Author: On Common Ground News

Keep Conyers-Rockdale Beautiful (KCRB) is accepting registration for the Great American Cleanup (GAC) , which will be held on Saturday, April 28, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m., at Pine Log Park Pavilion, 1500 Highway 138, Conyers. The deadline to register is Friday, April 20. The half-day event, which KCRB hosts in partnership with the City of Conyers and Rockdale County, encourages citizens to pick up garbage, tires and other debris around the community, and teaches youth about the importance of litter prevention and recycling. This year, the GAC event will also involve the efforts of Rockdale County officials, department directors…

The Nancy Guinn Memorial Library in Conyers now has an official book chronicling the history of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority.  The AKAs’ Chi Tau Omega Chapter, which serves Rockdale and Newton counties, recently donated a copy of “Priceless Pearls – Dimensions of Sisterhood and Service” to the Nancy Guinn Library. Chapter President Joy Jackson Guilford was joined by some of the sorority’s members in making the book presentation to the library’s Assistant Director, Mary Jean Harrison, on March 30 as Women’s History Month came to a close.  The sorority’s book is being house in the Law Library and Genealogy…

State Sen. Emanuel Jones (D – Decatur), along with The Martin Luther King, Jr. Advisory Council, will host a Bell Ringing Ceremony to commemorate the life and service of Martin Luther King, Jr. The ceremony, which will be held on the 50thanniversary of the assassination of King, will take place on Wednesday, April 4, noon to 2 p.m., on top of Stone Mountain. DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond will serve as the event’s guest speaker. “It is an honor to commemorate the life of Dr. King here in particular,” said Jones. “Today, by ringing this bell, we mark another inspiring moment for…

DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond will provide a consent decree update at the Tuesday, April 10, Board of Commissioners meeting. This is the second public update on the progress toward fulfilling the requirements of the consent decree. The meeting begins at 9 a.m., at the Maloof Auditorium, 1300 Commerce Drive, Decatur. In December 2011, DeKalb County reached a Clean Water Act settlement in the form of a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. The 8½-year consent decree calls for reducing sanitary sewer overflows through significant levels of sanitary sewer system inspection, assessment,…

By Travis Hudgons  Several hundred people gathered March 27 at the Beacon Municipal Courtyard in downtown Decatur for a candlelight vigil honoring 14-year-old Shykia Ward-Reese. According to reports, Shykia was stabbed to death along with her mother’s boyfriend, 35-year-old Manuel De Jesus Franco, by her uncle 36-year-old Royce Alex Stewart on March 25 at the Trinity Walk Apartments in downtown Decatur. The vigil, organized by the Beacon Hill NAACP, was an opportunity for the community to come together to grieve and show its support to Shykia’s family. “She had a smile that could light up a room,” said Jana Johnson-Davis.…

By Valerie J. Morgan A week after a cyber attack shut down several of the city of Atlanta’s services, city officials announced that the ATL311 website has resumed accepting online service requests. City officials said the web site was disabled out of an abundance of caution on March 22 while the City worked to restore the systems shut down by hackers. The ransomware attack paralyzed Municipal Courts, preventing them from processing ticket payments, and forced officials to reschedule court appearances, halt new water service requests and suspend applications for employment with the city until further notice. As of On Common…

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) is warning Medicare recipients to beware of con artists soliciting information by telephone. Medicare cards are undergoing a change to make them more secure, however,  scammers are taking advantage of confusion during the launch. How the Scam Works: You receive a call from a person claiming to work with Medicare. They are allegedly calling about the new Medicare card that began being mailed this spring. The cards will be more secure because they use a “Medicare Beneficiary Identifier,” instead of a Social Security number. The scammer claims that there’s a problem with your card. The…

In remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination 50 years ago, bells will toll 39 times around the world on April 4. The toll will occur at 7:01 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and 6:01 Central Time in Tennessee, where King was killed. The surviving children of Dr. King and Mrs. Coretta Scott King will be joined by members of the King family to toll a bell and lay a wreath on the crypts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mrs. Coretta Scott King on the campus of The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change…

Crime Watch Daily with Chris Hansen, a nationally-syndicated crime show, recently profiled three DeKalb County cold cases: one involving a missing Lithonia woman and two separate murders in Stone Mountain. The first case profiled the disappearance of 35-year-old Shawndell McLeod, who went missing in 2011 as she left for work. DeKalb detectives suspect foul play and have a person of interest, but need strong evidence to make an arrest. Tameika Taylor, 27, and Jennifer Clemmings, 32, were both victims of very violent assaults, weeks apart from each other in December of 2002 and January of 2003. No arrests have been…

Stonecrest City Councilmember Rob Turner and his wife, DeKalb School Board member Vickie B. Turner, will host a candidates’ political forum at their upcoming DeKalb Cultural Exchange (DCE) community breakfast. The forum will be held on April 7, 8:30 a.m., at Greater Traveler’s Rest House of Hope Church, 4650 Flat Shoals Parkway, Decatur. The monthly meeting, usually held on the second Saturday, was moved up one week to allow community support of the DeKalb NAACP’s Unity Breakfast, which will be held on April 14, 8:30 a.m., at Greenforest Baptist Church Early Learning Center, 3250 Rainbow Drive, Decatur. Mary-Pat Hector, a…