Mark your calendar!  Decatur Beer Festival tickets go on sale August 24th!

No seriously, mark it right now or you will forget, it will sell out, and you’ll be really upset with yourself and you’ll end up lashing out at others.  It won’t be pretty.

Or you can just keep checking in at DM.  I’ll remind you.

Oh, also…The Decatur Minute just passed the word that the 2009 Beer Festival website is now up.  Check ‘er out!

I’m sorry, but apparently planning talk is like a siren’s call to me.

As I mentioned in a previous post, city commission candidate Patti Garrett is proposing ideas on how to improve pedestrian safety along that car sewer we call College Avenue over on her new blog.  Among the ideas are “low cost bandaids”.  Patti writes…

Certainly there are interim measures that can help calm the traffic, increase the alertness of pedestrians, walkers and bikers, and increase awareness of everyone involved that they all have a role to play in making this work.

Is there a way to call attention to the intersections that alerts pedestrians, bicyclers, drivers that those marked are “dangerous intersections”? Mark the pavement? Use crossing flags? Place pedestrian makers in street similar to those used at intersections without a light? Other traffic calming measures that increase pedestrian safety?

This reminded me of a quick and relatively cheap ped-friendly idea I saw while on my recent trip to Bermuda: zig-zag lines!

I think this is genius.  Instead of the familiar double yellow line causally leading a zoned-out driver headlong into a white, striped crosswalk, this change to a broken zig-zag unnerves and alerts the driver that something is about to change and that they should sit up and pay attention.

I’d guess that about 90% of the reason cars don’t stop for pedestrians in crosswalks has to do with not seeing them.  I know that as a driver, I often find myself swearing at the dashboard as I blow through a crosswalk having not seen the now-disappointed dog walker waiting to cross.  Zig-zag lines can help remedy this problem, giving the driver a cheap and effective heads-up.

Do I hear a second?

And you thought that I had forgotten.  Everyone put your “Annoyingly Involved Citizen” hat back on.

Here are Fire & Rescue’s priorities (page 28 of pdf) for the current fiscal year…

Priority One: Increase level of medical service [from First Responder] to Basic Life Support (BLS). Requires the acquisition of equipment, supplies and a contracted Medical Director. Recurring costs will be significantly less in the following years which will include the cost of the Medical Director and supply restocking.

Priority Two: Upgrade hose connections. Upgrade of the 5” hose that will adapt the connections to a swivel fitting which will increase operations and provide a safer operation. Quint 1, Engine 2 and Engine 1 will be completed in this year’s budget. Engine 3 will be proposed in the next budget.

Priority Three: Training. Training will address supervision/management, officer development, computer skills, disaster operations, fire prevention/public education and specialized training.

And here’s Decatur Police’s priorities (page 31 of pdf)…

Priority One: Computers for patrol vehicles, the traffic motorcycle and the roll call room.

Priority Two: Mobile video cameras to replace old VHS cameras.

Priority Three: Continued Marketing and Recruiting Efforts.  Recruit marketing maintenance plan

Priority Four: Crime Reporting Software.  The department has contracted with CrimeReports.com to track and report current crime reports and analyze data to better predict future crimes.

Without an incumbent in the mix, Decatur’s District 2 city commission campaign has thus far been much more active than its District 1 counterpart.

It’s only August and candidates Patti Garrett and Kyle Williams have already worked up quite a sweat out on that dusty campaign trail.  But if all the tweeting, email blasts and updates to Decatur blogs are any early indication, political campaigning in the city has changed forever.

While I recall it being near impossible to find info about local candidates in previous years, here’s a quick list of the myriad of ways you can keep up with these two very active and web-savvy campaigns:

• Patti Garrett: website, email updates, Facebook and campaign blog.
• Kyle Williams: website, email updates, Facebook, and Twitter.

What kind of news would you be hearing about if you were plugged into all these channels?

• The latest news from Kyle Williams is that the campaign has made a $2,000 donation to be a Band Sponsor at tomorrow’s BBQ, Blues and Bluegrass Fesitval.
• Over at the Patti Garrett campaign, she’s got a list of proposals on her new blog for improving pedestrian safety along the College Ave.

For better or worse, staying informed about Decatur politics has never been easier!

OK, I’m willing to try anything once.

Use this open forum to make statements or ask questions about local topics that haven’t been brought up in other posts.  All the same commenting rules apply.

Depending on how successful and headache-free it is, it could become a weekly feature!