Police Evacuate Jackson Square Apts Looking For Robbery Suspect
Decatur Metro | October 1, 2008 | 10:53 amHate to post and run, but thought I should post this link to an AJC article sent along by EmilyK, about the manhunt that took place at Jackson Square apartments on DeKalb Industrial yesterday.
Two of the three suspects were arrested after the group had been suspiciously hanging out outside the Kroger across the street. The third fled into Jackson Square, so police evacuated the whole dang place and sent in the SWAT team.
Unforunately, they didn’t find him.
We heard the helicopter circling as we were eating dinner on our back porch. Freaky! So glad I wasn’t there. It sounds like they apprehended the guys before they actually went into the store, but they also mentioned this was part of a string of robberies at Krogers involving AK-47s! What???
holy moley. i know there has been a string of purse snatchings from that kroger, but this is crazy.
These are some of the areas Decatur hopes to annex. You have to wonder if the tax revenue will be worth the costs for some of these commercial sites.
From the document presented to the City Commission in January 2008 (available on the City website:
Based on staff analysis, the thirty-six month short term costs of providing City of Decatur services to the potential annexation area would be approximately $400,000 on an annual basis . After the first thirty-six months, we would expect to begin making some capital investments in infrastructure items such as sidewalks, facilities or equipment. At that point, long-term annual cost estimates increase to approximately $750,000. Based on the revenue estimates we have calculated, there should be approximately $3,000,000 remaining for other purposes, including tax relief.
I don’t know why the AJC said they evaced the whole complex, they did. I live in Jackson Square and had no idea what was going on until I saw it on the 10 o’clock news. I was in my appartment the whole time and didn’t see any cops, just saw the police chopper hovering over the place.
sorry that should be they didn’t, not they did, evac the whole place.
So, Steve…. do you know the cost to educate all these kids…..including some children from the Methodist Home that need services that Decatur does not even provide yet? My calculations show that the district cost to educate the annexed children that do not have special needs (and are not using fake addresses) will be around $3,500,000. This number could increase dramatically if we have to open special facilities or if we get a wave of new students moving into the annexed areas or claiming addresses in the annexed areas (where investigation/enforcement of residency status will be close to impossible). Has anyone bothered to figure out the school side of this equation? I think that Decatur residents deserve to see the whole picture. My bet is that school taxes sky rocket and taxes overall go up.
decaturdad, suggest you put that question to the Board of Education. The document I referenced pertained only to City services. I know the Board also did an analysis, which may even be on their website, but I haven’t looked.
Decaturdad, the whole stated POINT of annexation is to lower property taxes by increasing the % of commercial property in the city. The commission wouldn’t even be looking at this idea if the outcome was what you stated.
The real concern for parents is where to house all these new students (the real issue is at the elementary school level), but CSD has been working on that already.
I’ve written a lot about annexation in the past months. If you type it into the search function to the right, you’ll find a lot of additional discussions on the topic.
Decatur Metro, I’m pretty plugged into the school system, and I have never once heard of or seen any document showing an analysis of what the annexation will cost the school system/taxpayers. The Rosser Report discusses enrollment and facilities needs but does not discuss cost of facilities, additional teachers, administrators, staff… etc. I have never heard the city commission even ask this question publicly.
Several of the configuration scenarios that the school board is considering involve re-establishing Westchester as a school (and moving the administrative offices to a rented space) or adding 10 or so classrooms to Renfroe so 4th and 5th graders can attend. If Renfroe is expanded, I would imagine that the cafeteria and library would also have to be expanded since enrollment would swell from about a very manageable 500 over a 3 year grade span to 1000-1200 over a five year span. Play equipment would have to be added for the younger children. The Renfroe classroom addition alone would be approaching the size of our K-3 schools. Where will this money come from?
What if we need to provide intensive behavioral/psychological services for the Methodist Home population? Many of those kids currently attend a special center for children with emotional/behavioral problems. I’m all for helping these kids and don’t have a problem with them being a part of Decatur schools. However, CSD will either need to provide services themselves (at substantial cost) or contract with Dekalb county to PAY them to provide these services. Where will this money come from?
Shouldn’t there be documentation on these costs? Maybe there is some. If you can get your hands on it, I would love to see it published here.
I just have a sneaking suspicion that this annexation isn’t going to save Joe Taxpayer a penny in the end. My take is that residents will experience a reduction in the quality of services they receive both from the city end and the school end… but won’t see any corresponding tax savings. I would be thrilled if I were proven wrong…. but only time will tell.
decaturdad, have you actually asked the School Board or Administration for the info you’re referencing? If you’re “pretty plugged in” it should be pretty easy to get with your connections.
Yes… I have.
Any updates on if the third suspect has been caught?
Doesn’t much of the funding for special services for special need kids come from the state level allocation ? I believe some of the funds follow the student where ever he/she goes to school. I am sure there would be some additional cost to Decatur but I don’t know that it necessarily would be substantial.
Also, I am not sure you can just assume that every child at the Childrens Home needs intensive behavioral/ psychological services. Some probably do , others may not.
Dear Decatur Metro: May I humbly suggest that it is time for an informal “please stay on topic” rule? If that would crimp everyone’s style too much, I would understand, but sometimes these side conversations just get messy.
Hey Paula, as much as off-topic conversations sometimes lead us down strange unrelated paths, they also can produce some pretty interesting conversations…so overall I don’t have a major problem with them.
Plus, its hard enough to enforce the pretty basic, no excessive swearing/no personal attacks rule. I don’t really want to restrict what a topic might inspire in someone beyond that.
Too many “rules” and people stop talking. Gotta walk a fine line. Compared to most blogs, commenters here do an awesome job having substantial, smart conversations…especially since you’re allowed to be anonymous. Go check out the AJC comments sometimes…YIKES.
Sorry, fifi, I did said “many” Methodist Home kids in my post. I didn’t mean to make anyone think it was all of the kids there.
Anyway, I honestly don’t know for absolute sure if the additional school costs will be substantial or not. I do know that there will be big facilities costs – I have never heard of the state/feds paying to build additional classrooms. Maybe it won’t break the school system… Frankly, I don’t know… no one here knows. My point is that it would be nice to get some reliable, well studied numbers on this piece rather than just blindly following suggestions from the Commissioners that our taxes will magically drop if we just annex some property. I just haven’t been that impressed with what our Commissioners have done lately. I think that they have made some pretty goofy decisions in recent years.
Sorry, but I just don’t believe politicians – even local ones – I only believe politicians with reliable data. Frankly, I don’t even believe data all the time anymore.
And, yeah – this did drift off topic. Sorry. I’ll hush now.
Dang, Dad, don’t bail now. You just piqued my interest.
Can you jot down a couple of the decisions you found goofy? I want to get a better handle on this annexation thing and am curious where you’re coming from.
Thanks much.
If we were days away from a vote on annexation, I’d agree with you decaturdad. But no one is going forward with this tomorrow.
I think we can agree that we’ll definitely expect more info on this before it ever goes to a vote to the people in the potential annexation areas…which obviously won’t be this November.
Decatur Metro – Okeedokee. It was really just a selfish request to make things easier on my overloaded brain anyway. 😉