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By David Pendered

The Atlanta Beltline is adding a half-acre of land to the city’s first BeltLine park, just as Atlanta prepares for the grand opening in September of two ball fields at the future green space.

The additional land at the Boulevard Crossing Park, located south of Grant Park, will improve access to a site that now covers about 21.2 acres purchased by the city in 2007.

The current acquisition is occurring as the city has secured an earmark for $600 million for the Beltline in the event that voters next year approve a 1 percent sales tax to raise $6.14 billion for transportation improvements.

By David Pendered

Life is returning to normal at the Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton, where the theft of a statue of Brer Rabbit stunned the community and where the restored statue has been replaced.

“We have some people waiting to come in,” museum hostess Millie Lane said Saturday morning. “Let me go help them and then I can talk.”

The Brer Rabbit statue is back on its pedestal in front of the museum in the town where Joel Chandler Harris was born and reared before moving to Atlanta to become a writer after the American Civil War. Harris lived in the Wren’s Nest home, in West End.

By David Pendered

John Portman finally has a street named in his honor.

John Portman Boulevard at Historic Harris Street is the new name of Harris Street, which connects Centennial Olympic Park with Peachtree Street, and on a gateway to the Downtown Connector.

The renaming approved by the Atlanta City Council culminates a battle that has raged almost a year. The council renamed Harris Street in May, but the matter was taken to court by historic preservationists who were opposed by civic and business leaders – including former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young.

By David Pendered

A stupid teenage prank that went awry, not politics, was the reason behind the theft of a statue of Brer Rabbit, according to Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills.

The possibility of politics as a motive was first raise by Lain Shakespeare, executive director of the Wren’s Nest, the Atlanta home of Brer Rabbit author Joel Chandler Harris. Shakespeare feared the theft was connected to intemperate remarks by a Colorado congressman who compared President Obama to the “Tar Baby” in an Uncle Remus story.

However, Putnam Sheriff Howard Sills said confessions gathered in the investigation showed that the theft was a dumb stunt. Sills provided a full report of the probe that rocked Eatonton, where the statue was taken from the front yard of the Uncle Remus Museum, and wobbled the Wren’s Nest, where Shakespeare does a yeoman’s job of keeping Harris relevant.

By David Pendered

The case of the stolen statue of Brer Rabbit took a grave turn this morning when the sheriff threw the book at four teenaged men charged with its abduction and dismemberment.

Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills lived up to his promise to deal severely with suspects if the statue were damaged. That’s because Brer Rabbit is as much an icon in Eatonton, where author Joel Chandler Harris was born and the statue stolen, as he is in Harris’ adopted hometown of Atlanta.

Sills charged each man with a count of felony theft by taking. The penalty is prison “for not less than one nor more than 10 years,” according to state law. One lawyer has blogged that a conviction of felony theft “virtually ruins a person’s chances of ever getting meaningful employment.”

By David Pendered

Transit projects that would be funded with the proposed 1 percent transportation sales tax represent almost 55 percent of the $6.14 billion that would be raised in metro Atlanta, according to staff estimates.

An outside review of the current list of proposed transit projects shows that the major effects of this spending will be felt along three transit corridors. These three corridors would receive more than 60 percent money earmarked for transit, according to the review.

The review also shows that five proposals for major transit improvements received no funding at all.