Committees,
bylaws, boundaries, history
The DNA has been going since about the time of the 1996 Summer
Olympic Games and has steadily gained strength as more residents
have come to Downtown. ADNA has been very active and in Spring
2000 the organization became an officially recognized organization
within the City of Atlanta neighborhood planning process.
In May 2002 ADNA sponsored the first ever Downtown Neighborhood
Festival.
ADNA Board of Directors
Please find below a roster of the 2007 board,
- Board Members
- Michael Bonacuse (Gordon Lofts)
- Matthew Jordan (Healey)
- Returning Board Members
- Christopher Livingston (Metropolitan)
- Richard Hooker (Kessler)
- Re-elected Board Members
- Pablo Henderson (business owner)
- Stuart Jackson (Kessler)
- Whitney Rusert (Healey)
The Board also wishes to thank Mary-Elizabeth Harmon, who is rotating off the board in December, for her service during the past two years.
Committees
Most of ADNA's operations are coordinated through the elected
board members, as designated in the list above.
The Downtown Festival and
Tour
has all its own chairs and committees.
Bylaws
In 2002, the Atlanta Downtown Neighborhood Association, Inc.
began the process of becoming a 501c3 non-profit organization
and by the end of the year, the process should be complete.
As part of the application process, ADNA submitted formalized
association bylaws which is uses for its daily operations
as well as organizational operations such as elections.
Bylaws were ratified and went into effect as of the Jan.
14, 2003 meeting.
Current bylaws are available for
review (PDF).
Boundaries
 The
area covered by the Atlanta Downtown Neighborhood Association
is, roughly speaking, the area of Downtown bounded in by the
highways, minus a few areas already included by other organizations
(Central Atanta Neighbors, Centennial Place, Marietta Street
Artery, etc.).
One of our map-savvy residents, Caleb Racicot, has developed
a map showing our boundaries and various residential addresses.
View map here or click on thumbnail
graphic.
History
While a few pioneers have lived in the Downtown area for years
and years, the Atlanta Downtown Neighborhood Association started
up around the time of the 1996 Olympics, when a critical mass
of people first began to live into the area, settling into buildings
like the William-Oliver, Muse's, and Metropolitan. At first
meetings were just informal get-todays on Saturday mornings
over at Starbucks (neighbors still meet every Saturday, although
locations vary), but after a couple of years, "Fairlie Godmother"
Cooper Holland stepped up and became ADNA's first president.
Monthly meetings started up and as a new organization, we
were lucky to find a lot of support coming in from Atlanta
City Hall as well as location businesses and organizations
willing to host our meetings or help up put on events like
a Town Hall Meeting. ADNA got its first web site in 1999,
the same time we began our email listserve.
Beginning in 2000, new president Erich Starrett and Vice
President Wendy Darling started to push ADNA to greater and
greater prominence, coordinating bigger and better monthly
meetings, sending out news to the neighborhood, acting on
local issues, and putting the group on track to become a real
501c3 non-profit.
The great turning point for ADNA came in spring 2002, when
ADNA members stepped up to organize the first-ever Downtown
Neighborhood Festival, which drew on the enthusiasm and
skill of Downtowners and also contributed to ADNA's first
ever fundraiser. As a 501c3, we were able to set up bank accounts
and thus have our own funds. We still have a lot to learn,
but it looks like we are truly on our way! |
