerned about not being able to leave their building due to street closings. Of 13 ADNA members present, all 13 voted to recommend approval for the event.
  • Chin Chin: Earl Sorenson, representing the Chin Chin Chinese restaurant chain, got a very enthusiastic response not only to the announcement that they will hopefully be opening their new store by mid-April, but that they are looking for a beer, wine and liquor license, which the 13 ADNA members present recommended an okay on. The restaurant is under construction in the space at 120 Marietta, in the front of the Philips Arena parking deck, right under the big clock. They will have outdoor dining with a fence around it, thus allowing people to have alcohol with their outdoor meals.
  • BP on North Avenue: ADNA President Dorthey Hurst reported on her working with management at the BP on North Avenue, across from the Varsity, to clean up its act as a far as cracking down on some the problems associated with the bikers who regularly loiter in the station's parking lot. The BP is trying to get a change of agent but the NPU turned them down due to problems. However, the station now seems to have made a number of steps to improve the situation. Of 13 ADNA members present, 12 voted to recommend they get their change of agent, while 1 member abstained.

Presentation & Questions

Focus of the meeting was on Atlanta Community Court as well as local law enforcement, specifically GSU Police.

Jacob introduced himself and presented background on the court, afterward being generous enough to engage in a lengthy Question & Answer session.

A summary of the presentation and discussion:

• Daughtry been with the City courts for a year and a half and with the Community Court for about three months.
• Atlanta Community Court is a division of the Atlanta Municipal Court that deals with what are commonly known as quality of life crimes: prostitution, disorderly conduct, panhandling, and low-level drug offenses. (To see the actual codes, you can look them up on this handy web site: http://www.municode.com/Resources/online_codes.asp).
• When someone is brought in for violation of a quality of life crime, like drinking in public, they are faced with a sentence, which in Community Court is often 6 months time served or 6 months of treatment, based on assessment (alcohol or drug treatment, mental health treatment, etc.)
• Someone asked "What kind of sentences does Judge Riley give?" and Daughtry said "Six months jail" or accepting treatment for their problems.
• Daughtry described how the court is seeing more and more hard-core repeat offenders.
• Resident asked "How do we help get someone sentenced?" and Daughtry said if you call in a complaint, you need to talk to the police officers involved and tell them to take your name and telephone number and have them tell you when the person's case comes to court. You need to be there as the complainant and say "I saw it" or "He did this to me" -- it carries weight.
• Cooper Holland advised people to be patient with the court process, as often you will need to appear multiple times in court, as appearances are rescheduled.

Two GSU officers were on hand and provided a lot of helpful information on the role of GSU in the Downtown neighborhood. Some of the key points:

• GSU Police has jurisdiction up to 300 yards from University property -- this includes non-GSU buildings like condos, businesses, etc. GSU has a large campus, stretching from Luckie and Fairlie all the way down Auburn Avenue almost to the freeway overpass.
• GSU Police has become a part of the new effort to coordinate enforcement of the City's quality of life ordinances (see above) and has gotten involved with things like public urination, pandhandling, etc.
• GSU Police is starting doing Community Oriented Policing, using the COMSTAT model which uses statistics to identify problem areas and then attack those areas.

Additional Announcements

After the Q&A session had ended, there were a number of announcements, most of them about fun stuff coming up:

• Neighborhood's new Saturday Coffee meeting spot is Blue Cloud Coffee, 123 Luckie. Every Saturday, 9:30ish to noonish, we bond over coffee, newspapers, bring the dogs, hang out, make plans. Soon the cafe may be doing weekend brunches.
• Next month ADNA will be hosting a social event at a Downtown venue TBA -- for food, drinks, chance to hang out and also to raise membership.

NEXT MEETING

ADJOURNMENT