From a just released Decatur Book Festival press release…

While total crowds figures aren’t yet available, [DBF Executive Director Daren] Wang estimated a 15 percent increase in guests over last year.

Pic above: Terra McVoy, left, AJC DBF Assistant Program Director, helps lead the Lady Bug Girl children’s parade Sunday morning.

A few more sassy, official pics after the jump! Read the rest of this entry »

Blowing on Dandelions, Stepping Over Cracks from dehanza rogers on Vimeo.

Sanithna Phansavanh writes in…

I wanted to pass along some info for an art show that I’m opening on September 11th. It will be at Young Blood Gallery and will investigate superstitions, talismans, and beliefs. I realize that the show doesn’t necessarily count as Decatur news, but I *AM* a resident of the city and one of the promo videos for the show [see above] was filmed on the corner of Mead & W. College and around that area.

There will be a free performance by Modern Skirts, King of Pops will be there, and an Atlanta Tumblr meetup has been set up for the night.

More details can be found here: http://sircle.net/knock/.

You can also view samples of Phansavanh’s work, HERE.

East Lake & Oakview Road Decatur, GA (pic submitted by Tim)

Last night, the Decatur City Commission unanimously approved City Manager Peggy Merriss’ suggestion of repurposing the remaining $3.7 million in Public Works bond funds to help build the Decatur Recreation Center and authorized her to explore other financing options to fund renovations to the unfinished projects from the 2006 bond referendum (Rec Center, Fire Station #1, Public Works).

Life intervened for me and I couldn’t attend the meeting, but the DNO and InDecatur have reports.

Of particular note were comments by Commissioner Jim Baskett who praised the City Manager for figuring out a way to fund the unfinished projects, and made clear that unlike some of his constituents, he was not “caught by surprise” by the need for more funds, since some projects – like McKoy Pool and Fire Station #2 – ended up costing more than anticipated.

Baskett also confirmed my suspicions that the Commission wasn’t willing to support funding these unfinished projects with a millage increase.

According to the DNO, both Commissioner Baskett and Mayor Floyd admitted that there may have been a communication breakdown in alerting the public that some of the bond projects were taking on increased costs that might affect the completion of other projects down the road.

Heather wrote in with this report just before 9am this morning…

There’s something going on on McDonough in front of DHS right now, 8:45 a.m. Five, maybe six police cars with lights, officers out of their cars. Looked like they had their guns drawn.

Anne also wrote in with a few more details…

…was walking by [the tracks at Mcdonough and Howard about 8:45 this morning] when the police jumped out of their cars with guns drawn…pretty scary stuff…We were waiting for the light to change and all of the sudden the police lights go on, the police surrounded the suspect’s car, and guns were drawn.

Deputy Chief Keith Lee gives us the lowdown…

While on patrol, a Decatur police officer located a stolen vehicle. A felony vehicle stop was conducted and all three occupants of the vehicle were taken into custody. No one was injured and the vehicle was recovered.