“Things move a lot faster when Fred’s not here.”, joked Mayor Bill Floyd to a mostly empty room at tonight’s Decatur City Commission meeting.

Heck yeah they moved fast.  The Fred Boykin-less meeting lasted a cool 27 minutes tonight, certainly a near record in my time watching Commission meetings.  “Well, 27 minutes is a heck of a lot of time for a quorum of dagum politicians to get into trouble!”, I hear you say.

Well, you might think that, but you’d be wrong.

The Commission approved a temporary liquor license for Harbour Bar, called for the November 8th election (which Patti Garrett moved for, since the other three commissioners are up for reelection), gave CSD the go-ahead to raise their millage rate, and approved $39,300 to put in a few new sidewalk/crosswalk improvements along the new Safe Routes to School routes.

If you’re really jazzed by any and all of that, here’s a link to the agenda materials for a bit more info!

Allison passes along this note from the Winnona Park Message Board…

Meeting on 08/03/11 – Future Development of Dearborn Park

DeKalb County Recreation, Parks and Cultural Affairs Department and Friends of Dearborn Park will host a public meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 3 at 6 p.m. in Hazelwood Hall at Columbia Presbyterian Church, 711 South Columbia Drive in Decatur to discuss plans for Dearborn Park. The general public is invited to attend.

As users and lovers of Dearborn Park, MWNA & Friends of Dearborn Park hope you’ll be there to give your input regarding the future possibilities for our neighborhood jewel! Parks and Recreation officials will discuss plans for the future development of Dearborn Park, located on 1301 Deerwood Drive in Decatur.

For more information, contact Revonda Moody at 404-294-2890. Also feel free to contact Rebecca Sullivan, environmental@midwayoodsneighborhood.com or Dana Perkins, president@midwaywoodsneighborhood.com

• Who: DeKalb County Recreation, Parks and Cultural Affairs Department
• What: Public Meeting to discuss the future development of Dearborn Park
• Where: Hazelwood Hall, Columbia Presbyterian Church, 711 South Columbia Drive, Decatur, GA 30030
• When: Wednesday, August 3 at 6 p.m

You may recall that Dearborn Park was specifically mentioned in an earlier version of the 2010 Strategic Plan as an underutilized resource at the edge of Decatur’s city limits, though I believe it was removed for a more generalized “parks” goal in the final plan.

Pic above courtesy of the Park Renewal Day website

East Ponce de Leon Ave from the steeple of Decatur First UMC, Decatur GA (pic submitted by Danny)

My neighbors and partners in all-things-chicken and I got our first five birds back in 2004, shortly after I discovered, quite by accident, that poultry keeping was perfectly legal in Decatur. The laying hens were a gateway drug for me. Before long I was fantasizing about having a couple of small dairy goats.

The thing that has kept me from pursuing my caprine dreams, however, is this little phrase in Section 14-7.1 of our city ordinances: “Livestock shall be permitted on properties of at least two acres in size.”

Oh, well. I let it go — until a few months ago, when a kerfuffle about an Oakhurst resident with lots of fowl and, yes, goats, got my attention. According to her blog, the City sent out some code enforcement people to inspect her property and situation. And while she was told to do some clean-up and repair and to move her chicken coop, they determined that her three goats are “companion animals” and allowed her to keep them on her less-than-two-acre lot.

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DHS teacher Chris Billingsley points to a recent op-ed in the WSJ by AJC Columnist Kyle Wingfield, where he recaps the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal, scolds those who say that less emphasis should be put on standardized tests as a result (In his words “…that makes as much sense as saying the Tour de France should de-emphasize racing times this summer, or not keep them at all, because some cyclists have been caught doping.”), and points to the City Schools of Decatur for a potential solution…

Still, there may well be better ways to use tests to measure teachers’ effectiveness while reducing the temptation to cheat. One possibility that’s already being tried by a number of school systems, including the one in nearby Decatur, Ga.: so-called value-added tests, which gauge a student’s progress over the course of a school year rather than merely determining whether the student is performing at grade level. A teacher who brings a fifth grader from a second-grade reading level to a fourth-grade level, for instance, has helped him make up a lot of ground in one year. She shouldn’t be punished because he’s still behind.

Mr. Billingsley says “He must be referring to…the testing program we use (called MAPP).”