Creative Loafing has an interesting story about the the New Broad Street deal for the GM Plant. The article quotes Real Estate Service firm, Carter and Thompson Dawson on their skepticism about the feasibility of the proposed development. Also, it mentions that under the current deal, Dekalb County would pay for the project’s infrastructure through bonds. These bonds wouldn’t be repaid for by the development’s success, but instead by millage rate increases for all citizens of the County.
Why is an outside electrician doing the electrical work on the City owned house next to the Civic Center when the City has a licensed electrician in their employ? And was this electrical work put out for bid or just given to the electrician doing the work? People seem to think and complain about some work not going out for bid but think it is okay in other cases not to put the job(s) out for bid.
It is my understanding, and I could be wrong, that this building, rather than house a small restaurant type business which would be good for the City due to its proximity, is being prepared for private offices for one or more City employees. According to some who have seen the inside, the inside of the building has been drastically changed, and not for the good.
This weekend, I received an e-mail update from Councilman Bob Roche with some pretty dire news — apparently new revenue budgets are down more than $800,000 than what was originally budgeted. In addition to that, two departments did not budget correctly for their needs in ’09 and have requested an additional $400,000 for the fiscal year. This puts the city in the hole by $1.2 million – money that has to be found (either through cuts or some other measure) somehow. The council is asking the mayor to come up with a revised budget for the rest of the fiscal year – it will be interesting to see what he comes up with.
What would you suggest that the city cut back on to make up the budget deficit?
Earlier this week, the city council met in a special session. Several fairly substantial decisions were made, including the hiring of a city planner. Councilman Brian Bates posted an update on the Northwoods Neighborhood Association website, a portion of which I am reprinting below:
1. We conducted a second interview and made an offer for our first City Planner. The formal written offer will go to him in the next few days and we hope to have him on board within the next few weeks. This is a great first step for our city.
2. As many of you know there has been talk of yet another company opening up in the tank farm area off of Winters Chapel. Council shares many of your concerns regarding the proper planning for the area and ensuring we have uses that are compatible with the surrounding neighborhoods. As such, in a 6-0 vote, council passed a 90 day moratorium on all commercial building permits, inspections and certificates of occupancy. This moratorium takes place immediately.
The planning commission and hopefully our new planner have been tasked to provide suggestions to council to address some of the recent concerns that have been raised.
3. Council also passed, unanimously, a new car lot ordinance that requires minimum of 6 acres for a car dealership to operate. The number of small used car dealerships that have opened or being discussed opening is not a direction this council is interested in moving and effectively put a stop to additional used car lots opening within the city limits.
I apologize if my responses have been delayed in coming, however, I want to make sure I have all the information in place before presenting.
Lastly, there have been some talks about the budget and rumors regarding last years budget, etc. We are watching the process closely. I can tell you that as of today, August 28, we do not have final and complete financial statements for the 2007-08 Fiscal Year.
The city has finally launched it’s re-designed website, and it’s an incredible improvement over the old one. While I still don’t see the ability to pay sanitation and other bills online, there is a wealth of other information that you don’t have to dig around in too much in order to find something. Definitely worth checking out and browsing through. The new address is “www.doravilleonline.com“. Kudos go out to the mayor, city council & Luke Howe for getting this done after such a long wait.
While reading through this month’s Doraville newsletter, I saw the following small blurb:
The City of Doraville will begin curbside recycling on July 1, 2008. All ciizens interested in this program should sign-up for the Recycling Program at Doraville City Hall by Monday, June 16th.
Intriguing, but not a lot of information!
In an effort to get more details, I e-mailed my two representatives on City Council – Bob Roche and Brian Bates, asking about this new program. Bob sent a response directing me to Donna Pittman as the city’s resident “recycling expert.” He must have been right, because she has answered a lot of my questions about this program – although there are still some unknowns that won’t be clear until we know how many people sign up for the curbside recycling.
First of all, if you sign up for recycling, there is no way to know how much you will end up paying on your sanitation bill for the service. There was a large segment of residents who did not want to pay anything extra for recycling on their sanitation bill, so the city has made this program completely voluntary. Because of this, the costs for this program will be shared by a smaller group of citizens, and the city will not know how much the final charge will be until they know how many people sign up.
There will be a single 18 gallon curbside bin. All recyclable items (paper, plastic, aluminum cans, cardboard, glass, etc) will be placed in that bin and sorted at the recycling center. It will be picked up each week on the regular garbage day. For now, you need to sign up for this at city hall.
I’m going to sign up. I hope some of you do, too. I kind of wish they’d made this program opt-out, rather than opt-in. It would also be nice if we had access to sign up for this directly from the city website (as well as pay our sanitation bills!). All things said, however, this is a big step for Doraville, so let’s celebrate those small victories. Thank you, Donna Pittman, for championing this!
Update: According to reports on the message board, you do not need to go to city hall to get signed up for recycling. You can call them at 770-451-8745 and give your name, address and phone number to sign up. A better option for those of us who work than driving back into the city in the middle of the day.
On Tuesday morning I sent an email to City Hall and to the City Inspector regarding the pot holes and sink holes on Central Avenue. When leaving City Hall on Monday evening as I was dodging the sink holes I almost hit a pedestrian coming from the Marta Station. Since I did not know the procedure to go about fixing these as well as the installation of the sidewalk that we desperately need, I asked that someone advise me.
I did hear back from Council member Donna Pittman yesterday morning and she said she would call or email Dekalb County.
Within 12 hours the pot holes are repaired!! Hats off to Donna for getting this done. I’ll know who to call in the future, Council member Pittman.
Susan and Brian would you please advise your neighborhoods.
Thank you Donna,
Respectfully,
Pam Fleming
Council member District 1
For those of you who don’t subscribe to the Northwoods e-mail list, there was some interesting information about an updated city website that will actually allow us to pay our bills online. According to Luke Howe, the mayor’s assistant, he will be shooting to finish a new website by mid-May. According to Howe, “This is going to be the Cadilac of websites with e-newsletters, electronic bill paying, new logo — the
works! It will be the City’s central nerve system as far as communication.”
If they pull this off, it will be a huge accomplishment. The city’s existing website has been a very sad embarrassment for many years, offering little functionality for users. Thanks should go out to the mayor and the new council once they get this going. Other special thanks should go to former city-council candidate Chris Avers for passing this information along.
Georgians are strung along when decision makers don’t make decisions. Our Homeowner’s Association promptly switched off its irrigation system when a ban on outdoor water use was imposed last fall. Assuming the ban would be only for a few months or that a decision outlining how long it would continue would be forthcoming within a couple of months, the Association is paying a couple dollars a month “Readiness to Serve/Commodity Charge” to DeKalb County for the irrigation water meter, and about $10 per month to Georgia Power for an electric meter service that operates the irrigation system.
There are deterrents to immediate discontinuation of water (and in this case electric) when a temporary outdoor watering ban is imposed. DeKalb Water dings you $20 to turn a water meter on, Georgia Power a similar amount or more for an electric service. There’s the hassle of requesting services being turned on and off to consider. (It took three communications to DeKalb Water for them to turn the meter on the last time!)
It’s been over four months since the outdoor watering ban was imposed. Ratepayers deserve information enabling them to make decision and save cash if the ban will continue well into 2008. Statewide it’s a chunk of change for water and electric utilities, considering the many ten of thousands of irrigation water meters, and thousands of electric meter services serving only irrigation systems. This situation is but one of many other costs associated with uncertainty about water that continue because decisions are being made.
The candidate forum thread that Rich started has kind of veered off onto a tangent about the new Quality of Life patrol. I’d like to move that conversation over here
I admit that I do start sweating when I see one of the QoL trucks driving through the neighborhood–they are driving our streets very slowly and deliberately, looking for anything that might be considered an infraction. While I keep my grass reasonably short and don’t have any junk cars in my driveway–you never know what these officers are going to find. There’s a little bit of a Big Brother feel to it all. I also personally think 3 days is too short a time to correct an issue–7 days does seem more reasonable.
That said, I’m not against better enforcement of Doraville’s quality of life ordinances, and am actually happy that this patrol has gotten going. There are several rental houses near me, many of whose tenants have a tendency to throw garbage all over their front yards for several days prior to trash-pickup day (rather than using a trash can). Many of these same people don’t seem to know what a lawn mower is, letting their weeds get knee-high in some cases. Very recently, I’ve noticed some of these folks get ticketed by QoL–and have noticed an improvement (still not perfect, mind you) in their maintenance of the home since then.
I can relate to the libertarian argument about how people should be able to do what they want with their property. Then again, owning a piece of land has never been a free ticket to do whatever you want with it. You are required by law to use it within the terms it is zoned for, there are rules surrounding who you can sell it to, you must pay taxes on the land or have it taken away from you. In short, owning property is a social contract and many home owners in Doraville aren’t living up to their part of the deal.
Over the next several years, I want to see the city council do as much as they can to raise property values in this area. I believe the QoL patrol is one tool that can help make that happen. What do you think?