@HausZweiHomes sends in this little report via Twitter…

Midway & S Candler-After 3 yrs of construction, moving bridge & roads Midway Woods has new traffic light

That would be HERE for those who are geographically challenged like me.

John writes in…

The Midway Woods Neighborhood Association has elected officers for 2011-12: President Dana Perkins, Vice President Jessica Allen, Treasurer Daniel Sullivan and Secretary Sarra Everett.

The election was held May 4 at a meeting in Dearborn Park on Midway Road near Candler Road. DeKalb Commissioners Kathie Gannon and Larry Johnson spoke at the event. Over the past year, the association has focused on improvements to the park, including a new pedestrian bridge, tree-plantings and neighborhood work days to clear invasive plants. A development plan is in the works for Dearborn Park.

The neighborhood also started a community garden, began installing toppers on street signs, created a new neighborhood banner and started a website, http://www.midwaywoodsneighborhood.com. The neighborhood includes most of the area of unincorporated DeKalb and Decatur that is bounded by Columbia Drive, Memorial Drive, Candler Road and Kirk Road. It is part of DeKalb County schools & Druid Hills district.

As the AJC reports this morning, last night the DeKalb School Board took a final vote on closing eight county schools and redistricting those affected.

The vote was almost a year in the making. Board members made several attempts to pass new attendance boundaries but backed off because of criticism and political pressure.

More than 200 parents and community members showed up to protest the most recent round of changes, but the plan passed with a 7-2 margin.

…The plan approved Monday closes eight schools: Atherton, Glen Haven, Gresham Park, Peachcrest, Medlock and Sky Haven elementary schools, Avondale Middle School and Avondale High School.

Some residents in areas just outside the Decatur city limits aren’t protesting, but rejoicing, as many of the homes in the Forrest Hills and Midway Woods neighborhoods were rezoned into the well-regarded “Druid Hills Cluster” – which includes Avondale Elementary School, Shamrock Middle School and Druid Hills High School.  This was “due to hundreds of emails, going to meetings”, according to one Forrest Hills resident.  So satisfied with the change, they exclaimed “I would vote against being annexed [by Decatur] now.”.

Students who formally attended Medlock Elementary will now be split amongst Laurel Ridge, McLendon and Avondale Elementary schools.  (See page 8 of this presentation for a map of the change.)

UPDATE III: Asst. City Manager David Junger responds “Our Storm Water Engineer Julie Gyuricza received this complaint this morning and she is investigating the nature and cause of the flooding. We do not have enough information currently to know why this area flooded.”

UPDATE II: Jon writes in with a second report…”So it turns out there was a major blockage in one of the 18 inch pipes, and the city has already come out and taken care of it. They have also said they will be on the lookout for the area in the future.  I’m really pleased with how quickly the city has responded to us. I hope you let everyone know, because the city earned it’s reputation on this one….”

UPDATE: Jon writes in “Peggy already has the drain crew out looking at the area. It’s really great to see the city respond so quickly.”

Four days ago, Paula reported “rumbling on the Midway Woods yahoo group about the stalled development at Midway and S. Candler. …the latest is that the clearing of the lot has caused huge run-off problems and flooding.”

Yesterday evening, the President of the Midway Woods Neighborhood Association, Jon Rork, wrote in asking for help…

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As I’m sure many of you already know, the city commission voted last night to accept the 11 Midway Road parcels that sought annexation into the city of Decatur (well 10 of 15 voters among those parcels did.)  The AJC’s April Hunt has a summary of the vote that was posted earlier today.

I wasn’t there obviously, so be as skeptical as you’d like about my opinion – pieced together with sealing wax and commissioner saliva – but it seems that the city commission just wasn’t ready to an about-face and start denying annexation requests, even though the note from Peggy Merriss (page 67 of materials for the meeting) indicated that this annexation didn’t really fall under the city’s annexation deferral plan since “it was recommend the City Commission should not accept single or small lot annexation applications that are randomly placed in mid-block areas of adjacent streets that do not support the City’s interest in clarifying city limits.”

I still stand by my earlier metaphor: the hornet’s nest has been kicked.  Look no further than the Superintendent’s striking note to the commission on page 81 of the materials that essentially states “Please deny any further annexations in this area.”  Wow.  Now there’s a difference of positions!

Going forward, I think we can all agree that it wouldn’t be all that prudent for the city to continue to accept annexations while the school system struggles under a bloated school system.  But lord, it would be even worse if we simply started blanketly denying annexations with nothing more than a request from CSD in our hands.

So I resurrect my old call that for the sake of CSD, the city commission needs to figure out where it stands on annexation now, not in 2011.