Mold Remediation in John Creek, GA

JOHNS CREEK, Ga. — A new set of townhomes will be constructed near Emory Johns Creek Hospital, intended to house those who work there.

The Toll Brothers project calls for 60, three-story townhomes across a dozen buildings on a 6.74-acre lot, just north of the intersection of Hospital Parkway and Medlock Bridge Road and bound by area shopping centers.

The Johns Creek City Council unanimously approved the plans at its Sept. 30 meeting but requested that the facades and rooflines have variation.

Future residents of the townhomes, ranging from 1,900 to 2,600 square feet, will have access to amenities like a pocket park and more passive space. Developers also plan to create a nature park near the creek at the back of the property.

The site had been zoned for a mixed-used development approved in 2002, which envisioned more than 70 multifamily units above commercial space.

“It was started as a live, work, play community. It's there, except for the live part, right?” said Den Webb, an attorney representing Toll Brothers. “I think our proposal for owner-occupied townhomes is a lot better than what Fulton County initially contemplated when they approved 75 apartments.”

Mayor John Bradberry questioned the $800,000 proposed price point, assuming the townhomes would cost more.

“I don't even know that this … should be my focus, but $7-800,000 for the size [of the] townhome doesn't sound very expensive,” Bradberry said. “To me, it sounds a little less than what I would expect, typically, from Toll Brothers.”

Webb said $800,000 is a lot of money for a townhome and that the chosen market was intentional.

“We'll have price points significantly higher than what we're talking about here, but the target here are the folks at Emory, whether they be doctors, nurses or administrators or people who live in the area, and I think that's the right price point,” he said.

But, Webb reassured Bradberry that the market establishes itself.

As council members individually voiced their support for the project, City Councilman Chris Coughlin emphasized how the project would serve Emory Johns Creek.

“I do think it will allow for some people to work close to home, and I'm really excited about it.” Coughlin said.

In other action, the City Council approved a $6.1 million construction contract for a pedestrian tunnel off Medlock Bridge Road that would connect to Creekside Park, a 21-acre area anchored by the pond behind City and one facet of the city’s Town Center.

The item also includes an additional $618,482 contingency, $255,050 engineering and inspection task order and an owner’s allowance of $400,000 for the wall proposed for the project.

The project is funded by TSPLOST II, or transportation special purpose local option sales tax. Completion is slated for fall 2025.

The City Council will discuss any further potential improvements and costs at a future work session, likely in November.

At the City Council work session, preceding the regular meeting, council members signed off on a $7.8 million construction contract for Fire Station 63, the oldest fire station serving Johns Creek.

The item also includes a $186,800 construction administration contract, a $50,010 material testing contract and a $781,200 contingency. The project is funded through money allocated in the city’s fiscal year 2023, 2024 and 2025 budgets.

Completion is slated for summer 2026.

The contract will go before the City Council for approval at a future regular meeting.

This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Johns Creek|Local Event

Kathy Cioffi, Community Contributor

Sun, Sep 29, 2024 at 12:00 PM

3150 Old Alabama Rd, Johns Creek, GA, 30022

More info here

The second annual Johns Creek Literary Fair will be Sunday, Sept. 29, from noon to 5 p.m. at the Mark Burkhalter Amphitheater at Newtown Park. Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, acclaimed journalist and bestselling author of 11 nonfiction books, will headline the event. Bragg will be in conversation with Brian Panowich, award-winning Georgia-based author of four novels. They will be joined by numerous local, regional and nationally known writers featured throughout the afternoon, which will kick off with lunch with 20 local authors. The JCLF also will feature children’s authors and crafts led by nonprofit arts group volunteers. Rounding out the afternoon, food, wine and other beverages will be available for purchase.

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JOHNS CREEK, Ga. — Author Martha “Marti” Peterson said she had to push for a “real” assignment in the CIA, one on par with her male counterparts.

Speaking to a crowd of more than two dozen at Johns Creek Books Sept. 17, Peterson recalled it was the early ’70s, and she had just lost her husband John while they were on a tour in Laos. She wanted to do what he intended to do before his death — assess and recruit foreign spies who would give the U.S. government secrets from their country.

“I was a piss poor secretary,” Peterson said.

The 79-year-old Wilmington, North Carolina, resident was at the store promoting her autobiography “Widow Spy,” published in 2012. Peterson assured visitors that she ran the book script by the CIA, but that the story had already been out “in a vague way.”

The CIA’s training had been intense. Peterson said it was nine months of learning all the necessary skills, including “sneaky photography” and how to detect whether you were being followed.

After pushing back on a couple of offers, Peterson was given a job in Moscow, becoming one of the first women operations officers assigned there. She went through 44 weeks of Russian.

In November 1975, she landed, and reality hit her, when she noticed the plowed snow by the runway.

“I went from Fort Lauderdale to Moscow, and I tied my belt around my camel hair with a pile lining coat, and thought, ‘Oh, Martha, this is the beginning. What have you done?’” Peterson recalled. “In a moment there, I realized this was a big thing to take on.”

In Moscow, she became the handler to Trigon, a Soviet recruit out of Bogotá, Colombia, whose real name is Aleksandr Ogorodnik. Peterson said he had been aggressive at bringing documents out of the Soviet embassy for the CIA, adding that he would take pictures of them, tuck them in his pants and place them back where they were found.

Trigon’s aptitude for the work landed him in Moscow, what Peterson said was referred to as the “Lion’s Den.” His condition, that he be given the means to commit suicide, had been met.

“I was a young officer. I was 30 years old. I didn’t have a lot of experience, and this horrified me,” Peterson said. “I also realized that it’s like sending someone to war without bullets.”

She was responsible for keeping in contact with Trigon via dead drops. She showed the small crowd the sorts of packages she would leave for him — a limb, a slab of concrete. These would be hollowed out.

During one of the timed exchanges, Peterson was caught by the KGB and taken to Lubyanka, “Stalin’s very favorite prison in the center of Moscow.”

“People say, ‘Were you afraid?’ No, I was angry,” she said. “Something had happened to Trigon, and I knew it.”

Trigon had already been compromised, using his poison pen to kill himself while being forced to write a confession, though Peterson didn’t find that out until years later.

Russian officers grabbed her by the arms and restrained her.

“I don’t know how you would react, but I got angry, and I started kicking people,” Peterson said. “One guy showed me the bruise on his shin, and there is word — it’s a legend that I kicked a man, and he was hospitalized and had no sex for a few days.”

Because of diplomatic immunity, Peterson was released.

She retired from the CIA in 2003.

When a visitor asked about the rest of her career, she said, “No, that remains.”

Business News

JOHNS CREEK, Ga. — Under a proposed binding contract, the Johns Creek Chamber of Commerce would have to work harder to maintain its partnership with the city — the equivalent of a $20,000 check each year.

The nonprofit, acting as a hub for small businesses, needs the money now more than ever because of revenue declines since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Johns Creek Economic Development Director Kim Allonce introduced the new contract at the Sept. 9 City Council work session. It includes more stringent conditions than what had been in place the past three years.

The new contract would require the nonprofit to explain how it met about a dozen performance standards each quarter, standards that were characterized as a “high level.”

One new standard would require its Small Business Resource Center to provide technical assistance, host training and workshops, and disseminate information to a minimum of 10 businesses each quarter.

Another requires data collection on the center, such as the number of business walk-ins, businesses assisted and business programs offered.

While the previous agreement, which expired in June, required quarterly reports and annual performance metric goals, they were more loosely defined.

Noting the organization’s loss of revenue and membership, City Councilman Bob Erramilli raised concerns about the Chamber’s three-member staff having the bandwidth to generate the necessary reports on top of meeting the standards themselves.

Even so, the matter advanced for a vote to a future City Council meeting.

Mayor John Bradberry said chambers across the nations are facing pressure.

“We want to hopefully help make this a better environment for our business community, for the Chamber, for all concerned,” Bradberry said.

City Manager Kimberly Greer told Appen Media the documentation required in the contract is “not intended to be onerous.” She said as Allonce learned more about the Chamber and how it works with the city to support Johns Creek businesses, they agreed the contract would be an opportunity to “set the next chapter of the relationship.”

“We believe it is important to measure the efforts so we can all be clear about the progress that is being made,” Greer said.

Unique relationship

The contract underscores an exception among city and chamber relationships in north Metro Atlanta, which offer financial support without the same level of accountability.

The City of Alpharetta, for example, maintains memberships with the Greater North Fulton Chamber of Commerce, Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce and the Alpharetta Business Association.

Assistant City Administrator James Drinkard said Alpharetta opts for direct financial support, like a $10,000 check to the Alpharetta Chamber of Commerce for its Alpharetta Business Summit.

What the city receives in return is negotiated, Drinkard said, but the benefits typically include a certain number of seats, a vendor table and advertising.

The sister North Fulton city also partners with the Alpharetta Business Association for its Downtown Farmers Market, providing trash collection and traffic control.

Drinkard said terms for sponsorships and partnerships are decided on an annual basis.

While the Johns Creek Chamber website lists the city as a platinum member in its Chairman’s Circle, the new contract doesn’t stipulate the city’s membership. An earlier draft of the new contract did, though, according to open records obtained by Appen Media.

Johns Creek News

The agreement in place the last three years outlined the city’s membership as well, with $10,000 serving as annual membership fees and the other $10,000 going toward the Small Business Resource Center.

The City of Johns Creek’s membership status might look good for the Chamber, but President and CEO Robin Buckley said it benefits both.

“It’s hard for people to support their business community if the city is not technically a member per the new agreement as presented at the work session,” she said.

Tickets without membership

Yet, the nonprofit will be required to provide Johns Creek with at least two complimentary tickets each quarter, and they aren’t cheap. Buckley said out-of-pocket costs for event tickets, like for its annual Golf Classic, can be up to $150.

Not long after the City Council’s discussion of the proposed contract, council members took issue with a separate, but related, item under review — the city’s expenditure policy.

One concern that had been raised was the city manager’s ability to reimburse professional memberships. Bradberry, with a puzzled look, was the first to address the expense, asking Greer whether the city is paying for any of the council members to join the Chamber.

The city is not, she said, however it has paid for entry into Rotary Clubs.

City Councilman Chris Coughlin also wanted to amend the loophole that would allow council members reimbursements for non-travel meals with constituents. The policy had no monetary cap and stipulated that meals could be reimbursed so long as it was on city business.

“You get paid $15k, pay for your own damn lunch,” he said, advocating that all expenses be taken off the table, with an exception for office supplies.

“I kind of view this philosophically, that you are in a volunteer role to a degree, and we should not necessarily be collecting fringe benefits,” Coughlin added.

While the contract doesn’t ensure the city’s membership to the Chamber, the Greater North Fulton Chamber continues to receive membership fees from all six North Fulton cities, including Johns Creek.

But, President and CEO Kali Boatwright said it doesn’t receive “funding” through a contract.

Some of the cities, like Milton, sponsor programs or events if they are in line with their marketing strategy, she said.

Milton Economic Development Manager Anita Jupin said that strategy includes collaborative publications, events, and other regional efforts. Milton is also the only city with a Business Council housed under the Great North Fulton Chamber. Milton has no traditional chamber of commerce.

Like Alpharetta and Milton, the City of Dunwoody also doesn’t have any contracts in place with its area chamber. Instead, Communications Director Jennifer Boettcher said it pays $2,500 a year to be a member of the Perimeter Chamber’s Chairman’s Circle.

Skeleton crew

Buckley echoed the concerns Erramilli raised at the Sept. 9 work session.

“With the specific items that they’re asking for, that’s going to take a lot of documentation,” Buckley said. “Being very specific of what activities we will hold during a year is another issue.” She called attention to the impact of an unforeseen pandemic.

“The documentation and all of that is very concerning, not that we’re not doing it — not that,” Buckley said. “It’s the time it will take. We only have three staff. We had to let one person go because we couldn’t afford them.”

The Johns Creek Chamber’s marketing person, who served a necessary role, was let go in late June.

Buckley, who has been with the Chamber for 12 years, said a four-member staff is a comfortable place, and at its height, the Chamber had five employees.

She added that it has lost about 100 memberships since the pandemic hit. Now, it has close to 350.

The Chamber’s signature events also aren’t raking in as much money as before because there are more individual donations than there are company sponsorships. For example, the Golf Classic in April brought in $5,900. At its peak, Buckley said the fundraiser netted about $22,000.

“It’s really hard right now to get sponsorships, and that’s industry wide,” Buckley said. “People just aren’t putting out that extra money.”

She mentioned Emory Johns Creek recently reevaluated their policy, shifting gears to focus within the healthcare field.

Government funding can make or break an organization like the Johns Creek Chamber of Commerce. If the city pulled the plug on funding, Buckley said it would be “pretty painful.”

But, a new threat of termination looms.

The former agreement didn’t include a termination clause. Neither did a previous iteration of the new contract, according to open records obtained by Appen Media. The contract presented at the Sept. 9 work session does.

While the original draft includes a section on cutting ties, the newest iteration includes more heavy-handed language allowing the city to terminate the agreement “immediately” upon the city determining that the nonprofit is not actively working toward achieving the standards.

A previous draft only stated “any party” could terminate the contract if its terms weren’t upheld.

Creating leverage

The Johns Creek contract calls into question how much power a city can have over an independent nonprofit, like a chamber of commerce.

But, Forsyth County Chamber President and CEO James McCoy said in his 20 years with the organization, the Board of Commissioners has never leveraged its funding.

Because Forsyth County doesn’t have an economic development department, the Forsyth Chamber of Commerce fills that role.

Forsyth County Communications Director Russell Brown said an internal economic development team existed before a restructuring earlier this year, when former Economic Development Director Vivian Vakili resigned.

In their fiscal year 2025 budget, commissioners allocated $480,000 to the Forsyth Chamber of Commerce, which has 11 members with two open sales seats.

“The Chamber has been the entity in the community that has been the champion of getting SPLOST passed and reviewed because of all the economic benefits, as well as just quality of life benefits,” McCoy said.

He said the County Commission has never pulled funding because of that advocacy, despite any lack of enthusiasm from commissioners about special purpose local option sales tax, or more broadly, growth.

Most recently, McCoy argued against higher impact fees for commercial development to fund transportation improvements that the county has proposed. McCoy said the Chamber prefers a lower fee schedule.

Impact fees are assessed on new construction to compensate local governments for the wear and tear on its services, like more traffic and larger public safety coverage.

“Those impact fees would have a very serious negative impact on our ability to get more commercial growth,” McCoy said.

He told Appen Media that county commissioners thanked him for speaking up and for sharing data. McCoy emphasized that a lot of the Chamber’s work is sharing facts and data with commissioners.

He said there’s a positive benefit to a formalized relationship between a chamber, specifically outcome-driven ones like his, and a public entity.

“By some, the perception was that [metrics were] sort of like a strong arm,” he said. “But, what we found was, as we shared it, it helps tell the story of some really incredible things that were going on that, to be candid, weren’t being paid much attention to previously.”

Johns Creek News