An interesting development indeed…

Amongst the supporting documents for Monday’s city commission meeting is a letter from Midway Road residents who, despite the failed annexation effort earlier this year, want in to the city.  The block of 11 households in question sit immediately adjacent to the current city limits and therefore can request annexation from the city of Decatur.

The letter from residents, which is on page 11-12 in the materials section for the June 1st meeting, states that they have between 72%-78% support for annexation, which exceeds the 60% threshold necessary to make the request.

Needless to say this should be very interesting for a couple reasons.  First, despite what some have said, the annexation effort failed due to a lack of adequate data that demonstrated the school system could handle the increase AND unanswered questions about whether the city could make money off the effort.

Therefore, an 11 household residential annexation puts our city commissioners in an interesting position.  Up until now, they’ve been pretty willing to accept individual applications for annexation, however this one may just be large enough to get the old opposition riled up again.

Interestingly enough, the letter to the commission does address the dreaded “school age children” question under the “No Undue Burden on the CSD or City of Decatur Services” section… “There are only 6 children (2 of which currently/plan to attend the Waldorf School) in the annexation area; 5 of the 6 children are 5 or younger.”  Unfortunately, that statement kind of misses the major point of concern for current residents who aren’t as worried about the current school-aged population as what it would become once the property was included within the city limits.

How will the commission respond?  Where do your candidates for city commission stand on this?

Ready or not, the hornet’s nest has been kicked.

Well, the move to a new server wasn’t as painless as I had hoped, but ultimately it could have been much worse, so overall I am quite pleased.

I’m currently using a updated version of the old blog “theme”, just to make the transition a little less painful for both you and me.  I actually like it quite a bit.  But there’s still a lot of work to do…apparently I’m going to have to rebuild the entire “Links” section again, but it’ll be totally worth it.  This new setup will give me a lot more flexibility with the site and allow me to offer a lot more fun and helpful features.  For example, I’ve already added a “Top 5 commentaters” list to the sidebar, (congrats to the other four top DM addicts)

One minor hiccup is that while all the comments from the old site followed us over here, it doesn’t look like the “threading” formatting did…so some threads are a bit out of order now.  Also, the comment count off the main page is a bit hinky for old posts.  I’ll continue to fix these as I have time.

Lots more to come (I gotta figure out this picture header obviously), but for now hopefully the new layout will suffice to the site going strong while I make improvements in the background.  Cheers!

Active Living Director Dan McGee writes in to let us know that the city is offering a smorgasbord (my word, not his) of new aquatics programs this summer.  Click here for details on all of this year’s adult and kid classes along with info on pool memberships, fees and rentals.

Dan also notes that in addition to the Glenlake bathhouse opening next Friday, improvements are also coming soon to Ebster pool – the only city pool with a diving board and deep end!

Lord help me, I’m going to try to move DM to a new server this weekend.

In order to accomplish this, I’m going to have to redirect the url “decaturmetro.com”.  This might take a day or so according to the powers that be, so if you get to DM – as I assume most of you do – by typing in “decaturmetro.com” you might not be able to access the site this weekend.

The alternative, and original url for DM is decaturite.wordpress.com and that should still work to access the old version of the site.  Once the url is redirected to DM’s new home, the old site will be abandoned.  If and when that happens, I’ll make sure to write up a post that redirects you to the new site.

So please, if you’re checking in this weekend, have patience.  Things might not be working properly.

Why move? Well, I’m pretty limited with what I can do with the current site in terms of themes, plugins and layout right now.  The new site and server should allow me more flexibility with the site in the future.  Once we’re at our new home, you begin to see gradual improvements to the site.  But don’t worry, my one vow is to keep it relatively clean.

Wish me luck.  I’m gonna need it.

For all my talk about mass transit, I, like most people, still use a car on an almost daily basis.  And the Emory BP has been my go to station.  Close and relatively cheap compared to everything else in the vicinity.

Welp, it looks like I’m about to start paying more to fill up.  Maybe this is a sign that I should finally go diesel/bi0-diesel.

A reader sends in parts of a note that was just sent out to Emory staff…

“… the BP station in Emory Village has been sold and will close as of June 1, Emory University did NOT purchase it, … did not know what plans have been made for that property.”

Just wondering if you have any leads on who purchased this property and what the plans are?

Also, fyi, here is the remainder of the email detailing the Emory Village project and future plans for this summer and the rest of the year:

“…The water line project in Emory Village is complete. Georgia Power will now begin the process of burying overhead utilities, including electricity, cable TV, and telephone. This phase is expected to begin in June and extend into fall, perhaps through the end of the calendar year. The work is scheduled to take place mainly between 8pm and 5am, but will nonetheless be disruptive. DeKalb County has gone to bid for construction of the roundabout, with an anticipated start date in August, and a one year duration. So it looks like Emory Village will be a mess for another year…”

Linda Harris sends in this snazzy announcement…

But will there be flaming shots?

As a self-certified, fake journalist, I promise you an answer to this most pressing of fake questions.  I swear on my diploma from Blogger University.

Since I gave the last score such prominance, it’s only fair to give the reinspection the same.

Steve from Taqueria writes in with word that upon reinspection Taqueria got a 93A by the health department.

Very glad to hear it!

Mark wrote in earlier this morning inquiring about a police car and a smashed window down at Twist & Scoot.  I was trying to be a “journalist” and get details from DPD before posting, but Rebecca wrote in with the details before I received any response.

Twist n Scoot got hit this morning at 4am with a smash and grab. They used a huge rock to get in the front door, and only took their computers.

A few notes from around the city…

• According to the Decatur Minute, Leon’s Full Service is now open for lunch daily at 11:30a (except Monday).
• Also from the Minute, Greene’s is offering 40% off all in-store purchases today in honor of one of the owners birthdays.
• As was noted in a recent post, Cafe Cliche is now open for business in the old Indie Coffee & Books space and is serving Button Cakes Bakery cupcakes.
• Next Stop notes that Bistro in a Box will have weekly food and wine tastings on Saturday from 12p-6p.  “Some of our usual offerings include basil crusted chicken, peppercorn flank steak, hummus, a cheese display, spinach and artichoke dip, and other menu items that we are developing. It is all free and open to anyone.”
• According to Daily Candy, The Cookie Studio has new weekend hours (Sat 12p-5p)
• Tastings will be featuring live music on Saturday nights from 8:30p-10:30p.  This Saturday Jeff Soileau will be playing ambient instrumental acoustic guitar.

Anything else?

James writes in about the sudden passing of Quincy, who worked regularly behind the prescription counter at Decatur’s downtown CVS pharmacy.   According to James, Quincy died from an asthma attack this past Sunday in Augusta while visiting his mother.  He continues…

He was peculiar in how genuinely positive and nice he was, and the only reason my wife and I were willing to keep filling our prescriptions there. Everyone in the pharmacy had stunned looks on their faces yesterday evening, and the person I asked about what had happened practically broke down when telling me. She commented that he was the only reason she continued working in that location. I asked her to find out from his mother whether there was some place a donation could be made in his name. She’s going to look into it.

Obviously, his day job was only one facet of his life, but probably how most people in town would have known and recognized him.  Hopefully we can learn more about him as the day continues.

Deepest condolences to Quincy’s friends and family.