First Slice 10-19-12: Boy Scout ‘perversion files’ reveal Atlanta abuse allegations

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• Proposed development site along Glenwood Avenue.

1. Three metro Atlanta counties — Cobb, DeKalb, and Fulton — have filed a lawsuit against British bank HSBC accusing predatory lending practices that cost hundreds of millions of dollars in damages in lost tax revenue and sinking property values following the housing market collapse. The suite filed in federal court alleges HBSC abused minority borrowers by putting them in home mortgages they couldn’t afford, among other things.

2. State officials say some funding will be restored to keep the Georgia State Archives open to the public. Yesterday, Gov. Nathan Deal and Secretary of State Brian Kemp announced $125,000 in funding to keep the doors open two days a week following an outcry over plans to drastically limit access to appointments only just six days a month.

3. What have come to been known as the Boy Scout “perversion files” — a swath of more than 15,000 pages of documents maintained by the Boy Scouts of America chronicling allegations of child sexual abuse — included complaints against more than 44 Scout leaders in at least 20 metro Atlanta cities and towns. The files, which mostly cover the years between 1959 and the mid-eighties, are expected to spur another round of prosecutions after revealing more than 4,000 alleged pedophiles across the country.

4. An East Atlanta neighborhood planning unit near the site of a larger-scale development proposal on Glenwood Avenue has come out against Fuqua Development’s plan. In a letter to the City of Atlanta Office of Planning, NPU-W Chairman Edward Gilgor said the project contradicts development guidelines outlines in the Atlanta Beltline Masterplan.

5. There’s a water main that’s scheduled to be fixed on Cheshire Bridge Road, but nearby businesses are wondering why it’s taken so long. The leak is less than 200 yards from the Office of Watershed Management’s motor pool office.