Adair Street, Decatur GA (pic submitted by Karen)

City Manager Peggy Merriss just sent us info about some ways to remember and pay tribute to Decatur’s recently departed, dear friend Alma Fleetwood in the coming days.

Funeral Home – Donald Trimble Mortuary, 2nd Avenue, Decatur, Georgia 30032

• · Viewing on Thursday, March 24, 2011 – all day
• · Wake, Friday, March 25, 2011 from 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. at Funeral Home

The funeral will be on Saturday, March 26, 2011 at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, located at 2677 Pharr Road, N.E. Atlanta, Georgia 30317.

• · Viewing will be available at 10:00am.
• · The service will be at 1:00pm.
• · Burial will be at Lincoln Cemetery, 2275 Joseph Boone Blvd., Atlanta, Georgia 30314

Cards can be sent to:

• Horace Fleetwood & Family
• 1017 South McDonough Street
• Decatur, GA 30030

Alma Hour Memorial – Saturday March 26, 2011 from 7:00pm–8:00pm, Decatur Square

You are welcome to join the Decatur Community in sharing your thoughts, stories and remembrances of Alma at the Bandstand. You can provide a written message for the family, light a memorial candle and/or make a donation towards the purchase of a bench to be installed on the Square in Alma’s honor.

If you can’t make it by the Alma Hour, donations towards the bench can be made to “The City of Decatur” (please note in the for line: Alma’s Bench) and sent to: City Manager’s Office, City of Decatur, PO Box 220, Decatur, GA 30031.

You may think that because the City Commission just approved an “agreement” with the Georgia Department of Transportation at their meeting last night – which will provide $1,415,867 in federal funding (through the Atlanta Regional Commission’s Livable Centers Initiative) for the North McDonough streetscape improvements – that you might see bulldozers and men decked out in orange down by the high school any day now.

And you would be so very wrong.

According to Decatur Deputy City Manager Hugh Saxon, construction on the project will not begin for 4-7 years.

And it’s not for a lack of trying by the city.  They’ve already hired a design firm (which is being paid for with MARTA “off-set” funding) – the same design firm that’s doing the railroad crossing designs – and have held multiple meetings with residents about what they want to see along North McDonough in the future.

The hold up is due to just one adjective in my first sentence: “federal”.  As Mr. Saxon explained to the City Commission last night, because this is a federally funded project, the city will be required to jump through countless hoops (a full environmental review that was mentioned last night) over the next few YEARS in order to finally get the money in hand to pay for the physical improvements.

So, if you have kids in high school, you might want to break the news that they probably will never walk along wider sidewalks up to the Square before they graduate.  HOWVER, if you’ve got a 7 year-old, get that kid jazzed because in 7 years time “Streetscapes baby!”.