Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 9:02 AM
News, Opinion, Politics
By Stephanie Ramage

THERE’S ONE COUNCILMAN WHO’S LOST THE DEAD VOTE

The Atlanta City Council voted Monday against allowing a property owner to dig up bodies interred at an African-American cemetery in Buckhead and move them elsewhere.

The vote was almost unanimous, 11 to one in favor of denying the permit. The dead, for now at least, can stay where they are.

The one vote against denying the cemetery disturbance permit was Councilman C.T. Martin, a veteran politician who rarely has opposition at election time. He has represented a big chunk of pre-dominantly black southwest Atlanta since 1990. Martin himself is also black.

So it might have struck some as strange that a white council member, Councilman Howard Shook, who represents the largely white area where Mt. Olive Cemetery is located, would have been the one passionately championing the rights of the black deceased to rest in peace, while a black councilman, Martin, would have been standing alone for the possible rights of a property owner to evict the black dead.

But that’s how it was.

Shook is not known for angry or emotional outbursts, but his voice shook a little when he persistently called on his fellow council members to support what is termed, in official parlance, an “adverse” decision on the permit.

“I wish there were a harsher word for this than ‘adverse,’” he said, raising his voice a little and adding “No one wants to see anyone’s grandparents dug up.”

Shook reminded the council of how the relatives of the deceased have begged that their loved ones be left to rest. He also lashed out at the property owner for attempting to force the City of Atlanta to be party to moving the 40 graves. He pointed out that the owner bought the property at 431 Pharr Road, against which the county had a tax lien, at auction on the steps of the Fulton County court house several years ago.

“I am tired of hearing the property owner say he wants to send them off to better care because of the dilapidated condition of the property,” Shook said. “He has owned the property for three years.”

Therefore, he could have improved the property himself.

Martin agreed the owner should have researched the property better before he bought it—apparently he didn’t know there was a graveyard on it—but he countered that he, Martin, was concerned about issues of church and state (there is no such issue in this case because the church once associated with the graveyard has long since met Atlanta’s traditional sickle of destroy-and-develop), and that perhaps the city has some responsibility to alleviate the buyer’s distress now that he is stuck with a parcel that he may not be able to sell.

“I’ll just close by saying we have enough lawsuits against us as it is,” Martin said.

He had referred to the “property owner” and “developer”; Shook chose a less complimentary word to describe the would-be grave-mover: “He is a real-estate speculator,” Shook said, “And he is asking society to bail him out of a bad deal.”

Martin said he planned to vote against denying the cemetery disturbance permit because, he said, “I just don’t know enough about it.”

A word of friendly advice to Martin: An uninformed “No” vote can be just as dangerous as an uninformed “Yes” vote; the proper action to take when you don’t know enough is to abstain.

He said after the meeting that he knew the denial had more than enough votes to pass, he just wanted to be sure to raise the contrary issues.

According to a press release sent out by the Council Communications office, Mt. Olive Cemetery “is all that remains of the Macedonia Park neighborhood – one of Buckhead’s few historic black communities.  Macedonia was a thriving community with 400 residents, three churches, two grocery stores, barbers, a blacksmith, and restaurants.  In the 1940s, Fulton County began to systematically remove residents by condemning and purchasing the properties in Macedonia to make way for a park.”

The meeting was rather quiet as council meetings go. Shook said afterward that the members are saving their strength for the dreaded budget deliberations that lie ahead in April. SP