Newspaper Page Text
Brookhaven
Reporter
www. Reporter Newspapers, net
DEC. 25,2015 - JAN. 7,2016 • VOL. 7 - NO. 26
Inside
‘Sweetheart deal’
City buys Skyland building
COMMUNITY 12
Fiber fuss
Google hits local roadblock
COMMUNITY 14
Pride and plans
COMMUNITY 12
While there was plenty of hustle and bustle in our daily lives over the past 12 months, area youngsters had no trouble
taking the time to enjoy what our local communities have to offer. We’ve taken a look through the Reporter Newspapers
archives and selected a few of our favorite cover photos from 2015, shown below, with more on pages 6-7.
Top left, Morgan O’Keefe, 11, left, and Kerston Moss, 8, feed ducks during
a warm, spring day at Murphey Candler Park in Brookhaven on April 11.
Bottom left, Alec Williams, 6, left, with his brother
Cullen, 4, and their dog Cooper, cool off in Nancy Creek
at the Blue Heron Nature Preserve in Buckhead on July 18.
Center, Olivia Whitake, 10, takes delight in getting a close look
at a “Julia Longwing” while attending the annual Butterfly
Festival at the Dunwoody Nature Center on Aug. 15.
Right, from left, Mel Mobley, Vann McNeill, center, and his children Seema, 1, and
Ravi, 2, right, pour their neighborhood’s soil into a planter at the request of Sandy
Springs Mayor Rusty Paul, at a ceremony to unveil “City Springs” on Sept. 20.
PHOTOS BY PHIL MOSIER
City to study possible Brookhaven/Chamblee monorail
BY JOHN RUCH
johnruch@reporternewspapers.net
A monorail system connecting MARTA, office parks
and DeKalb-Peachtree Airport is getting a $10,000 pre
liminary study from the city of Brookhaven.
“I have a vision. I see it as a potential Disneyland type
of monorail,” said City Councilman Joe Gebbia, who an
nounced Dec. 15 he is paying for the study from his dis
cretionary fund. “If we do it right, I think this would
be an example of what cities and unincorporated areas
could be doing to expand MARTA.”
Mayor Rebecca Chase Williams is not a fan of the
idea, asking, “Is a monorail old-style, 1950s Disney tech
nology?”
She noted that at Disney World, monorails connect
the hotels, but trams move people from the parking lots
to the park. “I would look at trolleys...Let’s do express
bus lanes first,” Williams said, questioning the possible
expense of a monorail.
Kim Pedersen, president of a California-based advo
cacy group called Monorail Society, said that Brookhav
en should think beyond the Disney image. A small-scale
monorail could be feasible in the area, he said.
“The Disney monorails are quite capable and do car
ry hundreds of thousands of passengers each day,” Peder
sen said. “However, I hope that the studies and promot
ers will also take a serious look at all the non-recreation
monorails that operate on a daily basis around the world.”
A possible Sandy Springs monorail has been in the
news since that city’s Planning Commission chairman
floated the idea last month. But Gebbia said he indepen
dently thought of a local monorail earlier this year and
has talked informally with various officials about it.
“Monorails seem to be resonating,” Gebbia said. “I
was very pleasantly surprised to see that article come out
from Sandy Springs...If Sandy Springs does it, that’s
great.”
Gebbia said he thought about monorails while driving
on 1-85 through Brookhaven, pondering traffic snarls,
MARTA’s expansion struggles and forthcoming redevel
opment around 1-85 and North Druid Hills Road.
“I said, ‘Wouldn’t that be really neat to see a mono-
rail [running along Buford Highway], saying ‘Brookhav
en’ on the side?”’ Gebbia recalled.
He envisioned the monorail that his family rode when
they visited Disney World. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow,
that monorail handled a lot of people.’”
“We’ve got to find a way to take tires off the street”
while attracting top-quality economic development, he
said.
Gebbia envisions a circulator monorail connecting
the Brookhaven/Oglethorpe MARTA station, Buford
Highway, PDK Airport, and the Century Center, Ex
ecutive Park and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta office
centers. That would require partnership with MARTA
and the city of Chamblee. Gebbia would like MARTA to
own and operate the monorail and tie it into its Breeze
card fare system.
SEE MONORAIL, PAGE 14