Sandy Springs Crier - February 5, 2026

Judge orders city to produce more documents in public records suit

By CARL APPEN carl@appenmedia.com

ATLANTA — A Fulton County judge has ordered Sandy Springs to produce documents it previously withheld from Appen Media Group, granting the newspaper’s motion in an ongoing public records lawsuit with the city.

In a Jan. 22 decision, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Melynee Leftridge ruled Sandy Springs must turn over “supplemental” incident and arrest

Editor’s Note: Carl Appen is a representative of Appen Media, which publishes the Sandy Springs Crier. He is also a deposed witness in the case. This article attempts to offer an unbiased update on the status of the lawsuit.

reports tied to Appen’s prior open records requests, including documents connected to cases the city has considered open investigations.

Riverwood rolls over Creekview

By ANNABELLE REITER annabelle@appenmedia.com

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. — The Creekview boys basketball team was unable to stay composed after traveling to Riverwood Jan. 23, with fouls piling up to culminate in a 68-52 loss.

The boys are at the bottom of the region standings with a 0-9 (7-13 overall) record.

Riverwood boys are sitting in fifth place in Region 6 of 5A, needing to unseat either Lassiter, Woodstock, Sprayberry or Pope to make the state tournament.

Riverwood head coach Buck Jenkins complimented senior Kaleb Bilal, who led the team with 26 points in the win.

“I’m proud of the fact that we have so much resilience [through many injuries],” Jenkins said. “They continue to fight and battle, even though it’s somebody different that has to step up, game in and game out. Our goal is to be playing our best basketball once the region tournament starts.”

Kaleb’s older brother Karris is a Riverwood alum and posted a double-double of 17 points and 12 rebounds in the Raiders first program championship in 2024. Karris played one year at Vanderbilt and now plays for Louisiana University.

The dominant win over Creekview evened the Raiders’ record this season at 10 wins and 10 losses.

The order mandates the city release those documents as part of the lawsuit’s discovery phase.

The ruling does not end the long-running legal battle. The city has 60 days to provide the documents, which both parties will use to further adjudicate the case in court.

The lawsuit stems from Appen’s efforts to obtain public police incident reports from the city beginning in October 2022.

Riverwood guard Kaleb Bilal goes up for a jumper at Riverwood High School Jan. 23. Bilal led the Raiders with 26 points in the 68-52 win over Creekview.

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Sandy Springs continues fight to keep citizens in the dark

MIKE PETCHENIK Guest Columnist

Enough is enough.

As a Sandy Springs resident and taxpayer, I’m outraged that our city officials continue to spend our money fighting Appen Media’s open records lawsuit.

I’m looking at you Mayor Rusty Paul and City Attorney Dan Lee. Open records are the PEOPLE’S records; they don’t belong to an overzealous city attorney who believes he’s above the law. They don’t belong to a police chief who has long enjoyed unfettered power under the current administration. They belong to us.

When crime happens in our neighborhoods, the public deserves to know what actually happened, not a sanitized or heavily redacted version of events.

Protecting an active investigation makes sense. Blaming routine police report narratives for failed prosecutions doesn’t.

As a beat reporter who covered Sandy Springs for more than a decade, I can empathize with my friends at Appen Media. Part of my job involved reviewing dozens of online police reports every day to identify newsworthy incidents.

At one point, when I received the same heavily redacted incident reports, I resorted to requesting 911 audio to understand what actually happened, a loophole city leaders later closed once they caught on

A Fulton County judge has ordered Sandy Springs to produce documents it previously withheld from Appen Media Group, granting the newspaper’s motion in a long-running lawsuit over access to police records.

to my workaround.

Years later, the same leaders are apparently still at it, sanitizing Sandy Springs crime to keep up appearances rather than educating the electorate about the world around them.

Instead of complying with the law, they’re doubling down.

Instead of doing the right thing, they targeted Appen, passing an ordinance that blocks overnight delivery of their papers, raising the company’s costs, all

while justifying it as a measure to stop neo-Nazis from spreading propaganda.

I have deep respect for the officers at Sandy Springs Police and count many of them as friends. This isn’t a criticism of their work. This is about the decisionmakers keeping that work hidden from the public.

Sandy Springs leaders should remember what happened after my former WSB-TV colleague, newsroom legend Richard Belcher exposed obfuscation inside the Atlanta Watershed.

Belcher sought open records on water bills tied to then-Mayor Kasim Reed and his family. A whistleblower leaked texts in which a public information officer instructed her staff to stall the request, to be as “unhelpful as possible,” and to provide records in the most “confusing format available.”

Belcher’s subsequent reporting, including a brilliant on-camera confrontation with the public information officer, led to the first known criminal prosecution of a PIO for violating Sunshine laws and a large monetary settlement.

Paul, Lee, and the City Council would be wise to avoid ending up in the crosshairs of an attorney general’s investigation.

There’s real merit to the Washington Post mantra, “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” and it’s time for Sandy Springs to finally see the light.

Mike Petchenik is a Sandy Springs resident and a veteran reporter formerly with WSB-TV.

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Riverwood honors new inductees into charter school’s Hall of Fame

By ANNABELLE REITER annabelle@appenmedia.com

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. — Riverwood

International Charter School inducted its Hall of Fame Class of 2026 in a ceremony between girls and boys basketball games Jan. 23.

Nailah Jenkins, class of 2019, led the volleyball team in kills and hitting percentage in her final three seasons at Riverwood. She is the third member of her family to receive the honor. Her brother Elijah and father Buck were inducted for basketball in 2024.

The Jenkinses are the second family after the McKeone family to be inducted into Riverwood’s Hall of Fame.

Buck is also a member of his alma mater Columbia University’s Hall of Fame and still holds basketball records there for most points in a single game with 47 and leads their all-time scoring list with 1,767 points.

In the remarkable 47-point performance, Buck did not attempt a single 3-pointer. He and Shaquille O’Neal were the only collegiate players that season to score more than 40 points without a boost from behind the arc.

Nailah was named the 2016 Region 6-5A Player of the Year and was honored on the Georgia All-State first team twice in 2017 and 2018 while winning three consecutive region championships.

The Raiders appeared in the state playoffs in all four years of Nailah’s career, including two quarterfinal appearances and one Final Four run.

Due to inclement weather in New York where Nailah now lives, she was unable to attend the ceremony and her parents stood in for her.

Nailah’s mom Lydia said the journey of watching her daughter as a player and now coaching club volleyball in

New York has been nothing short of incredible.

“My husband and I are super proud of her, and it’s an amazing accomplishment,” she said. “She was naturally good at volleyball, but she put in so many extra hours to get to where she ended up being.”

Buck said it’s special to see his children, who are both coaching now, realize the impact they’re making on young people.

“I wish [Nailah] was here to participate, unfortunate she wasn’t able to be here,” he said. “It’s always a great feeling when you can reminisce about what she’s been able to accomplish, and to be inducted into the Hall of Fame is a special honor.”

Frank Pittman IV, class of 1981, was the first of two runners inducted his year. The 1979 cross country team won a state championship in part due to Pittman’s fourth place finish at the meet.

The following year, the team was runner-up, but Pittman improved to finish third.

His junior and senior year, he competed in the Cross Country National Championships before continuing his athletic career at Washington and Lee University. There, he qualified for the NCAA Cross Country Nationals in 1984, was named to the All-Conference Team three times and four times to the All-Southeast Team.

Scott Boynton, class of 1983, remains as the Raiders’ fourth alltime leading scorer in basketball. He was named Fulton County Player of the Year in his time at Riverwood and received recognition from the Atlanta Tip-Off Club and the Fulton County Holiday Classic.

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Fulton County organization counts number of homeless

Volunteers aid needy ahead of ice storm

By AMRITHA ALLADI JOSEPH newsroom@appenmedia.com

ROSWELL, Ga. — On the eve of a winter storm expected to ice power lines and roads, volunteers donning coats and beanies waited outdoors, scanning parking lots, ready to serve hot meals to the unhoused.

Their mission: To get an accurate count of Fulton County’s homeless population by offering them warm meals, toiletry kits and blankets.

The annual Point-In-Time survey of sheltered and unsheltered people experiencing homelessness has wrapped up in Fulton County. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires federally funded Continuums of Care (CoC) to survey people experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. The Fulton County CoC represents a network of service providers and government agencies committed to ending homelessness across the county. It excludes the city of Atlanta. Last year, the county identified 241 homeless individuals. More than 40 percent were unsheltered.

“The Point-In-Time count night is tech-

nically Jan. 22, so you have to ask people if they were unhoused or unsheltered on Jan. 22,” Fulton County Continuum of Care Board Chair Maggie Goldman said.

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She was addressing volunteers at the Point-in-Time Command Center at the Roswell Senior Center on Friday, Jan. 23.

With icy conditions forecast through the weekend, volunteers asked where they could direct unsheltered people. North Fulton 2026 Point-in-Time Co-Chair Kelvin Thompson cited Sandy Springs and Cumming as the nearest warming centers, both notably far for some residents.

“We’re in a desert of sorts around some of those services,” Thompson said.

Fulton County District 4 Commissioner

“Unfortunately, that’s a failure,” she

Ivory and District 1 Commissioner Bridget Thorne participated in the volunteer welcome on Friday. They shared recent developments and challenges in funding services for homeless populations. Thorne said Fulton County’s recently passed budget allocates $4.8 million for permanent supportive housing. That total reinstates $2.1 million in the budget for additional supportive housing projects following public outcry that the county honor a previous agreement with Atlanta to fund

“All of those numbers are fantastic, but it’s not enough,” Ivory said. “We had to put a lot of pressure on our commission to approve the $2.1 million for permanent supportive housing that was left out for the city of Atlanta. We do have resources that we could be pouring in.”

Efforts such as the Point-In-Time survey allow the county to get a clearer picture of the needs of people experiencing homelessness, Ivory said.

Outside of the Walmart on Mansell

Road, volunteers waited with aluminum trays, ready to spoon out food to those who could use a hot meal.

Roswell resident Courtney Rozear has participated in previous brown bag efforts offering food to unhoused people, but she said the weather report for the weekend compelled her to do something more.

Alpharetta resident Kathleen Cherry said she was looking for ways to get more involved in the community.

“I feel like we have individuals in our community that are in need, and they are open to receiving resources and help,” she said. “If we approach them in the right way and are compassionate and kind, we’re going to be able to build the right connections tonight, hopefully, and then identify what resources we need in this community.”

Local theater students shine at junior festival

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. — Students with Davis Campbell Theatrics and City Springs Theatre Conservatory in Sandy Springs were awarded for their performances Jan. 16-18 at the 2026 Junior Theater Festival Atlanta.

The annual festival brings theater groups together to participate in musical theater workshops. Each group comes prepared to impress theater professionals with a 15-minute performance of a Broadway Junior musical.

Davis Campbell Theatrics earned the award for Excellence in Dance after impressing judge Nina Meehan with their “fierce” and “fun” performance of “Mean Girls Jr.”

Students Caitlyn Whitney and Maddie Dunn were awarded for their student direction and choreography. Participants Anya Kumar and Peyton Mitchell were named Junior Theater Festival All-Stars, a distinction that goes to a select group of performers.

City Springs Theatre Conservatory performed “Disney’s Frozen Jr.” and earned one of the festival’s top awards – the All Festival Performance Group.

“This presentation contained showstopping solo performances while demonstrating gorgeous vocals and a creative, captivating use of the ensemble,” judge Marissa Davis said.

Performers Kennedy Johnson and Jackson Arthur were named Junior Theater Festival All-Stars. Four participants, Arthur, Katie Kraushaar, Ivy Stull and Zoe Toles, were selected for a callback to a project promoting musical theater in schools.

In all, 141 groups across 30 states, the United Kingdom and Australia participated in the Junior Theater Festival.

Hannah Yahne

16-18.

Music Milton educates Fulton County students

MILTON, Ga. — Students at Cogburn Woods and Manning Oaks elementary schools in Fulton County Schools were treated to an interactive performance and educational program Jan. 22 led by the Vega Quartet.

The event was sponsored by Music Milton, a nonprofit organization committed to creating exceptional experiences and building community around music.

The Vega Quartet is the quartetin-residence at Emory University. As Atlanta’s first and only professional string quartet, members perform and engage with the community to cultivate a new generation of chamber music lovers.

During the program, the musicians educated the students on the nuances of how a string quartet works together, explained the function of their instruments, and performed pieces by composers from different style periods including Vivaldi, Beethoven and Ravel.

The performance and educational discussion covered quartet music throughout the centuries across Europe, China, and America, piquing the students’ interest both musically and historically.

— Hannah Yahne

| Sandy Springs Crier | February 5, 2026

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Lawsuit:

Continued from Page 1

State law mandates public records be open to public inspection but allows certain exceptions. Agencies may withhold certain police records that involve ongoing investigations.

However, the law requires initial incident and crime reports be released even if the case is open.

At the center of the Appen lawsuit is the question of what constitutes an “initial incident report.”

For years, Sandy Springs has made available brief reports stating when and where police are dispatched.

Unlike incident reports provided by surrounding jurisdictions, the Sandy Springs reports typically lack details on the nature of the crime, an accounting of property damage, injuries associated with a crime, whether there were any victims or any arrests were made, and whether any suspects have been identified.

Sandy Springs admits that officers generally write more detailed reports in a second document, often written the same day. The city claims in its legal defense that this second report is not part of the initial incident report, and therefore can be withheld.

In its complaint, Appen cited examples of Sandy Springs reports in which both documents were created at the same time on the same day. When the newspaper filed open records

Riverwood:

Continued from Page 1

The Grizzlies kept the first quarter close, recovering from a 3-9 start to cut the deficit to two points on two occasions before the Raiders stormed ahead.

Ceremony:

Continued from Page 4

He was a two-sport athlete at Riverwood in track and field before playing basketball at Oglethorpe University.

Kaylah Jackson, class of 2020, was the second volleyball player inducted this year, but her accomplishments stand alone.

A three-time Region 6-5A Player of the Year and three-time All-State honoree, Jackson recorded over 1,200 kills and 1,000 digs in her Riverwood career.

Starting on the varsity squad all four years, Jackson never lost a region

What’s new?: Here’s the latest on Appen Media’s case against Sandy Springs, which began in May 2023:

• In a Jan. 6, 2026 hearing, the parties argued whether the city must provide full incident reports to the court in order to adjudicate the case.

• The Fulton County judge ruled with the

requests for the reports associated with these incidents, the city only provided the first, one-sentence page.

After trying to mediate the situation, Appen Media brought suit against the city in May 2023 arguing its practice violated the Open Records Act.

After a Fulton County judge ruled in favor of the city in December 2023, Appen appealed the decision to the higher state court. The Court of Appeals then rejected the lower court ruling, stating, “the trial court’s grant of summary judgment was premature. Genuine issues of material fact remain based on this record and thus the trial court erred by granting summary judgment to the City.”

That decision sent the case back to Fulton County Superior Court.

During the initial phase of the suit, Appen Media requested the city provide copies of complete incident reports so the court could compare them with the supposedly abbreviated reports the city gave the newspaper.

Going into the second quarter, the lead was five points and stretched to 11 by halftime. The second half was all Riverwood. Creekview didn’t reduce the deficit enough to put themselves in position to take back the lead at any point.

Each team had one player foul out of the game in the fourth quarter, but even with several players sitting due

tournament or a first-round playoff game.

Jackson went on to play indoor and beach volleyball for Austin Peay State University and helped lead the team to a beach volleyball championship in 2021.

Her college career came to a close at Alabama State University where she won a regular season conference title and was runner-up in the conference championship.

Elle Mezzio, class of 2021, was a four-sport athlete in her days at Riverwood – cross country, track, diving and soccer. Elle’s father Michael served as Riverwood’s Athletic Director for many years and her younger sister, Sophie, also was a multi-sport athlete.

Elle continued running in college at the University of Miami and is listed on their website as having one of the highest

newspaper, ordering Sandy Springs to provide the documents within 60 days.

• The city has since appealed that decision and the newspaper has filed its rebuttal.

The city did not complete that request. Its justification largely mirrored the city’s defense for not handing them over in the first place. Sandy Springs said the underlying cases involve open investigations and therefore, it claims, are exempt from release.

Following the appellate ruling and ahead of upcoming trial proceedings, Appen filed a motion requesting the court order the city to provide those outstanding documents.

It argued the materials will help cure deficiencies identified by the appeals court.

“We cannot say as a matter of law that a narrative report is not part of the initial incident report subject to disclosure … Based upon the record before us which was simply not fully developed as to that issue,” the appellate court stated.

Citing that ruling, Appen’s motion argued the newspaper, “is entitled to these reports to fully develop the record as to whether these reports should have

to injuries, Riverwood’s rotation didn’t drop the ball.

Creekview started to heat up from beyond the arc in the final frame and outscored the Raiders by 3 points in the period, but they couldn’t get within striking distance because of six missed free throws in the fourth.

Riverwood, on the other hand, made the most of their appearances at the

GPAs on the cross country team.

She was highly decorated at Miami, winning ACC Freshman of the Week and running the sixth-fastest 5K time in program history at 17:41.

Now a first-year medical student at the U, Elle had to hurry back to Florida after the ceremony for her first road race half marathon Jan. 25. She finished in one hour and 25 minutes.

She reflected on growing up in the Riverwood halls and how it feels to now be in the Hall.

“In the old gym when I was younger, in the summer I would go to [basketball] practice with my dad, and I would walk by the Hall of Fame every day,” she said. “It’s very surreal that now I’m also on the Hall of Fame when I used to see it all the time.”

been initially produced as Appen alleges in its Complaint.”

The city petitioned the court to deny Appen’s request.

Following a Jan 6. hearing, the judge sided with Appen Media.

In her order, Judge Leftridge said the Court of Appeals decision entitled Appen Media to all incident reports related to its requests, “regardless of how they are labeled by the City,” so the record could be fully developed.

The judge concluded the city failed to fully respond to discovery requests despite Appen Media’s attempts to resolve the dispute without court intervention.

She also noted the discovery request sought, “nonprivileged and relevant information.”

As a result, the court granted the motion to compel and ordered the city to produce the previously withheld materials.

Under the order, Sandy Springs must provide the documents within 60 days of receiving the ruling. Leftridge also authorized Appen Media to submit an affidavit seeking reimbursement for reasonable attorney fees and expenses incurred in pursuing the motion.

Since the Jan. 22 ruling, the city has filed two new motions. The first is a request for immediate review and the second petitions the court to reconsider its decision to compel discovery.

Appen Media has filed a response. Meanwhile, the newspaper awaits the city’s documents as the case plays out.

charity stripe going 15-20 from the freethrow line.

The Raiders will have to continue capitalizing on their opportunities if a state playoff run is in their future. Creekview’s girls basketball team is ranked No. 2 in 5A behind region foe River Ridge and No. 14 in the state. They routed Riverwood girls 54-10 prior to the boys game.

Athletic Director P.J. Graybeck returned to Riverwood this year after three years as the AD at Alpharetta High. Graybeck previously served as the assistant AD and strength and conditioning coordinator while at Riverwood for eight years prior to Alpharetta.

He said the transition back has been “easy,” coming back to a school he’s quite familiar with.

Putting together the Hall of Fame ceremony for the first time while learning the ropes, not so much.

“It did help that we inducted three of my former students,” he said of Jenkins, Jackson and Mezzio. “Being able to induct [them], who I truly enjoyed watching them grow, play, be student athletes, it was really special.”

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