The Gingerbread House Festival and Contest is an annual event that takes place at the Suwanee Academy of the Arts. Along side of the event’s main attraction, the gingerbread house building content, participants were entertained by the Suwanee Academy of Arts performers with song and dance routines.

This year’s festival was held on December 3rd.

Suwanee’s Old Town Holiday Festival and Caboose Lighting is an annual event on main street in Suwanee where Santa Claus comes down to light the train caboose. Local schools performed chorus songs for the event as well.

This year’s Caboose Lighting event took place on Dec. 2.

Rabbit Hill Park in Dacula will add two soccer fields, seven baseball/softball fields, and a multipurpose track. Also planned are a concession stand, a playground, extensions to its existing trails, and a six-acre lake. The project is expected to cost about $9.6 million.

At Harbins Park, also located in Dacula, a multipurpose field will be added near Indian Shoals Road, as well as a rental pavilion, dog park, concession building, three-acre lake, playground, paved trail, and walking track. The project will cost an estimated $5.9 million.

“This is another great example of what the SPLOST program has done for us here in Gwinnett County,” Commission Chair Charlotte Nash said during the groundbreaking ceremonies. “This is going to be a great project, and I look forward to seeing it.”

The center also offers what hospital officials described as a “spa-like” atmosphere, including private changing rooms and lockers, music, and complimentary snacks and drinks.

“Patient navigators” will guide patients through the treatment process, and because the care offered at the Gwinnett Breast Center is comprehensive, hospital officials said it will offer quicker service.

“Based on the comprehensive nature of services provided and the patient-centered philosophy, women can receive consultations quickly and sometimes in the same day,” said imaging services director Karen Kubik. “In addition, follow-up imaging for an abnormal screening mammogram is scheduled within three to five business days.”

The center will house both the Marion Allison Webb Center for Screening Mammography and the Sandra J. Strickland Diagnostic Center, and has been named a “breast center of excellence” by the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers.

Medical centers across Gwinnett will show an increased focus on breast health through October.

The Gwinnett Medical Center Care-A-Van, a mobile digital mammography unit, will stop at four locations through the month: at the Boss Brothers Country Store in Loganville on October 13; at the Five Forks Library in Lawrenceville on October 17; at Hebron Baptist Church in Dacula on October 26; and at the Arena at Gwinnett Center in Duluth on October 31. Call (678) 312-4760 to schedule an appointment.

In addition, throughout the month the Wellness Performance Institute in Suwanee will donate 10 percent of proceeds from all new gym memberships to Susan G. Komen Atlanta.

Briscoe Field, located near Lawrenceville, is a county-run airport that serves small aircraft and corporate jets. In 2009, it was announced that the Gwinnett Board of Commissioners would accept proposals to privatize Briscoe Field and expand it for commercial use.  The same year, Propeller Investments, a New York-based firm, approached the board about privatizing Briscoe. Propeller Investments has remained the most interested firm throughout the process.

The county has received permission from the FAA to sell Briscoe Field to a private company, but that’s where the process began to cause controversy.  According to the original FAA timetable, the commissioners would have awarded a contract to a private company before opening the process to the public. Meanwhile, opinions about selling the airport to a private company differed widely, both among board members and in the community.

Those in favor of privatization, such as the group Fly Briscoe, say the expansion could create thousands of jobs, relieve traffic at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, allow for infrastructure improvements, and add about $1 billion to the local economy each year.

Others, such as the group Citizens for a Better Gwinnett, argue that noise from the airport has already lowered surrounding property values and that expanding the airport would have a negative impact on the environment.

Public outcry from those against the expansion, as well as those who were upset that citizens were essentially locked out of the process, caused the board to stop the process and allow public involvement in April 2011. The following month, the board voted 3-2 to seek proposals from three private companies.

This summer, the commissioners sought the opinion of consulting group Infrastructure Management Group, Inc., who recommended the board go back to the beginning by first determining whether a commercial airport would fit in Gwinnett, and then deciding whether or not to lease or sell the property to a private company. The consultants also urged the board to include the public throughout the process.

IMG specifically encouraged the board to set a specific goal for the airport (with the citizens’ support), study the financial feasibility and economic impacts the airport would have, and to consider a commercial airport’s effect on the surrounding environment.

During another round of reports in September, two IMG consultants recommended the commissioners separate the issues and consider privatizing the airport for general (rather than commercial) aviation, because no government-operated airport has ever successfully transferred directly to commercialization. The board could consider allowing passenger jets at a later time.

The board has formed citizen’s groups to provide local input about the expansion possibilities, and the process is ongoing.

Since 1984, residents of Gwinnett and surrounding counties have turned out in droves for Suwanee Day, a celebration of the community and a “show and tell” for various churches, schools, vendors, and civic groups located in the area. In its first year, about 75 visitors attended the event. Now the festival, held in Suwanee’s Town Center on the third Saturday of September, draws about 40,000 people each year.

Suwanee Day 2011 was held on September 17 on a beautifully cloudy day and had a few more unique treats to Suwanee Day to help set it apart from previous years. Be sure to check out the Suwanee Day 2011 pictures below to get a good feel of what exactly a Suwanee Day is.

One of the biggest draws of Suwanee Day is the arts and crafts. Vendors from across the Southeast bring in pottery, paintings, jewelry, clothing, and lots more. In 2011, about 180 vendors came to Suwanee for the event.

Of course, Suwanee Day also has plenty of the main attraction to any festival — food. Old-fashioned treats, foreign cuisine and classic choices are sure to hit the spot no matter what you’re craving.

There’s plenty to keep the kids entertained, as well. Many booths and vendors offer child-friendly crafts, and the green space of Town Center Park is transformed into a midway of carnival rides and attractions.

Some of the most unusual attractions come from the visitors themselves. You never know what kind of characters will show up for Suwanee Day — but they’re usually available for photo ops.

Suwanee Day almost always ends with a concert in the Town Center amphitheater from well-known performers, like Edwin McCain or Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame group The Lovin’ Spoonful. But the amphitheater is used all day to showcase local dance and music groups, as well.

Suwanee Day usually offers some surprises, as well. In 2011, it was the site of the largest flash mob in Suwanee history, with hundreds of dancers participating. Click here to see the official Suwanee Day flash mob video.

Suwanee Day 2011 had an impressive turnout and the community event continues to improve from year to year.  After some of the antics pulled this year, I’m looking forward to see who tries to top them next year.

JapanFest is a display of both traditional Japanese culture and its adaptations to modern influences. The conference halls are filled with various performing arts such as music and dance,  martial arts and Japanese archery. There are several hands-on workshops that could be attended to learn things such as calligraphy. One half of the exhibition hall is filled with vendors booths selling things such as kimonos, Asian pottery and anime toys. The other half is a Japanese food eatery serving things like noodles, sushi and iced desserts.

There are displays setup within the hallways of the exhibition halls as well displaying bonzai trees, Japanese floral arrangements and charitable foundations collecting money for tsunami recovery projects.

Outside of the Gwinnett Center there are several Koi fish deals selling various sizes of beautiful Koi fish.

I’d didn’t get to spend much time there when I went on Sunday afternoon, but here’s a few pictures of what I saw there.

The library system’s county budget has been reduced by about $2.8 million, or about 15 percent of its budget, the representatives explained.

To cut spending, Stanbery-Kellam announced a reduction in days and hours the system’s branches would be open. Each of the GCPL’s 15 branches is currently open seven days a week for a total of 53 hours weekly.

Stanbery-Kellam plans to reduce that to 40 hours a week by closing branches two days a week. There is no word yet on what those schedule changes will be, or if each branch will be closed on the same two days. By closing every branch for a few days a week, Saxton said the GCPL would not lose any branches.

Saxton also announced his ideas for raising revenue outside of tax funding.

One of those ideas involves selling ad space in the library through coupons, bookmarks, or bookshelves. He hopes to generate $1.2 million through the ad revenue.

Saxton also plans to launch a “Love Your Library” campaign to seek donations from the community, with a campaign goal of $1 million.

Fifth grade writing tests are administered each March by the Georgia Department of Education. The tests measure students’ abilities to write in narrative, persuasive, or informational styles, and are assessed based on ideas, organization, style, and conventions.

Schools and districts are ranked based on how well their students performed on the test, with results in several categories.

Gwinnett’s Brookwood Elementary took first in the state in the Mean Scaled Score category of the test, followed by two other Gwinnett Schools, Simpson Elementary and Camp Creek Elementary, which were tied for second.

In the Exceeds Percentage category, Simpson Elementary came in first with Brookwood coming in second.

Parsons Elementary and New Life Academy tied for first place in the category of Percentage Meeting and Exceeding Standards. Both schools had a 100 percent pass rate.

In the same category, Puckett’s Mill Elementary and Camp Creek tied for second place with a 99 percent pass rate.

The official project list is to be completed August 15 and should contain between $6 billion and $8 billion worth of improvements.

Gwinnett Board of Commissions Chair Charlotte Nash said she was “cautiously optimistic” that the list would favor projects within Gwinnett County; something she pushed for in the days leading up to the completion of the list.

Gwinnett is entitled to a large share of the projects, some say, because it is expected to contribute a considerable part of the project funding. Over 10 years, Gwinnett is projected to raise about $1.2 billion toward the road improvements through Special Project Local Option Sales Tax (or SPLOST) revenue.

In previous drafts of the project list, Gwinnett-based projects included an extension to Sugarloaf Parkway, grade separations along Highway 316, widening Highway 20 in Sugar Hill, and improving intersections at Highway 78 and Highway 124, among others.

If those and other Gwinnett projects do not appear on the official list, Nash said she will petition the committee to give Gwinnett a larger share.

“It’s one thing to think regionally. It’s another to sacrifice that much,” she said. “I can’t face the voters and say this is even a reasonable list if we don’t have a substantial number of road projects.”

It is important to remember, however, that none of the projects on the list are guaranteed. Their completion will depend on whether the SPLOST penny tax is approved by voters in July 2012.