Rodney points to this Q&A on Creative Loafing with Decatur Package Store owner Herb Chereck.  Here’s a taste…

First off, favorite places for a drink in Decatur?

Leon’s, Paper Plane, Kimball House, No. 246, Iberian Pig, Mac McGee. Truth be told, it’s hard to find a bad drink in Decatur.

What makes Decatur and its drinking culture special?

It seems like we all need to stay on top of the annexation conversation that the city is prepping to have next year in reaction to the sudden flurry of potential new cities being discussed in North DeKalb County.  Here’s a couple of things to read through/check out…

Not a ton of new info in this interview, but if you’re interested in what the City Manager has to say about the annexation conversation, you might want to check out this short report on WABE from last week.

And if you want to hear even more from City Manager Peggy Merriss and the City Commission on this matter, go watch the end of the commission meeting from last Monday.  Here are a few notable quotes and factoids.

First from Ms. Merriss…”The question…isn’t whether or not…the area to the north of us will be in a city it will be what city will it be in and what is the timing of when that will happen.”  She went on to reiterate that the city wants to use 2014 to have the necessary conversations with the community, CSD and neighboring cities about potential annexation.  She continued, “It’s a conversation that I think we either have to take some leadership or direction piece in or its a conversation where we’re going to wonder what happened to us.”

Also, this statement from Mayor Jim Baskett is worth publishing in full…

We can’t sit on our laurels and let these gateways to our city just be absorbed by these new people who are just coming on the scene that are wanting to grab up all the commercial they can get.  We’ve got to take a long view here.  It may be stressful on our city services in the short-term.  It may be stressful on the schools in the short term.  But we’re talking about 100 years out, if the city of Briarcliff came into being and backed right up to us, there would never be a chance for us to think about having those gateways and having those commercial properties.  So we just need to keep our focus on the long view and make sure that we have something in place so we can make some kind of defensive statement about.  That’s part of it.

Part of it is the fact that at a meeting last year with our legislative representatives…they told the cities in DeKalb County to get their acts together – they weren’t willing draw up these maps, they wanted us to draw up maps – and show them what things were going to look like.  So the DeKalb Municipal Association has been working now ever since then to try and come back and make a response to the legislature.  And so this is something that we have need to at least have for the DMA to at least say that these existing cities have these interests, long term interests.

…So as much as we don’t like the discussion of annexation and as hard as it’s been the last few years to have that discussion, we don’t have a choice.

Also make sure you check out Decaturish’s recap of the full commission meeting HERE.

A lovely gift from Allison.  She writes…

My dad and I have been going through old family home movies, and I found a few choice vintage images from his growing up in Decatur, taken by my grandfather. I hope you enjoy these scenes from our city in the 1940s!

Check out that streetcar!!