At last night’s city commission meeting, Public Works Manager David Junger informed the commission that the 30 mph speed limit recently approved by the commission had been rejected by the Georgia Department of Transportation and would have to be raised back to 35mph.

The resulting conversation revealed some interesting rules regarding setting speed limits.  First, local governments can put up speed limit signs that say whatever they want, but the only enforceable limits are those backed up by the GDOT.  Secondly, GDOT uses some sort of “85% rule” to determine road speed limits, though I must admit Mr. Junger was talking over my head at that point and yelling follow-up questions at my television went unnoticed.

So, the city commission begrudgingly approved replaceing the old 30mph signs with the old 35mph signs.  (The enforceable speed limit was never actually changed)  The move was made with the express intent that the city would now begin strongly enforcing the speed limit in the West Howard corridor.

City Manager Peggy Merriss reminded the commission – and those in attendance – that much of that strip of road is still a school zone with a 25mph limit during school hours.  According to Ms. Merriss, school zone fines are often in excess of $400 a pop.

How will Decatur, a city of just 18,000, make itself more appealing to Google’s “Fiber” project, which is looking for communities from 50,000 to 500,000 to shower with insanely fast broadband speeds?

Create a partnership!

At tonight’s city commission meeting, Lena Stevens, the city’s Resource Conservation Coordinator, announced a partnership that the city has created with four other DeKalb cities – Avondale Estates, Chamblee, Doraville and Dunwoody – to make up the “Atlanta Urban Area Partnership”, to boost the population count on the application and hopefully get Google’s attention.  Stevens says that the city is also currently talking with Emory to also get them on-board.

A Facebook page supporting the partnership will launch this evening – I’ll update this post once I have the address.  The city has also hired Decatur eLife’s Andrea Berry to produce a video to promote the effort.

Join Mayor Bill Floyd and City Commissioner Fred Boykin at Decatur’s East Lake MARTA station on Tuesday morning for the 5th annual “Georgia Rides to the Capitol”.  The 2010 event is in support of “House Bill House Bill 988 — a 3 foot safe passing bill.”

Fred provides a few more details on the morning ride…

This is the 5th annual ride and we’re hoping for over 1,000 cyclists to participate. There are two rides – one leaves from Roswell at 9:45 a.m. and the other leaves from Decatur (E. Lake MARTA station) at 10:45 a.m. Both rides are police escorted to the Capitol; riders are on their own for the trip back.

The Decatur route is an easy one and will be led by Decatur Mayor Bill Floyd. We also expect over 40 other metro area mayors and elected officials to ride the event as well!

We’ve had Glennwood students particpate and lots of Decatur folks join in too.

It’s a great way to show support for cycling in Georgia.

Even more event details HERE.

From CNN…

The new Coffee Party movement deemed its official kickoff Saturday a “huge success,” with dozens of talks held at coast-to-coast coffee shops as members came together to discuss the issues most important to them.

…At Java Monkey in Decatur, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, coordinator Stacey Hopkins said turnout far exceeded expectations, with around 60 people participating at the “very productive” meeting where health care reform was the overriding issue.

“We had kids there, we had college students, high school students, and we had retirees,” she said. “It went across a very broad spectrum age wise and racially, and this is that we’d like to see.”

And while many will immediately assume that this is a more highly caffeinated, liberal reaction to the grassroots Tea Party Movement, the movement’s online home states that “Coffee Party USA aims to reinvigorate the public sphere, drawing from diverse backgrounds and diverse perspectives, with the goal of expanding the influence of the People in America’s political arena.”

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City annexation makes some folks do some mighty strange things.

This morning’s AJC reports that State Representative Ernest Williams (D-Avondale Estates) (D-Stone Mountain) asked the House to vote down extending DeKalb’s tax freeze for another five years, because he’s unhappy that that same body created the city of Dunwoody last year.

Williams said later he wanted to make the point that he does not believe the citizens of DeKalb were treated right last year when the issue of creating the city of Dunwoody was turned from a local matter into one voted on by the full House.

“That [the call for defeat of the property tax freeze] was my way of retaliation. It’s politics,” Williams said, adding that last year DeKalb not only lost Dunwoody as an unincorporated area, but with it $18 million or more in revenue.

While I’m glad that there’s a word in the English language for such an odd form of retaliation (“politics”), I wonder how that explanation will fly with voters come the next election cycle, if for some reason the DeKalb tax freeze is allowed to expire.

Over the January 29th-30th weekend, Decatur’s City Commission retreated to Smithgall Woods in Helen, Georgia to discuss the future of Decatur.

If you’re curious about what our mayor and city commissioners want Decatur to look like in 5 years and/or what their main goals & projects are for 2010, this is a must-read.

You’ll find the full report after the jump!

[h/t: DNO]

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Apparently the Georgia House of Representatives thinks so.

In a 137 to 33 vote yesterday, the AJC reports that the House approved legislation that would give the governor power to remove local school board members, based on a recommendation by the State Board of Education.  The measure now goes back to the Senate for a vote.

According to the news org, the legislation is a reaction to Clayton County’s loss of accreditation last year.   And while I understand the state’s concern when a school system completely fails its students, this seems a bit drastic and big government-ish for Georgia’s Republican Party.

Why does it seem like the State’s (R)uling party keeps trying to take more and more power away from local governments?  What happened to the “local knows best” mentality?  Is that particular ideology up for grabs in political arenas again?

DHS teacher Chris Billingsley reports in…

Today was the last day for Georgia Close Up.  The students spent the morning meeting major players at the capital.

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Decatur and Avondale Estates’ College Avenue annexation bid hits the front page of the AJC this morning, with a big ‘ol article on all things PROPERTY.

The article features all the reoccurring arguments and views in our ongoing debate:  the effects of gentrification, the predicted value of property after annexation, the legal right of cities to annex without property owner consent, and arguments pro (Finders Keepers’ Bonnie Kallenberg) and con (property owner Joe Gargiulo).

April Hunt’s piece gives a very good overview of the situation, but honestly doesn’t feel very timely since the bill to annex the commercial parcels along the strip is currently without a needed 10th vote from the DeKalb delegation, which is the only way to usher it onto the House floor.  But I guess since it’s made its way out of the AJC’s Metro section and onto the front page, it might be an interesting read for Cobb County residents!

“Oh Dekalb cities, you so crazy!”

In an explosion of posts yesterday, InDecatur documented many of the goings-on at Monday’s Decatur City Commission meeting.  Among the most interesting photos taken were of the buildings to be built on the site of Allen Wilson Terrace.

We saw one of these renderings back in September, and though an architect working for the firm developing the site stated “the rendering is not the final design”, it looks quite similar to what we saw back then.  (Yes Scott, you’re porkchop eaves are still there!)

However, the other rendering, which Dave tells me is the Senior Living Apartments along Commerce called “The Oliver House” (assumedly for Decatur’s Henry Oliver, a local business owner back at the turn of the 20th century, who had is street name taken away from him back in the 1980s, but don’t get me started on that).

Anyway, the Oliver House has quite an interesting style, which I might venture to call “English Manor House Modern”.  Check it out.