Tonight, Asst. City Manager Andrea Arnold presented the idea of having Decatur join the “Smart 911″ Emergency Health Data website.

The city commission approved the measure meaning that residents will soon be able to go to Smart911.com and enter health and strategic information about yourself, your family members, and your property that would be available to first responders if you ever called 911 inside the City of Decatur.

Above you’ll find a brief synopsis from a local newscast from elsewhere about the service.

For those interested, I’m sure the city will let us know when the service is open to Decatur residents.

At tonight’s Decatur City Commission meeting, our commissioners will have to make a determination in a “He Said, She Said” type of case, concerning two live oak trees taken down by Artisan Homes during construction of a new home at 324 Mead Road.

You can read all the details – including a timeline generated by the city’s Development Director Amanda Thompson – of this decision in the meeting material for the meeting HERE (PDF), but in summation (deep breath)…

The City Commission needs to determine whether the city arborist made an error in determining the health of two oak trees on the property and/or do the unique site conditions at 324 Mead Road create an “undue hardship in implementing the required revised tree plan.”

Ms. Thompson’s timeline details the events surrounding this item.  To start, the city arborist determined these two oaks were in good health back in March 2011.  But then in November, they discovered that the tree protection fencing at the property was out of compliance and it was recommended that Artisan Homes hire an arborist to determine if any damage had occurred do to the inadequate fencing.

Artisan hired an Arborguard arborist, who subsequently determined that the trees were in poor health prior to construction activities.  As a result, Artisan Homes submitted a revised tree plan requesting the removal of these trees based on these findings.

The city’s arborist approved the revision, but required that Artisan compensate the city for the loss of the two trees in the amount of $6,325.  Artisan then filed an appeal to the Development Director to seek relief from paying the tree recompense based on the disputed claims of the two arborists. Ms. Thompson sided with the city arborist and now it’s up to the City Commission to have the last word.

Should be an interesting conversation.

Creative Loafing food writer Besha Rodell asked this question over on their Omnivore blog, and I felt like there are few questions the DM community is more equipped to answer (aside from: Why are kids/old people (and/or drivers/bikers/pedestrians) so annoying in restaurants (and/or on the street)?)

She clarifies her question a bit in her post…

I’m not talking about coffee shops. I mean the neighborhood cafe, that serves breakfast, lunch, dinner and late night. I’m talking about the places in Paris where Parisians sit and drink wine and coffee and look iconically Parisian on the sidewalk. The panini place in my old neighborhood in Brooklyn that served Spanish wines and blood orange bellinis and great coffee and was open from approximately 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. Or the place just up the street from that, which was basically the same concept except French, or the other place around the corner that was crammed with oversized antiques and had a great beer selection and the best brunch around, and where you’d sit on metal chairs in the leafy back courtyard and eat oysters at 3 p.m. or sausages at 2 a.m.

Why don’t we have that? Or something like that? In Melbourne, every neighborhood has about ten places that are coffee and wine oriented, where you can go to get avocado on toast for breakfast, quiche for lunch, and simple pasta dishes for dinner. The occasional pork belly sandwich, or more ambitious kitchen serving a light “new Australian” menu.

Yeah ATL, what the what?

• Atlanta residents to vote March 6th on “important” water/sewer penny tax [ABC]
• 1960s vintage ad from Adam’s on Decatur Square [Next Stop]
• No.246 chef’s counter review [Atlanta Intown]
• MARTA officials push back at proposed legislative changes [AJC]
• Spending showdown in DeKalb…in other news, the sun came up today [AJC]
• Fine for smoking in Marietta parks: $500 [CL]
• One selfless act and a new communication chain save 30 lives [NYT]

Photo courtesy of Shnn via Flickr