Inside
Brookhaven Reporter
Never forget
Keep calm
Speed bumps for Green Meadows Lane COMMUNITY 3
Back to work
www.ReporterNewspapers.net
New cities proponents gear up COMMUNITY 14-15
APRIL 17 — APRIL 30, 2015 • VOL. 7 — NO. 8
Quack attack
Holocaust survivors share stories COMMUNITY 16-17
Comment brings unwanted attention to city BY JOE EARLE
joeearle@reporternewspapers.net
PHIL MOSIER
Morgan O’Keefe, 11, left, and Kerston Moss, 8, feed the ducks during a warm, spring day at Murphey Candler Park on April 11. Read story below and see additional photo on page 5.
Park, lake draw Murphey Candler residents together BY JON GARGIS Recreation. Education. Location. Ask a resident of the Murphey Candler Park neighborhood why they’re living there and their answers are bound to fall into one of those categories. Or perhaps even all three. The neighborhood and the park it surrounds, between Chamblee Dunwoody and Ashford Dunwoody roads, are just inside I-285 in Brookhaven. It was the location that initially appealed to Maggie Wise and her husband, but once they discovered the area—the older homes and the abundance of mature trees—helped them decide to relocate there. The park and nearby Murphey Candler Lake also were a positive influence. “We [previously] lived in Chamblee, just a couple of miles away, and we loved the accessibility of [this] area— it’s so close to 285 and 400—but we actually drove around all of what’s now Brookhaven. The accessibility of 285 and 400 was so important to us,” Wise said. “I work
in Buckhead, he works up in Alpharetta, so it’s a really good spot for both of us. “I definitely feel like this neighborhood is a suburban neighborhood, but then it’s inside the Perimeter, which is just the coolest thing. I could never imagine living [outside the Perimeter] and have to deal with a big commute every day just for a suburban feel of a neighborhood. [And] we kind of got lucky to get in right before it became Brookhaven.” This summer will mark the third year Wise Where and her husband have resided in the neighborYou hood, and she’s not alone in thinking the city’s Live incorporation has helped the neighborhood to be attractive to potential homeowners. “As part of the city of Brookhaven, I think for a lot of people it feels like a more contained community than to be in unincorporated DeKalb County. I think if nothing else, cityhood has helped our residential market in this area,” said Lisa Thule, who is in her fifth year as presiSEE PARK, PAGE 5
An animated confrontation between the city of Brookhaven’s former communications director and a photographer and his models has city officials defending the city’s reputation on racial attitudes. “It has created an appearance ... of racial views in our city that couldn’t be farther from the truth,” City Councilman Bates Mattison said. “From Day One, we’ve been very sensitive [on matters of race]. Our city has a very diverse population.” The population of Brookhaven is about 58 percent white, 9 percent black, 5 percent Asian and 25 percent Hispanic, according to American Community Survey data compiled by Georgia State University AsRosemary sociate Professor Cathy Taylor Yang Liu. “As leaders of the city, we have always been sensitive to that diversity,” Mattison said. “We feel it is an asset to our city.” City Manager Marie Garrett on April 13 apologized to photographer Nelson Jones and two teenage models Jones brought to Brookhaven’s inaugural Cherry Blossom Festival for their treatment by former city Communications Director Rosemary Taylor. Taylor was fired after the incident for exhibiting “conduct unbecoming of a city employee,” Garrett said in statement released April 7. Taylor’s dismissal was widely covered by local media. Jones has said that Taylor confronted him and the two models at the festival, saying the two teenagers did not represent the “image” Brookhaven wanted to present in its promotions. Jones and the models said they believed Taylor was referring to their ethnicity. One is black and the other Asian. Taylor said her comments had nothing to do with the models’ ethnicity, but about how they were dressed. “Racism had absolutely nothing to do with my interactions with the photographer and his hired models at the Brookhaven Cherry Blossom Festival,” she said in a statement released April 9. She described the models as “two sexy girls” and said, “What I said was, ‘This is not the image Brookhaven wanted.’ It had nothing to do with ethnicity. If those two girls have been SEE COMMENT, PAGE 2