Medlock Schedules Another Annexation Meeting with Decatur
Decatur Metro | November 25, 2014 | 9:00 amAmidst an annexation update on the Medlock Area Neighborhood Association website is this note…
Because many residents continue to voice an interest in being annexed to Decatur, we have arranged another meeting with the City of Decatur the week after Thanksgiving. Both Mary Margaret Oliver and Elena Parent have indicated that they will at least try to attend; Rahn Mayo is unavailable for that meeting. Decatur was very clear in their lack of interest in annexing the Medlock neighborhood when we met last September 25 and the MANA Board does not believe that we will receive a different answer.
You know it’s the holidays when a couple of hours go by after an annexation post and there’s still no comments.
At Home in Decatur – that’s funny!
What I find funny is that MANA has *completely* gone off on Decatur in recent posts on the MANA website. Examples: Decatur is selfish for trying to annex commercial property, who does Decatur think it is, Decatur ppl are a bunch of jerks who hate their unincorporated neighbors, Decatur ppl are a bunch of snobs, etc.
I think the animosity is fueled in large part bc Decatur does not want to annex MANA. They want in, they get feedback from the city that it won’t happen, they blast Decatur publicly, and then they go back to the city to beg. Give me a break.
Decatur in no way needs to annex Medlock.
“I think the animosity is fueled in large part bc Decatur does not want to annex MANA.”
Maybe it’s more that Decatur wants to annex commercial properties bordering Medlock without annexing Medlock itself, and Decatur’s motivations for cherry-picking the commercial properties are so clearly pecuniary. I don’t live in Medlock but I can see where they’re coming from on this. I mean, here you have a quite wealthy, very “progressive” community purposefully trying to benefit itself at the expense of the tax base of the surrounding school system. That’s going to generate some animosity. I know you guys have other high-minded rationales for what you’re doing, but there is some justified skepticism out there.
I dunno. I’m actually kinda feeling sorry for Medlock now–I mean, they got left out of EVERYBODY’S annexation plans!
According to the MANA website, Lavista Hills has given them an open invitation to join. However, they have apparently chosen to try to get annexed into Decatur or Atlanta instead.
Medlock,
It’s not you, it’s me. I’m just not ready to be landlocked into a relationship with you right now. There are plenty of fish out there looking for someone like you and you will find your soulmate. I know a lot of your best friends are getting married right now. You are a great, great girl with a lot to offer, but you have all these kids and I don’t think I can handle that right now. I have kids of my own that I can barely manage. I don’t want to lead you on with more dates because that wouldn’t be fair to you. It’s over. I’m sorry.
Sincerely, Decatur.
But I am going to take your car.
–Decatur
Ha! Perfect.
As DEM said above, cherry picking the commercial isn’t going to make any friends. It’s not shocking that MANA doesn’t like the plan Decatur is proposing. It’s clearly one-sided.
Medlock,
The car doesn’t belong to you. It just happens to be parked next door. Be rational. I don’t want to have to take out a restraining order. Besides, we don’t want to put DeKalb in the middle of this. Hasn’t he been jilted enough?
Please stop dropping by my house and asking our friends to set us up.
Your friend,
Decatur
But I am still going to try to steal that car that’s parked next door. I need to sell it to finance my lavish lifestyle. You don’t actually expect me to pay for it, do you?
–Decatur
Oh Medlock.
The only reason you are complaining about me “stealing” the car is that I won’t take you away with me in it. If I was stealing the car, then you would be an accessory if the police caught us in it together.
Besides, you have tried to offer the pink slip of the car to Briarcliff and Druid Hills when you don’t even own it.
looking at the potential cityhood map in the next post, if i were the person in charge of approving new cities, i would deny all applications until there were no overlaps, and no little sections left in between cities. sure, nobody has a duty or right to annex any particular area or demand that if the nearby commercial property is annexed, that the residential neighbors have to be taken too. but having 95% of the county be incorporated leaving little pockets of unincorporated neighborhoods just doesn’t seem like the best way to go. will the county just run a few schools and bus the various reject kids to some central location? i’m all for people creating the cities their hearts desire, but if there’s going to be a massive land grab, let’s try to make sure it makes sense from a county-wide point of view, not just every wannabe city’s own desires. i.e. if you want to go out and play with your friends, you have to take your little brother with you.
ant1:
“Will the county just run a few schools and bus the various reject kids to some central location?”
Only existing cities can “take the schools” – so that means just Atlanta and Decatur. The schools in the new cities will still be part of the DeKalb County School System. See the school section in the link below:
http://druidhills.org/2014/10/15/cityhood-annexation-options-and-their-effects-on-taxes-and-schools/
interesting, i thought getting out of the dekalb school system was one of the major drivers behind the various cityhood movements. either way, my point still stands from the point of view of other county services, like Mr. Boh says.
Unless I am mistaken, only the annexation (Atlanta and Decatur) would reduce Dekalb school enrollment. The other city-hood options on the table would not include making their own school system.
That being said, they get to dump county pension obligations, leave random islands that Dekalb Police and other services would have to get to, and other issues that eventually may make the whole county unsustainable and unable to function.
I’m kind of surprised this hasn’t gotten national attention. It isn’t normal that a county breaks up like this.
Mr. Boh and ant1 are right. The cityhood ppl want to get rid of the bad stuff about DeKalb County to benefit themselves (by shirking responsibility – just dump it and it can be someone else’s problem) – absolutely no one is thinking about the county as a whole. That “selfish” behavior is what’s driving the cityhood efforts in the first place.
And let me say this – I live in CoD, and I think it’s crappy that the city is trying to make a land grab for commercial property. Pythagoras talked about Decatur needing to finance its “lavish lifestyle,” and s/he’s exactly right. Decatur has a real problem with student growth – it’s a victim of its own success – and the city needs to solve the problem on its own, without leaving things worse for other areas of DeKalb County.
Maybe we have to raise residential taxes, and we should certainly try to attract businesses to the current city limits to bring in commercial tax revenue. If neither of those happen, the city will end up with schools that drop in quality bc there are (already) considerably more kids than the system can handle – but that is the city’s (difficult) problem to solve. It’s hard bc CSD is seen as the only viable public school option for K all the way through 12. We will continue to have families move to Decatur from out of state and other cities, and we will certainly keep having families move to the city (from APS and DeKalb schools) the very summer their kids start K, or a year before. I guess if the school quality drops too much, city residents may choose to send their kids to private school, and maybe families will stop moving from other areas of intown Atlanta to CoD, just for the schools. Worsening schools could solve the demand problem.
But back to the point of today’s post – Medlock. It desperately wants the city to annex it, but the city says probably not. Then Medlock blasts Decatur publicly (see http://www.medlockpark.org/2014/11/that-unreasonable-decatur-annexation.html). But after that, Medlock calls Decatur to beg once again to be annexed. It’s hypocrisy – Medlock calls the city unethical and makes lots of other negative comments, but it sure wants in if the city will take it. If Decatur is as ruthless as Medlock claims, and has no problem “walking on the backs of other county residents,” why would Medlock want to be part of such an unsavory place? If Decatur is as bad as Medlock is portraying it, then Medlock should stay true to its convictions and walk away. Why the desire to join such an ethically challenged and selfish city? Again, it’s pure hypocrisy on the part of Medlock. And it’s pitiful – the hypocrisy as well as the begging.
Lavista Hills will take MANA so that there won’t be any issue with islands. MANA just needs to say yes.
If one wants to live in the city of Decatur, then he or she needs to buy a place and not hope to get something for nothing. I mean, honestly.
The conjecture in these comments is pretty amusing. Medlock is not a single person. It’s a neighborhood made up of many people with many varying opinions about a situation that is really complicated and with a lot of moving parts. My observation is that many of my neighbors’ opinions and desires are evolving as more information becomes available about each of the potential scenarios. As a Medlockian myself, I don’t think it’s accurate to characterize the entire neighborhood as hungry to be annexed into Decatur. It’s pretty funny for DM comment fodder but not representative of the conversations I have been having amongst my neighbors.
Our neighborhood association has taken a very methodical approach to exploring our neighborhood’s options and I for one appreciate their efforts. They have never claimed all options are equally possible or promised any outcome. Medlock is a pretty diverse neighborhood and there is no one outcome that will be best for all. I for one am not the least bit worried about being left off of any maps. i have an expectation that there will be negotiations and compromises before all of this is said and done. I feel confident that Medlock will remain strong and vibrant wherever we end up.
It’s amazing how worked up one can get on DM. I have occasionally been totally convinced by some of the passionate arguments, only to investigate offline and find out that there was more to the issue than the adamant positions I saw here. You have to take it all with a grain of salt. But at least it’s moderated well and not nasty, racist, and ugly, not to mention downright ignorant, like on the AJC and many other blogs. And occasionally the posters are darn right. I learn a lot of new stuff here.