I recently visited Commisioner Boyer’s website where she boasts of being a “crusader”, “fiscal conservative” and “one who seeks to get government out of the way of the consumer, the businessman, the entrepreneur.” Good enough. From those statements it would seem reasonable for her to take up the cause to save money by getting out of the way of residents who want to conserve the beauty of the green space of Henderson Park. Problem solved.

Hold on, residents weren’t in that list, just businessmen and entrepreneurs. Dang.

Maybe I should go back and read some more…

Ok, I’m back. That was refreshing! Further reading of her website states “Commissioner Boyer believes county government should be run like a business.” Ok, crap. Well, that’s certainly one approach. But let’s take it at face value.

If Dekalb County is a “business”, then who are the customers? The residents must be the customers, right? If Dekalb County is the business and the residents are customers, should there not be accountability? When hundreds of people petition her office and beg to be heard, should they not be, what’s the word here…acknowledged?

Ignoring customers is just bad business. Where, exactly, is Donald Trump when we need him?

So if businessmen are Commissioner Boyer’s main interest, are there businesses that are vying for the rights to lay concrete over the wishes of Tucker residents? Does Elaine Boyer see her role as one to make it easier for businesses to make money from the master plan? Has the reworking of the Henderson Park master plan been developed to benefit the businessmen and the entrepreneur only? It certainly seems to be the case.

Most sarcasm aside, I do want to point out that I am particularly peeved because I attended several meetings with Dekalb County (along with dozens, if not hundreds, of other residents) where we got to vote, make changes, prioritize projects and otherwise be led to believe that our opinions, and our votes, actually mattered. To now be told that these meetings and our input was “conceptual” in nature is just insulting.

It should be abundantly clear that Tucker residents love their community and wish for it to grow responsibly. And the last time I checked, the “customer is always right.” If Commissioner Boyer wants to run a business here, then It’s time for her to start listening and honor her commitment to the residents of Tucker, and not just a few select businesses.

Smoke Rise Park is a lovely 10-acre park on Hugh Howell Road. It contains no concrete or asphalt. Instead, it consists of winding, mulched trails, wooden bridges/boardwalks, and wooden benches and trash receptacles.

Mason Mill Park is a 111-acre park on McConnell Drive in Decatur. Recent master plan construction installed what looks like massive amounts of asphalt and concrete, sod, and lollipop trees.

Which is the model for Henderson Park?

Both Henderson Park and Smoke Rise Park are in Commissioner Elaine Boyer’s district, but only one is in her neighborhood. Guess which?

SMOKE RISE PARK

In the January 2008 issue of Smoke Signal, Commissioner Elaine Boyer
announced funding for what would become Smoke Rise Park: “thanks to more than $700,000 I was able to obtain for the Smoke Rise community for two green space acquisitions and the development of the Silver Hill Loop trail to better connect the community. The passive parks and the pathways should become the focal point of our community… The funds are being appropriated from the county park bond referendum… green space along Hugh Howell Road (about 10 acres)… Tentative plans are for the Hugh Howell green space to include mulched trails, bridges, benches and lighting… I hope to see each completed sometime in 2008 so we can all spend more time outdoors in out own community without having to cross the highway to visit Stone Mountain Park.”
(Smoke Signal, Volume 40, Issue 10, January, 2008, page 7, Commissioner’s Corner, “A Good Way to Start the Year- Smoke Rise Will Get New Trails, And New Green Space,” http://www.smokerise.org/downloads/SmokeSignal0108.pdf)

SMOKE RISE PARK PHOTOS

Entrance to Smoke Rise Park on Hugh Howell

Wooden bridge at Smoke Rise Park

Wooden benches and trash receptacle at Smoke Rise Park

Mulched Paths and Wooden Bridges at Smoke Rise Park

MASON MILL PARK

Changes at Mason Mill Park are the result of master planning by the Parks department. Like the master plan for Henderson Park, the process involves a series of public input meetings.

According to the public meeting minutes, which are posted on the Parks department’s web site (http://www.co.dekalb.ga.us/parks/pr-mason-mill-park.html), the public said it wanted less parking not more.

It also said it wanted to protect existing trees and preserve the natural quality of the park, “i.e., not highly developed (http://www.co.dekalb.ga.us/parks/pdf/MEETINGMINUTES1stPublicMeeting.pdf).

Playground at Mason Mill Park

Relocated Community Garden at Mason Mill Park (mostly concrete?)

Concrete picnic areas at Mason Mill Park

Mason Mill Park Parking

Asphalt parking lot at Mason Mill Park

And still more parking at Mason Mill Park

More parking space at Mason Mill Park

WHICH MODEL FOR HENDERSON PARK?

The price tag for the current phase of Henderson Park master plan construction is $380K, which Boyer says “should be considered as the ground work for the entire project and the other elements of the project will have to happen in the future once additional funding is available”
(see http://www.hendersonparkgarden.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Boyer-response-040411.pdf).

The current phase will deliver a hard-surface driveway, parking lot, and trails as well as “a picnic shelter, picnic tables, grills, and receptacles, etc.”

The price tag includes the laying of sod in the playground area, but no playground equipment. Also unfunded for this phase are a restroom, overlook, expanded soccer parking, sidewalk, and soft-surface trails. It is unknown when funds will become available for future phases.

Which model do we want for our park – the preserved natural beauty of Smoke Rise Park or the concrete and asphalt of Mason Mill Park?

- Jack

For over a year a few of us have been trying to get the land approved for a community garden. We were concerned at first because of the need of a “master plan” from the County. But one year later, the master plan not only includes the land for the community garden, it includes some parking, a pavilion, playgrounds, walking trails and more. And these ideas came from citizens and it looks well on the path to breaking ground.

Hopefully the next steps will go as well as these initial ones and we will be tilling the ground in a few weeks.

We should know something about the official granting of the park space in the next few weeks but in the meantime we will be planting some seeds and starting to accumulate supplies.

There are some 150+ gardens in the Atlanta area but none are currently in Tucker. So we will be the first. With any luck, we will be able to break ground for a spring planting and start building this community project.

Here is a picture of the proposed site:

Here is a picture of the lake and waterfall that are a part of Henderson Park:

Although it can look a bit like a turnip green, poke salad can get huge. Here are a couple of recent pictures. The first one is a rather small sprout. The bigger one is my dog’s favorite place to hang out – under the giant poke salad canopy. The big problems arise once the berries get ripe and the dogs get in it and look like they’re wearing war paint.

Now, here’s how big and unwieldy the poke salad gets. I quit fighting most of it.

Bruce sporting the Braveheart look with his poke salad war paint.

At any rate, I did manage to dig a little plot for some potatoes. And I put a few peppers and a single pumpkin in my flower garden. And, aside from a couple of emergency waterings when we were desert dry in Atlanta, I didn’t do anything to the potato plants. And sometimes that’s best.

I was out in the yard with the dogs yesterday and noticed a potato on top of the ground. And then I saw several of them. Apparently they were done. I dug around and grabbed a couple of pounds and cooked them for breakfast. It doesn’t get more fresh than that.

From the looks of it, I’m going to get about 30-40 pounds of potatoes from a small plot no bigger than 10 square feet. My pepper plants are over 3′ tall and have more peppers than I can pick and my lone pumpkin is just starting to thrive. Maybe next year I’ll have more time for a vegetable garden and Molly can help me with the planting.

My broccoli, kale and spinach seeds will be here soon and I look forward to digging up the poke salad and planting my fall garden.

So I looked it up. The Latin name for American Pennyroyal is “Hedeoma pulegioides”. Pulegioides looked a lot like the Spanish word for flea – “pulga”. Upon further research I found that first century herbalists wrote of Pennyroyal’s action to repel fleas. They probably knew a little something about how plants worked, so I decided to give it a shot.

Due to its toxicity, I had a difficult time finding pennyroyal for sale. But I was lucky enough to find a patch of pennyroyal growing in a field behind my house (in San Francisco) so I helped myself to a nice-sized cutting.

At the time, I kept my two dogs in a fenced dog run in the back yard while I was at work. So I transplanted my newly discovered Pennyroyal along the edge of the dog’s fence. Within a month, the dogs didn’t seem to need a their regular dose of the chemical flea treatment, so I skipped it. I went another two years without having to give doses of the flea-killing compound.

When I moved to Atlanta, I brought my pennyroyal with me (as well as my echinacea and a few other prized plants). But I was sorely disappointed when I moved into a new house and my fresh pennyroyal plantings didn’t seem to keep away the fleas. I had to start using the chemical stuff again as the dogs were getting attacked. Apparently the plants have to be established and it takes time to drive the fleas away (it doesn’t actually kill the fleas, it just makes them want to leave.)

I made several cuttings last fall that over-wintered well and really took off this spring. Now I have several batches of pennyroyal growing in the yard, most notably in an area where my dogs like to hang out in the shade. There have been no signs of fleas. And I haven’t given my dogs chemical flea treatment in months and my house and yard remain flea-free.