DHS teacher Chris Billingsley sends in a couple pics from today’s noontime viewing of Obama’s address to students and adds…

Most, if not all, the students at DHS watched president Obama’s speech today. I prepped my students with excerpts from Patrick Henry’s “Liberty” speech, the first two paragraphs from Jefferson’s “Declaration of Independence” and a copy of the president’s speech. I thought it was a good activity for most of the students. They paid attention.

Daren points out that the Blue Elephant Bookshop (in the Publix plaza @ N. Decatur and Clairmont) will be hosting the second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, this Friday at 7:30p.

Aldrin will speak about and sign his new memoir Magnificent Desolation.  Great title.

Due to space considerations, the evening will be a ticketed event.  To acquire a ticket you must purchase a copy of Aldrin’s memoir from Blue Elephant.  Only tickets 1-200 are guaranteed a spot in the store. More details and “rules & regulations” can be found here.

As anyone can guess, it’s notoriously difficult to estimate attendance levels at festivals that don’t employ ticketed entry.  That said, Decatur Book Festival Executive Director Daren Wang predicts around a 15% increase vs. last year.

How’d the DBF powers-that-be come up with that number?  Well…

The square was more crowded, there were more venues, the smaller venues were more full, the lines at the larger venues were longer and it was a lot harder to get through the crowds.  I don’t think, however, that we had 80,000 people in town over the weekend.  So the bottom line is we are estimating a 15% increase, but not putting an absolute number on it.

Sounds about right to me.

From the Dunwoody Crier [via Political Insider]…

The DeKalb County Commission finally dropped its last-ditch lawsuit against the incorporation of the city of Dunwoody last week.  CEO Burrell Ellis applauded the decision, while commissioners basically admitted that the sole reason for the lawsuit was the loss of tax revenue from the area around Perimeter Mall.

An honest, if not legally defensible argument.

Speaking of indefensible arguments, here’s a quote from the article that gives this Decatur resident a ridiculous idea…

With the inclusion of the Perimeter Center area, Dunwoody has a 40 percent commercial base, the same as the county as a whole. If the Perimeter Center was excluded, Dunwoody would be “grossly disproportionate” with residential areas and minimal commercial property. [Dunwoody City Attorney Brian] Anderson said this would be “fundamentally unfair.”

New lawsuit!  Decatur vs. DeKalb County.   “With commercial property making up only 15% of Decatur’s tax digest, we, the residents of Decatur, find this fundamentally unfair.  Give us more.  We need the money.”

View Decatur Railroad Crossing Improvements in a larger map

One of the key components of the city’s adopted Community Transportation Plan is improvements to all of Decatur’s confusing and unfriendly railroad crossings.  Tonight, the city commission votes on providing up to $267,000 to fund a master plan for future improvements where Candler and McDonough Street cross the CSX tracks.

According to a note from Asst. City Manager Hugh Saxon that is part of the materials (pdf) for tonight’s city commission meeting…

The work includes an extensive community participation and master planning effort. Specific improvements are dependent on approval of the master plan but will be designed to improve pedestrian accessibility and safety around and across the two CSX railroad crossings in downtown Decatur.

To be a bit more specific about what might be addressed by this projected $1.5 million construction project, here are the stated problems of each of these intersections according to the transportation plan. Read the rest of this entry »