Westside Communities Alliance

A partnership between Atlanta's westside communities and institutions of higher education.

Archives for March 2014

Update from NPU-D

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NPU-D is located in Northwest Atlanta, encompassing the neighborhoods of Berkeley Park, Blandtown, Underwood Hills, Hills Park, Bolton, Riverside, and Whittier Mill Village. Over the last few months, WCA Activities Coordinator Carly Queen has been attending these meeting to take notes and report on the proceedings. Due to the winter weather in January the NPU-D meeting was postponed. Due to pressing matters in City Council, the meeting was rescheduled to February 11, which is normally the NPU-D Executive Committee Meeting. This meeting was announced, but at the meeting a concerned citizen expressed that the meeting was not properly advertised. The meeting and voting took place regardless of this concern. At the February 25 meeting a resolution was proposed to endorse actions taken at the February 11 meeting in response to the concern of improper advertisement, which was possibly in violation of the open meetings act. The concerned citizen proposed voting on each matter from the February 11 meeting again individually at the March meeting, so this was the process for endorsing the past actions. At the March 25 meeting all actions previously taken at the February 11 meeting were again approved. Other than resolving this controversy, the last few NPU-D meetings have served to disseminate information and allow NPU members to vote on a variety of important matters, listed below.

NPU D Minutes February 11

NPU D Minutes February 25

TopGolf Driving Range with Restaurant and Bar planned for a currently vacant lot off of Ellsworth Industrial Boulevard Top Golf

Riverwalk Atlanta is doing a feasibility study for a linear park along the Chattahoochee River, including the old incinerator site Riverwalk

Not in NPU-D, but here is some information on the Collier Village Rezoning Collier Village Redevelopment

FACTS Academy Charter School has been proposed for a site on Marietta Blvd, which will focus on fine arts, chess, and technology education FACTS

Capital Improvements Program and Community Work Program 2015-2019 CIP and CWP 2015 to 2019

Please direct any questions to: carlyqueen@gatech.edu

 

 

 

Summer Camp Season is Coming!

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Kids w Trolley

Georgia Tech offers a multitude of summer camps for students of all ages – from elementary school to high school. In this packet (GT_SummerCamps), you will find the various offerings through different campus departments.

  • Campus Recreation Center
  • Georgia Tech Office of the Arts
  • Athletic Camps
  • CEISMC (Center for Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing)
  • ICE (Institute for Computing Education)
  • AE/Orbit Education

Girls w DinoBuilding Robots
CEISMC and ICE both offer financial aid for students with economic need. Please see each group’s guidelines for qualifications.

https://www.ceismc.gatech.edu/studentprograms/faqs

http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt/2271

Tour of Proctor Creek Watershed

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On Saturday, March 22, Park Pride hosted a Tour of the Proctor Creek Watershed in collaboration with the Atlanta Department of Watershed Management, the Trust for Public Land, the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance and more organizations doing parks and water-related work in the watershed.

The Gulch

The tour began here, in the downtown area known as “The Gulch”, which is part of the headwaters of Proctor Creek. This parking lot, which currently produces vast amounts of storm-water runoff, is targeted for redevelopment as a Multi-Modal Passenger Terminal (MMPT).

Fire Station #16

The bus tour continued, passing by Mims Park and Boone Boulevard before stopping at our next destination, Fire Station #16, shown above. This is a site of interest because of the rain garden, shown right. The lack of upkeep since the garden was first planted was used to highlight some of the challenges of maintaining green infrastructure in communities with limited resources.

North Ave CSO

The next stop on our tour was the North Avenue Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Facility, shown above. During rain events this facility is used to treat sewer overflow before releasing the treated wastewater into Proctor Creek, at the location shown below.

Proctor Creek CSO Release Site

Some evidence of the creek bank degradation can be seen, where powerful water erodes the bank after being channeled through concrete tunnels and artificial creek beds.

Emerald Corridor Demo Site

The photo above shows the future site of the Emerald Corridor Demonstration project, which will remove invasive species and trash from this site, adding native wetlands vegetation to help slow and clean the waters of Proctor Creek.

Bellwood Quarry

One of the last stops on our tour was the former Bellwood Quarry in northwest Atlanta, which will be transformed into the Westside Reservoir Park as part of the BeltLine redevelopment project. Once filled, this site will hold up to a 30 day supply of water for the city of Atlanta.

View the handouts that we received on this tour here: Proctor Creek Tour Materials

Also check out our Water and Environment page for a list of local resources relating to the Proctor Creek Watershed.

Georgia STAND UP gives information on Healthcare Marketplace and Healthcare Action

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At the Georgia STAND UP Meeting on March 21st, more than 30 people were able to sit and talk to a healthcare navigator and enroll in insurance coverage through the marketplace.

Healthcare

Linda Perrin spoke and answered questions about affordable health care and the marketplace. Afterwards, attendees brainstormed an action plan on how to bring expanded insurance per SB990 that puts healthcare expansion decisions in the hands of the governor and legislation. Here is more information: Healthcare_Mar2014

From STAND UP: “As of mid-March, 5 million people have signed up for insurance through the new healthcare law and the Obama administration hopes to sign up another million before the March 31st deadline next week. According to the AJC only 13% of eligible Georgians have enrolled in a plan through the Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA). If you still need to sign up for healthcare or if you know someone who does, visit https://www.healthcare.gov/. You can also call the Health Insurance Marketplace Call Center at 1-800-318-2596 (TTY – 1-855-889-4325). For information in Spanish visit www.CuidadoDeSalud.gov.“