Free-For-All Friday 11/13/15
Decatur Metro | November 13, 2015 | 7:00 amFeel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local topics not yet discussed here over the past week.
Feel free to use this post to make comments and ask questions about local topics not yet discussed here over the past week.
Robert Butera
Angelo
Just me
FM Fats
Iteral
Steve
Walker1
Robert Butera
Pierce
brianc
Quinn Eastman
Rival
I’m thinking about buying a prepared turkey for Thanksgiving so I can concentrate on the sides and desserts (which are more fun!). Any recommendations for places to order a cooked turkey?
Oakhurst Market is taking orders for TGiving turkeys.
http://www.oakhurstmarket.com/Holiday_Menu.html
Pallookaville has smoked or roasted turkeys at $7.75/pound… info on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pallookaville
Copeland’s fried turkeys are great. I think you can buy the same turkeys from Popeye’s as well.
Community Q use to do smoked turkeys – but we have cooking our own the last couple of years, so don’t know it they still do this. But they where delicious!
Sawicki’s also offers roast turkeys.
https://sawickisfoods.com/
We got a smoked turkey from Fox Bros BBQ last year. You have to order in advance; they sell out quick.
Pine Street is also preparing both turkeys and ham. Taking orders through the website.
Publix was giving out samples of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy yesterday. They are selling a dinner that serves 10 or so for $44. Place your order now. P.S. – It all tasted great!!
I’ve been living in Decatur for two months now (5yrs total in ATL). One thing I’ve noticed is people frequently really tailgating me when I’m driving the proper speed limit in school zones. And this is in 2-3 different zones. I’m all for going around slow drivers but it’s a law that’s meant to protect kids. Please pay more attention.
That is different from other area in the Metro?
I honestly have not been in other areas during school hours, so I can’t really speak of it. I’m just pointing out that others should try to pay attention.
This happens to me all the time and is a big pet peeve!! I purposely will go slower than the speed limit when this happens.
I drive even closer when you do that.
Not a good idea. As tempting as it is to do that, you are dealing with a-holes here, and many a-holes in GA are armed. Best to continue as you are as though they aren’t there.
What were the major findings of the “Better Together” meeting last night?
http://www.decaturish.com/2015/11/meeting-to-review-draft-of-diversity-plan-is-big-on-diversity-short-on-draft/
Those of us who attended still have to read the draft too. Party mixer games took up the majority of the time. Draft copies were handed out at the very end– 70 Action Points.
For me, the major finding from last night’s meeting came as a result of Chris Billingsley’s outbursts of “Why were secret meetings held at the beginning of this?” and “What way do those of us who don’t agree have to be heard?” While Chris’ way of going about it sure wasn’t my preferred way, Art of Community’s Chief Inclusion Officer Mattice Haynes made clear that there’s no room for “other voices” in this tax payers’ funded initiative. Rather than looking past Chis’ approach to acknowledge the very valid concerns that many of us have over how the Better Together effort has been conducted to date (a $109k no bid contract awarded to City Manager Peggy Merriss’ neighbor; Leadership Circle comprised mostly of city staff, consultants, and Profiling Decatur members without balanced representation from community policing involved residents; non announced monthly meetings and brush-offs of the request that public notice be given so that residents can attend), Ms. Haynes responded by saying that her offer to talk with Chris one-on-one still stands, but she wasn’t going to take up the time of the 100 people at the meeting. Instead of allowing for that needed part of the discussion to occur in the very setting where it should– when the community is gathered for the express purpose of discussing actions to date and the draft– she dismissed Chris both times he rose up. She stated that the next opportunity to give public input will be Monday’s work session of the City Commission. Public input isn’t allowed at work sessions. (It’ll be interesting to see if the City bends its rule to accommodate Ms. Haynes’ direction.)
So, my real take away is that while the Better Together effort states it’s about having the hard conversations, being intentional, and hanging in there to try to understand another person’s perspective, Better Together in reality is about controlled public discussions that lead to the predetermined outcome. Simply put, us residents aren’t trusted that we are capable of holding the honest and difficult conversations that can still get us to the desired place of everyone feeling valued and included. As a result, the City has devalued their own effort, however well intended.
I am not pleased $109K of tax payer funds are paying for this effort; especially under a no-bid contract. Seems like a bunch of $ for not much. Anyone else think these funds could have been used for something of tangible value?
My neighbor attended hours of meetings on this initiative. She is very earnest in her desire to improve the racial atmosphere, but she also felt that the surveys were leading and the meeting was a predetermined outcome.
Sounds like this one is going over about as well as the Tree Ordinance fiasco. I’d say City of Decatur typically gets it right many more times than they get it wrong, but it’s clear that they don’t win ’em all.
Thanks for the detailed account, Deanne. And ugh. When are people going to learn that those party mixer games are loathsome? Not only that, but for a diversity committee to engage in them is especially problematic. They exclude people with a number of disabilities, create an uncomfortable environment for those with anxiety disorders and PTSD, and most importantly, they waste precious time.
There’s a lot to be upset about here, I know, but treat adults like adults, and leave the games for the kindergarten classroom.
My thoughts:
– Perhaps this meeting was incorrectly billed as a session to present the plan and entertain comment. Some were evidently expecting a formal unveiling and open comment session. Instead it was a meeting facilitated to get feedback from a group on a set number of items.
– Having experienced endless rounds of strategic planning exercises throughout my work career, I was not surprised that the meetings in August and last night were facilitated as they were. I don’t really buy into those methods–they seem gimmicky to me–but that’s about par for the course for planning exercises in the world of business and other work organizations.
– The loud outbursts during last night’s meeting were so disturbing that the point about a needing a chance for open public comment was totally lost on me. I think a lot of the audience was similarly affected. That was not an effective way to get points across.
– The point of “controlled public discussion” is a valid one. That’s a theme in CSD as well. Organizations have trouble with the tension between getting important and valuable input vs. being overwhelmed by that input. So they control it.
– Despite the limitations of last night’s session, I learned more about the 70 potential activities generated by the first session. Some are fantastic ideas. I also learned which ideas seemed to resonate the most with the group that showed up last night–that was not a rigorous scientific poll but valuable subjective information nonetheless. If my memory serves me well, the top items centered around affordable housing, tax breaks for seniors, fair policing, and citizens staying on top of issues.
City’s emailed invite:
Review & Comment on the Community Action Plan Draft
Working from the contributions of almost a thousand Decatur residents, the Better Together team is presently working to compile, distill and present the community’s many ideas in the form of our Community Action Plan’s first draft.
That draft will be available for community review and comment on Thursday, November 12 from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. in the Marriott Courtyard’s Decatur Conference Center, Ballroom B.
Please join us for a full program in which we’ll review our work to date and explore the various recommendations that have emerged.
This is a public gathering open to all, so please come and add your perspective on how Decatur can best foster the diversity that makes us such a wonderful place to call home.
I guess the word “explore” was the clue that this was not going to be a public comment session but a classic planning exercise. At least we didn’t have to write things on sticky notes, paste them on a board, and then vote–I’ve done that so many times over the years that I’ve suspected that planning facilitators are all secretly funded by the maker of Post-Its.
http://www.decaturnext.com/2015/11/residents-turn-out-for-first-look-at-action-plan-directives/
According to the write-up, the 2 minute card swap stop-and-chats counted as discussions. The divvying up of the 7 points between whichever 2 cards landed together in each of the 6 stops, then each card’s positioning by total awarded points is to be the vetting and ranking for the action items and basis for the community action plan.
It’s easy to get the desired outcome via the party game. (To test it, download the draft report w/ the action items and randomly point to 2 items). Almost always, the things most of us see as important– fair policing, affordable housing, our seniors– will get assigned the bulk of the points in any pairing.
That’s not to say that these items shouldn’t be key focuses. Why can’t we arrive at them authentically and after all points of view have been fairly represented? Sure, this is a Strategic Plan Goal, but no one is fooled that it’s not being done by City Management in an attempt to appease Mr. Denard’s grievance of feeling he was racially profiled and his group’s followup demands. Unless the process is conducted with heart, truth, and respect for all, the resulting community plan won’t go anywhere and Mr. Denard is likely going to feel he’s the one who’s been left to look like a fool. Let’s get it right for all the right reasons.
A big waste of over $100,000 of tax payer money!
Want a retro breakfast room look? Evans Fine Food is selling their booths for $300. The waitstaff thinks they will be open thru next week, and maybe a day or two Thanksgiving week. But suggested calling to confirm.
The Bulldog Bash is tomorrow night at Color Wheel! Do you have your tickets?
12th Annual Decatur Bulldog Bash (TOMORROW Night)
Saturday, November 14, 2015 7:00 – 11:00 PM
Location: Color Wheel, 508 Howard Avenue, Decatur with parking available at Glennwood Elementary School
Please join the Decatur Bulldog Boosters for this year’s DBB Bash, an evening of awesome food, fun music, silent auction, and an all-around good time!
Proceeds from the DBB Bash support ALL girl and boy sport programs at Renfroe Middle School and Decatur High School.
Food and beverages provided by: Ted’s Montana Grill; Farm Burger; The Imperial; Oakhurst Market; and a multitude of your gracious neighbors.
Tickets are $30 in advance and $40 at the door.
You can go to the DBB website to purchase tickets online or contact any Bulldog Booster board member.
http://dhs.csdecatur.net/athletics/DBB/home%20page
Can someone please tell me the best way to report a stolen bike? Should I call the Decatur Police or show up in person at Ebster?
Any info is appreciated. Thanks
Why would you go over to the station? Call 404-373-6551 and they will send an officer over to take the report. Was it registered?
No it wasn’t registered. And we don’t know when it was taken – sometime between Friday evening and Wednesday morning.
While we are on the bike topic, is there a local forum for swapping bikes? I have 2 Giant bikes I bought at Bicycle South that are now too small for my kids – they were great when the kids were at FAVE but now I need larger bikes. I’d rather swap with my neighbors than buy new ones. Anyone interested? I need a bike for my 16 yr old daughter.
Great idea Oakhurst Dad. Get this going. I have bikes to swap too, but they are also 4/5 size.
When I first moved here, my bike was stolen and I did go in person – to be told that I really didn’t have to do that. But do report it to the police – your police report will be valuable if you want to make an insurance claim AND also to help the city keep track of the thefts. (My condo complex – different from where I lived when my own bike was stolen, FTR – recently had a RASH of bike thefts. I think about 8-10 (locked, unlocked, didn’t matter) were taken in a single evening.)
I’m growing tired of the mail being delivered after 6:00 and 7:00 p.m. Daily. I live in the C.O.D. and this seems absurd. On Halloween, the mail was delivered at 9:15 p.m. Ridiculous. Anyone else experiencing this?
Yep, on Mondays our mail comes generally after 6:00PM. Yesterday (day after a federal holiday) the mail did not come until around 7:00PM. I have never heard of mail being delivered so late. I live in the Decatur Heights area. I can’t believe it as today, it came around 3:30PM which is about as early as it has been delivered in the last six months.
We also had late delivery on Halloween — mail truck dodging through the crowds. Our Saturday mail has lately been delivered late Sunday afternoon.
Usually (Halloween excluded) our Saturday mail is delivered 3-4 hours earlier than weekday mail, which comes around 5:30. Are the routes different on Saturday, or is there just more motivation for the drivers to finish their rounds earlier?
Yep – we inquired and it turns out that sometime over the summer they changed routes and reduced staff. None of the carriers seemed too happy about it either, apparently. I don’t know if its the new boss being bad, or that the new boss is breaking some bad habits from predecessors, so it’s hard to judge. But service is different, for sure.
There are frequently days when we don’t receive mail, sometimes a couple days in a row, then we get a giant three day stack.
Just make sure you pay your bills online through your bank’s bill pay or e-bill service, so you don’t have to worry about missing a payment because the bill wasn’t delivered.
Our mail is usually between 6:00 and 7:00. We’re in the Parkwood neighborhood, but I’ve heard of people in various areas around town receiving mail that late. Does the post office just save all of its COD deliveries until the evening?
I work with a lot of the post office employees in Metro Atlanta. If your regular postal delivery person is off then another person or persons have to absorb the route along with their route. Hence the late hours.
We must be at the beginning of a postal route. Mail before noon regularly.
My mail has been been coming after 7:00 and occasionally not at all on Saturday (and then gets delivered Sunday morning). It was not delivered this past Wednesday either.
Wednesday, November 11 was Veteran’s Day, a federal holiday when the USPS is closed.
The Decatur post office is the WORST post office. At first I thought it just looked bad in comparison to all the well-run local government in Decatur, but after multiple lost packages (incoming and outgoing), I had to stop using it for package delivery. Now that we’ve moved and paid the $1 to have our mail forwarded, they are forwarding our junk mail but returning nearly all personal mail to the senders marked “undeliverable”. And they are delivering bills to the old address. I don’t know what the issue is over there, but the post office is not functioning well. And tracking does no good if it shows “delivered” when it wasn’t!
You may know this already.
Some mail has restrictions regarding forwarding. Generally financial stuff. I believe it is a protection against identity theft. Could that be part of what is going on with your mail?
Yes, that’s right. When we recently moved we changed our addresses with all of the financial entities we do business with, plus other groups like professional and alumni organizations, non-profits we donate to, and any retailers that we get coupons,etc. from on a regular basis. This didn’t leave much that had to be forwarded, but we were also fortunate to have a very nice buyer who was kind enough to mail us a bunch of stuff that the post office didn’t forward for whatever reason.
Why did you have to pay $1? I’ve forwarded my mail every time I’ve moved and have never paid. Is this something new?
You have to pay $1 per household members if you change your address online.
No, Parker, I did not know that. Thank you!
The fact that 10 people like my comment probably indicates that other people are having issues with package delivery. I hate to speculate, but I have wondered if there is an internal theft problem at the post office. If others are experiencing missing packages, it would probably be useful to pursue Decatur Post Office issues in a more formal way. I am not sure what that is, and I no longer live in Decatur, but surely there is something to be done.
I had been tracking a prescription really closely. The Saturday USPS had it out for delivery, wouldn’t you know, the truck came by (I was watching) and no one ever got out. Went to the post office Monday morning, and the person had checked the form they had knocked w/ no answer. So yeah…they’ve got some issues to say the least. Having said that, there is a front desk lady that is awesome there, I should probably know her name.
We, too, have had USPS claim to have delivered a package when we knew it was not true – not because we were home waiting but because we have driveway cameras that clearly showed no one had accessed our driveway all day. I reported all of that to both the Decatur post office (in the creepy little room to the side of the front counter) and also on-line to the postmaster. I never heard anything back, nor did they ever ask to see the footage.
I think it is going to take some sort of larger initiative to make them responsive, but I don’t know what our recourse is legally.
What really drives me crazy is that the mailman keeps leaving us those threatening notes complaining about our cars being parked too close to the mailbox. But when they deliver the mail at 6:30 pm, everyone has come home from work, and when everyone is home from work there isn’t enough room on the street to park all the cars without being near a mailbox.
They may be taking on extra duties with Amazon deliveries. I’ve seen mail trucks zipping around on Saturday evening and even Sundays! That’s unheard of for government workers to be on duty on weekends!
USPS does and has been doing Sunday package deliveries, especially around the holidays.
I have been taking advantage Prime same day deliveries for a while, and when they send people out, it’s now contractors that come by in their own personal cars. Amazon knows the postal service isn’t cut out for the type of delivery schedule they require, which is a good thing.
I ordered something recently from an online retailer and the free shipping they offered was (I think) a relatively new service where UPS takes the package from the shipper to the local post office of the recipient. The USPS then does the last mile.
It probably comes as no surprise to anyone here that the package was meticulously tracked while in UPS’s care but then subject to misleading indicators and outright falsehoods once USPS took over. It was tagged out for delivery the day I was supposed to get it. At 7:15pm they changed it to “Address Undeliverable,” even though I was home and everything was fine. Four days later the package finally showed up.
Et tu, Scott?
La râleuse, c’est moi.
So with all the crazy rain this past week, I’ve got a wet spot on my ceiling. Any recommendations for someone who can come take a look and figure out where to go from there?
RTM Roofing did a great job for us at a reasonable price. But I had “Dr Roof” come out and quote us just because I liked their name.
Intown Roofers. I had the same problem and they fixed my roof this morning.
All Decatur Heights neighbors are encouraged to come out for the final DHNA Meeting of 2015!
DHNA Meeting and Board Elections
When: Tuesday, November 17th at 7pm
Where: The Church at Decatur Heights, 735 Sycamore Dr. (community room)
Agenda includes:
DHNA Board Elections
Community Policing Presentation w/ featured guest Lt. Jennifer Ross:
* NE Quadrant Uniform Crime Stats (burglaries, robberies, entering autos, auto thefts)
* Bike Thefts
* Holiday Crime Prevention Tips
* Identifying Suspicious Behavior
* News within the Police Department
Neighbors will be able to enroll in the Neighborhood Watch and sign up to receive alerts.
Quick updates on:
* 25MPH and traffic calming improvements
* Nearby redevelopment
Commissioner Scott Drake and Commissioner-Elect Tony Powers will also be joining us.