At first glance, it may seem that there are few local topics up for discussion as insanely boring as parking.  But just try discussing it with your neighbor and you’ll quickly discover that “parking” is a volatile closet issue for many.  Open that door and you may suddenly find yourself knee-deep in a personal struggle for “what is right” and “what is annoying.”

Here in Decatur, a walkable ‘burb fighting the influence of surrounding speedable sprawl, the issue takes on added weight and dimension.

For decades now, Decatur has bucked almost any developmental trend taken up by the rest of greater Atlanta.  Back in the 1970s, when many of those same suburbs shunned MARTA, Decatur asked that the line be moved so it would cut straight through the center of the city.  And while the Atlanta suburbs continued to crawl across the Georgia piedmont and into the mountains and swamps (circa 2008), Decatur looked towards greater density, shunning wider artery roads with highway-like speed limits in favor of street-narrowing.

But there’s one area where Decatur has a harder time ignoring the car-tendencies of greater Atlanta. Parking.

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During the city comission campaigns this past year, now-commissioner Patti Garrett brought up the issue of what would be done with remaining campaign funds after Election Day during a debate between the District 2 candidates.

We now have the answer.

According to December’s campaign disclosures obtained by DM, Ms. Garrett made a $500 donation to the parent organization of Decatur’s MLK Service Day Decatur Preservation Alliance with her remaining balance.  Of the $270 still left in the account, campaign chair Allison Adams explains that the campaign is leaving the funds in the account “in case something unexpected comes up.”  Ms. Adams also noted that there is still an outstanding loan of $750 to Garrett’s husband, Gary. (View full report here)

Ms. Garrett’s opponent, Kyle Williams also took to the act of donating, distributing every penny held by his campaign after expenses were paid to local groups.   During the months of November and December, Mr. Williams donated over $2,000 to various organizations in the Decatur and Atlanta area.  Donations were made to Decatur High School ($500), Decatur Seniors Helping Seniors ($964.56), Friends of Simone Bell ($400), and Neighbor in Need ($250). (View full report here)

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Sent out in a press release this morning.  A more candid reaction can be found on his Twitter page.  (Those tweets have since been removed)

“I congratulate Patti Garrett for her win on Tuesday. I am proud our campaign. We fought a hard, clean campaign, based solely on the issues that face Decatur. This campaign began and now ends with my love and my commitment for our great city.

I want to thank all of our supporters, contributors, and especially the 1,372 people who voted in this race on Tuesday. It has been an amazing experience that I will never forget. Our campaign put together a coalition of neighbors from across District 2 over varying races, ethnicity, ages, sexual orientations and economic circumstances. Our campaign engaged the public, as turnout in District 2 was 82% higher than it was in the last municipal election in 2007.

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Here are the campaign disclosures (in PDF format) for Decatur City Commission candidates for the month of October.

District 1

Fred Boykin – Total Oct. Contributions – $350 / Total Oct. Contributions less than $101 – $100

James Radford – Total Oct. Contributions – $450 / Total Oct. Contributions less than $101 – $250

District 2

Patti Garrett – Total Oct. Contributions – $815 / Total Oct. Contributions less than $101 – $665

Kyle Williams – Total Oct. Contributions – $525 / Total Oct. Contributions less than $101 – $275

Don’t forget about tonight’s City Commission and School Board Forum at Oakhurst Elementary!

Michael sends in the details…

The forum kicks off at 7 p.m., with School Board candidates Valarie Wilson and Rob Pope answering questions from the audience in the first hour. Both will make closing statements just before 8 p.m.

After which, City Commission candidates Kyle Williams and Patti Garrett answer questions. The forum wraps up at 9 p.m.

Note cards and pens will be provided to audience members at the forum — and they may submit questions anonymously if they prefer.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend so if anyone feels like giving a recap of the action in the comments section post-forum, I’d be most appreciative!

Welcome to Decatur Metro’s Live Online City Commission Debate! The debate begins promptly at 8pm and is scheduled until 9:30p. If you have a comment or a follow-up question to ask the candidates during the debate, enter it below for consideration. A few more details below this window.

Candidates will take turns answering questions first, second, third, fourth. The order will be announced at the outset of the debate. Candidates will be asked to wait at least 30 seconds between replies to avoid any sort of “pig-pile” effect.

In a press release sent yesterday, District 2 candidate Kyle Williams announced that he has received the endorsement of former Oakhurst Neighborhood Association President Michael Gaertner.

From the release…

Gaernter served as Oakhurst Neighborhood Association President in 2007 and 2008 and was recognized as a 2007 Decatur Hometown Hero award winner for his work with the Oakhurst Neighborhood Association, Martin Luther King, Jr. Service Project, and the OWLS (Oakhurst Watch Local Safety) committee. Gaernter helped form OWLS, which has been instrumental in decreasing the crime rate in the Oakhurst neighborhood by increasing community awareness and promoting cooperation between citizens and the police.

“Kyle Williams will use his experience as a member of the Decatur Zoning Board of Appeals and his training as an attorney to fight for us on the City Commission. Kyle has built strong relationships on the county and state level that will serve Decatur well. We need Kyle as our City Commissioner,” Gaertner said.

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This time next week, city of Decatur residents will be rushing from work to the grocery stores, filling their buggies with bottles of Honest Tea and fresh veggies (a Decatur version of soda and popcorn), in preparation for what has been called (by me, right now) the most anticipated hour-and-a-half ever hosted on the internet!

That’s right, we’re just one week away from Decatur Metro’s online live city commission debate, piped directly into your homes via the internets at 8pm (7pm Central) right here at DecaturMetro.com!

As detailed previously, we’ve got all four comissioners in the same space at the same time!  Boykin, Garrett, Radford and Williams!  District 1or District 2, we’ve got’em all!

So keep sending in your debate questions via decaturite[at]gmail.com. Questions can be addressed to individual candidates, district candidates, or the whole lot.  Please also provide your first and last name along with your street address so I can confirm residency.  All resident questions will be posed as “Joe on Clairemont Road asks…”

See you there!

(Phew! Huckstering is exhausting work!)

Back in August, Creative Loafing’s Scott Henry almost peed his pants when the city of Atlanta put its mayoral candidate disclosures online.  It was an understandable reaction, since the old way of obtaining campaign disclosures sounded like a Baggins-esque journey.

Before now, if you wanted to see who gave money to a mayoral candidate, you had to schlep down to City Hall, find your way to the municipal clerk’s office, park yourself in front of a computer — there’s only the one — that looks like it still runs Windows 95 and click on a PDF file. If you wanted the information printed out, it cost 25 cents a page, as I recall. If you wanted it put on a disc so you could view it using an operating system from this century, it cost $30 a pop.

That originally got me thinking about the Decatur City Commission candidates’ campaign filings and their comparable accessibility.  After failing to find them online, I finally got around to requesting them from the city.  And being the ultra-responsive bunch they are, I received campaign disclosure pdfs from the city clerk the very next day!  (And I’d just like to reiterate that anyone can request this stuff, not just me and my big, fat online reputation.)

So following in the footsteps of the AJC’s Jim Galloway – who announced Atlanta mayoral September campaign disclosures this morning – and in an effort to provide similar ease of access for Decatur residents, here are your city commission candidate’s full campaign disclosure forms in pdf format for September (in alphabetical order)…

• Fred Boykin
• Patti Garrett
• James Radford
• Kyle Williams

In what is surely a first in Decatur, if not metro Atlanta, Decatur Metro will host an online debate/forum on this site between the four city commission candidates on Wednesday, October 21st from 8p-9:30p.

DM will use the same live-blog “Cover it Live” program that was employed during the Decatur Book Festival to host an interactive live debate between candidates Fred Boykin, Patti Garrett, James Radford, Kyle Williams and the community.

Here’s how it will work.

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