DeKalb County schools Superintendent Crawford Lewis recently announced at a school board meeting that he will make his position known to the public by the end of the month on whether to sell 31 acres of land at the intersection of Briarcliff and North Druid to the Sembler company. Sembler wants to purchase the land and use it in conjunction with 70 other acres already purchased to create an 100-acre “mini-city” bigger than its current driving nightmare at Edgewood.

The school board has been mulling the issue for over a year. And even after they finish letting this issue percolate, they still have to decide whether to allow TAD money to be taken from school taxes.

The next two school board meetings occur on Jan. 14th and 18th.

No word on whether the distraction of this schools/Sembler development extravaganza has improved DeKalb student test scores.

In the words of Helen Lovejoy, “Won’t somebody please think of the children?!”

Many Merry Hills and local residents (1,100 of them have signed their names) have been worried for months that Sembler’s proposed “Atlantic Station-lite” at N. Druid and Briarcliff will exacerbate an already horrific traffic problem at the intersection.

Anyone following this story knows that Sembler needs the DeKalb County Commission to rezone some of the land it has acquired to go ahead with its mixed-use design. Well, last Friday the AJC reported that Sembler had donated $20,000 to a cheerleading club (Vikings Spirit Booster Club) at Lakeside High School that has direct ties to DeKalb County Commissioner Elaine Boyer. Not only are both of Boyer’s girls cheerleaders at the school, but according to the AJC, Boyer herself is listed as a contact for the group. The icing on the cake is that the group didn’t even exist until this school year.

Someone needs to get to the bottom of this story. Smells fishy to me.  The comments section over on GoDeKalb discussing another Boyer-related article speculates on the story…