Editor’s Notes
John F. Schaffner

Until the past six months or so, I had lived in Roswell for about 25 years and I don’t ever recall having to boil water for personal use—drinking, brushing my teeth, etc.—while I lived in Roswell.

Over the weekend of Oct. 13-14, the apartment complex, where I am temporarily living, on Peachtree-Dunwoody Road in Sandy Springs, and a large portion of northeast Sandy Springs was under a boil water advisory because of yet another rupture of a main water line that is the responsibility of the city of Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management.

How many times has that happened this year in Sandy Springs? Three? Four? Six?

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize we were under a boil water advisory until Sunday afternoon, at least 24 hours after it was issued. So, I guess I am lucky I am still here and not sick in a hospital.

As for learning when the advisory was lifted on Monday morning, I found out that information first on the website of the city of Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management. The Sandy Springs city website didn’t have the message until later….I suppose when someone came to work on their regular Monday work schedule.

Why not two dog parks?

I recently was shopping at Trader Joe’s and started talking to one of the women who works there. When she found out I worked for the newspaper, she unloaded her frustration about the city not locating a dog park at Ridgeview Park, near where she lives in southeast Sandy Springs.

She not only doesn’t like the new proposed location at Morgan Falls, but is worried it will take a long time to master plan the park there and then build the dog park, which will require a tap for running water there as well—something already in place at Ridgeview Park.

She feels Ridgeview is out because one popular developer doesn’t want it there.

At the end of our conversation, her question was: Why not have two dog parks, one on the north and one on the south? That is an interesting question. Why not, indeed?

Why not save a nice old tree?

I am not what anyone would ever call a tree-hugger. It is not that I don’t like trees. I love trees. I love the canopy and the shade they provide, and a nesting place for birds. It is just that I don’t get overly emotional about losing a tree here or there.

(For instance, in the cold of winter, I love to have a good stash of firewood to burn, and I don’t much worry about where it came from. Furthermore, without the demise of a few trees, you would not be reading this column in this newspaper, and I would be jobless.)

However, sometimes there are trees that just look like they have earned the right to stay around and live out their natural years of good health.

I have seen the grand tree on Abernathy Road that Elizabeth Wright wrote about in the Oct. 5 edition of the Sandy Springs Reporter. It seems to me to be one of those trees that has earned the right to stay around for a while longer.

There does seem to be enough room in the new right-of-ways to curve the new, wider Abernathy Road a bit to avoid having to tear down that stately tree. And, that curve might just slow the traffic a little in the area.

But, having dealt with the Georgia Department of Transportation over many years, I know the DOT does not care about trees. It cares about moving traffic from point A to point B as efficiently and quickly as possible. And, my friends, that means straight lines, no curves.

It is puzzling to me, though, that Elizabeth Wright is told by the DOT the tree is coming down, while Nina Cramer, of Trees Sandy Springs, apparently hears from the city of Sandy Springs that the tree will be saved.

Who is in charge of this road project and the trees alongside the road, anyway?