Newspaper Page Text
SUNDAY, JANUARY 13,2013
PUBLISHED DEC. 5, 2012
d e o
Judicial
@
opening
®
is filled
Deal selects Smith
for Superior Court
By Alyssa Laßenzie
alarenzie@forsythnews.com
Philip Smith has been tapped to fill
'Forsyl!l.County‘s third Superior Court
judgeship.
Gov. Nathan Deal
announced the appoint
ment of Smith, who
serves as chief State
Court judge, on Monday
afternoon.
Deal also selected
Leslie Abernathy,
Forsyth’s solicitor gener
al, to fill Smith’s vacan
cy on the State Court
bench in Forsyth.
Both appointments
will take effect upon
swearing in, which has
not been set. :
The Bell-Forsyth
Judicial Circuit, which
is composed solely of
Forsyth County,
R
'
Smith
-
et
A
Abemathy
S T L e T
received the third Superior Court judge
with the passage of Senate Bill 356 dur
ing the 2012 Georgia General
Assembly.
Smith will join sitting Forsyth County
Superior Court Judges Jeffrey Bagley
and David Dickinson.
The 10-year State Court judge said he
“feel[s] at home” in Superior Court,
where he got his start as the county’s
first district attorney when the circuit
was created in 1998.
Smith expects the new judgeship to be
more work, but welcomes the challenge.
“Personally, I consider it to be a
learning opportunity. It’s always a
rewarding line of work any time that
you can learn things every day,” he
said. “I’m just looking forward to
broadening that.”
’ | “.’ ‘“, ; | .‘.
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et T
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We also have a full service
Boarding and Grooming facility!
PUBLISHED OCT. 21, 2012
Courthouse plan OoK'd
Design includes front green space
approved by voters in
November 2011 as part of
an extension of the special
purpose local option sales
tax, or SPLOST VII, which
includes about SIOO mil
lion for the facilities.
The “town green”
design, which was devel
oped by the architectural
firm HOK, would place the
new courthouse across
from the existing one, but
set back off Veterans
Memorial Boulevard to
open up an area in the
front.
Compared to two other
conceptual designs HOK
presented to the project
By Crystal Ledford
cledford@forsythnews.com
Forsyth County commis
sioners on Thursday night
voted 5-0 to approve what
officials have deemed the
“town green” design for
two government facilities
in downtown Cumming.
The concept, which car
ried the recommendation
of the team charged with
shepherding the projects,
features an open-green
space in front of a new
county courthouSe and
near an expanded deten
tion center.
The projects were
Golf battle draws to close
Course litigation has spanned years
the court agreed, it could
have stopped development
of the course on Buford
Dam Road.
The Georgia Appeals
Court ruled in March that
Peck did not have implied
easement rights. That fol
lowed a May 2011 court
decision granting summary
judgment to the course
owners, Jack Manton and
George Bagley Jr.
The 25 other plaintiffs in
the case filed notices of
dismissal shortly after the
Georgia Supreme Court
denied a petition to hear the
appeal in October.
The attorney for the resi-
By Alyssa Laßenzie
alarenzie@forsythnews.com
Lanier Golf Club’s
neighbors have dropped a
lawsuit against its owners
that has spanned more than
five years in court.
The case originated in
2007 when Michael Peck,
who lives adjacent to the
172-acre course, filed suit
against Lanier after the
owners announced plans to
sell the site for develop
ment.
PecK’s suit was based on
the grounds of an implied
covenant when he pur
chased his property. Had
forsy >
team, the layout allows
more room to separate the
tall government buildings
on the square, making city
hall and the county admin
istration building appear
more prominent in relation
to the new courthouse.
“We pulled [the new
courthouse] back to some
extent in order to give
some breathing room to
these buildihgs here to be a
good neighbor, and the
other feature you see right
away is a large green space
in front of the proposed
courthouse,” said Doug
Shaw, an architect with
Wakefield Beasley &
dents, Bob McFarland Sr.,
withdrew from the case as
those he represented left,
and he hired Rafe Banks to
represent him in the after
math.
The 172-acre site
remains a golf course,
though the property was
rezoned by the county com
mission in July 2011 on the
order of a judge.
The rezoning closed out a
lawsuit the golf course
owners filed against the
county after the commis
sion denied their request in
2007 to rezone the site
from agricultural to a mas
ter planned district.
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Dr. David A. Sewell
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] Associate Veterinarians:
e Sridevi Vavilapalli
Brennen Haezebrouck
Andrew Quesada
00,
{ly B 1 oiein B IRGE
.+ Cumming, GA 30040
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770-889-2521 :
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Associates and one of the
presenters Thursday night.
That space was the pri
mary reason commissions
chose the design, said
Todd Levent, who made
the motion. A
“[Town green] really
was the best option
because with those very
tall buildings so close to
each other, downtown
would have had kind of a
caverneffect,” Levent said.
“I think this plan will
really make downtown
look great.”
Proposed at five stories,
t! - new courthouse would
be the tallest-building in
downtown. It would be
across East Maple Street
from the expanded jail.
The front 93.8 acres were
rezoned from agricultural
to a master planned district,
with a conditional use per
mit for a continuing care
retirement center.
The 78.6 acres in the rear
of the site were rezoned
from agricultural to Res 2,
or residential with 1.5 to 2
units per acre.
That rezoning spurred
two suits in August 2011
against Forsyth County and
the golf club.
Resident group Save
Lanier Golf Club dropped
its suit in January.
The only other pending
suit is one filed by Pedro
Pedro Techologias, a cor
poration run by William
Pulford out of his home on
Fairway Lane.