MAR. 4 - MAR. 17, 2016 • VOL. 8 — NO. 4
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Brookhaven Reporter
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► Townhomes, gas station approved PAGE 2
► Interim CEO: ‘Let’s fix DeKalb the right way’ PAGE 13
EDUCATION | P19
Construction cranes: Who keeps them safe? BY JOHN RUCH
johnruch@reporternewspapers.net
Several times each workday, the long blue arm of a construction crane at One City Walk swings a hundred feet above busy Roswell Road in Sandy Springs. It’s one of dozens of cranes dotting the skyline—and often working above busy streets and buildings—in this north metro Atlanta construction boom. It’s easy to imagine the destruction if one of those cranes collapsed because it happens sometimes. Two “tower,” or fixed in place, cranes like those sprouting around the Perimeter Center area fell in New York City in 2008, killing
PUBLIC SAFETY Deadly crashes convince police in Brookhaven to review vehicle pursuit policies Page 30
nine people. Mobile cranes on wheels or tracks tip over more frequently, including at a Buckhead construction site last fall and in a Manhattan accident in February that took a pedestrian’s life. Neither the state of Georgia nor any of its cities require crane operators to be licensed, and federal efforts to establish a national certification system are stalled until at least next year. But federal and private inspectors and trainers say that’s no cause to worry. Any crane operator on a major construction site almost certainly has training from the National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators, an industry nonprofit whose
When spring comes, you can see all the dogwoods bloom. It’s like snow. We call it ‘spring snow.’ KAZUMI FUJISAWA THE JAPANESE EMBROIDERY CENTER IN SANDY SPRINGS PAGE 7
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work is the basis for the national standards underway. And the crane equipment undergoes several federally mandated inspections, ranging from daily to annual ones. In collaboration with an independent training company, Heede Southeast, the North Carolina company that operates that One City Walk tower crane, trains its own operators with written and practical tests for NCCCO certification and at least three weeks of “seat time” in a working crane with a certified operator. “We’re not just throwing any Tom, See CONSTRUCTION on page 16
OUT & ABOUT Road Trips
5 nearby gardens where you can enjoy spring flowers Pages 10-11
Cross Keys students plan Buford Highway’s future BY JOHN RUCH johnruch@reporternewspapers.net
On a recent Friday at Cross Keys High School, students in Rebekah Morris’s ninth-grade English class were studying something unusual: their own community along Buford Highway. In the “Buford Highway Project,” 90 students are drafting their own visions for improving the rapidly redeveloping corridor’s safety, accessibility and quality of life. The top reports will be delivered to city governments that have official Buford Highway plans—most developed with little or no such input from residents of the famously diverse community along the road. “I just wanted to make a real-world connection to [answer the questions], ‘Why do we need to read?’ ‘Why do we need to write?’ ‘Why do we need to make presentations?’” said Morris. “This is a real-world way to make them see, ‘My thoughts matter toSee CROSS on page 14
2/18/16 12:36 PM