Is Bernie Marcus taking cues from the Columbian Exposition of 1893 to transform Atlanta into a major tourist destination?

When he proposes building a massive, classically-inspired  “White City” or replicas of the Nina, Pita or Santa Maria, we’ll know I was right.

This is now all over the frackin’ place, but this particular version was forwarded to me by Decatur Commissioner Patti Garrett…

The City of Decatur has employed Stevens & Wilkinson Architects to design the renovation of the Decatur Public Works Facility at 2635 Talley Street. This facility presently houses the Decatur Public Works Department, including the City’s Solid Waste Collection, Motor Maintenance, Facilities Maintenance and Engineering Divisions.

A community open house will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 11, in the lobby of the Decatur Public Works Building where you can learn more about and help plan the project. The open house will begin with a presentation of the project’s goals and will provide an opportunity for the public to ask questions and offer their comments about the project.

For additional information, contact Hugh Saxon, Deputy City Manager, at 678-553-6507.

Passing by the bikes parked and chained along Adair Street across from Adair Park over the weekend with some out-of-towners in tow, I exclaimed, “Hey, there are those bikes I mentioned earlier!”

This got me thinking.  If you were tasked with giving an “All That’s Weird and Wild Tour” of Decatur, where would you take visitors and what would you show them?

Feral cat hideouts? The Relax Inn pile o’ rubble?  The solar trash compactors?

Are you sick of wading through DeKalb County’s Tax Assessors Office website whenever you want to know the square footage of your neighbor’s house or you recall someone’s address but can’t for the life of you remember their last name?

Well not to fear city of Decatur residents!  You now have to have even less interaction with disorganized County websites!

Introducing the City of Decatur’s own property tax website: decaturgatax.com!

Actually, this website isn’t just a replacement for all the resident property value stalkers out there.  It’s actually quite the valuable resource for regular residents looking for info about their Decatur property taxes.

Not only do you have the ability to search for property tax records for parcels all over Decatur, but you can also view if your bill has been paid, print your bill, update your address, print a receipt, and review the cities homestead and other tax exemptions.  Pretty sweet.

The one thing you cannot currently do is pay your tax bill on the new website, however at the last City Commission meeting, Asst. City Manager Andrea Arnold mentioned that they are currently working on making that happen.

How DOES the AJC get all these great scoops? 

The paper reports this morning that Cox Enterprises will be donating its downtown building along Marietta Street and the former printing press building behind it to the City of Atlanta.  The property is estimated at $50 million.

According to the AJC, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed plans to “put police and fire training academies in the buildings, use the auditorium for public meetings, create a gallery space that formerly was at City Hall East, and use warehouse and parking space.”

Not only will this fill a currently vacant building in downtown Atlanta, but it’ll save the city some serious coin as they move departments from leased spaces.

Nice move Cox Communications!