The City of Brookhaven Public Works Department has a busy start to their day assessing damage to the area caused by the rains and winds yesterday and overnight.

At 1482 Dresden Drive, a crew showed up to assess the work they need to perform - as they will cut back the large tree that fell there, narrowly missing a home by a few feet.

The crew will cut back the tree 12 feet and clear the right of way later today.

One minor technical difficulty...we have to buy it first.
Located at 4158 Peachtree Rd., Brookhaven Park is a 21.15 acre facility with a multi-use field, basketball court, multi-use court, playground, picnic area and trails.

Some citizens are suggesting all of Brookhaven Park becoming an official dog park. Others feel as though the park should be split up equitably between the bipeds and quadrupeds. Either way you slice it though, the notion has legs...and support of the City of Brookhaven Mayor, J. Max Davis.

During the City of Brookhaven's First Town Hall Meeting on January 24th, a citizen suggested that Brookhaven Park become a dog park. Mayor J. Max Davis responded to the citizen, "We've been hearing that alot. I even heard that during the campaign. That is obviously a possibility of sectioning off a portion of that park and making it a dog park...we've been hearing that from alot of people. I think there is enough property there to handle something like that. It is a de facto park right now, but some people go out there and get cited because one day somebody calls the code enforcement or police about dogs without leashes. We want to have a place in essence the center of the city so we want folks to be able to come to a central location, bring their dogs...and maybe we'll have little sections for small dogs and big dogs, agressive dogs [mayor and crowd laughing] sweet dogs...labs and pit bulls...so they'll stay apart." 
(TheBrookhavenPost.com has Exclusive Video Coverage here - Time Mark 1:04:19)

"One would think that if the City of Atlanta can find 3 acres inside Piedmont Park, surely the City of Brookhaven can allocate a portion of a nearly 25 acre park that we are already kinda using part of as a dog park anyway," says a Brookhaven resident whom The Brookhaven Post chatted with at Brookhaven Park. 

One small detail still has to be settled...The City of Brookhaven has to purchase the parks from Dekalb County. Every indicator suggests that the parks will be purchased by the city in Fall 2013 and improvements won't likely happen until the following year - 2014. The parks will be purchased from the county at $100.00 per acre and in total there are 270+ acres in 11 parks in Brookhaven...so first things first, but we need to begin to plan - as citizens - what our parks will look like once the City owns them.

- The Post

It didn't take long for the citizens of the City of Brookhaven to figure out how convenient the SeeClickFix program is to use to report issues to the Public Works Department.
Issues such as:

• Potholes
• Irregular Pavement
• Sidewalk Damage
• Road Kill
• Traffic Signal Outage
• Sign Damage
• Sink Holes
• Drainage Problems
• .....and the list goes on and on.

The Brookhaven Post was the first to report on SeeClickFix as we learned about it during a work session in December we were asked to cover. (Video Here) For those of you who don't know what SeeClickFix is, just go here.  For those of you who do, get busy reporting. 

One big reason the City of Brookhaven became reality, was a promise of better roads and enhanced "customer service". Already Brookhaven residents have seen the results of the new system and have started to see the benefits of taking 2 minutes to report an issue. On January 18th, The Brookhaven Post covered the first road repair by City of Brookhaven Public Works Department in our City's history. (Coverage Here) This was a result of utilizing the system. Other residents are reporting the City of Brookhaven trucks popping up all over the city, responding to the reported problems. FYI: Public Works maintains the streets, traffic signals, signs, drainage structures and right-of-way in the City of Brookhaven.

Remember, it only takes a minute to report an issue, (we have found the FREE app makes it even easier) the Public Works Department will respond within 24 hours with a confirmation your issue was received, and hopefully the next time you prepare to swerve to miss that same pothole you have been avoiding for months, perhaps you will be pleasantly surprised and it will be repaired.

In the event you're just wanting to reach out and chat "live":

Contacts:
Director - Richard Meehan - 404-637-0540
Administrator - Jada Drysdale - 404-637-0540
jada.drysdale@brookhavenga.gov

As part of the Kroger project in Cherokee Plaza, Brusters and the Post Office are now - almost as we speak - "going...going...gone."

In a statement from Glynn Jenkins, Director of Communications and Public Relations for the Kroger Company (Atlanta Divison), the project is expected to be completed in December 2013.
“Kroger has and continues to remodel stores to suit the unique needs of our customers. With Brookhaven’s growing population of busy professionals, we want to renovate this location so that we deliver the products, amenities and lower prices our customers appreciate. The expansion will add 25,000 square feet making the store 81,700 sf. The multimillion dollar investment will include a new store front, new décor, upscale elements in service department and a walk-up pharmacy window.

Kroger will demolish Bruster’s next month to make way for additional parking and no other tenant will occupy the space. The store expansion has a tentative completion date in December 2013.”

Glynn Jenkins
Director, Communications and Public Relations
The Kroger Co. (Atlanta Division)

This summer, the citizens of Brookhaven will need to find another source of cool treats and hotdogs.

- The Brookhaven Post

The construction of the new Campus Center at Oglethorpe University is definitely in full swing. On a crisp Saturday morning, The Post found that the cold temperatures did not curtail the progress of the Juneau Construction crews and contractors.

The new Campus Center (to be named at a later time) was designed by Collins Cooper Carusi Architects. This addition to the campus will include 51,500 sq. ft. of student commons, bookstore, student services, dining/food services, a coffee shop, and campus life administrative offices. It will function as the “living room of campus” and the hub for Oglethorpe’s strong experiential learning programs. The new building represents a 52% increase in student-used spaces. (Take a peek at renderings inside the Campus Center here.)

Oglethorpe has created a fantastic website that features the progress around the campus, including but not limited to, the new Campus Center, at progress.oglethorpe.edu.

Oglethorpe's Lupton Hall will host several City of Brookhaven City Council meetings in February and March - schedule here: http://www.thebrookhavenpost.com/upcoming-meetings.html

Photos: The Brookhaven Post 1.19.2013

More about Oglethorpe University from Wikipeadia 

Oglethorpe University was chartered in 1835 in Midway, just south of the city of Milledgeville, then the state capital. The school was built and, at that time, governed by the Presbyterian Church, making it one of the South's earliest denominational institutions. The American Civil War led to the school's closing from 1862 to 1866.

The college followed the relocation of the capital to Atlanta. In 1870, it began holding classes at the present site of Atlanta City Hall. Plagued by financial difficulties, the school closed its doors two years later.

Oglethorpe College was re-chartered as a non-denominational institution in 1913. In 1915 the cornerstone to the new campus was laid at its present location on Peachtree Road in Brookhaven. The person behind rebuilding Oglethorpe was Dr. Thornwell Jacobs, whose grandfather, Professor Ferdinand Jacobs, had served on the faculty of Old Oglethorpe. Jacobs would serve as president for nearly three decades.

In the early 1940s Oglethorpe University had a medical school. Under the direction of Dr. John Bernard, the university was given several elephants for research, who had been poisoned by the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus. After the students had finished dissecting the animals they were buried under what is known today as the Philip Weltner Library.

Oglethorpe University became Oglethorpe College in 1965, and reclaimed the designation "university" several years later. Many of Oglethorpe's campus buildings were built in a Gothic revival architecture style. This area of the 100-acre (0.40 km2) campus is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.