Fairview Street at Sycamore Drive Decatur, GA (pic submitted by Susan)

I’m pleased to announce that I have been deemed the “official” micro-blogger by the Decatur Book Festival for tomorrow night’s Jonathan Franzen keynote address.  (I guess we did it “unofficially” last year)

So, if you weren’t able to get tickets or just can’t get out of the house tomorrow night, tune in to Decatur Metro at 8pm and get live updates and random observations by yours truly straight from Agnes Scott’s Presser Hall!

(And no, the fact that I will be multi-tasking during an keynote address by a speaker who abhors multi-tasking has not been lost on me.)

UPDATE: The pup is back home!

From Travis…

I just saw someone in a bit of a panic, looking for a lost bulldog. It’s home is on the north side of Adams St.

If you happen to see this guy/gal, shoot me a note and I’ll get back in touch with Travis.

According to a newspaper website, the city of Decatur currently has two financing options on the table if it decided to build the unfinished projects left over from the 2006 bond referendum (Fire Station #1, the Rec Center, and the Public Works building.)

The city could raise the millage rate by .4 (equivalent to $72 a year on a $400,000 house) or it could dip into its reserve fund for two years and then use $900,000 a year in capital improvement sales tax money, which is currently being withheld by DeKalb County, to make the loan payments for the remainder.

As the Mayor pointed out in an off-hand comment during a recent commission meeting, the city has to make a decision regarding the ongoing HOST sales tax lawsuit it has with DeKalb County.  Either the city can continue the lawsuit, which is slowly crawling its way back to the GA Supreme Court again, and hope that they win AND that DeKalb can somehow come up with the $10 million in owed back taxes, or they can drop the lawsuit, give up the $10 mil and start getting their nearly $1 million a year from the County “tomorrow”.

I’ll have to get clarification, but I’m assuming that the idea of using two years of reserve fund money is mainly a time-cushion to insure that whatever the outcome of the lawsuit, the city will at least be receiving its annual $1 million from the county by that point.

The city is holding a public information session on our options tonight at 6:30p at City Hall.  Click here for more info.