Autrey Mill Preserve: A golden treasure hanging by a thread

by Hatcher Hurd / Appen Newspapers

May 14, 2009 I wonder how many people in Johns Creek are aware of the 46-acre Autrey Mill Nature Preserve and Historical Center off Old Alabama Road – and how many of them care about the feud that has erupted between its board members and the Johns Creek City Council.

Autrey Mill has been a non-profit nature preserve since 1987, with nature trails along a small creek that runs through the property. Over the years it has become a refuge for historic buildings facing the bulldozer in Newtown, Warsaw and Ocee. It was always a sparsely settled area so there just aren't many buildings of note to begin with.Fulton County had a hand in keeping the place going. Any land Autrey Mill acquired was given to the county under a conservation easement.What started out as strictly a nature preserve quickly became a safe harbor for historic buildings that otherwise would have been torn down. The Heritage Center aspect has a small town with a church, farmhouse and other buildings in which the volunteers have created a 19th century village.

Historic homes restored and maintained such as the Summerour House are treasures of Autrey Mill Nature Preserve and Historic Center. (click for larger version)

All seemed well until the city acquired title and responsibility for Autrey Mill Preserve. Now what once seemed to be an amicable arrangement for everybody has devolved into a tangled mess that only the lawyers seem able to unravel.

Why did it come to this? Talk to the city's folks, and they say all they want is reasonable control over a facility in which they have tremendous liability exposure. The Autrey Mill Board of Directors has said it will sail on with the new lease it signed with Fulton County the day after the residents of Johns Creek voted to become a city.

Since then, neither the City Council nor the Autrey Mill Board has been able to get what it wants out of the relationship. The Autrey Mill Board has complained since the city took over, it has not been granted the ability to lease out buildings for weddings and other events because the city won't allow alcohol.

The use of Autrey Mill as an event space is one of the few ways it has of raising revenue. This is one reason the board thinks the City Council wants to "take over" the property.

Not so says the city, but then why does it say no to the weddings and other events if not to bring pressure on the Autrey Mill Board. It needs to raise money just as any non-profit organization, and events bring people to the park as well as revenue.The issue of liability is easy to overcome, other cities do it with ease. So why is the city waving the "Liability" flag when a standard catering agreement will cover everybody's tail? It makes the board suspicious.

It would do the city little good to oust the board. Who would take on the operation of Autrey Mill? The city would incur a $300,000 annual liability without volunteers to run the facility. The land easements ensure the property could not be turned into, say, ball fields.What is needed is some give and take here, fellas. What we have is a new city with some ideas about how the park should be run and some career volunteers who have created and operated Autrey Mill since its inception.

Everybody sounds suspicious of one another, everybody has their back up. And now it has all landed in court.

Well, perhaps for once, the lawyers can settle things. They know each other and seem confident of settling things amicably. Maybe it will work.

But the city should take a lesson from Fulton County and the city of Roswell. They are masters of using volunteers to manage property and save their respective governments millions in operating costs. That is where the devil is, not in acquiring property but in the maintenance and operation of it. In this case, it is the programming of the park that would be onerous to the city.

Roswell has three gems of historic homes. It provides the maintenance, but Bulloch Hall and the Archibald Smith Plantation are manned by volunteer docents and directors paid by their respective boards.Fulton operated Autrey Mill, Cochran Mill in South Fulton and Big Trees in Sandy Springs with volunteer boards that worked well.

Johns Creek should take care not to "win" in court but lose when all of the volunteers walk out.Likewise, the volunteers need to work with the city. It is the city's land, and despite all that you have done in the past, you have to earn the right to stay every day. We need you there, doing what you do. So everybody take a deep breath and let the two lawyers settle this.Autrey Mill is a special place run by special people. Let's keep it that way.