6 | Commentary
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Around Town
Joe Earle is editorat-large at Reporter Newspapers and has lived in metro Atlanta for over 30 years. He can be reached at joeearle@ reporternewspapers.net
Neighborhood advocate steps aside
of life.” Mary Norwood, a Buckhead activist, former Atlanta City Councilmember and former mayoral candidate, described Certain as “one of the most accomplished neighborhood advocates I have ever known.” Debra Wathen has worked with Certain for a decade on the Buckhead Council of NeighSigns of change show up all around Gordon Certain’s north Buckhead home. Newer, borhoods, an organization that brings together representatives of neighborhood associations bigger houses have replaced older, smaller ones. New tall buildings loom nearby. There are from across Buckhead. Certain has served as BCN’s secretary and plans to continue in that more people, more cars, more of just about everything else, except maybe trees. “Everything role. has just mushroomed,” Certain said. “I think the world of Gordon because he works from the heart,” Wathen wrote in an email. When Certain moved into his ranch home on North Ivy Road in 1975, there was a dance “He is passionate about what he does and does an amazing job. He educates himself on ishall across the street. It was surrounded by acres of forest containing more than 500 mature sues that concern his neighborhood, as well as those that concern the Buckhead Council. If he trees. A developer bought the place and now suburban homes cover that land. These days, doesn’t know something, he asks questions until he gets a full understanding before he forms the view from Certain’s steep driveway is no longer of woods, but of side-by-side houses and opinions. For that reason, I truly respect him and what he has to say. He is also a machine! I do front yards. not know how he accomplishes all that he does.” Not all change is bad, of course. Certain expanded his house, adding Certain, who’s now 77, grew up in Florida and came to Atlanta to study space as his family grew. As north Buckhead has developed, residents have engineering at Georgia Tech. That led to a job at Lockheed-Martin, where he seen parks and playgrounds sprout throughout their neighborhood. Not worked for 31 years. Upon retirement, he decided to get involved in what was long ago, it had no public green spaces. going on around him so he became active with his neighborhood associaThere are other, perhaps less obvious, signs of change, too. The state Sution, the NBCA. “I thought I could use what I learned in business to help the preme Court sided with the neighborhood and the city to keep commercial neighborhood,” the soft-spoken Certain said. “And I did.” development from encroaching into certain residential areas. And Atlanta The BCN, an “association of associations,” got its start in 2008 as a way adopted a master plan for the area that was developed by the area’s homefor Buckhead’s neighborhoods to play a larger role in debates over developowners’ association, the North Buckhead Civic Association. ment as the community grew. When it formed, the organizations representCertain, who headed the North Buckhead association for two decades, ing Buckhead were dominated by businesses. “We just needed a voice,” Cerplayed a big part in making those good things happen. He attended city tain said. meetings, called public meetings, conducted surveys of residents and lobIn public meetings and as the editor of his neighborhood’s newsletter, bied city officials to push the homeowners’ point of view on everything Certain often provided that voice or a way for that voice to be heard. At times, from street widenings to the need for playgrounds to community planning. JOE EARLE his engineering background would show through. He regularly drew maps He regularly put in a full work week on neighborhood business, said his and built charts for the NBCA newsletter. He comes off as a numbers guy. Gordon Certain chats on the wife, Sue Certain, who says he once suggested the couple celebrate their A decade ago, for instance, after complaints about crime in Buckhead porch at his Buckhead home. wedding anniversary by going to a Buckhead community meeting. “He does flared up, Certain mapped every reported major crime in Atlanta on poster this all day long, every day, including weekends, for 20 years. It’s just who he board to show people attending the NBCA’s annual meeting that there were is. He’s just made that way,” she said one recent morning as she and Gordon sat in a sunroom more crimes elsewhere in the city. “I just thought it was inappropriate for folks to focus up at their home and listened to bird calls from the surrounding trees. here [in Buckhead] on crime,” he said. Certain joined the NBCA board in 1998, after retiring from a career as an engineer. He He still has the map, which is covered with red dots showing concentrations of crime. “I served as the group’s treasurer in 1999 and took over as its president in 2000. He held the said we’re here,” he said, pointing out the less-spotted north end of the city, then gesturing neighborhood association’s top job until May. He plans to remain on the organization’s to areas with a greater density of reported crimes. “This is hell down here. We’re in heaven.” board. He plans on staying. If he and Sue ever need to move from the house on Ivy Road, he said, Atlanta City Councilmember Howard Shook calls Certain “an unflagging supporter of they’ve reserved a spot in a condo tower on Peachtree Street. “We might end up in high-rise the neighborhood” who worked “ceaselessly to improve its safety, infrastructure and quality heaven,” he said. He paused and grinned at the thought. “Or hell.”
We aren’t perfect, but
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our minds and open our hearts until they hurt. We celebrate this collective we call humanity, where you don’t have to fit in to belong, where being your own true self is the most precious gift of all. WE CELEBRATE YOU.
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