Anybody ever follow up on “Citizens for DeKalb”, the group sending post cards opposing annexation?
Is the organization registered with the state? Who were the donors?
We may never know. The General Assembly blew it and this past session eliminated the requirement that election advocacy groups identify themselves on their mailings without knowing that they did in that paragon of organization that is the last couple days of the legislative session.
There may thus well be no such group as Citizens for DeKalb. The official name of the effort may well be “Coalition for ending the drought” for all I know given current law. Given the narrow aim and magnitude of the effort, it may be that noone will followup to see that if the group registered. I spent a few minutes trying—but I don’t know the official terminology for advocacy groups and my search was not successful.
Several news outlets have been reporting that Governor Perdue signed Senate Bill 82, which will allow voters in Dunwoody vote on whether they would like to form a city or not. Looking at the text of the bill, it does not appear that the legislators have written in anything relating to Doraville, except to establish that Dunwoody will be our new neighbor. Am I misreading this, or has Dan Weber thrown us (the city of Doraville) under the bus? What happened to all the promises that we would be able to round out the city’s boundaries and make sure that our police are allowed to patrol a more sensible area than the zig-zag borders we have today? I’m very disappointed.
As pointed out by a commenter, the Doraville legislation was in a separate bill — co-sponsored by Jill Chambers. I’m glad that this was separated from the issue of Dunwoody, which I think sank the legislation last year. A commenter below says that people living in portions of unincorporated Dekalb will be able to vote on whether they want to be annexed by the city later this year. If you want, check out the full text of HB1378 here.
Update: Councilwoman Maria Alexander sent me an e-mail letting me know that the state senate will be voting on the bill this Friday if it ever comes out of committee.
This week, I ran across a couple of interesting resources, which I’m adding to the sidebar.
The first is a blog that appears to be written primarily by anonymous Dekalb County police officers. The general tone of the officers seems to be generally fed up with the county government and Vernon Jones in particular. An interesting insight into what the officers in Dekalb county (as opposed to Doraville) are thinking.
In the aftermath of the tornados that hit downtown Atlanta on Friday, I wanted to direct everyone to another resource that could be helpful in an emergency. Scan Dekalb is a site that allows you to listen to DeKalb County, Georgia Police and Fire Department radio communications. In the event of an emergency or natural disaster, listening to the audio on this site can let you get a better picture of what’s going on than the local media may be able to immediately show.
I hope Bonita Hoffmeister and others can get the DeKalb Police to help get the various restaurants and clubs in unincorporated DeKalb (and around Doraville) to follow the current laws, especially since Vernon Jones torpedoed some rule improvements last week. I don’t know if he’s behind this enforcement kick discussed in this article in the AJC, but whether it was him or his political enemies, more work like this would help protect workers and patrons at these establishments, and also help protect the neighborhoods around them.
On a side note, it was hard to refer to Vernon Jones (DeKalb Co. CEO) by name, after a few weeks of seeing him called “Snuggles” over at the PeachPundit.
Neighbors – Something for us to watch – I’ve heard a rumor that General Motors wants to de-annex itself from Doraville and become part of unincorporated Dekalb County. Currently, in order for GM to de-annex, it would need the permission of Doraville. HOWEVER, there is pending state legislation that would take that power away from a municipality. HB 123 and SB 110 did not succeed this session, but are still alive for 2008. Both bills would permit a landowner to de-annex itself from a city by just having the county pass a resolution consenting to that property becoming part of the un-incorporated area. With all the concern about whether the Doraville annexation bill would pass, I’m surprised that I never heard about either one of these bills! This is definately something to carefully watch.
Losing the GM property to unincorporated Dekalb would be a huge blow to Doraville and we need to be pro-active in preventing that from happening – including passing new zoning ordinances and generating a plan for the GM re-development!
I wasn’t able to find any references to her role in the vote anywhere else, but this morning on the Georgia Gang, Dick Williams (who edits the Dunwoody Crier) was livid at Jill Chamber–both for helping delay the referendum and also for offering a resolution sought by Vernon Jones that would allow the entire county to vote on whether Dunwoody gets to be a city or not [Update: Be sure to read Jill Chambers' rebuttal to these statements in the comment section below--according to her, Dick Williams and Phil Kent got her position in the committee all wrong]. For the most part, I think the people of Dunwoody should have a chance to decide for themselves whether they want to be a city or not–not the people of Dekalb. I’m mostly interested, though, in how this change in the timeframe for Dunwoody’s incorporation will effect Doraville’s annexation hopes.
Check out this video from the Georgia Gang (which is on Fox 5 every Sunday morning at 9:30, and is a must-watch for anyone interested in Georgia politics) where the panelists discussed the vote:
This weekend, the AJC reports that state senator, Dan Weber, has withdrawn his bill for Dunwoody’s incorporation so that the financial implications can be studied some more. According to the paper:
Some budgetary questions were answered on Saturday through the feasibility study, conducted by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia at Athens. According to preliminary findings, homeowners may have to accept a tax hike.
The study examined three metro Atlanta cities — Kennesaw, Peachtree City and Duluth — and assessed how much the municipal governments spend per capita. That number was $491. But, for Dunwoody to match the services and spend that much, it would need at least an additional $65 per capita in income, according to the research.
It’s probably a good idea for the people in North Dekalb to wait and see how things go in Sandy Springs before jumping on the incorporation bandwagon. My only question is how does this affect Doraville’s annexation plans (no mention was made if Weber will also pull the Doraville annexation bill).
According to the AJC, Vernon Jones has been in Detroit, trying to get GM to rethink their plans for shutting down the Doraville plant.
DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones met with General Motors executives in Detroit on Thursday to determine whether there is anything he or the county might do to keep the company’s 58-year-old assembly plant, with 3,000 employees, open in Doraville.
No, he was told, there is nothing the city, the county nor the state can do to keep the four minivans the plant produces rolling off the assembly line past 2008.
“They said it was a marketplace decision,” Jones said after an hourlong meeting with executives who will manage either the sale or the conversion of the 140-acre facility.
But Jones said he holds out hope that the marketplace will change and the plant near the intersection of I-285 and I-85 will stay open.
No big surprises there. I think any of the discussions about “saving jobs” are a pretense at this point. The real meat of Jones’ conversation with GM officials had to have been what they plan on doing with the plant property once they vacate
Jones said GM officials didn’t tell him whether they intend to sell the plant, which is inside the city limits of Doraville, but that they would “create a redevelopment plan for the property after they cease production, and that plan will involve public input.”
There are some potentially big changes coming to Dekalb county (and Doraville) in this next session of the state legislature. We should all be watching very closely to see what happens. Here’s an excerpt from the Sunday AJC:
The DeKalb County delegation (22 representatives; seven senators) plans to open the session with a brainstorming session with county commissioners and experts from the Georgia Municipal Association to weigh the merits of expanding cities in the county, such as Chamblee and Doraville, of creating cities, such as Dunwoody, or of making all of incorporated DeKalb the city of DeKalb.
So much of the crime and blight in Doraville is actually taking place in unincorporated Dekalb that I think it’s imperetive that the city annex some of these run down areas that the county has not been tending to. I look forward to seeing some progress on this in the 2006 legislative session.
As for the idea of a “City of Dekalb,” this terrifies me. Incorporating the county would box Doraville in, and prevent it from being able to ever consolidate some of these under-performing areas. I also think that the differences between South Dekalb and North Dekalb counties are too wide to make sense forcing them into a single city.
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