Free-For-All Friday – Halloween 2014!
Decatur Metro | October 31, 2014 | 7:35 amFeel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local topics not discussed here over the past week.
Feel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local topics not discussed here over the past week.
TOK
brianc
brianc
George#2
Sharron
DarenW
gardener
James
Chris Billingsley
MelissaM
Robert Butera
Robert Butera
“thanks, but it isn’t a mask—that’s my real face”
“oh”
Not aging well?
I just saw the Mad Hatter walking down Church Street carrying a skateboard and smoking a cigarette. Made my day!
Beware! Mutant Giant Spider Dogs will be in the area tonight.
That video makes me laugh myself to tears every time I see it! Best. Dog. Costume. EVER.
Anyone read any good books lately? Nothing reality based, that’s what I’m trying to escape from. I could really use something along the lines of a good murder mystery
Check out Jo Nesbo’s books if you haven’t already. Almost all of them are excellent.
Sorry – not personal, but I never understood this concept. One wants to escape the stress and anxiety of modern life, and so reading about murder(!) and mayhem does that? that would make it worse for me.
On the other hand, give me a nice comedy and I can’t even remember the hour that I spend in traffic everyday.
Watchmen.
Read Local: If you haven’t already, give Amanda Kyle Williams a shot. There are now three books in her “Stranger” series. I’ve enjoyed them.
+1
Those books look like exactly what I was looking for. And they are in the library!!!
Try one of Alan Furst’s elegant WWll spy novels. Spies of Warsaw., Night Soldiers, any of them.
Ditto re Alan Furst and Amanda Kyle Williams. Also: Billy Boyle mysteries (set in WWII, can’t remember author), Jane Austen mysteries (author Stephanie Barron), Inspector Rutledge (author Charles Todd), Inspector Richard Jury (author Martha Grimes), Tana French, and if you’re up for complete silliness, the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich.
Check out Lisa Lutz’s Spellman Files series. A dysfunctional family of private investigators in San Francisco.
Lock In by John Scalzi – He spoke at the Decatur book festival. Really different.
Try Donna Leon’s Guido Brunetti murder mystery series. Brunetti is a police detective in Venice, and all the stories take place in and near Venice – lots of food, wine, and friendship mixed in with very good police work.
Will the Dekalb DA’s office re-try Burrell Ellis due to the recent outcome of the initial trial?
They haven’t made an announcement. But, it could go either way. It appears they a couple of members of the jury refused to convict him b/c they didn’t want a father of young twins to spend time in prison. So, one can imply that they believed he committed the crimes, and that might encourage the DA to try again in hopes of seating a jury who is capable of following their instructions. On the flip side, the DA is undoubtedly exhausted and deflated, and may believe that the people of DeKalb Co. just don’t give a damn about corrupt elected officials. He wouldn’t have to look very hard to arrive at that conclusion.
Personally I wish Ellis would do what Bannister did in Gwinnett – offer to resign in exchange for charges being dropped. The DA would be a fool to refuse. That crook would be out of office, and we wouldn’t have to waste valuable resources on a new trial.
Respeck, respeck, respeck to the folks at Dancing Goats for coordinating they Hallowe’en costumes today.
Fernbank Science Center will let you in to their 7 PM show free tonight if you’re in costume. They also have a bunch of Big Hero 6 merchandise and tickets to give away as door prizes.
Just started a new Facebook Page for citizens to discuss the proposed Annexation the City is considering. Most of us are worried about it but all viewpoints and civil comments are welcome.
https://www.facebook.com/NoAnnexationforDecatur
Not 100% Decatur location but have a question for all of you intelligent people. The Walmart at the corner of Columbia and Memorial can’t sell alcoholic beverages because of the location of DSA. However, the newer Walmart at the corner of South Hairston and Memorial can sell alcoholic beverages. There is a Dekalb Alternative school just as close to it as DSA is to the other one. Anyone know the specific ordinances that would differentiate between the two? Just curious.
Don’t know the answer, but my opinion of the law itself is that it’s ridiculous to begin with and accomplishes absolutely nothing.
How dare you! What about the children?!!
This was part of the deal that was struck with Dekalb County and the neighboring area when the Memorial Walmart went in. No alcohol, no tire & lube, no gas station. I think there’s also some restrictions on guns & ammo at that one, too.
I get not wanting a gas station and the traffic it might add, and I guess the tire/lube shop could be a noise issue, but preventing alcohol sales doesn’t make sense to me. My mental picture of an alcohol sale at Walmart is someone buying household goods and groceries and remembering they need to pick up a box of Chardonnay and some Bud Light. How does that affect the surrounding area?
I don’t think you’ll have any luck trying to rationalize what is clearly an emotionally-driven issue. Communities are often so powerless in the face of Walmart (in most instances, where no one’s done the hard work of changing the game), that we cling to whatever meaningless concessions we can get — imposing silly rules about beer or negotiating over the number of trees in the parking lot, then acting like that constitutes some level of “win.” Those kinds of things, to my eye, say a lot more about a community’s collective psychology than they do about the real logic of what’s being negotiated.
DeKalb ordinances restrict retail sale of wine/malt beverages within one hundred (100) yards of any school building, school grounds, educational facility, college campus or adult entertainment establishment and also any distilled spirits in or within two hundred (200) yards of any residence or church or within two hundred (200) yards of any school building, school grounds, educational building, educational facility, college campus or adult entertainment establishment.
Wouldn’t want any adult entertainers to be offended!
Thanks to all informative and humorous replies. The 200 yd rule is the one I think is broken by walmart or Dekalb. The alternative school (for all 7-12th graders kicked out of A Dekalb school) is on the far end of the complex with other Dekalb school offices on the left side. If you measured from the physical wall of the far right wall of Walmart and the far left side of the school, I can’t imagine 2 football fields would fit.
By the way, the only reason I was personally concerned, the closest Walmart would have been super convenient to grab my Natty Light when I shop all the roll backs.
Had an excellent dinner at Andryannis tonight. The grilled feta was ridiculous. Would recommend to all!
do we really need to annex? does the city really need more money? didn’t we save a lot on the early holiday decorations?
do we really want a Trader Joe’s?
Are the nachos at Trackside all that?
Will DQ return?
I have so many questions about the Dec’s future.
Just my house. Apparently. Yes but not enough.
Apparently.
Yes.
Yes.
FYI that if you happen to have a child who lost their cell phone and you need to replace it for safety reasons but you don’t want to reward careless behavior by buying anything decent, then you can buy a cheap TracFone on sale for $5 at Family Dollar in Oakhurst right now. And it actually works. That happens to be cheaper than what it costs to buy a toddler pretend plastic cell phone. Just happen to know this….
More FYI–Decaturish reports that CSD and City of Decatur have released a statement about annexation. Since I keep trying to understand the motivation for serious consideration of annexation, I was interested. I found I had to read it several times before I felt like I kind of got it–not sure why it can’t be clearer. Here’s my take:
1) We have to think about this now because once we border cities instead of unincorporated land, we won’t have the option to annex.
2) Our current city doesn’t have room for more school space and we’re going to need more school space, no matter what, even if we just sit here and do nothing. (And I guess annexation may get us such space? But won’t that space be private property–why do we think it can become school space? Even public school buildings that come with an annexation aren’t automatically ours–the previous school system has to agree to let them go, right?)
3) We need to expand our tax base. (But some of the proposed annexations seem residential, not commercial. Does that expand our tax base adequately? What about the whole revenue neutral family household thing?)
Does anyone know who at CSD is communicating with the City about this? Is it just the top CSD admin folks? Or the School Board too? If the latter, maybe they could communicate what’s going on? I find some of the members pretty articulate and straight forward.
Re: #2, that’s what I thought as well but there was an exchange on another thread that detailed how annexed schools do apparently become property of the new city, without negotiation.
There’s a joint COD/CSD work session next week and then the school board is expected to take their official position at their meeting December 9. City commission subsequently does the same December 15.
To the best of my knowledge, NONE of the proposed areas of annexation have existing school buildings (the maps are kinda hard to read). The only area that even has enough space to consider building a new campus is the Methodist Children’s Home site. I will be attending the meeting tonight for clarification but have been deeply disapointed with the City’s lack of communication regarding the reasons for considering each of the areas other than “to expand the tax base.”