Mayor Bill Floyd To Call On Decatur To Popularly Elect Its Mayor
Decatur Metro | March 27, 2012
DM Exclusive: In tonight’s State of the City Address, Decatur Mayor Bill Floyd will call on Decatur residents to support changing the way the city elects it’s mayor, from one who is currently elected by his/her fellow commissioners to one who is popularly elected by the city’s voters.
Mayor Floyd sent along this snippet from the speech he will give tonight at 6pm at the Decatur Courtyard By Marriott Conference Center, which gives some insight into his call for the change…
The municipal landscape in DeKalb County is changing. In recent years we have added the City of Dunwoody and Chamblee has annexed a large area north of their old city limits to meet up with Dunwoody. There is legislation pending which calls for a referendum for the annexation of another large area south of Chamblee stretching south to I 85, and also legislation is pending to allow the Brookhaven residents (from Fulton county line east to Dunwoody and Chamblee and south to I 85) to vote this summer on becoming DeKalb’s newest city. I expect both of those to pass and the voters to approve them. Legislation is awaiting the Governor’s signature to annex into Decatur and Avondale Estates the unincorporated area that exist now between the two cities. Decatur could go, in just a few short years from DeKalb’s largest city to its 4th largest.
In regional changes, the mayors of cities in the 10 metro counties came together about 10 years ago to create the Metro Atlanta Mayors Association (MAMA). It has become a very influential organization at both regional and state wide issues. The executive committee of that group is comprised of one mayor from each county, usually the current representative to the ARC Board. The Chairman of MAMA sits on the RTC Board, which I believe that in the future could govern transit operations in our region. One DeKalb mayor sits on the ARC Board. The ARC is the planning body for such regional issues as transportation, water, solid waste and aging among others.
In statewide issues [Decatur] must maintain [its] active participation in the Georgia Municipal Assoc (GMA) as it has become one of the most effective lobbying organizations in the state on issues affecting cities.
In all these organizations and with all the issues that affect our city, it is essential that we maintain an active presence in them all. Competitions for those positions among DeKalb cities will intensify.
For those reasons I believe it is time for Decatur to consider a change to its charter and have a city-wide election for our Mayor.
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Here’s a chance to be REALLY progressive. Rather than first-past-the-post, how about determining the winner by using the ranked pairs method, allowing voters to indicate their preference by placing the candidates in order?
Yeah, but he didn’t mention it in the speech.
Yeah, I’m going to have to check out that.
The Walmart statement was much more interesting.
I double-checked and it was definitely said. Maybe not word for word…
I was sitting near the bar where some pillars of Decatur were conversing fairly loudly during the Mayor’s speech. It’s entirely possible I didn’t hear him mention the election process.
I heard about, would like to get the full text. Anyone know if it’s posted or audio available?
Ooooooh, do share. About WalMart. The reply isn’t locating where it should.
Looks OK to me.
The Mayor suggested that the COD would look into annexing the Suburban Plaza property in order to keep the nasty Walmart out of Decatur.
No, what he said was they would look into annexation to control future development around WM. WM is going to happen in the County and it’s too late for the City to have any say-so. He did say that, if the parcel had been in the City, WM would not have happened. His vision would be for mixed-use development, but don’t forget that there is a prime piece of property smack in the middle of the City zoned for mixed-use that has been vacant for 10 years.
He also expressed interest in annexing parcels around the Clairemont/N Decatur Rd area.
Thanks for the clarification. I was having a tough time hearing him where I was at.
Here’s the old annexation map that I posted a LONG time ago.
In order to keep it purely – or very large majority commercial, they’d have to do some funky things to the city limits and annex the rest of that triangle between Medlock and Church. Not sure how that would help things.
Are you saying there’s insufficient developer interest in doing mixed use?
I thought all the prime sites downtown each had submitted and/or approved development applications stalled by the economy. I’m thinking of Clairemont and Ponce, just north of the small corner building; the parking lot next to Eddie’s; and the old Relax Inn site. What site am I missing?
You’re not missing anything. I’m saying the economic situation has stalled development. The Trinity Triangle site has long had an approved development plan. There is also a large site on E Howard at Barry St that stands vacant. I’m not sure what you’re talking about at Clairemont and Ponce.
My point was that the Mayor may have a vision, but the reality is that nothing will probably happen for a while.
Thanks, Steve. We’re in violent agreement.
The Clairemont/Ponce site is the “wooded” lot between the former bank on the corner (now Emory, I think) and the Marriott Courtyard. I believe it has an approved application for four stories of residential over 4 or 5 thousand feet of retail.
Thanks, I wasn’t aware that there was an approved plan for the little piece on Clairemont south of the Marriott.
I know this ship has already sailed, but can the city really keep out a retailer that it doesn’t like? (Just my ignorance here) but i thought that it would be a private transaction between the leasing company and the retailer.
Of course there are zoning considerations. But those would be the same with any “big box” retailer, no?
Re: annexing Suburban- Was this being said in jest, or was he actually being serious? Seems like the taxes from a property like this would be great for the city. I wonder why they didn’t try annexing this property sooner?
The only reason I could think of, is unlike the other property owners being annexed, Selig has the financial resources and political connections to give the city government an actual fight, unlike the other businesses that are getting swallowed up Avondale and Decatur.
That area was part of what was considered for annexation three years or so ago, but the proposal was dropped, in large part because of the unknown impact on the school system. Clairemont/N Decatur was also a part of that proposal, so he’s just reviving a previous idea.
Yes, he did mention it in the speech last night.
I vote for the Mayor for mayor.
Now we’ll see some real old-time politicking and baby-kissing.
The State of the City/Bill Floyd from 2011 is on YouTube–anyone know when last night’s speech will go up?
Last year’s “State of the City”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQohG_1wd2I
For you’re viewing pleasure, you can check out all the youtube videos posted by the CityofDecatur youtube account at: http://www.youtube.com/user/CityofDecatur
I didn’t fully follow the mayor’s reasoning there, but a city-wide election for mayor is certainly worth considering. What would the legal process be for changing the charter?
It would be done in the Legislature as a local bill.
At the request of the commission, I assume? Not subject to popular referendum.
Correct.
“it’s” is spelled wrong.
Where? In the title “Mayor Bill Floyd To Call On Decatur To Popularly Elect Its Mayor”? It’s correct there. “It’s” is the contraction for “it is” whereas “Its” is a possessive.determiner like “his” or “hers”.
Oh, I see it further down in the first sentence of the DM preamble. Well, the article got “its” right in 3 our of 4 places it’s used. It’s hard to avoid typos!
Porquoi? I can’t find the link between the two in the above transcript, so it is not clear to me why a popularly elected mayor is required in order to get onto all these regional boards.
Not clear to me either but I’ll vote for the Mayor for mayor if that’s the way to keep him as mayor. Too many school children equate Mr. Floyd with the term “Mayor” to be changing it.
It’s not required. I believe the suggestion is that appointment to these boards is a political process and that those with demonstratively high voter mandates have an advantage. Right now, our process shows that the Mayor’s fellow commissioners hold him in high regard but there’s no measure of how the entire city feels about him. That’s crippling to one’s regional and state influence.
In the abstract, it might help, but to judge from Floyd’s example having a commission-elected mayor is very far from crippling. If the concern is Decatur’s size vis a vis its DeKalb neighbors, then having a popularly elected mayor doesn’t help there, because we’d still be relatively small. I would think that a big part of Decatur’s influence has less to do with its size (even before Dunwoody etc. we were small) than with our location and success — we are a successful model, successful in large part BECAUSE we are small — plus the political skill of our leadership. Our system is called a “weak mayoral system.” But that doesn’t mean weak vis a vis neighbors, it means weak vis a vis the city manager’s office.
So the question we really need to think about here is what this change would mean for issues WITHIN the city. Not Walmart, not Dunwoody, but Decatur. Little ole Decatur. Do we want a more city manager based model — more professional but with less public accountability — or a more mayoral/elected official based model? How much of a change would it be? Maybe minimal, maybe not. Hard to say, and it depends in part on how exactly the charter would be changed. But the effect we should think about is the effect within the city limits.
I think there is some validity to Scott’s point. Judd, I would suggest talking to your elected officials – that kind of accessibility is another advantage to being in “Little ole Decatur”.
Sorry Judd, I’ve been meaning to reply to you regarding this.
The mayor and I spoke at some length regarding this. Basically Decatur is the only municipality in all of the metro area who still has the commission elect the mayor. The concern is that once Mayor Floyd decides to step down – if AHID will let him! – the other larger DeKalb municipalities might be able to use the “not popularly elected” argument against Decatur when it comes to the DeKalb County spots on these commissions. Their sheer populations are already in their favor, but Decatur continues to be put on these boards purely because of its stellar reputation.
Thus far, I’ve not heard any hard and fast reasons not to do this. No doubt it’s easy to see how It could cause potential political issues for some of the other current commissioners, but I haven’t heard of any other ways it would impact our government. Not saying there aren’t any, just haven’t heard them yet.
I feel pretty certain that Mayor Floyd is not all that cconcerned about his own power and legitimacy as Mayor of Decatur. The reason I think he is suggesting this is because he is concerned about this being true about the next Mayor. In other words, I think this is probably his final term as Commissioner and wants the next mayor to have the legitimacy of being elected by the entire city.
I don’t think the Mayor should be allowed to step down from being mayor until a vote allows him to do so. I also think the elementary school children of Decatur should be able to weigh in on this. The Mayor is probably as well known in that population as any other.