The Douglas County Sentinel (requires registration) is reporting today that the Douglas County School System and West Central Technical College are collaborating on constructing a building for the College and Career Institute dual enrollment program. The program allows high school students to enroll in college courses, attaining credits for both institutions. Ground on the new two-story, $9 million building is planned to break ground in January or February on the Douglasville campus of WCTC.

Contributed by Ginny Ray (aka Obi’s Sister)

In a weird way, life has a way of coming full circle. As a child, my family would trek from Jonesboro to Flint Hill Church in Douglas County for the family reunion of my grandparent’s siblings and distant relations. Being young, I had no idea of where we were - only that there long tables covered with fluttering tablecloths, groaning with food. I remember playing hide and seek in the cemetery with my cousins, what seemed like mobs of white-haired little old ladies and being shooed away from giant platters of fried chicken.

Now I live in the very same county I used to unknowingly visit as a child. Fourteen years ago, we moved here for the affordable housing, good schools, a reasonable commute and cows. Yes, you heard me. Cows. Where else could you see cows on your way to work? Rolling pastures, woods for miles, little cafes, two lane roads - the quiet ruralness of it all was comforting. I only wished it had lasted a little longer.

Losing Georgia noted the other day

“Douglas County has less greenspace per acre than metro Atlanta as a whole.” (Douglas Neighbor Newspaper cited)

While most studies are usually done with a hidden agenda, all you have to do is drive around this little county to see that this one hits close to home. Any space bigger than a sandbox is being dug up / paved over / built upon. Doesn’t matter there is an entirely empty shopping center down the street - let’s build another!

Lately, along with the spate of bad manners (and my readers know my opinions on manners - I’ve ranted enough about it here,here, and here for starters) shown by everyone from the media to the clerk at the grocery store, there’s been a good deal of talk around the county - basically “What Happened?”. One day, we’re the little forgotten neighbor to the West, the next we’re just as over-developed and crime-ridden as the rest of Atlanta. So many factors go into making a community, for better or worse. How do city fathers navigate the tangled web of growth without ruining what attracts people to their town in the first place? When do you cross the line between building infrastructure to support residents and schools to the greed of development for the sake of expanding the tax base?

Greed, personified by The Ol’ Grinch himself, used to be a sin. Along with lying, cheating, stealing, killing… you get my drift. Nowadays, everything is acceptable. But think for a minute (just a short, little minute), of the story of The Grinch. Remember his surprise when - after he’d stolen all the toys from Whoville, the honkers and sqonkers and the Roast Beast - he heard the Who’s singing on Christmas morning? That he knew that Christmas (and therefore, ahem life) wasn’t about greed or avarice or envy? Remember, his heart grew three sizes that day. What a lesson….

I’m still waiting for the Grinch’s heart to grow here in DC.

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The Douglas County Sentinel (requires registration) reported yesterday that Tanner Health System broke ground on Thursday for a new 42-bed behavioral health hospital in Villa Rica. The $14.5 million facility will be the first of its kind in the West Georgia region and the first behavioral hospital in over 20 years to be built in the state of Georgia. It will be located off of Highway 61 in Carroll County on Tanner Health System land.

The Douglas County Sentinel (requires registration) is reporting today about the new elementary school on Mason Creek Road, near the interchange of Post Road and Interstate 20, will cost $13,030,976.45. The school will look just like newly built Bill Arp and Chapel Hill Elementary schools, two stories with capacity for 850 students. The property, 113 acres of greenspace, were purchased in June.

Money will come from the publicly approved school bond referendum passed earlier this year. The estimation for an elementary school project was $19,305,000.

The Douglas County Sentinel (requires registration) is reporting today that District 3 Commissioner Mike Mulcare will be hosting a “community meeting” concerning those citizens who were impacted by the noise levels produced by the Echo Project Art and Music Festival a few weeks ago in South Fulton. The meeting is at the Church of Chapel Hill, 7 p.m.

By contributor writer Mike Moore

Suburban sprawl; unchecked and unprepared for growth; strained reservoirs and other precious natural resources in high demand � the list could go on for hours as to why we must plan for the exponential development that is occurring in Georgia in general and Douglas County in particular.

But I do not wish to sound the alarmist bell with this note. To the contrary, as an MBA and licensed builder, I firmly believe in policies that expand the economic base and provide opportunities to all people to maintain or increase their stations in life. What I do not agree with is the unchecked destruction of our history and the unplanned for mess that all too often characterizes growth in places that are not prepared to see it happen.

Politicians love growth � be it residential or commercial in nature. These well- intentioned folks will understandably proclaim how they have produced jobs for their constituents and increased the revenues of local government without raising taxes by expanding the economic base. Developers and business owners like growth because it creates a scarcity (or a demand) for goods and services that retail, industrial and residential construction can then fill. These are all good, worthy and necessary goals in a free market economy.

The trouble occurs when, in the hysteria to grow for all the good reasons, we downplay and/or downright ignore the negative aspects. All too often a community loses what made it a community in the first place because of unchecked and unmanaged growth. Street corners that defined a unique cross section of community (and Americana) become home to mega-chain restaurants and retailers. Trails that once were trod by early settlers and Native Americans become part of a soul-less mega-development. This is often labeled as �progress�, and those who question its merit are cast aside with dispersion when, in fact, this is the homogenizing of our culture.

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