Mayor Says Annexation is the "Obvious" Choice to Lower Taxes
Decatur Metro | June 18, 2008In his first post in over a month, Mayor Floyd is talking about changes in recruiting, hiring and paying police officers, a marketing study for downtown businesses, and (of course) ANNEXATION over at Bill Floyd Decatur.
He promises more on the annexation front in the near future. The latest Rosser report said that the city would start a campaign promoting annexation this summer. All the while, we wait for the GA Supreme Court to rule on HOST.
As David pointed out over at InDecatur, the font is really small for some reason, so I’ve posted the full text in a slightly larger font after the continuation for your convenience.
The 2007-2008 city budget has been adopted and goes into place July 1. While it is a realistic budget and tight, it does allow the city to continue to move toward its goal of a clean, vibrant and active city. There are significant changes in the way we recruit, hire and pay police officers in an effort to reach a fully staffed force. In November the city will make the last payment on the bonds for the conference center and parking deck which will lead to a decision of whether we continue in that business or sell the facilities. The money we collect from the hotel-motel tax goes toward that debt and when the bonds are paid we will install a tourism board so that we can legally continue to collect the tax. The funds will then be used for maintenance and upkeep. There are funds for a marketing study to look for ways that we can support our existing businesses and restaurants. In these tough times we must continue to look for ways to help our local economy. There are some other key items in this year’s budget which I will address later. As tight as this budget is, it continues to put pressure on us financially through property tax. We continue to look for ways to lower our property taxes and one way to help keeps popping up – Annexation. It is obvious and will make a significant difference in all of our property tax bills. More later. I know I haven’t written much lately but that will improve. Thanks for your interest and patience.
The issue of annexation is how much. If they target all of the commercial sectors, then it makes perfect sense. More taxes without significantly increases the load on your services.
If they include the large residential area, then it will wreck havoc on the already overcrowded school system as it’s currently configured. I would strongly oppose that. As would most people I’ve spoken with in Decatur.
Now that the system is charter (more public/ parent input), it should make for a perfect storm of opinions and views on this issue of annexation.
Indeed Shawn. And from what I remember from the big ol’ annexation commission meeting last year…that was Jim Baskett’s first public suggestion for annexation…what about just making it commercial? But how feasible is that without ending up looking like a Texas congressional district?
Regardless, the ultimate goal of the city (as described in the City Manager’s report) is to raise the percentage of commercial property in the city from the current all-time low of just 15%. So one would have to assume, regardless of what specific property was annexed, by default, it would be a much larger percentage of commercial to residential than that 15%.
Ultimately the school system may have to absorb some new students from residents that live in between the Decatur city limits and the commercial areas we want to get our grubby, little tax-starved fingers on. But CSD has already started brainstorming ways of accommodating them at the elementary level (where the real over-population is occurring) and it doesn’t sound totally impossible.
So, if it boils down to the city commission saying “we can lower your taxes and CSD has a solid plan to accommodate these new students”, would you say “yes” or “no”?
My concern with the CSD is that they have not shown an ability to forecast enrollment. When I moved to Decatur, the whole restructuring of the schools was underway. I found some of the arguments a bit…interesting.
I always thought that at the core of some of the “support” for the restructuring was a reason to renovate several of the other elementary schools. My thoughts were based simply on looking beyond the spin.
I think Oakhurst was the big winner. It definitely spurred growth in that segment. But looking at the realities of Decatur today, the model won’t work because you will need another elementary school for the Winona Park/ Decatur Heights neighborhood. You also need another 4/5 academy.
We have 1 vacant elementary schools. We have a newly renovated elementary school (Westchester). I think there’s a reason why these buildings have remained in the CSD’s portfolio. And that reason is growth. I think it’s inevitable that they will have to revert to using those buildings as elementary schools.
The next issue will be Renfroe. The new grant should help, but then I see where some of that money will go to staff development and not all to facilities.
I’m most disappointed that the city appears to be running behind every fad in an effort to raise its profile. That money would be better spent hiring a PR person/ firm to trumpet its cause as opposed to wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars chasing the latest fad.
The current annexation plan splits the neighborhood I live in (Midway Woods, directly south of Winonna Park) in two – half will be annexed and half will not. I dislike this current plan quite a bit – it makes no sense to me to have a single neighborhood with different schools and different services and service providers. I strongly support annexation, but only if they include the whole neighborhood.
Thanks for the comments Shawn and Rebecca…this is obviously an extremely important topic for the community to discuss and I appreciate your participation here.
Shawn, from reading a lot of comments here and on other sites, I know there’s a lot of concern about a school system expansion based on the redistricting effort 5 years ago. But is that a hesitation impossible to overcome? What’s interesting to me is that while many admit that Oakhurst elementary has benefited greatly from redistricting, they’re disappointment in having to deal with expansion after only 5 years after downsizing trumps any sense of accomplishment.
The other thing to keep in mind is that both the school board and those that are hesitant to sign on to annexation based on events that transpired 5 years ago aren’t in disagreement about what has to be done…namely that we need more K-3 and 4 & 5 classrooms with annexation. It’s just a matter of faith in CSD.
And from the general hesitancy I’ve seen from the community, it seems like CSD is going to have to address this head on if the city wants to annex. It would be helpful to give a full explanation as to why redistricting led to over-crowding in less than 5 years, and what they are doing differently this time to prevent this. No one is arguing that Decatur schools DON’T need to expand, its just about renewing the faith.
I also hope that the city is aware of this potential issue and doesn’t get too far ahead of CSD in the process. Otherwise, its going to look like CSD is unprepared for the city’s changes, when its really just a matter of poor coordination.
Now, if you want to argue that expanding the school system will degrade your kids education…that’s a different conversation. But right now, I’m not hearing much of that.
I have numerous concerns regarding the conversation about annexation. First and foremost, as a proud resident of Decatur for the past ten years I’ve seen copious amounts of change- most for the better but some for the worse. Let’s remember that bigger is not always better. For years, I’ve taken pride in the fact that I live in a small, progressive, urban community. During the time I’ve lived in Decatur I’ve worked “OTP” and have seen first hand the destruction caused by growth in a small community. The elementary school near my place of work is home to 38 trailors and is opening three new elementary schools in 3 years to help with overcrowding. The area I speak of is the community of Grayson- once considered Gwinnett’s “Best kept secret”. Well, the “secret” is out about Decatur and now people with young kids are flocking to our community. I will be devasted if the annexation turns Decatur into another Grayson. Not to mention the fact that Decatur residents have paid for years to create our great schools and now we’ll be adding trailors to support the growth of our community and the addition of individuals that have not had to pay the taxes or home prices we’ve had to pay in order to reap the benefits of being a member of this city.