Fire Damages Irish Bred Pub

From the Douglas County Sentinel:

Fire damages location for pub

Restaurant planned to open in March

By Bobby Moore
Staff Writer

Officials from the Douglas County Fire Department/EMS said the cause of a Thursday morning fire at the Irish Bred Pub under construction adjacent to O’Neal Plaza in downtown Douglasville, is still under investigation.

Main Street Manager Stephanie Aylworth said she noticed smoke coming from the future restaurant’s building around 8 a.m. Thursday, and alerted the fire department.

When firefighters arrived, the blaze was on the second story of the building. Investigator Steve Tate of the fire department said it appears the fire spread into the space between the first and second story.

“It was a stubborn fire, being in an old building that had been renovated several times,” said Fire Chief Scott Spencer.

No injuries have been reported, Spencer said.

Since the fire spread east toward the Miller Architecture and Planning building, Terry Miller said his employees could not work in their office early Thursday morning for safety reasons. Instead, they set up temporarily in the Douglasville Welcome Center while firefighters took preventative measures.

“The fire department took out some ceiling tiles shared by our building and the pub so they could check for smoke or fire damage,” Miller said.

Miller said his employees were back in their office by 10:30 a.m.

Aylworth said the building, formerly known as O’Neal’s Drug Store, was built in 1885.

“There was a fair amount of damage to the building,” said Tate, adding that the damage was mostly confined to one room.

Officials said it is too soon to estimate a dollar figure regarding damages to the building, or how this will effect the Pub’s goal to open in March.

“We’re waiting to see the damages... but this will definitely delay things,” Aylworth said.

Because of the fire, a section of Bankhead Highway was closed off by the Douglasville Police Department between 8-10:30 a.m.

Tate said he expects the investigation to last a couple of days.

Fifth High School In County To Be Built Near Boundary Waters

I'm not sure why this high school is being built in this area--this is in extreme south Douglas County, almost to Fulton County.  The ten acres of land was purchased by the county for $1.57 MILLION.  That's $157,000 PER ACRE.  Please tell me, what land in Douglas County is worth that much per ACRE??  Maybe in the Douglasville city limits, but definitely NOT in rural Douglas County.

Is the county going to have to redraw the district lines in order to get more kids to attend the new high school?  Most of the growth is in Douglasville or perhaps 5-10 miles outside the city limits, not near Boundary Waters.

Any thoughts or comments?

Suicide In Wellstar Douglas Hospital

From the AJC:

Hospital cited in patient suicide
ER fell short in monitoring a homeless man who hanged himself in Douglasville, according to a federal report.

By ANDY MILLER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/25/08 A Douglasville hospital failed to meet patient safety standards when a homeless man committed suicide in its emergency department, federal regulators have found.

The patient, evaluated as a suicide risk by WellStar Douglas Hospital staff, was not properly monitored for two hours and was then found hanging in his seclusion room, said a federal investigative report. The death occurred Oct. 31.

RELATED: • More metro and state news

The report was obtained this month by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution under the Freedom of Information Act.

Douglas Wayne Brown, 45, was in a seclusion room — typically used to manage a very agitated patient — a total of 22 hours, waiting for a transfer to another facility for treatment of alcohol and psychiatric problems, according to the report from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The report, based on an inspection by state surveyors in mid-November, does not describe whether the WellStar Douglas emergency room was crowded when the patient died.

A suicide in a hospital emergency department is extremely rare, health care officials said. Brown's death also renews questions about the capacity of general hospitals and psychiatric facilities in Georgia to handle the rising demand for mental health services.

Acute-care hospitals recently have complained that overcrowding in the state-run psychiatric hospitals have caused an increase in ER waiting times for mental health patients before a transfer.

That overcrowding was documented in a series of articles last year in the Journal-Constitution, which also described persistent problems and errors in medical care at the seven state mental hospitals.

More than 90 percent of hospitals have run into difficulty in transferring patients to a state hospital, according to a new Georgia Hospital Association survey. The average wait time: 20 hours.

WellStar Douglas Hospital tried to have Brown transferred for mental health treatment, but two facilities refused to accept him, according to the federal report.

The report said ''only two non-hospital facilities'' were contacted, but did not say how many should have been called.

WellStar Health System officials, citing patient privacy rules, declined to identify the other hospitals contacted. They also declined to comment on the suicide itself, or on a police report that Brown ''was waiting for a bed'' at WellStar Cobb, an Austell hospital that has a behavioral health unit.

After Brown's death, the Douglasville hospital changed its policies on monitoring mental health patients and repaired its seclusion rooms, and is now in compliance with federal Medicare rules.

An executive with the five-hospital WellStar group said the system gets 500 to 600 mental health patient visits a month in its emergency rooms. But it's difficult to transfer them because there are not enough private or public psychiatric beds in Georgia, said Nancy Craney, executive director of behavioral health for the WellStar system.

Nationally, emergency rooms are increasingly having backups of all patients, including those with mental health problems, said Dr. Sandra Schneider, a Rochester, N.Y., emergency medicine physician. A suicide, though very rare, can happen when nurses get overwhelmed with a heavy patient load, said Schneider, a board member of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Brown, described in the police report as homeless, was judged a moderate risk of suicide after arriving at the Douglasville hospital Oct. 30. He was also intoxicated, and had a history of alcohol abuse, the report said. An ER physician filled out a form to have Brown evaluated in a mental health facility.

Hospital policy required that there be continuous observation of patients in seclusion via camera, with in-person checks at least every 15 minutes.

After more than 18 hours in seclusion, Brown showed signs of anxiety in the afternoon of Oct. 31, and was given a medication used for alcohol detox. The federal report said ''there was no evidence that the patient was assessed and/or observed'' from 3 p.m. till after 5 p.m., when he was discovered hanging from a ceiling grate, a sheet around his neck.

Attempts to reach Brown's relatives were unsuccessful.

The Medicare report added that a week after Brown's death, a second suicide-risk patient in the same hospital remained in seclusion for two days and three hours before being transferred. ''The patient remained in seclusion although the behavior was calm,'' the report said.

The Medicare agency, in a Dec. 5 letter to WellStar Douglas' administrator, said deficiencies found in its inspection ''have been determined to be of such serious nature as to substantially limit your hospital's capacity to render adequate care.'' The hospital was also cited for fire safety violations.

The ruling that the hospital had not met Medicare's ''Conditions for Participation'' was lifted later in December after WellStar Douglas launched a policy of stricter monitoring of mental health patients, made their seclusion rooms safer, and educated staff on risk factors for suicides.

Speeding

Douglas County, as I see it, has a problem with speeding.  I see it when trying to turn out of the road I'm on onto Hwy 5.  The road I live on, however, has had a great improvement recently when it comes to speeding.  We've had problems for years--people thinking because part of our road is straight, they can race down it like it's the raceway at Indy. 

Recently I emailed the police department and got a response.  They would have an officer sit out on our street with a radar gun.  I never drive down our street, so I never know if the officer is there or not--but I can tell there have been days where he or she has been there.  And speeding has improved.  I can't remember the last day where I heard someone gunning their car  down the road.  It's a lot quieter.

So if your street has a problem with speeding, email the police on their website--I'm going to add a link to the bookmarks section to the right.

February 19 Variance Hearing

DOUGLAS COUNTY ZONING VARIANCE HEARINGAGENDA 

February 19, 2008

  

Call to Order – Zoning Board of Appeals

  APPROVAL OF MINUTES: December 18, 2007 AGENDA: 

V2008-01                                                                                                                  [TAB 1]    

Paradise Development Group, Inc. – MTW-Lee, L.P. – Request for a Variance to allow a maximum of 64 parking spaces (an increase of 8%) at the property located at 2673 Highway 92:  Land Lot(s) 129, District 1, Section 5, Parcel(s) 16.  Lot size:  1.75 acres. 

V2008-02                                                                                                                  [TAB 2]    

Surgi Hospitality, Inc. – Request for a variance to allow a sign 99’ in height and 400 sf in overall size at the property located at 1100 North Blairs Bridge Road:  Land Lot(2) 582, District 18, Section 2, Parcel(s) 12.  Lot size:  1.78 acres.  

V2008-03                                                                                                                  [TAB 3]    

MetroGroup Development II, LLC – Request for a Variance to increase maximum allowable parking by 11 spaces at the property located at Highway 92 & Highway 166:  Land Lot(s) 135, District 1, Section 5, Parcel(s) 10.  Lot size:  5.29 acres.  ADJOURN

150 Mixed-Use Development To Be Built In Tributary

From the Orlando Business Journal:

Orlando firm plans 150-acre mixed-use project near Atlanta

Orlando Business Journal

International Solutions Collaborative LLC is in talks to buy 150 acres of commercial property for a 3 million square feet of mixed-use development in area west of Atlanta.

International Solutions, its development partners and Orlando-based affiliated 100-person architectural firm, The Scott Partnership Architecture, are expected to build retail, office and multifamily projects over the next 10 years in Tributary, a 1,475-acre master planned community near Douglasville, Ga.

Douglasville Development LLC has completed site plans for the first phase of the commercial aspect of Tributary, and it has letters of intent from two retailers, including a high-end Mexican restaurant.

The commercial development will be along Riverside Parkway adjacent to the Village of Tributary, which is a 3,000-home development.