I just discovered that the city’s 2008 Annual Report is now online.

If you haven’t seen the city citizen survey results, they’re all included in this document.

Additionally, here are a couple of nuggets I thought folks might find interesting.

1. Annexation (page 6) - The city says that “during summer 2008, the city will offer education and information sessions as well as public input opportunities to provide the City Commission with options for consideration this fall.” In addition to that, on the very same page, the city highlights “annexing commercial property” only. Could this be an indication that the city is now thinking more seriously about a pure commercial annexation with little to no residential?
2. CodeRed Weather Warning System (page 10)- “Decatur will implement a CodeRed Weather Warning System designed to deliver severe weather warnings to residents’ telephones within seconds after being issued by the National Weather Service. The CodeRed Weather Warning ystem is different from the CodeRed Emergency Noticfication System in that it will not call everyone in the city. It willonly notify the immediately affected areas bacsed on instant satellite feeds. Calls will not be initiated by the city – they will be done automatically by the weather warning system. The weather warning system requires that residents “opt in” to the service…” (Date of introduction?)
3. Population Decline? (page 7) - the city projects that its population will continue to decline thru 2012, even with the continued construction of downtown condos. The reason? Household size is shrinking. According to the report, the city’s household size is only 2.12 this year, compared to 2.70 for metro Atlanta and 2.58 for the country. So much for the myth that we’re a city jam-packed with an abnormally large percentage of big families!