Free-For-All Friday 4/1/16
Decatur Metro | April 1, 2016 | 7:20 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.
PlantDiva
Bill W
Chewey
lumpintheroad
irene
Robert Butera
dbt
Chris Billingsley
Chris Billingsley
GreenTea
DarenW
tom
I feel like we have such a love-hate relationship with rain in Atlanta. It can rain for weeks on end, or be dry as a bone for nearly a whole summer. Winter rain becomes so dreary, but there’s nothing better than some crisp post-shower air during pollen season.
Agreed! And it saved me a car wash.
I love a sunny day much better than a rainy one, but the pollen cleansing is highly appreciated. And green plants are also preferred over dead ones. My preference, however, is that is rain only between midnight and 4 am.
A huge thank you to the person who turned in the billfold that I must have dropped at Dancing Goats on Tuesday. I appreciate it!
I huge thank you to you for calling it a “billfold” and putting a smile on my face!
Signed: 1882 😉
Funny, it made me smile too. My grandparents also used the word “billfold” and I immediately thought of them after reading Julie’s comment. A nice bright spot this morning.
I wonder if they found it next to the icebox and returned it to her in her parlor. It must have fallen out of her pocketbook.
Are you channeling my grandmother??
It must have fallen out of the pockets of her short pants.
Exactly! You must be a kindred spirit.
Signed, a New Englander of “a certain age”
Well, Georgia Power has blessed us with one of those LED bulbs yesterday. It certainly casts a mighty spotlight. While it isn’t bright enough to light up the room, it does feel as if a Broadway production will be staged on our street.
I think the new lights on Parkwood are great.
Much better than the dingy old yellow ones
Does anyone have information about the “permit parking” on McDonough in front of the High School and Chick-fil-a? I thought at first it was temporary, but the signs have been up a long time now. Who has a permit?
I think it may be associated with the finishing work at Grindhouse, allowing all their subs to easily access the property. Not positive though.
Actually it is to provide parking for residents and business owners on Maple Street while a sewer pipe upgrade is being done. It’s a pity that DeKalb County didn’t take us up on our offer to upgrade the pipe when the City was upgrading the storm water system on Maple Street two years ago and we had the street opened up. They assured us that there was adequate service in place for the Arlo development but then changed their mind.
OK, I know Little Shop of Stories and Brick Store are two of Decatur’s most beloved institutions and can usually do no wrong, but I think their recently announced plan to cooperatively open a “kid’s pub” as part of the expansion into the former Vivid Boutique space is a bit beyond the pale. Yes, the described Green Dragon (ala Tolkien) and Three Broomsticks (ala Harry Potter) theming could be cute, but do we really need to be indoctrinating our children to belly up to the bar at such an early age? I mean, they’ll actually have to show their library card as ID to get in? Come on.
I think we all need to take a step back and consider whether this is something that the families of Decatur really need.
Hadn’t heard about this. I remember when I was a kid and wanted to be like my dad, so my parents would order a Shirley Temple for me. Made me feel like a grown-up, nursing my drink along with Dad.
I can see your concern, but as a kid I would have loved to have a kid-specific social spot! It sounds like it could be very fun.
Most Decatur kids spend their early years hanging out with their parents at Brick Store or U-Joint so they are already quite familiar with bars and bellies.
If children are in their own pub, they won’t be annoying the rest of us in ours. Something to consider.
April Fools?
+1
It is the only way the state legislature would allow the Brickstore to sell Butterbeer to all the Harry Potter fans in Decatur.
People will complain about anything. Let it go.
I honestly wasn’t that exercised about it until the bit about them offering something called an “Elvish Car Bomb.” That’s just in poor taste.
Am I the only one thinking maybe the Lump is April Foolin’ us?
Winner winner lembas dinner.
Do I win a Butterbeer with a shot of bourbon?
Fell for it. But I did enjoy my Shirley Temples. 🙂
Question for all of us “of a certain age”: Do others from the 60s/70s remember Shirley Temples being the girls version and Roy Rogers being the boys version?
Excellent work!!!!
Thank you, Sam. Now help me bear this ring.
We expect to open the Little Brick Stories Pub by the Fourth of July weekend. Not only do we hope to improve kids’ social skills, but also fascilitate nap time.
Nap time for the parents? Hurray!
Don’t joke. One of my 4 y.o. twins just shed his nap, which means so did I. I’m wearing black.
It’s bad enough when they lose the morning nap in infancy but the loss of the mid-day nap is completely uncalled for. I think that’s why preK was invented.
I have a niece who never napped as a little one. I love her to pieces but I remember babysitting her and thinking that I would have had to give her up for adoption.
Be thankful you made it to 4! None of my kids napped past 3-and two of them stopped napping regularly around 24 months.
Did everyone hear about the special legislative session that was called two days ago? They updated the Decatur homeowner exemption to include everyone under 65 and exclude everyone over 65. My mind is blown…
Cool, can’t wait for my tax break and for pigs to fly.
So, that Shell station on College in Avondale? Something runs into one of the pumps so they wrap caution tape around it… like… a year ago and it is still like this.
I mean, do something with it if you don’t want to fix it but leaving it bashed up, wrapped with deteriorating caution tape is just baffling (and it looks really bad…)
Sorry, just a pet peeve…
Call Avondale code enforcement. Damage to property actually needs to be corrected within a certain period of time. Squeaky wheel and all that.
I would rather just complain on the internet.
(just kidding, I emailed them just now…)
And kudos to Avondale City gov’t: It took them 16 minutes to respond telling me that after repeated ‘requests’ to fix it they have sent a letter requiring a fix within 30 days or … ?
But hey, that’s a pretty good response time.
Regarding that commercial strip- There’s a great paint and body shop there!
That’s as long as you want your car metallic mountain dew green.
Seriously, that is the only paint they will use.
I’ve noticed the same thing. If you love translucent green paint, that is apparently the place to go.
Add the lot behind Cooks Warehouse, etc to the list of “No Holds Barred” booting lots. I know the horse was beaten way past dead a few weeks ago, but I emailed the commissioners today. Some additional regulation is in order in my opinion.
Saddened to wake up to news of long time DHS coach and teacher Eddie Fowlkes passing away. The entire Fowlkes family had a big impact on students for decades, myself included.
Interesting stats out re: school aged children in new downtown apartments. Back in October, the city projected that the rate of enrollment from these pending apartment buildings would be between 4% (total enrolled vs. total number of units) on the low end and 14% on the high end. Both scenarios, optimistic or pessimistic, penciled out tax positive for the system.
Now almost fully leased, a recent count at the Place on Ponce puts the number of kids at 12, or 5%. Some of those kids were already enrolled in CSD and just changed address but, for the purpose of these calculations, let’s just assume they’re new. Place on Ponce will contribute roughly $275,000 in school taxes to CSD each year while these enrollments will cost CSD roughly $84,000 in local cost, for a net positive yearly contribution of $191,000.
This is not to argue for or against such development, and I know CSD’s challenges are not just about money but also are about space. Just that the prospect of doom or not was previously speculative (at least for those who felt apartments would have dramatically different numbers than condos) and we now have a fairly solid indicator that the projections are valid. If our schools can stay on top of fitting everyone, downtown multifamily looks to be a valuable contribution to the health of CSD.
I don’t remember folks being worried that condos or apts. would cause a net negative financial picture for CSD in terms of annual budget. Maybe some were, but I think the biggest worry has always been space and the quality of our schools. Isn’t new construction a substantial cost that eventually has to be paid by taxpayers? And, a huge plus historically for CSD over larger, more affluent systems in Georgia has been their small, neighborhood feel. A larger, less connected high school student body does not bode well for the school climate which is already showing some stress according to the annual school health survey and other measures. The IB program only provides connection for those students who are in it and may cause more disconnection school-wide. Sports teams have a limit on the number of students who can participate. And there’s only so much land for the elementary schools. Not saying that the new apartments/condos plus all the other new folks rushing into Decatur are going to cause permanent problems, but CSD and City of Decatur better keep planning to deal with the challenges if they want to maintain CSD as a premier system.
That’s part of the point, I think. These numbers show that downtown enrollments are not currently contributing in any substantial way to CSD losing its small, neighborhood feel. That growth pressure, which as you say needs to be dealt with in the form of renovated and/or new facilities, comes disproportionately from our neighborhoods, just as it does in many (most?) other places. Meanwhile, now a third of the way into leasing up all the new projects, it’s looking like downtown’s apartments will be disproportionately tax-positive, and will provide not insignificant additional operational funds for CSD to deal with the predominantly single family throng we currently face.
People can still be against the apartments for a variety of reasons, of course. Or ambivalent either way. I’m just saying that the CSD concerns that have been raised over the past year or so, taken in terms of both enrollment growth and operating funds, seem largely unfounded. If we really want to reduce enrollment pressure, we’re going to have to look at some different strategies — such as a miltarily-enforced “Not One New Neighborhood Child” policy, or a defunding of the school system to reduce performance and make it less attractive — which, given the politics, will likely require a dystopian dictatorship to achieve. So, personally, I’m cool with anything rooted in a low enrollment/high return model. 😉
We could impose a moratorium on single family homes sales 🙂
(of which there were 500 or so in Decatur over the past 12 months, I bet our moderator could pull an exact number)
Note to self to show up right when Electronics Recycling opens up, not later! Just spent 45 minutes on line! The operation is efficient once you get in there, there’s just a ton of cars trying to get in.
It was only about a 15 minute wait when I went around 10.
The long wait was around 11:00 or 11:15. Extrapolating backwards getting there at 9 AM when it opens is the way to go.
Apparently the hold up around that time was due to a small fire. Someone put batteries in with their paperwork for shredding. Smart!
Good to know that the line should move faster in the future as long people remember to separate the inflammables from the kindling.
Looked like some sort of awful crash might have happened at the crosswalk between ASC and the tunnel. Anyone know?
Can anyone recommend a deck pressure wash and stain person/company?
so, is Decatur’s WIFI completely useless, or has it worked for you guys more than the two-times-in-8-years it has for me?
maybe i’m holding my tongue wrong.
Didn’t know it still exists. It’s not showing up as a WiFi option from my home and it used to.
It’s still around, at least in some places. It shows up on my phone downtown as an available network.
I’ve used it a few times over the past few years. It is spotty at best to get connected. City offers it as a free service in certain areas only.
http://www.decaturga.com/city-government/city-departments/administrative-services/technology/decatur-wifi