“May God have mercy on this person’s soul.”

So said Mayor Bill Floyd when the city commission came upon this particular action item during last night’s Decatur City Commission meeting.

After hearing a synopsis of the city’s request from Assistant City Manager Lyn Menne to consolidate the two parking supervisor positions into one, higher paid Parking Manager position, the city commission unanimously approved the change.  (One position is currently vacant.  The other employee is being recommended to take on the new job with the Decatur Tourism Bureau.)

This individual may well be crying “Mercy!” by the time they learn the full job description and get a taste of all the attention and criticism that will inevitably come with the territory.

According to Ms. Meene’s note to the commission (page 23), this person will have experience running a comprehensive and holistic parking management program and will be tasked with coming up an “efficient and effective downtown parking management plan.”  This means anything from developing working relationships with private property lot owners, to assisting downtown employees with finding off-site parking for their employees, to finding ways to publicize the “wide array” of parking options to visitors, to improving bike parking, pedestrian safety and maintaining parking data to “assist with the implementation of the Community Transportation Plan.

(During last night’s meeting one of the commissioners asked whether this person would also be tasked with giving out parking tickets.  Ms. Menne stated that while this person would supervise the 4 part-time PALS employees already tasked with giving parking tickets, they would spend a large majority of their time working on the other items described above.)

Another item on last night’s Decatur City Commission unanimously approved by the commission: a management agreement between the City of Decatur and the Decatur Tourism Bureau to provide staff support for a “Decatur Welcome Center” at the Old Courthouse.

According to a letter to the commission by Linda Harris, the space will be provided rent-free by the DeKalb History Center and the funds to pay the one employee’s salary will come from the hotel/motel tax via the Decatur Tourism Bureau.

Both the salary and location arrangements have a two-year lifespan.  At the end of the two years, the city and Tourism Board will “assess the effectiveness of this welcome center and work to identify additional partners to help cover the cost of its operation…”.

The City Manager is recommending that current PALS supervisor, Alta Fleetwood, be reassigned to fill this position.  As for what is happening to her current position…that’s yet another post!

Here’s your token Election Day open thread.  Go at it.

For example:  How are the lines at your precinct?  Did you vote for or against Decatur’s cryptic TAD question?  Will my life really be better tomorrow as promised??

Disclaimer: People in the pic above are waiting to buy an iPhone, not waiting to vote.

Prior to tonight’s Decatur City Commission meeting, the commission heard a presentation by the Clifton Corridor Transit Initiative, which provided an interesting piece of information that Mayor Pro-Tem Jim Baskett reiterated at the end of the commission’s regular meeting.

Apparently of the 36 options originally considered by the CCTI that would connect Decatur to Emory and Lindbergh Station through public transit, only 6 remain on the table and NONE of them bring transit down Clairemont between Scott Boulevard and Commerce Drive.  All remaining options instead divert light rail or bus transit to Avondale Station via Commerce Drive.

A document put up on MARTA’s website a few weeks ago still showed an option that brought a train/bus down Clairemont, but in a subsequent conversation Mr. Baskett assured me that the CCTI presenters were clear about no Clairemont option.

As Mr. Baskett mentioned during the meeting, some folks will be happy about this while others will not.