At tonight’s Decatur City Commission meeting, City Manager Peggy Merriss will present a 10-Year Capital Improvement Plan to the Commission for approval.  In a note to the Commission, Ms. Merriss states…

UPDATE: We’ve received more details from the City Manager.  This is must read for all you annexation junkies…

• The area in the proposed legislation is valued in DeKalb County tax records at approximately $396,347,000.  Of that value, $111,711,000 (28%) is residential; $262,278,000 (66%) is commercial and $22,358,000 (6%) is exempt.
• This is consistent with the City’s annexation objectives and will provide sufficient property tax revenue to the City of Decatur ($4.9mm) to cover our costs and provide property tax revenue ($7.6mm) to the City Schools of Decatur that will exceed their costs.
• The proposed legislation incorporates 70% of the real property value included in the City’s overall annexation master plan, with an area that is 2/3’s commercial property. The inclusion of Decatur Terrace adds 4% to the overall plan.
• Annexation is a long-term investment in the future of the City and the City Schools.

The legislative process is not perfect and requires negotiation, compromise and cooperation.  The members of the Georgia House of Representative who represent Decatur have various parts of the master plan in their districts, with Rep. Drenner having the very significant share so her sponsorship of a bill for the legislative areas she represents is a major part of the over all plan. None of the proposed annexation master plan areas are located in Rep. Oliver’s district.  All four legislators co-signed Rep. Drenner’s bill.

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Decatur City Manager Peggy Merriss followed up with us regarding the commercial and residential breakdown of the proposed annexation area presented by Rep. Karla Drenner to the Georgia Legislature on Monday, which includes pieces of Annexation Areas B and C from the Master Plan and the addition of residential neighborhood of Decatur Terrace.  Here it is —

• 66% Commercial
• 28% Residential
• 6% Exempt

We don’t have data that breaks out the impact on the school system, but as a general rule commercial areas benefit the school system because they pay into it without contributing any students.

Decatur’s current residential/commercial ratio is 85% residential/15% commercial.

Decatur City Manager Peggy Merriss has confirmed that Rep. Karla Drenner has included Decatur Terrace, a neighborhood of 147 residential parcels south of East College Avenue on Decatur’s eastern border, in her Decatur annexation bill that she introduced to the legislature on Monday.

Decatur Terrace petitioned the City of Decatur back in October 2014 for inclusion in its annexation plan, but wasn’t ultimately included in the city’s Annexation Master Plan.

The partial Decatur annexation bill only includes the annexation of parcels within Rep. Drenner’s district.

That said, all of this may be for naught.  Rep. Drenner told Decaturish the other day that she has doubts whether any of the annexation bills will pass the Legislature this year.

We followed up with Decatur City Manager Peggy Merriss about this morning’s report that Rep. Karla Drenner would support the Decatur’s annexation plan for the areas in her district.  Ms. Merriss said “Currently only Rep. Drenner has been willing to sponsor a bill and we believe that it will be introduced today or tomorrow.”

As for the other annexation areas not included in Rep. Drenner’s district, Ms. Merriss believes that “given the session deadline for the 2015 General Assembly, we have concluded that we will have to take a look at other options after the General Assembly has concluded.”  She clarified that this includes trying again in the 2016 General Assembly.

If you’re coming off a relaxed holiday vacation and needing a little drama to start your week, I hope you watched Downton Abbey last night, because the Decatur City Commission meeting may leave you wanting.

It’s that time of year when the 5 member Decatur city commission goes through the regular procedure of electing the city’s mayor and mayor pro-tem and also appointing a city attorney and municipal court judges for the year.

From what we can tell, it doesn’t look like there will be many surprises.

You never know for sure who will be elected mayor and mayor pro-tem until it happens, but we haven’t heard anything to suggest that Mayor Baskett and Mayor Pro-Tem Cunningham wouldn’t be re-elected to their respective posts by their peers.

Additionally, City Attorney Bryan Downs has been recommended by the City Manager to take on that role again this year.   For the municipal court, City Manager Merriss is recommending “Berryl A. Anderson, Lindsay R.M. Jones, Robert Leitch and RhathaliaStroud as Municipal Court Judges and Thomas Stubbs and Tisha Tallman as Substitute Municipal Judges.”

Photo courtesy of Decatur website

Decaturish is reporting this morning that a CSX train operator who hit a MARTA bus stuck on the tracks back in May 2013 has filed a lawsuit seeking $1 million in damages.

The lawsuit argues that the steep grade of the intersection was a known safety hazard, noting that a collision occurred at that intersection 3 months prior to the MARTA bus accident.

CSX, the City of Decatur, MARTA and GDOT are all listed as defendants in the suit, which is posted in full on Decaturish.

City Manager Peggy Merriss told Decaturish, ““The litigation should have no effect on the North McDonough Streetscapes project or the South Candler/South McDonough/Howard railroad crossing project either,”.

Improving that intersection has long been a goal of Decatur’s 2008 Transportation Plan.  The city held a public input meeting on improvements back in 2013, however getting design approval from the Georgia Department of Transportation usually takes years and there haven’t been any public statements about the status of this project lately.

Photo of 2013 incident courtesy of Lee

One item referenced by both the city and CSD during the recent Annexation Master Plan approval, specified that city schools wouldn’t need to provide educational services to students in the annexed areas until 18 months after the effective annexation date.

This has led to a few comments here in the last week where folks have worried that any such delay in adding students to the City Schools of Decatur school system would mean that they would be paying Decatur school taxes, while continuing to send their kids to DeKalb County Schools.

So I followed up with Decatur City Manager Peggy Merriss, who verified that this wasn’t the case.  She writes…

As I understand it, taxpayers would continue to pay property taxes to the appropriate school system where they are enrolled.

For example, if the annexation was effective on December 31, 2015,  then for school year beginning July 1, 2016 students in the annexation area would continue to attend DeKalb County schools and taxpayers would pay DeKalb County school taxes in two installments in 2016 (usually due in late August and mid November).  For school year beginning July 1, 2017, students in the annexation area would attend City Schools of Decatur and taxpayers would pay Decatur School taxes in two installments in 2017 (usually due June 1st  and December 20th).

So taxes would be paid to the school system for the school year where the children are enrolled.

I hope that clarifies things a bit.