BCN Leader Asks Fulton D.A. to Step Up APS Probe

Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods Chairman Jim King Thursday night called upon Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard to step up his investigation into the Atlanta Public Schools' CRCT cheating scandal.

King during the BCN's regular meeting asked Zone 2 community prosecutor Hannah Chung about the status of Howard's probe into the scandal, pointing out that the BCN last August had asked Howard to begin the investigation. 

"The process is not moving quickly, that's for sure," King said after observing that with the release of a far-reaching state report into the scandal, "the crisis is much bigger than anyone imagined." He also told Chung that if the district attorney's office had begun investigating the scandal a year ago when the BCN made its motion "we would have been much better off."

Chung said that she would inquire of Howard about the status of the investigation. She reported that Howard had assigned assistant Eleanor Ross to the APS case, but that she had been appointed to the Cobb County State Court. Now, senior assistant Lance Cross is in charge of the APS probe, which could result in criminal indictments against educators.

"It going to take Lance a little bit of time to get up to speed," Chung said.

The BCN also unanimously approved a motion by secretary Gordon Certain to send a letter of thanks to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for its reporting in uncovering the cheating scandal. The newspaper discovered discrepancies in testing results, leading to revelations that principals, administrators and teachers had changed test answers to give a false picture of improved scores.

In other action, Paces neighborhood representative Debra Wathen reported that the Georgia Department of Transportation had agreed to preserve the buffer between the small Paces Battle neighborhood and Northside Parkway (U.S. 41) in a planned project to widen the highway to six lanes from four from the Chattahoochee River Bridge to Northgate Drive.

Wathen said that she, King and Paces Battle resident Don Hemrick had met with the GDOT and finally persuaded transportation officials to agree to keep the buffer, although GDOT officials had adamantly said that the plan could not be changed and that the buffer would have to be removed.

King and Wathen also attended City Council committee meetings in which it was discovered that the city of Atlanta had an intergovernmental agreement with Cobb County for Cobb to take charge of the road widening on the Fulton County side of the Chattahoochee River. Because of King and Wathen's action, the IGA was amended to only include reconstruction of the bridge over the river.

At its June meeting, the BCN voted to join Paces Battle in opposing the widening of the road to six lanes. The BCN said that the road's widening would bring an increase of cars from Cobb County into Buckhead neighborhoods.

King Thursday night pointed out that widening of the road on the Cobb County side, where it's known as Cobb Parkway, is included on Cobb County's wish list of projects to be funded by the 1-cent special transportation tax to be considered by voters in a 2012 referendum. He said the Cumberland CID and the Cobb business community are strongly promoting making the road six lanes.

He also said that the wish list before the Atlanta Regional Roundtable also includes light rail from Midtown to the Cumberland area. Here is the link to the roundtable's web page.

The BCN, in its campaign for Buckhead to have its own state senator under reapportionment, also approved a motion for all neighborhoods in the Buckhead community to be included in one Senate district. Under the present district setup, Buckhead is divided between Sen. Vincent Fort (39th District) and Sen. Horacena Tate (38th District). 

At the end of the BCN meeting, Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran gave a presentation on the fire department's strategic plan. See Buckhead Patch for further details.