Inside
Dunwoody Reporter
Scout’s honor Girls go backpacking, too ROBIN’S NEST 7
Now reborn
www.ReporterNewspapers.net
OCT. 3 — OCT. 16, 2014 • VOL. 5 — NO. 20
Perimeter Business
Chattahoochee no longer ‘eyesore’ COMMUNITY 14
PAGES 9-13
Brook Run Skate Park gets new ‘pop’ BY ELLEN ELDRIDGE
elleneldridge@reporternewspapers.net
Long-time skateboard enthusiast and Dunwoody resident Josh Jacobs brought his daughter, Lola, 6, to Brook Run Skate Park on Sept. 26 to improve her skills. Read related story at right, and see additional photo on page 6.
PHIL MOSIER
A south New Jersey skateboarding company put skateboarder Robb Hart on a billboard when he was 12. Hart grew up in the Virginia Beach area, where skateboarding engaged almost all kids of the 1980s, he said. He took part in skateboarding competitions and won a few. In his 20s, he tried music as a career, but gave that up. When he walked away from his music career, a high school friend named Dan McCollister pulled him back into the skateboarding scene. “He posted on Facebook that he was opening a new shop in Long Beach Island, N.J., where as teenagers we spent our summers surfing and skating,” Hart said. Hart commented on the Facebook feed that McCollister should let him run the shop for the summer. McCollister responded by calling Hart and asking him to run the Black Diamond Skate Park, which he planned on opening in Lawrenceville at Discovery Mills in 2012. Black Diamond has closed, Hart said, and Hart, now 40, has been contracted by the city of Dunwoody to run Brook Run Skate Park. “During my time running Black Diamond, some of the public started to rally and say that I should run Brook Run’s Skate Park, so I started to pay attention,” Hart said. Dunwoody City Council on Sept. 22 voted unanimously to approve a contract for concessionaires Hart and Ian Awbery to sell drinks and provide SEE SKATEBOARDER, PAGE 6
Dunwoody police join online community to stay in touch with the neighbors BY ELLEN ELDRIDGE
eleneldridge@reporternewspapers.net
Dunwoody police Officer Tim Fecht joined his online neighborhood community Nextdoor nearly two years ago. His job as the community outreach coordinator for Dunwoody Police kept him sensitive to his neighborhood’s needs. Now the city’s police department has its own access to communicate with Dunwoody neighborhoods using the free service. “I signed up personally about two years ago, as an officer, using my home address,” Fecht said. “I didn’t realize there was a law enforcement aspect to it. I believe that was developed later.” Nextdoor is a private social network set up to operate neighborhood by neighborhood. On its website, the company claims 43,000 neighborhoods now use the network. Fecht said he posts on Nextdoor about once a week.
He recently used the network to try to locate Dunwoody residents affected by a fraud case in which a waitress is accused of stealing credit card numbers using her smartphone. Brookhaven police announced their decision to join Nextdoor in late August. Chamblee announced in a Sept. 29 press release its decision to join Nextdoor, noting 16 of its neighborhoods are using the service. Sgt. Ron Momon of Sandy Springs said the Sandy Springs Police Department has not yet decided to join. Brookhaven police got involved with Nextdoor after a resident of the city asked Officer Howard Miller if the police department used the service. Miller contacted Nextdoor officials and filled out paperwork to be added to the forum to post announcements by neighborhood. By the time Miller and Fecht talked about it, the SEE DUNWOODY, PAGE 31
SPECIAL
Unique pens ready Jacqueline Warnecke, back, and Jordan Ellis, kindergartners at Austin Elementary School, participate in “Constitution Day.” More on page 4.