City Commission candidate James Radford points out a discrepancy on the city’s website that almost cost him his candidacy.

Amongst the vast sea of 6-point font that is the city of Decatur’s website is the Elections & Voting page with two conflicting statements.

The first is this…

Qualifying is held no earlier than 8:30 a.m. on the second Monday in September and shall end no later than 4:30 p.m. on the following Friday in odd-number years. A notice of candidacy and affidavit can be obtained, completed and returned to the Decatur City Clerk during this period.

Grammar and spelling?  Check!  Semi-confusing date and time frame?  Check!

Accurate?…umm….well, scroll a bit further down the page and…

The opening date for qualifying will start Monday, August 31, 2009 beginning at 9:00 A. M., and continuing until Friday, September 4, 2009 at 4:30 P.M.

Oh dear.  But that’s not the second Monday of September in an odd-numbered year!!

Radford found the error on the city’s site after Kyle Williams tweeted that he had filed for his candidacy this morning.  (Commence unfounded rumors of a Williams/Radford coalition)  The city has already told Radford that they are correcting the error.

So, if you’re running for the city commission or the school board get your patriotic pa-toot to the City Clerk’s office this week!  Oh and don’t forget your $144.00 (city commission) or $35.00 (school board) qualifying fee.

With those fees in mind, here’s a suggested political slogan for any CSD candidates: “Why am I running for the CSD Board of Ed? Because the city commission was too damn expensive!”

Voters love a frugal candidate.

Photo Courtesy of Decatur Garden Tour.

Allison sends in the press release announcing this year’s Decatur Garden Tour. For the list of gardens on the tour, click here.  It doesn’t look like tickets are available yet, but once they are I’ll make sure to let everyone know.

DECATUR, GA — Step into autumn with the twenty-first annual Decatur Garden Tour, September 26 and 27. Explore 12 gardens, both private and public, across this charmingly eclectic intown community. From the stately and formal to the artsy and whimsical, the tour blooms with ideas to feed gardening inspiration all year. The gardens present unexpected plant combinations in vivid fall colors, sustainable and edible plantings, innovative outdoor living areas and serene water features.

Tour-goers will enjoy “art in the garden,” as the creations of local artists further enhance the outdoor environments. Other highlights include a Japanese-style garden featured in Backyard Living magazine and the renowned “garden rooms” of noted author and designer Ryan Gainey’s private home. The tour features Saturday evening hours, during which visitors can explore two gardens along with live music and wine.

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This morning’s AJC front page story about the Anne Frank exhibit moving from the Old Courthouse in downtown Decatur to a strip mall in Sandy Springs in December, reminded me that I had looked into this story a few months back, after Susan sent in a note pointing to another article in the Sandy Springs Reporter.

At the time, I sent an email to the Executive Director of the DeKalb History Center, Melissa Fogerty, to find confirm the news and learn of the DHC’s plans to fill the gap left by the Frank exhibit.  This was her response…

The Anne Frank is a moving, or temporary, exhibit and the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust’s contract with DeKalb County is for three years (ending this year). Before locating here, the exhibit was in Kennesaw for three years. DHC is developing new exhibits to cover the history of DeKalb County, and temporary exhibits on special topics and areas in the county.

When I first started reading John Kessler’s report from Billy Allin’s Cakes and Ale backyard garden, it sounded like he was being one those nosy Decatur neighbors, just wandering into people’s backyards unannounced…

Billy and Kristin Allin’s home seems like any other on its Decatur street — quaint and well-tended, with a mini patch of green lawn and neighboring houses crowding either side.

The backyard is another story. A patio, a sloping yard, a wooded backdrop and — hello — a path.

The path leads through a thicket of tall trees, meanders past a jungle gym and arrives at a sudden, sunny clearing. At the entrance, a hand-painted sign hanging from a trellis announces the “Cakes & Ale Garden.”

Umm, John?  I think that’s called trespassing.

Happily it turns out my fears of food-writers-gone-wild were unfounded.  Kessler does eventually relay some quotes from the Cakes and Ale chef himself (assumedly not given under duress).

Regardless of how the story was obtained, it’s a good piece and worth a glance by backyard gardeners, neighbors and Cakes and Ale fans alike.

Rus writes in…

Yesterday it was officially announced at The Artisan homeowners meeting (by HOA president Nan Pratt) that the Tossed/Countrywide space is going to soon be a Kaiser Permanente clinic.

We had heard rumors of this a couple months back, but had yet to receive confirmation.

We will all have our personal reactions about what SHOULD have gone there, but I don’t think anyone will argue that it’s reassuring to see some of the most expensive commercial spaces in the city still finding tenants.

UPDATE: Asst. City Manager Lyn Menne gives a few more details in the comments section…

The new office will include exam and procedure rooms, physician offices, a laboratory and a pharmacy. It will initially offer internal medicine and pediatrics for Kaiser Permanente members and additional specialties may be added. Kaiser Permanente will invest about $1.5 million in construction, furniture, equipment and IT in the property and expect to open the center in downtown Decatur in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Stepping across the threshold into Decatur’s newest sweet-spot, Relics & Rarities – which opens today at noon – is like entering a nostalgia playground.

Owner and proprietor, Warren Pickard, has single-handedly transformed this once fully operational auto repair shop on North McDonough Road into a land of cars and ice cream.  And when I say “single-handedly” please don’t think I’m being overly general.  Pickard, an Atlanta Police Officer with a life-long eclectic affinity for cars, took on the unenviable task of turning a once-functioning auto garage into an ice cream parlor and car museum.  That means taking on challenges much less enjoyable than slapping Sponge-Bob decals on a sportscar or deciding which of his 35 classic autos to display in his showroom.  We’re talking unenviable chores like sealing the concrete floors, building a retro ice cream parlor, and installing the handicap restroom (which pushed back his opening date).  BTW, Pickard got a “100″ on his health inspection.

The shop is broken up into three areas.  You enter through the ice cream parlor that’s Coca-Cola stools and black-and-white checkerboard floor hearken back to the parlors of the 1950s (or to younger generations, a Johnny Rockets).  The modestly priced 8-flavors of ice cream come in small and regular sizes.  There’s also a $5 banana split, which was not available upon our visit last night, but which Pickard noted would include fresh bananas and strawberries…and who knows what else.

To the right of the ice cream parlor, kids and adults alike can enter a giant playroom of cars and other larger than life attractions.  In here, all the cars and toys are fully interactive.  Kids can play in a Spiderman truck or with an old pinball machine until their parents pull them away, kicking and screaming.

But it’s to the left side of the shop where Pickard keeps his most prized possessions.  A 1965 Mercury Monterey Convertible, 1952 Dodge Powerwagon from the Korean War, a 1974 Bricklin that served as the precursor to the Dolorian, an early 1970s red Mustang convertible, and even a replica of a 1901Oldsmobile Curve Dash Runabout sit comfortably amongst other knick-knacks that Pickard has collected over the years.

And in case you’re wondering, all of these cars are still operational.  That includes the 1901 Oldsmobile that looked more like a horse cart than a car.  (When I showed astonishment that the Olds actually ran, Pickard fired it up and took my wife and I on a loop around N. McDonough, much to the distraction of a passing MARTA bus driver.)

I must apologize for the lengthy introduction, but Relics & Rarities really defies description.  There are no comparables I know of in the entire Atlanta area.  It’s the culmination of one man’s passion for cars (his advice for novice car collectors is “Always have your checkbook with you.”) and his insistence that ice cream “should be an event.”

Pickard has certainly accomplished that.

DHS teacher Chris Billingsley sends in some pics of the corner of the new DHS auditorium, which puts the old gym’s letters to good use.

Access Atlanta has a splendid article about the upcoming Decatur Book Festival with extensive interviews with festival founders Daren Wang and Tom Bell.

If you’re a book festival junkie, there’s probably not much in this article that you haven’t read before.  However, my love of speculation requires that I point out that Wang and Bell state in the article that they can easily see the DBF attendance rate doubling before Decatur hits any sort of capacity.

That’s 150,000 people.

Oakhurst resident Stacy Reno reported a few minutes ago via Twitter that a house under renovation on 2nd Avenue in Oakhurst fell off its piers this afternoon.

Stacy adds “Neighbors say they could feel it 2 street over.”

She also believes this is the reason for the helicopters that have been reported over Oakhurst this afternoon.

Props to Scott for the pic above.

Here’s a rundown of what I have planned for this site during next weekend’s Decatur Book Festival.

Decatur Metro will employ both short-form and long-form reporting formats for this year’s festival.

The short-form will take place in a post that will be “stuck” to the top on DM’s main page.  Some people in-the-know refer to it as “live-blogging”.  The window will look something like this.

As you can see, this software will look and act a lot like AIM or any other chat software.  All you’ll have to do is type up a comment and hit “submit.”  It’s just like commenting on DM – no registration required.  It can be used to post short reports/observations/reflections and I can even your pictures (if you email them to me).

But because an unmonitored internet isn’t a pretty sight – just ask the AJC – this live-blogging software is moderated.  That means if you submit a comment, it’ll be sent to moderation first so I can approve it.  However, there is a way for you to get around the moderation and this is where the “recruiting” comes into play.  The platform allows me to submit up to 25 email addresses of people that are automatically given unmoderated access to post in the “Cover It Live” window.  The software calls these folks “panelists”, but for this event I’d be more inclined to call these folks “reporters” or “the DM team of excellence.”

So, if you’re attending the Decatur Book Festival next weekend and would like to provide updates from the field during the event (so far the software seems to work quite well on PCs, Macs, and most mobile devices), send me an email with your name and what sort of events you’ll be attending over the weekend and I’ll add you to the list of 25.  And just to be clear, even if you don’t want to be on the list, you can still post, I’ll just have to approve your comment first.

The long-form reporting will take the more traditional blog format.  These individual posts will be more in-depth pieces about DBF events.  I’ll of course will be writing in this format through the weekend, but for the first time I’d like to open up this opportunity to all interested readers and writers out there.

On average, DM now averages over 1,600 readers a day, so I’m hoping people who enjoy writing as much as reading will see this as an opportunity to communicate with a larger audience and (if they want) get their name and/or business out there.  If interested, just email me your reports from the field at decaturite [at] gmail.com, and I’ll give you your own post.    (In your email let me know the name you want to go by and whether you have a website you’d like me to link to.)  Obviously, I can’t promise to post everything, but if it’s good and thorough, I’ll put it up.

And yes, I’m making this up as I go.  Let’s see how it works.