First on DM: Scott sends along a memorandum from Peggy Merriss announcing that she and the city are now recommending that the commission defer consideration of large scale annexation until 2011.

The full memorandum, which gives detailed reasons for the decision, can be read after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

The city’s special events coordinator Cheryl Burnette let’s us know that marathon season is just around the corner…

The community is invited to attend an ING Marathon Community Information Meeting on Thursday, February 5^th from 6 – 7pm in the City Commission Room at Decatur City Hall. Organizers from ING will be there to answer questions as well as give information about volunteering, the Community Challenge, the race route and more. The event is scheduled, Sunday, March 29^th.

The City of Decatur will be staffing two water stations again this year, as well as have a cheering section. And of course, we will be competing to win once again!

The first year of the marathon, Decatur won 1st place in the neighborhood challenge (and $10,000 to boot!).  Last year, our cheering  ranked second behind Candler Park and we received a $5,000 prize.  So this year, we’ve gotta step it up and reclaim our title, showing Candler Park that we are the true champions when it comes to screaming and corny rhyming signs!

For someone who will see his little blog pass a half -million page views today, you’d think that a post entitled “The End of Newsprint” would be a ego-stroking report on the death of newspapers and the unstoppable emergence of the much mythologized “citizen journalism”.

But its not.

Reading Michael Hirschorn’s “End Times” article in Jan/Feb’s Atlantic yesterday, which chronicles the building death-knell of the hard-copy edition of The New York Times didn’t send me out into the night, twirling and laughing at my good fortune.  Actually, it just left me feeling very unsettled.

Hirschorn’s article documents the well-known descent of the newspaper industry and talks about how the NYT must make drastic changes over the next 5 months or it could default on $400 million in debt.  His analysis concludes that the death of newsprint is inevitable…and he’s probably right.

But my own foray into “citizen journalism” hasn’t done much to placate my fears that something substantial isn’t lost when print media goes entirely online.  Yes, newspapers have had this coming to them for an awfully long time.  In its own attempts of survive, our own AJC still claims that it covers the entire metro-Atlanta area, lulling people into a false sense of security that if news happens in their suburb, the AJC will be there to cover it.  But as we’ve seen here in Decatur, cutbacks have made it nearly impossible for our hometown paper to tell even half of the relevant stories the community should know about (Was there a peep out of the AJC regarding the Fellini’s robbery?).  The success of THIS site would not be possible without the cut backs at the AJC.  My questionably-humorous anecdotes about Decatur politics wouldn’t be able to compete with a paid staff of dedicated full-timers.

If this is where the future is heading, this site is definitely on the right side of the trend.  However, I still have a couple real concerns. Read the rest of this entry »

The AJC’s report from the last night’s Board of Education meeting is limited to detailing the $2 million in budget cuts – which were approved – but not a peep regarding reconfiguration.  And since my entire staff decided that a healthy round of beer pong would be more fun than a board of ed meeting, I must ask you, not-so-gentle readers, to fill us in on what was discussed and voted on last night.  And of course, next steps.

Thanks in advance!