UPDATE: WABE’s Charles Edwards has posted a pic from the scene where police are STILL inside Lewis’ home.  The raid started at 7am, according to Edwards.

Whoa.  From the AJC…

The DeKalb school board chairman says Superintendent Crawford Lewis is cooperating with investigators as they search his home and three school offices.

The search is part of an ongoing criminal investigation into multimillion-dollar school construction projects.

The DeKalb district attorney’s office served a search warrant at Lewis’ home in the Southland subdivision in Stone Mountain around 7:30 this morning. Around the same time, investigators showed up at the DeKalb school headquarters on North Decatur Road with a second search warrant.

Investigators are now searching the two school board buildings on North Decatur Road and the Sam Moss Service Center on Montreal Road in Tucker, said Orzy Theus, a spokesman for the district attorney.

Other than the tipped-off AJC, it sounds like this has taken everyone by surprise.  Burrell Ellis showed up at the scene and asked the AJC what was up.  The DeKalb Board of Ed is holding an emergency meeting tomorrow morning at 9am.

Geez a-loo.

Someone asked about the date of this spring’s Decatur Electronics Recycling Day in a comment yesterday.  Commissioner Patti Garrett’s website/blog provides the answer…

Mark your calendar for the City of Decatur’s next Electronics Recycling Day, slated for March 27th from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Decatur High School.

More details will follow as we get closer to this event.

As noted in Decatur City Commissioner Patti Garrett’s recent email to the community, there’s a March 1st MARTA public forum at the lovely Maloof Auditorium in downtown Decatur, from 6p-8p, to discuss the proposed bus route changes and flat-out discontinuations planned for the Atlanta transit system.  As noted rather succinctly by Garrett…

The routes around the East Lake, Avondale, and Decatur stations that face severe changes include the following:

Avondale: #2, #8, #36, #75, #114, #119, #120, #122, #125

Decatur: # 15, #18, #19,#123

East Lake: #22, #24

Garrett also suggests a couple other ways to give your feedback, which include…

1) Call the hotline, which receives and records messages from the public, at 404-848-5026; and 2) there is a “click and comment” section on the MARTA website at www.itsmarta.com.

Do you fancy yourself an Atlanta business and/or industry leader?  Then City Schools of Decatur needs five minutes of your time!

Diane forwards this CSD request sent out to parents this morning…

City Schools of Decatur (CSD), in partnership with DeKalb Technical College, has been awarded a $3.025 million grant to create the Decatur Career Academy (DCA). We at CSD are conducting a survey to solicit information from metro Atlanta’s business and industry leaders. This information will be used to inform school leadership about potential DCA program offerings in order to support our students’ transition into the world of work. It will also aid the DCA as it prepares for the renovation and construction related to the Georgia Career Academy Grant.

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A couple comments and a question actually.

First, I’ve finally gotten around to taking 5 minutes and posting a “comment policy” at the top of the site.  Those who have been around awhile have a good idea of how things work around here, but I realized it was a bit unfair to assume newcomers would just figure it out, even though that method seemed to be working pretty well.

Second, I’m curious to know people’s thoughts on attaching a “Thumbs Up” option to comments, where instead of feeling obligied to respond, you could show your support for a comment by clicking the ‘thumbs up’ button.  (Think Facebook’s “Like” option.)

I’m currently on the fence about it, because on one hand I like the idea of letting more folks weigh in who aren’t necessarily comfortable with commenting, but on the other, I’m a bit worried it might turn into a competition about who can write the most popular comments, as opposed to truly speaking their minds.  I’m curious what the rest of you think.

Third, a bit of DM trivia!  The first commenter – who was not a fellow blogger – who still comments frequently on the site is none other than Parker Cross, who first commented way back on the 10th of October 2007, a mere two weeks after the site first launched!

I never even realized this until I went back digging into the comments.  Thanks for all the years of input “Parker”!

Map of the 2010 Tour deCATUR route.

Gail writes in…

The 8th Annual TOUR deCATUR Road Race is just 17 days away! The Early registration deadline has been extended to March 1. All proceeds of this community event support programs of the Decatur Education Foundation which promotes academic achievement and enrichment opportunities for all the children and youth of Decatur. Register today for the 5K, 1 mile or Tot Trot at www.tourdecatur.com. After March 1 registration cost goes up to $25.

Threats of annexation seem to bring people together. Remember how Decatur’s last annexation attempt united the city’s northern neighbors?

The latest College Avenue annexation attempt by Decatur and Avondale has spurred one DeKalb County Commissioner and many of the area’s business owners into action.

According to a recent article in the Champion Newspaper (h/t: Next Stop), Commissioner Kathie Gannon and some area business owners will meet up on this coming Saturday to discuss ways to improve the area’s appearance.

“We’ll be doing any kind of things that we can physically do and make a difference in terms of appearance,” she said. “Every single issue we can address, and there should be no reason for annexation.”

Gargiulo said she and several other business owners have created a list of improvements to businesses along the street that leads into Avondale Estates’ Tudor-themed gateway. That includes picking up trash, tearing away decrepit fencing and repainting some businesses’ exteriors.

It seems a noble goal, and one that would accomplish many of the two cities’ end-games without a controversial annexation.  However, if annexation doesn’t pass the GA legislature, it will be interesting to see how committed folks are to beautification efforts without any looming threat.  I don’t doubt the sincerity of the effort, but when any group is motivated primarily by a threat, it’s often tricky to sustain momentum once that threat disappears.

Meanwhile, Stephanie Stuckey Benfield continues to search for that elusive 10th vote from the DeKalb delegation, in order to bring the annexation bill to the floor of the GA House.