The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • JI2

Standard L300 features include: 3.0 liter, V6 engine Head Curtain Side 16-inch alloy wheels BUY A NEW AND POCKET A Purchase a New 2003 L-Series Saturn at APR or 3,000 and Receive an Additional 1,000 Dealer Cash 750.00 Cash Allowance to all Active Military, Retirees and National SATURN of SOUTHLAKE 7230 JONESBORO ROAD MORROW, GA 770-961-1119 www.saturnofatlanta.com SATURN of ROSWELL SATURN of DECATURSATURN of CONYERS 1400 UPPER HEMBREE RD. ROSWELL 1950 ORION DRIVE, DECATUR1890 DOGWOOD DRIVE, CONYERS 678-366-8188404-428-1888 770-922-7474 www.saturnofatlanta.comwww.saturnofatlanta.com www.saturnofatlanta.com has choioce of rebate or financing with approved credit, plus tax, tag and title. Dealer for details. Offers expire Stockbridge considers plan to create walkable community By GARY HENDRICKS Stockbridge City Council members are considering an ordinance that would create a town within a town. Council members and Mayor Rudy Kelley last week received a draft for the Planned Town Development ordinance from Andy Welch, representing the legal firm of Smith, Welch Brittain.

Single-family residences, townhouses, condominiums and apartments would be combined with commercial, office and retail projects in a single development. idea is that people can walk to Welch said. The council members will study the proposed ordinance, and a vote on whether to adopt it will be taken at an unspecified date. The ordinance was proposed because the Atlanta Regional Livable Centers Initiative officials said Stockbridge needed such a development provision. The Livable Centers program funds revitalization plans through grants for cities and job centers to encourage smart growth.

The program is also designed to encourage walkable communities that dependent on automobiles. City Manager Ted Strickland said the city has received $3 million in grants from Livable Centers will change the appearance of Projects under the program will include sidewalk improvements, landscaping public areas and lighting, Strickland said. According to the proposal, at the center of a Planned Town Development would be a public area with landscaped areas and sidewalks. Offices, businesses and residences would be clustered around it. In multistoried buildings, apartments would be allowed above offices and shops.

Airport awarded security grant By PETER SCOTT Clayton County commissioners have indicated they will accept a $400,000 grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to help shore up security at the airport, Tara Field. Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, federal officials have targeted small, regional airports like Tara for safety improvements. Wayne Patterson, director of transportation and development, said while his office has worked to make Tara Field more secure, it was hampered by the fact that the county did not own land adjoining the airport. However, the FAA awarded the county $1.4 million to acquire land adjacent to Tara Field.

Patterson said the money will enable the county to limit access by fencing in the property off Tara Boulevard near the Atlanta Motor Speedway. In addition, the county plans to improve lighting of the runway and taxiway. The county will need to pay a local matching share of $20,000 to get the grant funds, Patterson told commissioners last week. He said the state also will pay a matching share of $20,000. a great opportunity for Patterson said.

Clayton looking at school tax hike; Henry unsure By S.A. REID and ROCHELLE CARTER After surviving one of the roughest budget years in recent memory, Clayton and Henry county schools will have to continue to do more with less in 2003-2004. That reality has put property tax increases on the minds of school board members as they work to complete each spending plan by the state-mandated deadline of July 1. Clayton included a 1-mill increase in the $317 million tentative budget it approved last week. The tax hike will help keep its projected $17 million revenue shortfall from growing.

The move to 18.916 mills will cost the owner of a $100,000 house an extra $30 in annual taxes, but will raise $6.3 million for the district. That money, in addition to another $6.2 million that will come from growth, would be spent primarily on raises and new teaching positions, said Lee Davis, the school chief financial officer. need the millage increase to get as close as we can to keep from being further out of Davis said. The proposed budget includes 131 new teaching positions, 27 paraprofessionals and two new principals for Jackson and King elementary schools, which open in August. The school system is also expecting a $1.3 million increase in utility expenses.

Even with the increase, millage rate will continue to be the lowest in metro Atlanta, Davis said. The board expects to take a final vote on the budget next month. Henry has settled on a $185.5 million tentative budget but will not know until as late as September whether it will need additional help from taxpayers to cover its projected $2.9 million revenue shortfall. School board members, who met for the first time on the budget last Friday, concede that raising the millage from the current 17.65 mills might be unavoidable despite their history of conservative spending. A 1-mill increase could generate $4 million for the district.

tightened our belts much as we said Mary Ann Mitcham, vice chairman. the hard decisions must be made. done all we Until then, Henry is searching to find additional cost savings. Some may come, for example, through changing the way it uses some of its paraprofessionals and permanent substitutes. The budget includes funding for 227 new hires, including 175 teachers and 10 bus drivers, and offering step raises to teachers and noncer- tified employees who qualify.

Schools will get an additional $15 in per-pupil funding for supplies and materials and other expenses to add to the $50 figure they used to build their budgets. Henry hopes to complete its budget in June. By HENRY FARBER The room went silent when Gladys Elaine Jackson, 39, stood from her seat last week in the spectator gallery of Superior Court. Everybody was braced for her to curse the man who killed her father when she was a child in Henry County. But as she prepared to speak, Jackson gave the defendant, Carl Patton, a friendly wave.

And Patton, who has admitted killing five people in the 1970s, waved back with a faint smile. Jackson then told Superior Court Judge Arch McGarity that she was glad Patton shot her father, Richard Russell Jackson. Before he died, Jackson abused his wife so badly that she hired Patton to get rid of him, the judge was told. know in the eyes of the court a crime to Gladys Jackson said. But the murder ended up being a blessing for her mother and the family, she said.

It was a rare show of sympathy for Patton as he has spent much of this year traveling from courthouse to courthouse in handcuffs, admitting he left a trail of bodies along Southside roads in what came to be known as the Flint River murders. In the three counties where victims were shot, he has received identical sentences: life in prison. McGarity issued the last of the sentences May 14. Gladys praise limited to her shooting. Later, she said she thanks Patton for killing her boyfriend four years later.

That man, Fred Wyatt, gave her mother black eyes and once came home and cut off her hair for sake, Gladys Jackson said. However, prosecutors and other survivors have been less generous in their recollections of Patton and Gladys mother, Marie Jackson, who died in 1988. They have described Marie Jackson as a manipulator who hired Patton to kill the two men for life insurance money. Patton admitted also killing new girlfriend and, finally, eliminating his murder accomplice and the girlfriend to make sure they talk. Marie Puckett of Butts County, a niece of Richard Russell Jackson, came to court last week to support the prosecution.

Puckett said Patton should have been sentenced to die. get to know my uncle as an said Puckett, who was 15 when Jackson was slain. came here to see if sorry, or just sorry he got she said. Prosecutors said they consider death penalty trials because Patton, 53, might not outlive the expensive death- row appeals process, which typically takes 15 years. Marie Puckett said the family always suspected Marie Jackson was behind the murders of her husband and boyfriend.

But it took the advent of DNA analysis, connected to evidence in 25-year-old police department lockers, to break the case. Henry County District Attorney Tommy Floyd said the saga began in 1973 when Marie Jackson arranged the hit on her husband. On March 9, 1973, Patton took Richard Russell Jackson for what Jackson thought was a friendly ride. A pal of Joe Cleveland, was in a tail car, Patton said later. Near Ellenwood, Patton stopped and pulled out a caliber pistol.

Jackson opened the door and ran, but Patton and Cleveland shot him eight times. After a passer-by found the body, one of the first officers on the scene was Floyd, the future prosecutor who was then a deputy. Floyd remembers that Jackson, the first of victims in the case, wore a hollowed-out prosthesis leg. It contained a wallet and some other belongings, Floyd recalled. Four years later, Patton grew suspicious of Cleveland.

Patton admitted shooting Cleveland and girlfriend, Liddie Evans, to silence witnesses. wonder how he could do something like Marie Puckett said. a lot of victims admissions wrung out emotions BEN GRAY Staff Carl Patton, shown in March, has received life sentences from three courts for killing five people in the 1970s. RZI0522JI2FZI0522JI2 Thu. Zone I 2JI 2JI RR RR BlueRedYellowBlack Blue RedYellowBlack I JI 2 Thursday, May 22, 2003 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.