Has A Crime Been Committed?

The destabilization of the Lake Trail Bank, lays bare the systemic, cyclical disfunction of the governing body.

The City’s function, in relation to the Public Park, is to do routine maintenance.  The City does not own the lake or the park.  All Public Parks are held by the State for Public use.

During the Greg Zarus administration the City garnered  grant funds from Federal,  State and Dekalb County sources.  The funds were used to repair the failing creekside dam, and to dredge the lake and build a stable, permeable trail surface, along with other major improvements.  These improvements were made by the Army Core of Engineers.  Removing ACE improvements may be illegal. 

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The governing body’s degradation of Public Property is vandalism*.  The cost of undoing the damage and re-establishing  the Lake Trail Bank will be many  thousands of dollars.

The native Hibiscus plants, that were removed, were essential to keeping erosion from undermining the Lake Side Pathway.  The erosion preventing Hibiscus are gone.  What has happened is a brutal senseless  act of vandalism’.

We are the victims of a governing body, that in all respects, is ‘acting under color of law’.  The City’s governing body is masquerading as a legal authority.  This situation requires accountability and removal of the City Charter.  The City of Pine Lake’s brand is toxic.

* “Vandalism can carry serious criminal consequences, including felony charges that may result in prison time, heavy fines…..

What am I doing here?

By Danielle S Ross

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

― James Baldwin

I often fall asleep to the sound of crickets and wake up to the sound of lawn mowers. But I also fall asleep and wake up to the sound of sirens. I live in Pine Lake, GA.

From my front door, I look left and I see lush green trees lining a sloping street of a residential neighborhood. When I look to my right, I see a few small businesses, a little bit of planned greenery, and at the end of the block, a pawn shop that sells guns and buys gold, a liquor store, a Chinese restaurant, and a motorcycle club. I feel fortunate that I can look either way.

When I wander to the left of my front door, I happily absorb the smells and beautiful trees and greenery that lead down a hill, past the Pine Lake Club House, towards the Beach House and The Lake. I forget about the sirens, the gun shop, and the stresses of everyday life. “This is lovely,” I think. I look at the sweet community art including the pieces I contributed, and I feel a sense of belonging, of community. As I continue down the hill to the small lake, I see the American flag flapping in the bright blue sky. But then jarring realization shatters my dreamlike trance. I realize that people were lynched on the very soil I standing upon. I have not been able to find records of lynchings within Pine Lake, but I know there were “strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees” very close by. The roots of those trees easily intertwine with the trees in Pine Lake.

“What am I doing here?” I ask myself.

When I wander to the right of my front door, up to the liquor store on Rockbridge Road, I’m still in Pine Lake, but I feel like I am walking into a different city, a different world. I walk up the short block and cross the busy section of road that bisects the city between residential and business districts. The business district is unquestionably urban with a combination of grit and friendliness that is common in the Deep South. There is nothing pretentious about this area. You take care of yourself and your friends, family, and neighbors through cooperation and acceptance. I like the grit. I like the honesty. I like the details and how unintentional art emerges from concrete, asphalt, age, and defiance. And again, I feel fortunate to have both nature and urban grit so easily accessible from my front door. I buy my beer at the liquor store and I feel the usual connection with the woman at the cash register. As I walk home, I see the mechanic’s business where I have taken my old car for repair so many times over the years. I remember the last time I was there and I think of my favorite mechanic and it puts a smile on my face. Once again, I feel a sense of community, it’s just a different one from the one to the left of my front door. I admit to myself that one community is mainly people of color, and one is mainly white people. Once again, I am haunted by the horrific history that is buried here and I ask myself,

“What am I doing here?”

Pine Lake, GA made headlines in 1999 because the majority of its budget depended on traffic citations issued on a small section of Rockbridge Road that runs along the edge of town. Since then, Pine Lake reduced its police force and stopped issuing speeding tickets. From 2017 to 2019 about 1/4 of Pine Lake’s budget came from traffic citations. Conveniently, the amount drawn in from traffic tickets is the same amount that pays for Pine Lake’s police force. This small city is similar to many other cities and towns across the state that rely on traffic citations to fund public services. What distinguishes Pine Lake from those cities twofold. First, it is a small, majority-white city nestled within a much larger, majority-Black area of DeKalb County. Second, it proudly touts the title “City of Ethics” that parades it’s open and inclusive values like only repressed white guilt and denial can do. Or wait, is it guilt or just privilege masked as guilt? Whatever, “What am I doing here?!”

As I grapple with what my role might be in this mess, first I try internal twists and turns to squirm my way out of it, but there is no way around it: This is systemic racism playing out at my front door, and I am part of it. And I will remain complicit until I do something to force change. The city made some changes 20 years ago, but we are all still complicit in actively normalizing white supremacy and oppressing Black people, one traffic ticket at a time. “Surely I’m exaggerating,” I think. “There are some really nice people who live here. I have some wonderful neighbors and friends here in Pine Lake. That is one of the best things about living here.” But when I tried to explain to the city leadership that we are a powerful little cog in the huge and grinding system of racism in this country, my message was repeatedly met with denial and deflection. I presented open records data from Pine Lake and all the surrounding cities and neighborhood, well summarized and digestible (I have a PhD in research and worked in public health for a decade. I know how to gather and present data). I volunteered my time and expertise to help with change. Stonewalled.

WHAT AM I DOING HERE?!”

Some of the responses I have gotten over and over, from city leadership when I have called out systemic racism in Pine Lake, ring in my head. “It’s not racism. It’s just how things are. Other cities do the same thing. That’s just who drives along Rockbridge road. It doesn’t matter if someone is Black or someone is poor, they shouldn’t be driving a car without insurance. It’s a security issue.” (BTW, the majority of traffic tickets are NOT for lack of insurance).

My expectation of a city that labels itself “certified ethical” is to take the lead on issues such as systemic racism, to be a model for other small cities in this country, especially in the deep south. But apparently that is a naive notion.

WHAT. AM. I. DOING. HERE?!

Eco Arts Story. lookback

The Pine Lake Eco Arts camp was a summertime happening for children and parents. The Camp and staff of talented mentors organized a creative learning experience with poetry, nature walks, puppetry and the arts, that served the community for 9 years. Who can forget the song of robust young voices drifting across the lake on humid summer days? ‘We all live in a yellow submarine…’ Yes, we still hear those voices. This is a sad story; how could it be anything else? The Eco Arts camp is gone; a Petrie dish of artistic creativity cast aside. Now it is time to set the record straight; because, there have been a number of misleading statements & rumors regarding the camp. ‘So we sailed up to the sun, Till we found the sea of green…’ First, and foremost, the Eco Arts Summer Camp was funded by the parents of the children who attended the camp. The Camp was not subsidized by the City. A Council person complained in a letter that most of the camp budget went to pay staff; imagine, a City Council person complaining about camp salaries that the City does not pay! The third highest single expense for the camp was the nearly $2000 the camp paid the City for a permit and facility rental; the same Council person called the $300 a week paid by the Camp a ‘pittance’. When you add in the $334 weekly cost of the Permit, the bottom line amount the CamThe Eco-Arts Story paid the City per week was $634; about $125 per day. “And our friends are all on board…Many more of them live next door” The Council inexplicably became convinced that the 3 weeks long camp was somehow keeping the City from a gold mine of income, I guess we could call this the wishful thinking method of governance; because, there is no evidence to suggest the City can command $1500 for a 5 day, during the week, facility rental. “And the band begins to play” The Council adopted a false narrative as a cover for a rental increase that was nothing less than fiscal sabotage of the camp and the parents; who most certainly could not pay for such a cruel increase. The cruelty did not begin with the rental increase; the flimsy fiscal ‘cover’ that the Council concocted needed help; so, a shame based whisper campaign ensued to sully the camp and the reputations of staff and parents who supported the camp. “We all live in a yellow submarine…” The children, the parents, and our community lost a great gift; betrayed by a dysfunctional governing body. Not one council person stood up for the Eco Arts Camp; so, it is not a council that discusses and weighs matters that are important to the community. This is a council that sees itself as subservient to the Mayor’s agenda and not a council in tune with the community. A ‘mayor’ is ’first among equals’, not an autarch; the Council should not be a “rubber stamp” for one person’s flawed agenda. “…yellow submarine, yellow submarine…” With the summer camp gone, we witnessed and unprecedented level of Mayoral participation at kid’s events and a rash of ‘kid’s town halls’ as the Mayor fumbled for a way to blunt the fallout from the Council’s ‘Blue Meanie’ decision. ‘Here, Your Blueness... have some medicine!”