Comments on: First Waffle House May Acquire "Historic" Status

By: HDog

HDog — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 23:53:55 +0000

Yah, you are correct about that. no argument whatsoever from me.
Having spent a lot of time looking at the annexation over the past months though, being part of Avondale is not a viable solution either.
To a person, every one of the property owners I spoke with in the affected areas said, given a choice Decatur was the better choice.

Avondale just shows up as a very silly place. In fact when you do the numbers it is very difficult to cost justify Avondale as an independent city.
The fact that they are persistently trying to annex these commercial districts for no other reason than for the added revenue is very telling. Yes, the stated purpose is gateway improvements, but I still have to say, look at “downtown ” Avondale, tough to see why additional acreage is going to address their difficulty creating a robust commercial district.
Perhaps a solution would be to have the City of Avondale disappear and have that whole area become part of Decatur.

One example: I have worked in areas where low/no interest loans were available to property and business owners for storefront improvements.
The $$ already being spent forcing annexation down throats could used directly for that.

By: GAK

GAK — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:16:39 +0000

Right. Obvioulsy, being in unicorporated DeKalb has worked so well that we have no reason to look for other alternatives to kick-start re-development.

By: HDog

HDog — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 02:40:21 +0000

Yep, Annexation would spruce that strip right up …. just like downtown Avondale, right? Avondale has 2156 residents, a $2.6 -$3M dollar budget and 47 city employees. Historic Prez committees and business development committees, why the city has gotten so difficult for business to deal with they are actually considering creating another taxpayer funded city position of “Business Liaison” to help business owners deal with the city ……. I guess it would be way to easy to actually have the current city employees lighten up and be a little bit easier to deal with …

An enticing reason for those businesses to want to deal with another layer of government and all for the mere cost of another 15-20% increase in property taxes.

In the areas targeted by Avondale for annexation there are about 85% of the property owners against annexation and 10% not responded or undecided. I guess any kind of popular support is irrelevant these days.

By: Decatur Metro

Decatur Metro — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:34:20 +0000

That can’t be it. They must just be a bunch of tax-loving socialists.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:22:22 +0000

Understanding you probably asked the question rhetorically, maybe it’s because WH is smart enough to realize that destination enterprises (like the museum) fare better when they’re not in crappy destinations. If that strip didn’t have all the charm of bombed out Detroit, maybe they’d be open more often than by appointment only.

(I really wanted to incorporate some kind of scattered and smothered quip into my post but came up with nothin’. Dang!)