It’s an AJC-reports-on-legislative bills kind of day.  Here’s the latest potential bill that would affect a fair number of Decatur parents…

State lawmakers are considering a proposal that would prevent 4-year-olds from enrolling in kindergarten.

House Bill 100 would require a child to be 5 by Aug. 1 for the start of the 2015-16 school year or by June 30 for the 2016-17 school year.

The bill’s proponents say the measure is needed because many 4-year-olds don’t have prior experience in a classroom and aren’t ready for a kindergarten environment.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Start the clock.

According to one blurb on the AJC yesterday, Decatur Superintendent Phyllis Edwards is saying that City Schools of Decatur will need another k-5 building on the north side of the city to house students by the 2018-2019 school year.  And ultimately, as has been recently reported, the school system could require up to 2 new buildings to accommodate growing enrollment.

The post even notes that Dr. Edwards called DeKalb CEO Lee May about potentially available space in DeKalb County office buildings, after he recently unveiled a plan to move many county employees to a new development along Memorial Drive in unincorporated DeKalb.

But of course, building new schools isn’t cheap.  The extensive renovations already planned for Decatur High School and Renfroe Middle School have been planned to be paid for by issuing Certificates of Participation as part of a lease purchase agreement with Georgia Municipal Association.  Now with new construction on the horizon, the City is making good on its statement to revisit a bond referendum for Decatur Schools, back when it postponed a vote back in mid-2013.

The AJC reports that during the Mayor’s State of the City Address on Tuesday, Mayor Jim Baskett said that the city would revisit issuing a bond referendum for the school system this Spring.  The Superintendent told the AJC that the price tag on the bond would be around $80 million, notably higher than the $59.6 million bond referendum that the city rejected back in 2013.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

For the first time in Georgia’s history, a proposed transportation plan in the legislature includes dedicated funding for transit.

The AJC reports this morning that Georgia House Republicans will unveil a $1 billion transportation plan, with a focus on “critical road and bridge improvements”, but also $100 million annually dedicated to transit.  Details as to how the funding will be allocated have yet to be unveiled.

Up until the present day, the state’s largest transit agency – MARTA – has subsisted solely on a gas tax, which ebbs and flows with the price of gasoline.  It is the only large city transit system in the country with no dedicated funding.

The plan also moves Georgia completely away from a gas sales tax model to fund transportation. The AJC states…

The plan, which will be introduced as legislation Thursday, would shift the state completely away from a sales tax on gas to a 29.2 cents per gallon excise tax. It would eventually end the local sales tax on gas, while allowing counties and cities to levy their own excise tax.

One detail of the plan revealed is that electric and alternative-fuel vehicles would pay an annual $200 “user fee”, which will be set aside to fund public transit.

More details as we learn them.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

Suburban Lanes will be closing its current location in Suburban Plaza at the end of April, according to a new Decaturish post.  The announcement was made at a Decatur Heights Neighborhood Association meeting last night.

The post also states that Selig’s Bill Stogner already has a letter of intent from a bookseller out of Dallas called “Half Price Books“, which may take over lower-story space on the Church Street side of the business.

At this point, leases have been signed byWalmart, JoAnn Fabrics, Home Goods, and LA Fitness for the new Suburban Plaza.  Starbucks, AT&T and Ross For Less are also planning to be part of the development.

According to the report, Selig told neighbors in attendance that they were still trying to work with Cozy Burger Town, so it could remain part of the new development.

Photo courtesy of Google Streetview

UPDATE: The City of Decatur sent around a press release, which included this summary of actions taken by the city to receive the platinum certification…

After first achieving Green Communities certification at the Bronze level in 2009, and upgrading to the Gold level in 2010, the City of Decatur has renewed its certification at the Platinum level this year, the first local government to reach the highest achievement possible. Some of the actions Decatur took to become certified include:

• Developing an Environmental Sustainability Plan as direct response to a charge from the people of the city seeking to become even more environmentally responsible. The plan outlines goals and strategies that the city and community should take to deepen their commitment to serving as good stewards of the environment and resources.

• Expanding the Safe Routes to School program to include all eligible elementary and middle schools in the Decatur City Schools system along with College Heights Preschool and two private schools. An average of 55 percent of students participate in International Walk and Roll to School Day each year.

• Committing to building LEED certified facilities, the latest of which, Fire Station No. 1, is on course to obtain LEED Platinum. Sustainable technologies include high efficiency equipment and lighting, green roof garden, a geothermal vertical-closed loop heat pump system, solar water heating, rainwater harvesting and greywater reclamation. The building is designed to achieve a 33 percent reduction in energy consumption and in water usage.

• Supporting several community gardens with financial and in-kind support. At Decatur’s Kitchen Garden, more than 30 refugee families grow hundreds of pounds of fresh food each season, combating hunger that their families and neighbors face. The produce is also sold at the Decatur Farmers Market and a number of Decatur restaurants.

From the Atlanta Regional Commission’s website.  If you want to learn more about how local governments are graded in this certification process, click here.

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A new article on Atlantic’s CityLab site titled “The Remarkable Turnaround of Atlanta Public Transit“, is an interview with MARTA CEO Keith Parker looking back at how the agency got its house in order in 2014 and what lies ahead.

We’ve discussed MARTA’s money troubles for years around here, so the continuing struggle MARTA faces with its unique sales tax funding model shouldn’t come as a huge surprise.  However many of the potential concepts on the horizon sound pretty interesting.  They include…

1. The Development of Avondale and other MARTA park-and-ride stations into mixed-use developments.  Check out the new-to-me Avondale development rendering above!  (Read CL’s recent profile of Amanda Rhein: “MARTA’s Parking Lot Nemesis”)
2. “Blowing up the bus routes” – CEO Keith Parker tells the Atlantic, “We have a study underway called the Comprehensive Operations Analysis—COA for short—that reexamines every single route in the service. The goal is to come up with a bus network that’s faster, that requires fewer transfers, and that’s more commonsense. So that people can get from Point A to Point B in a much more customer-friendly manner than now.”
3. Potential system expansion along GA 400 and the Clifton Corridor 
4. A push for public art at MARTA Stations
5. Going “all in on the smartphone” with WiFi access and mobile fare payment.  – Wifi access is a big deal for Decatur Station train riders.  If you’ve ever tried to use a smartphone at Decatur Station, you know what I’m talking about.

Avondale MARTA Station rendering courtesy of MARTA via CityLab

• Google Fiber Coming to Atlanta, but who knows when [ABC]
• Game Changer: What Google Fiber Means for Atlanta [Decaturish]
• 8 Reasons to Love Avondale Estates [Atlanta Magazine]
• Wrecking Bar to begin canning beer, opens Gwinnett brewery [AJC]
• Microsoft putting “innovation center” in Atlanta Flatiron Building [ABC]
• Waiting for the state to deliver transit dollars to our region [Saporta Report]
• WH Auden’s syllabus will make your college courses look like a piece of cake [NY Daily News]

Map courtesy of Google