Greg Coleson writes in…

I am one of the Walk and Roll coordinators at Clairemont Elementary. We had about ~250 of the ~350 students participate in the Walk and Roll day by either walking or riding their bikes to school today. I thought this was newsworthy because of the rather incredible participation rate.

UPDATE: The AJC reports that the owner of Pin-Ups Terry Stephenson was killed.

Oakhurst Mom writes in…

Any info on what’s going down at Pin-Ups on Ponce? Was just coming home from the Farmer’s Mkt & there were a ton of police, police vans & the entire parking lot was roped off with crime scene tape.

Yep.  The AJC tweeted moments ago…

Shooting, possible fatal, at Pinups east of Decatur. Story soon.

And the paper just put up this post saying that details are still sketchy.

Stay tuned.

The Decatur City Commission is set to vote this evening on City Manager Peggy Merriss’ proposal to repurpose the remaining $3.6 million in bond funds tagged from public works to the Decatur Recreation Center and “to authorize the City Manager to develop a financing package for additional capital improvement needs.” (The City Commission is also scheduled to hold a work-session on “Capital Improvement Options” at 6:30p, prior to the city commission meeting.)

In her letter to the commission (page 19 of the materials PDF), City Manager Peggy Merriss reflected on why projects ended up costing more than the original estimates, and recommended approval of the item.

As part of each project, significant public input was included to define the needs and desires of the community.  As master plans were developed, recommendations were made to develop long-term solutions to address facility needs instead of making short-term renovations and repairs.  This resulted in investing more of the bond funds in the projects that have been completed in order to assure that we were constructing high-quality facilities and making improvements that would be an asset to the community.

…”It is recommended that the City Commission approve moving forward with financing improvements to those three facilities [Public Works, Rec Center, Fire Station #1] in order to take advantage of existing competitive construction prices and a highly favorable capital market.  In addition, if the projects are not completed, it is quite possible that costs will be incurred for significant non-budgeted maintenance activities.  By making these capital improvements at this time, we will continue to support the desirability of the City of Decatur as a well-maintained community, we will see significant improvement in energy and utility costs and current and future budget estimates indicate that based on conservative assumptions, improvements can be made without a millage rate increase.

In case you missed it, the city told the AJC last week that the way to fund these projects without a millage rate (tax) increase was to pay for it using reserve funds until the HOST issue with DeKalb was resolved, and then use that nearly $1 million a year in new sales tax revenue to pay off the bonds.

A few commenters during last week’s Free-For-All Friday got into a conversation about favorite bumper stickers and thought it should get a post of it’s own.

Here’s a sampling of what they provided late last week to get the ball rolling:

• “I’m not in your hurry.”
• “You: outta the gene pool!”
• “Soy Is Murder”
• “If you don’t like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk!”
• “Yes this is my truck, and no, I won’t help you move.”

Nothing like historic restoration and the promise of tasty beverages to catch my eye!

Creative Loafing’s Besha Rodell has a great piece in this week’s alt-weekly about the resurrection of “The Wrecking Bar”, the Beaux Arts Classical Revival-style mansion that’s been sitting vacant along Moreland Avenue at the edge of Little 5 Points, slowly being devoured by neglect since “The Wrecking Bar” antique store vacated the premises in 2005.

According to Rodell, the building is seeing new life thanks to Bob Sandage, who’s restoring the space and turning it into a brewpub and events facility.  (Don’t miss the photo tour! The brewpub will be set up in the basement)

The City of Atlanta’s website has a good history of this 110 year-old building, which is actually called the “Victor Hugo Kriegshaber House” after its original owner by historical types.  Here’s a blurb…

…the Kriegshaber house is one of the finest surviving examples of the great Victorian houses that have become increasingly rare in Atlanta. Often located along major thoroughfares, at least until the development of Ansley Park, Druid Hills, and Peachtree Heights Park in the early 1900s, these magnificent residences were built by the men who profited from the rise of the “New South” in the 1880s and ’90s, and then hired prominent architects to display their wealth in buildings. They have rapidly disappeared in the face of commercial development, urban renewal, and freeway construction. The Victor H. Kriegshaber house is an outstanding example of that type, significant for its original owner and for its architect, Willis F. Denny.

Photo courtesy of The Wrecking Bar’s Facebook page.