APRIL 27 - MAY 10, 2018 • VOL. 12 — NO. 9
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► Staying on track with a new regional transit plan PAGE 8 ► After Atlanta cyber attack, other cities prepare defenses PAGE 20
Historic cemetery faces a common preservation challenge
JOHN RUCH
Taylor Morgan poses with the 1885 headstone of his ancestor William Power in the historic family cemetery off Roswell Road.
EXCEPTIONAL EDUCATOR Unscrambling math for diverse learners
VOTERS GUIDE | P11-13 BY JOHN RUCH johnruch@reporternewspapers.net A local developer is pulling back from a plan that descendants feared was a threat to the historic Power family cemetery near Roswell and Pitts roads. But the long-term future of the heavily vandalized cemetery and its surrounded property remain unclear, in what preservationists say is a common challenge. “Yet another cemetery in trouble,” said Wright Mitchell, an attorney whose cemetery preservation work led him to co-found the Buckhead Heritage Society. “It’s a sad tale, but not a new one.” Mitchell and other preservations say the Powers cemetery is one of many dotting the north metro suburbs that could be endangered by development. But there are also examples of cemetery-saving success to emulate, they say, and the first step is getting the sort of public interest that Taylor Morgan, a Power family descendant, is drumming up. Morgan attended a recent city meeting about a parks master plan to advocate for the private Power cemetery, dating to the 1880s, where those buried are part of the same family whose Civil Warera business was immortalized in the name of Powers Ferry Road. Morgan drew attention to a massive redevelopment project proposed on the webSee HISTORIC on page 22
OUT & ABOUT Dunwoody Art Festival is back for 8th year Page 18
You knock yourself out for 20 years, staging multiple birthday parties at recurring intervals ... and all they will remember is that Barney didn’t come to their fourth birthday party. See page 6
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See ROBIN’S NEST, page 9
New City Hall preps for May 7 grand opening BY JOHN RUCH johnruch@reporternewspapers.net
The new City Hall will make its longawaited opening at City Springs on May 7 with a 9 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony and tours expected to draw 200 official guests and more members of the public. The way Mayor Rusty Paul sees it, it will be more than a new place for permit-issuing and City Council meetings — it’s the opening of “everybody’s neighborhood.” “We wanted this to be not only the most publicly accessible, but the most publicly usable, City Hall … in the area,” said Paul durSee NEW on page 2