By John Schaffner
editor@reporternewspapers.net

In what was one of the shortest recent meetings, Neighborhood Planning Unit B May 4 approved a special use permit for the International School Buckhead, LLC to operate a pre-school day care center at the Baptist Church at 4100 Roswell Road.

The new day care center would move into 8,400 square feet of space at the church that formerly was occupied by 235 Sarah Smith School kindergarten students. The new school only plans to have 180 students in the space.

The church has a history of housing school operations in its building during weekdays. Originally the same space was occupied by the Atlanta Girls School, before it moved to Northside Drive in Buckhead. The Sarah Smith kindergarten students moved to the Sarah Smith Elementary campus last this year when the second Sarah Smith school opened on Wieuca Road.

The NPU-B Safety Committee and full board also expedited approval of a liquor license for the new Buckhead Theatre to allow it to provide beverage service for its first event, a fundraiser for the March of Dimes, on May 14.

In addition, it approved a liquor license for a new U.S. Café, which is opening in the Lindbergh Plaza retail area and approved change of ownerships on the liquor licenses for The Mansion on Peachtree and Craft restaurant, located in front of The Mansion.

During the meeting Fulton County Assistant District Attorney Bobby Wolf told the board that the Fulton County Comission had approved a community prosecutor for Atlanta Police Zone 2 and he believes that person will be identified and on the job in June.

In conjunction with the new community prosecutor for Zone 2, which was the only police zone that did not have a community prosecutor, Wolf said there will be a Court Watch Program training session set up for Zone 2 sometime this summer.

Wolf, who lives in the Garden Hills neighborhood and has been attending NPU-B meetings every month for years, said he has constantly talked to District Attorney Paul Howard and others about the need for a community prosecutor in Zone 2 every chance he had since he started coming to the NPU meetings a few years ago.

“I think you are going to see the role of the DA’s office and court system and how it impacts our community really to be transformed,” Wolf said. “There is so much more we can do.”