Avondale Scrambles to Offer Annexation to E. College Area
Decatur Metro | January 25, 2008 | 11:12 amIf my report from the city commission meeting on Tuesday didn’t do it for you, GoDeKalb also has a recap this morning.
As opposed to the misleading and sloppy AJC article from Wednesday that asserted the plan for annexation was “on hold”, Mary Swift of GoDeKalb does a good job of summing up the evening’s events as well as reporting on Avondale’s ad-hoc annexation counterstrike against Decatur’s plan.
Since this is the first real report on Avondale’s plan, let’s take a closer look at what’s going on in the Tudor city according to the GoDeKalb article.
The city appointed an ad hoc annexation committee on Jan. 15 after Decatur indicated it might attempt annexation of the property between the cities this legislative session.
Allan Kirwan, chairman of the Avondale Estates ad hoc annexation committee, told city officials at a special called work session on Jan. 23 that it appeared Decatur would not try to get annexation approved this year. Huh? Where did they get this impression? The AJC article?
“The committee finds that at this point we are not ready to annex substantial properties,” the ad hoc committee’s first report said. The committee suggested city officials develop an immediate, 2-year, 5-year and “an ultimate year” annexation plan and the city should try to assess the positions of the property owners regarding annexation. Committee members also said the zoning code should be revised to accommodate different types of properties that might be annexed.”
Don’t bite off more than you can chew Avondale. Don’t you have a revitalization plan to implement?
So the $64k question for the morning is: if you owned a commercial property on E. College, which city would you rather be annexed into? Or would you rather remain in unincorp. DeKalb limbo?
Personally I think Decatur’s Downtown Development Authority and our police force are reason enough to tip the scales in favor of Decatur, regardless of the higher property tax.
h/t: InDecatur
According to Mayor Floyd, there is little difference in commercial property taxes between DeKalb and Decatur. I’d be interested in seeing a real comparison of this issue as GoDeKalb did for a residence. If this is indeed the case, I’d think this category of owners would be eager to support annexation since they would clearly reap City benefits.
A few months ago at my office in downtown Decatur, there was an odd rash of car break-ins (three in one block in the middle of the day is a bit unusual, I’ll admit). Before they knew there was more than one vehicle involved, Decatur police responded by sending three officers to investigate, fingerprint, and do a thorough investigation. They even cleaned the broken glass out of the initial victim’s car and off the sidewalk.
By contrast, when I lived in a heavily populated area in the County, we couldn’t even get an officer to come to our community when we had a rash of auto break-ins several years ago. They took the report over the phone. I was also rear-ended twice in the County at busy intersections and both times had to wait over an hour for an officer to arrive to make a report (in both of those cases the other drivers left the scene since they didn’t want to wait any longer, making the accidents hit and runs).
I would also concur with the Mayor’s implication that County services will only decrease (and taxes increase) when Dunwoody finally achieves incorporation.