Newspaper Page Text
LOCAL
THURSDAY, MAY 10 - 16, 2018 • Page 11
DeKalb County watershed employees help customers enter into the dispute resolution program during a water billing and meter update meeting. File photo.
WATERSHED
Continued From Page 1A
The potentially defective
meters may have contributed
to inaccurate water bills over
the years, Thurmond said.
At the time, DeKalb
County officials said the meter
replacement program would
begin at the end of 2017.
Through an open records
request, The Champion asked
to obtain documents regarding
the water replacement program
and its progress.
Two weeks after the
request, county officials
confirmed that there were “no
responsive documents” related
to the program—because the
program had not started.
Almost a year after
Thurmond’s meeting at
Rehoboth Church the “large
scale” replacement program
was still not underway.
Reggie Wells, DeKalb
County Watershed
Management interim director,
said county workers replace
defective meters on a day-to-
day basis as customers call in
with issues.
Wells said the county is
dedicated to fixing water
billing and water meter issues
that have plagued the county.
“I would just like to ask if
our customer base would give
us a fair opportunity to show
them we can correct these
issues,” Wells said. “Were not
saying trust us now. Just let us
earn their confidence and trust
over time.”
The meter replacement
program will replace
approximately 55 percent of
the county’s 184,000 residential
water meters.
According to the county,
approximately 62,000 meters
are outside of their life span
and 40,000 more have potential
manufacturer defaults.
For years, DeKalb County
residents have voiced concerns
over “outrageously” high water
bills. In a water billing update
in 2017, Thurmond said some
of the causes for high water
bills were meters not being
properly installed, defective
Iperl meters and understaffed
meter readers.
County officials said they
are currently in the process of
updating the county’s water
meter and billing system.
Wells said the current
system is outdated.
“We’re using a billing
system that was installed 15
years ago. At the time, it was
one of the leading products,
but technology has a certain
life span,” Wells said. “We’ve
outgrown our system and we
need to get a new system.”
The county’s current
system cannot alert workers
if a meter is close to the end
of its life cycle, which could
allow workers to preemptively
replace potentially defective
meters.
“There’s no system trigger.
You would just have to do what
we currently do which is pay
attention to install dates,” Wells
said.
County officials said a new
system should go live in March
of2019.
PROTEST
Continued From Page 1A
“The refusal of other locations to
take on this monument shows how
successful educational outreach has been
in spreading the true story of this White
supremacist monument,” Davis said.
On Jan. 23, DeKalb County
commissioners voted to remove the
Confederate monument from its current
location.
According to state law OCCG 50-
3-1 (b) (1), it is unlawful to “mutilate,
deface, defile, or abuse contemptuously”
or for local governments to “remove or
conceal from display.. .for the purpose of
preventing the visible display.”
Commissioners asked the public for
input on where the monument could be
relocated but only received two formal
suggestions.
In a press release, commissioners Jeff
Rader and Kathie Gannon suggested
moving the monument to a less prominent
place and provide a historical explanation
to give the monument context.
The commissioners also suggested
installing two new monuments. One
monument would acknowledge the era
of racial terror lynching and the other
“would reflect the hopes of DeKalb
citizens today toward race.”
A portion of the suggested explanation
and contextualization for the Confederate
monument reads, “This monument was
placed at the south entry of the DeKalb
County Courthouse in 1908 to honor
Confederate soldiers. Memorials of this
kind were common throughout the South
at that time. The memorialization of the
Confederacy coincided with and helped
reinforce a broad social and political
movement that effectively banned African
Americans from political life and relegated
them to second class citizenship in social
and cultural life.”
Hate Free Decatur co-founder Sara
Patenaude said the monument must
be removed from the Decatur square
completely.
“The location of the monument on
the courthouse square is just as much an
expression of White supremacy as the
words engraved on it,” Patenaude said.
Man
sentenced
to life for
deadly home
invasion
BY CARLA PARKER
carla@dekalbchamp.com
A 26-year-old man will
spend the rest of his life in
prison for committing a
deadly home invasion.
Desean Subar was
sentenced May 2 by DeKalb
County Superior Court Judge
Asha Jackson to life in prison
without parole, plus 20 years
in connection with a deadly
home invasion in a Decatur
apartment complex. A jury
found Subar guilty on charges
of murder, felony murder,
home invasion, armed
robbery and weapons offenses
for the shooting death of
21-year-old Justin Bryant,
according to the DeKalb
County District Attorney’s
Office.
According to the DA’s
office, Bryant was gunned
down in his Cedar Brook
Drive apartment on Jan. 29,
2016. Subar and another
armed man stormed into
Bryant’s apartment with
guns drawn and demanded
cellphones, electronics and
money from Bryant and two
friends who were visiting and
then forced them into the
master bedroom closet.
When the suspects made
their way to an adjacent
room, Bryant left the closet
and confronted the gunmen
to prevent them from stealing
his brother’s property,
according to the DA’s office.
After a brief struggle Bryant
was shot in the chest, then
the gunmen fled the scene.
Bryant’s friends called 9-1-
1 and he was later taken to
the hospital but died during
surgery.
The DA’s office said
during the investigation,
DeKalb County police officers
recovered Subar s cellphone,
which was left behind at the
apartment during the crime.
Tire phone had Subar’s name,
email address and a number
of selfies—leading to his
identification.
Subar was arrested months
later following an hours-long
standoff in Stone Mountain
with a DeKalb Police
Department SWAT team. The
second suspect has not been
identified.