From the City of Decatur’s Casie Yoder…

All city buildings are currently open and will close by 5 p.m. today, including City Hall and the Decatur Recreation Center. All evening activities and classes at the Decatur Recreation Center are CANCELLED for tonight.

Georgia DOT asks motorists to limit driving to emergencies or essential travel only. Be aware of black ice. If you do decide to leave your house, especially once temperatures drop below freezing after dark, there is likely to be ice on the roads and sidewalks.

City Schools of Decatur are closed today. CSD will post its decision regarding school tomorrow on its website.

As of this posting tomorrow, Thursday, Feb. 26:

• All city of Decatur offices and buildings will have a delayed opening of 10 a.m.This includes City Hall, Design Environment & Construction and the Decatur Recreation Center.
• Thursday trash and recycling pick up is expected to take place as usual
• Municipal Court will occur as scheduled at 6 p.m.

Important phone numbers

• If you see hazardous or unsafe conditions in Decatur, or require assistance from police or fire, please call the police non-emergency number: .
• Report icy conditions on interstates and state routes to GDOT: 511.
• Power outages or trees on power lines should be reported directly to Georgia Power: .

Prevent burst pipes
As the temperatures drop, pipes in your home or business are likely to freeze unless you take necessary precautions. The easiest way to prevent burst pipes is to leave your sink running with a small stream of water (a drip is not enough) before you go to bed.

Reminders

• Be neighborly and take a few minutes to check on the seniors in your neighborhood. See if you can bring in their mail or wood or something else they may need, and make sure they have plenty of heat, food and water. Sometimes simply being checked on is greatly appreciated when staying indoors gets to be lonely. If you have a neighbor who needs help please call the police non-emergency number at .
• Bring all pets inside.
• Register for Smart911 now at Smart911.com. You can opt-in for severe weather and other notifications as well as create or update your Smart911 profile with any special medical concerns (such as a household member who uses medical equipment that requires electricity).
• Charge all cell phones and put fresh batteries in emergency radios. When contacting loved ones, a text message is more likely to get through than a phone call.
• Download the FEMA smartphone appfor additional tips and emergency information.

A joint statement from City Manager Peggy Merriss and School Superintendent Phyllis Edwards…

The City Schools of Decatur and the City of Decatur are working together to review and analyze implications related to projections of unparalleled student population growth as well as the opportunities and challenges presented by potential annexation.

Why is annexation being considered at this time:

The 2010 Strategic Plan as Part of GOAL 9: EXPAND AND DIVERSIFY THE CITY’S REVENUE BASE, Task 9B states: “Explore annexation opportunities in partnership with the City Schools of Decatur that expand the property tax base and enhance school operations.”

During the 2013 and 2014 sessions of the General Assembly, legislation to create the cities of Briarcliff, Lakeside and Tucker were considered. Incorporation of these areas would have municipalized the entire northern part of DeKalb County and resulted in placing new cities immediately contiguous to the existing City of Decatur city limits. None of the bills passed.

Currently, the Georgia House Governmental Affairs Committee Chairwoman Amy Carter (R-Valdosta) has issued a statement indicating that DeKalb County cityhood proponents have until November 15, 2014 to submit an agreed upon map and if they do not she will appoint a five-member panel to produce a map by December 31, 2015.

Given the current efforts to municipalize the unincorporated northern area of DeKalb County, the City of Decatur is in a position where long-term permanent city limits must be determined. Once the City is adjacent to another city, annexation is no longer a possibility. In addition to the long-term city limit definition, key objectives of the annexation master plan are to influence and control development at key gateways; expand and stabilize the property tax base; respond to interest from property owners; and, consolidate partial parcels.

Student population growth:

Read the rest of this entry »

Google just sent around this email blast to folks looking to keep abreast of the City of Decatur’s Google Fiber initiative…

Good news!
The City of Decatur has submitted its fiber-ready checklist, bringing you and your neighbors one step closer to a new, high-speed network and all that comes with faster Internet. This was the first step in seeing if your city is a good fit for Google Fiber.

We’ve been impressed by how enthusiastic the City of Decatur has been as we’ve worked with them over the past few months — so let’s take a moment to thank them for everything they’ve done so far.

Check out this graphic and show support for your city’s hard work.

Next, our team will continue to work with your city, and use information from the checklist to start planning out what a local fiber network could look like. There are still many details to figure out before we can make a final decision about bringing Google Fiber to Decatur.

We’ll keep you updated on what’s next, but for now, we wanted to share the good news that your city is one step closer to getting Fiber.

Thanks,

The Google Fiber Team

Just in from the City of Decatur…

Delayed openings tomorrow in Decatur

City of Decatur government buildings will open at noon tomorrow. This includes City Hall, the Design, Environment and Construction division of Public Works at Talley St. and the Decatur Recreation Center. Evening activities at the Recreation Center are cancelled for tomorrow night, and the center will close early.

Trash & recycling pick up is expected to have a delayed start time of 10 a.m. tomorrow. If sanitation crews can safely get to your rear yard they will pick up trash tomorrow. If they cannot, they will pick it up next week. Please use good sense when deciding if it is safe to put your recycling bin by the curb. If your driveway is too frozen to safely move your bins leave them until next week’s pick up.

While most of the major roads in the City of Decatur are currently clear and mostly dry, GEMA continues to recommend staying off roads. It is possible that roads and sidewalks could refreeze overnight so continue to exercise caution if you decide to leave your house.

While there have been a few minor traffic accidents in the past 24 hours, no one has been seriously injured in the City of Decatur. The community has done a great job of staying safe and warm indoors. If you do require emergency assistance, please call the police non-emergency number .

The city sent out this announcement this morning…

Decatur’s roads and sidewalks are ICY, so please stay where you are and avoid driving if at all possible. City crews treated roads overnight with salt and sand, but with the low tempatures refreezing occurred. If you decide to venture out for a walk today please be extremely careful, as sidewalks are more slippery than roads in many places around the city.

Today’s closings:

• Decatur Recreation Center is closed today
• Decatur Municipal Court is closed tonight. Please call to reschedule your hearing.
• City Hall is operating with very limited staff.
• The Design, Environment and Construction division of Public Works is closed today, as all staff that made it into work are focused on clearing roads, etc.
• Tonight’s Town Hall meeting (“Review of the 2014 General Assembly Legislative Session”) hosted by state Rep. Rahn Mayo, state Rep. Howard Mosby and state Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver is cancelled. It will be rescheduled at a future date.

The good news is that there were no car accidents, no trees down and no loss of power in the City of Decatur last night. The few people who were stranded yesterday were able to make it home ok. Public safety personnel were able to do a number of winter weather welfare checks on seniors and other vulnerable residents. (And as a reminder, if you have a senior neighbor, please be neighborly and check on him or her today.)

If you need emergency assistance during this winter weather, please call the police non-emergency number at .

Please check www.theDecaturMinute.com later today for updates on the weather and possible closings tomorrow.

Late last week, Asst. City Manager Lyn Menne posted this message on The Decatur Minute blog...

OK, we agree, the new holiday decorations don’t measure up to our standards. Rather than looking like swags, they look like upside down trees and they just don’t work on the street lamps. Many of our holiday wreaths date back to 1996 and were starting to look shabby. We thought it would be a good idea to trade them out for something different and replace the oldest wreaths with an updated design. Boy were we wrong! So, when you mess up, admit it, take responsibility and fix it. The good news is that our old wreaths are still in storage. Our decorating company will begin switching them out but it may take a week as they fit us into their installation schedule. The “experiments” will be traded in for new wreaths next season and we will put this down as a lesson learned. In the meantime, just tell your friends that they are festive arrows pointing you in the direction of great shopping and wonderful food and have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

As of this morning, most of the “arrow” decorations are already down and replaced with the older, wreaths.

Georgia Trend magazine recently asked the Georgia Municipal Association to help them identify some of Georgia’s “most successful downtown revitalizations”.

From the initial list provided, Georgia Trend chose to highlight eight downtown areas in their February issue: Blue Ridge, Columbus, Dahlonega, Decatur, Hinesville, Roswell, Savannah and Statesboro.

Here’s a snippet of the Decatur write up from the article…

The city of Decatur could give a clinic on downtown revitalization. Since the early 1980s, the city’s leaders, business owners and citizens have worked diligently to create Decatur’s small-town atmosphere with a big-city buzz. “We did a town center plan around 1982,” says Bill Floyd a longtime mayor and city commissioner. “That’s when the vision of this community started. If you go back and look at that plan, you’ll see that what’s happened in Decatur is basically what’s in the plan.”