What does DM do when he drops the ball and can’t make an important city function?
He creates an open thread and hopes to piece the event together through comments and links to other sites!
So…what did the mayor talk about last night? Annexation? C-2 next to R-60? Higher taxes? Falling real estate prices? Property tax assessment cap? HOST?
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Very few specifics. Most of the discussion was about long-term sustainability from several angles.
He had a few choice words for the Gold Dome people, a few less for the County people (he expects the City’s relationship to be better with the new CEO).
He showed the most emotion when he talked about, as a South Alabama boy, he never expected to see an African-American President.
A strange tangent about making Decatur sustainable by creating farms to supply all our own food. While I am an organic, local grown, vegetarian, I am not sure Decatur has enough available land to make farming anything more than a past time initiative. I completely support providing a local farmers’ market (preferrable on the square as opposed to some parking lot).
Agree with Steve, short on specifics. It was very telling that no one from the County or the School Board attended. But, I love our Mayor.
Hey, Joey. How much did the Mayor talk about the urban farming initiative?
I was under the impression the city was looking at it largely in terms of how they might make surplus land available for resident ag and how they might remedy any ordinance hurdles that stand in the way.
I hadn’t heard anyone talking about food production on any level bigger than personal/hobby/community. Did the Mayor float additional ideas? Thanks.
Anyone who wants to look at more of the urban farming initiative or make comments can look here:
http://www.decaturga.com/cgs_citygov_opencityhall.aspx?pd_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.peakdemocracy.com%2Fportals%2F49%2FForum_78%2FIssue_198
Primary focus was on various pillars of sustainability including economic, community, environmental. (I’ve left one out)
He did discuss his vision for growing some food locally to supply to local businesses and the school system but there wasn’t much detail as to the ‘hows’ of it. Apparently they are doing this in Madison WI. He had an opportunity to witness this and he wants to see the same successful model brought here.
He was pretty moved in talking about Obama. As above, he never thought he would see a black president. He got a bit choked up. Said even if some of us didn’t vote for him we should support him and give him some time…the guy has walked into the worst possible situation imaginable.
This was the first time I saw the mayor speak and have to admit that I was pretty impressed. He’s got great charisma and a great sense of humor and he is a progressive visionary leader who is obviously well respected. He is the kind of guy that “gets it.” Up north we would say he is “enlightened”. I’m happy I made the decison to keep my house here.
Let me just go on record to say that I love the urban farming idea. And if the city also wants it to supply food to the school system, even better!
I think that’s a crucial piece of our current spending that needs readjustment so that it is more inline with our “sustainability” message.
I, too, am a big supporter of the Mayor, his agenda regarding urban farming and sustainability, and his comment about Obama. I think the Onion said it best with the headline “Black Man Given Worst Job in US.”
It was a fine talk and the mayor was in good form. He did talk quite emphatically about annexation when speaking of financial sustainability. He said that “we” believe that annexation is the “way to deal with it” — “it” being some unspecified challenges ahead.
It would have been nice to hear a fuller rationale for annexation, given that he began the part on financial sustainability by commenting on the large cash reserves the city has, as reported in the AJC — around 40% of the annual operating budget, I think. He did not, to my recollection, mention HOST, the lawsuit over which is still alive and was once mentioned as an alternative to annexation.
To me, the oddest omission of the whole evening was that the school system wasn’t represented or acknowledged in any way. We had representatives from police, fire, public works, city hall. He asked if anyone from DeKalb was there (there wasn’t). The mayor of Stone Mountain was acknowledged. Various aspects and services of the city were praised and honored for their contribution — and rightly so! As it should be, of course. But everyone who lives in Decatur knows what an enormous contribution the schools make to the success of this city. City Hall and CSD should not be so separated from one another. CSD should have somehow been represented and applauded at the state of the city address.
Chronic overuse of the word sustainable clearly is not sustainable.
I believe Left Wing beat you to that joke.
“shhheeeeeeeeeeeeppp……sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppp…..sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppp…..”
Its the mind control crowds’ favorite word now. Kind of like how “Global Warming” all of the sudden, overnight, became “Climate Change”
Next month it will be “Cloud Change Climate”……
or something.
Good call on the school issue, Judd.
He mentioned that noone from the county was there and that sort of represented their relationship.
Well, noone from the school system was there either (to my knowledge). Not the Superintendent, none of the school board, no staff.
I thought that was sort of a statement of the relationship between the city and the schools system as well.
…or “War on Terror”
So, the argument against sustainability is that the word is overused?
Just to be clear, I am all for sustainability in general. It’s just overused. And sorry to Left Wing if I unwittingly stole his line.
My Les Paul has incredible sustainability does that count? Where should I plant it?
Hmmm, I think I struck a chord!
To Judd’s and I Was There’s comments, prickly relationships between school boards and city commissions are, unfortunately, not all that uncommon. The result is that it’s much more difficult to maintain a coherent vision when you have two sources of power that are not accountable to each other.
This gets back to a comment in another thread about how Decatur city owns our school buildings and CSD leases them. Personally, I’m glad its structured this way. First, it at least forces the two organizations to work together in some capacity. Second, school boards overall have proven themselves totally inept when it comes to land use decisions. If you like smaller scale schools integrated with neighborhoods, best we keep it the way it is.
Thanks to all of you who attended the State of the City address. In addition to the electronic invitation we’ve sent the past few years, we went back to mailing invitations this year. In addition to Decatur Business Association members, we always include the members of the DeKalb delegation to the Georgia General Assembly, the DeKalb County Commission, City Schools of Decatur board members and staff, the mayors of other DeKalb County cities and the members of the city’s volunteer boards and commissions on our invitation list. We believe that the printed invitations and the fact that our local blogs publicized the event helped attract a record crowd.
Andrea Berry of Decatur E-Life was there taping the Mayor’s speech and it should be available soon for those who were unable to attend.
Great to hear about the record crowd Linda!
Scott: I’m wondering if you could elaborate on this point: “Second, school boards overall have proven themselves totally inept when it comes to land use decisions.” What drives this?
And for everyone else: Here’s the AJC’s take on the mayor’s state of the city. There are a couple additional points in there not yet mentioned here.
DM: A blanket indictment, I know. There are always exceptions but the driving point is that school boards often operate outside the authority of municipal leadership, so their focus is what’s good for their system, rather than what’s good for the city/county overall. This boils down to a myopic focus on control and money.
For example, many systems follow a land guide largely similar (it varies state to state) to this:
• Elementary school: 10 acres plus 1 acre per 100 students.
• Middle school: 20 acres plus 1 acre per 100 students.
• High school: 35 acres plus 1 acre per 100 students.
That’s ginormous, and it makes it impossible to build a neighborhood school. For example, I believe Oakhurst Elem. — which serves the students and neighborhood well — sits on about 4 acres. Many, if not most, school systems would be looking for 3 times that. Renfroe’s on 8 acres, vs. a “suggested” 25 or so. Decatur High, which is pretty good size, uses around 14 acres; most boards would be looking for up to 50.
The result is that schools end up where land is cheaper and huge tracts are available — out on the arterial somewhere — which leads to regional, unwalkable schools and huge transportation fleets. In many municipalities, this is contrary to their overall growth plans and there’s not much that can be done.
That’s all just the tip of the iceberg, but I’ve written too much already. I tend to defer to educators’ wisdom and experience when it comes to educating our kids, but their autonomy does not tend to create solid physical connections between schools and the neighborhoods they serve. If CSD is answerable to the Commission when it comes to their school sites, that’s just fine with me. (Is this definitely the case? Still not sure.)
An interesting article on urban farming, for those interested in and/or questioning the concept vis-a-vis Decatur.
Whats wrong with the word “sustainable?” The oceans are choking on garbage (consider the mass of discarded plastic that swirls round in two clots in the Pacific, each as large as the United States), agricultural pesticide contamination is at epidemic levels, the air we breathe in Atlanta can best be called the “sewage” six months of the year, and more and more trees are getting cut down for thoughtless development in the metro area. One can go on and on and on and on and on….
Overuse of the word “sustainable?” Lets face it. We are biological organisms like everything else on the planet and need to work with natural environmental systems or else we get to see the fruits of what happens when we don’t: war, disease, refugees, lack of food, lack of water, lack of safety. Get off your ‘mind control’ paranoia trip, take the Marta train to Hartsfield, get on a plane at the busiest airport in the world and go explore a bit. Jeez.
Whats wrong with the word “sustainable?”
Because some of the right wing fanatics that troll this blog don’t like the term, that’s why.
Check it out…very creative. 6000 people participated in the making of this video on the Belgian coast.