Decatur City Commission Puts School Bond Referendum on November Ballot
Decatur Metro | June 2, 2015 | 10:01 am
No big surprise here. The Decatur City Commission unanimously voted last night to put the School Board’s request for a $75 million Go Bond on the November ballot.
For the past couple months, Mayor Baskett has been quoted in recent months saying that he believes the bond should be put before voters to decide whether it should be approved.
At last night’s meeting, he mentioned that in many Atlanta area local governments, the school board wouldn’t need to get approval from the commission to get a bond on the ballot. However, the Mayor noted that Decatur’s set up allows for everyone who is affected by this vote to discuss the issue beforehand, “instead of just taking place in the school community”.
He mentioned that he believed there had been a lot of discussion in the community and between the Commission and School Board over the past two years on the issue – at retreats and joint work sessions – and ultimately the Commission concluded that this was “a matter for the people of Decatur to decide”. Commissioner Drake reiterated many of these points in his own comments.
After a few minutes of comment, the commission voted unanimously.
So now it’s in your collective hands. How will you vote? Cue informal poll…
With the huge jump in my assessments, this has given me pause.
Diane, I am also having second thoughts. I had been half-persuaded to vote “YES” after hearing more about the bond but the higher assessment is not sitting well in this retiree household’s budget.
I am also a retiree and my projected tax increase is about $2000. No mansion here; just a small 2/2 cottage with no changes in over 5 years. Appeal won’t help as we all know what a developer will pay to bulldoze my cottage. Would love to live here until the end for many reasons other than the great schools. Wondering now if that will be possible.
My household will be voting NO on the bond.
Fully supported YES for us.
How many kids do you have and how old are they?
Thaose are rhetorical questions, BTW. Pretty sure I know the answers
Yep. We all know how many you have.
So, it looks like this is looking to be a 57% Yea to 43% Nay split in our unofficial poll. Interesting.