I had a brief chat with the librarian tonight about collections of historical materials that she knows about. The first thing that I was previously somehow unaware of is the 1995 book The History of Doraville, Georgia by Laura and Ken Barré. This book is a well-written account of Doraville’s history, from 1821 when it was part of land ceded by local Creek tribes to the State of Georgia. Read the rest of this entry »
State’s 1st openly gay Republican elected
Brian Bates’ victory in Doraville City Council race called groundbreaking
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This is a good AJC article showing Doraville as more than a good-ole-boy haven and immigrant wasteland, which is how we’re usually depicted.
I don’t particularly think either of those labels are accurate, since there are much worse good-ole-boy places in Georgia, even the capital itself, and the immigrant portion of our population is often a thriving part of our community. The AJC has tended to portray Doraville that way, even to the point of using “near Doraville” when any north DeKalb story involves crime or immigration or good-ole-boy politics, and “north DeKalb” when a Doraville story involves something more obviously positive and/or progressive. But this story makes Doraville and even Georgia Republicans sound like grown-ups.
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.
Okay, I wrote up a long post about this the other night which my continuing fight with the blog software destroyed. And for some reason, I didn’t do my usual practice of keeping a backup copy anywhere. So I’m going to re-create this, but briefly.
The Perimeter area is booming. It’s got businesses occupying its huge office space (more than downtown, and about the same as Midtown and Buckhead combined!). It’s got 6,000,000 square feet of retail shopping (size of four malls), and supplies 150,000 jobs. It’s also got several major hospitals. Now they’re building another bridge across I-285, including walking and bicycle areas. And this is all about 3 miles from Doraville City Hall!
The AJC had this article about the bridge development and area recently.
Read the rest of this entry »
It may be a poor time to raise a new subject, since we have another 3 weeks of campaigning ahead of us, and none of the remaining candidates are likely to make a big issue of it. But several candidates in the original election did exactly that, and while those candidates are defeated, there are several citizens who have raised this as a “serious issue” several times over the last two years, and have been successful in stopping a major development for at least a year or more. I certainly support stopping or changing development if it will harm the local or wider community, but in the materials and presentations I’ve seen, this project’s opponents haven’t made this case. I do not know what the specific complaints are about this development, and I would like to hear more valid problems. The issue I mention in the title of this post is one that I have further questions about.
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I haven’t seen anything official yet, but here’s what Lee says in the comments:
Maria, Brian and Bob are in! Marlene and Ray are in a runoff – Tom Hart ELIMINATED!!! WOOHOOO!!! Noonan and Fleming in a runoff – Lowe eliminated!!!
Update: Here are the results as posted on the AJC:
Mayor
Winter’s Chapel (District 1)
Northwoods Regular Election (District 2)
Northwoods Special Election (District 2)
Oakcliff Regular Election (District 3)
11/7/07 – Update: Here is a PDF copy of the unofficial results being published by Dekalb County. Thanks to Maria Alexander for the update.
Congratulations to all the winners — I am very happy with all of the people who won council seats and feel like, even with the two run-off elections that still need to happen, that this is the most promising council in our city’s history. I am very encouraged about Doraville’s future.
I’ll be curious to see what happens in the run-off. Pam Fleming is an unknown quantity to me, and I have no no idea how people in a run-off will react to her. I’m also curious about where the people who voted for Tom Hart will go — will they vote in the run-off election at all, or will they swing their votes one direction or another?
Looks like we’re not done with campaign season yet.
In less than 48 hours all this election madness will finally be over. I’m closing comments on most of the election-related posts, so feel free to share any final thoughts you have about the various candidates right here.
If you want, you can also use this forum to get any generally off-topic comments out of your system. Just be sure to play nice with each other.
DeKalb Water and Sewer (W&S) Rates will begin to go up big time starting next year and continuing at least through 2011. The rate increase has little to do with the drought, and plenty to do with continuing subsidization of South DeKalb development. The rate increase and projects are discussed below.
Rates – A little over one-half of DeKalb residential users use between 4,000 to 20,000 gallons of water bimonthly. Rates for these users will increase 85% between 2007 and 2011. A typical 8,000 gallon bimonthly household that currently pays $52.88 will be paying $95.44 in 2011. Adjusted for 3% annual inflation that’s $84.80, a 60% increase and almost $200 more per year, in today’s dollars.
Rate structure. The Good – The 2007 DeKalb W&S rate structure is/was relatively (rates proportional to use) flat. Factor in the fixed charge, and the 2007 rates penalized low quantity users and did little to encourage conservation. The new rate structure lowers the fixed charge, with rates substantially increasing at 4,000, 20,000 and 40,000 gallons bimonthly. DeKalb W&S rates will still be reasonably relative to metro Atlanta even after the increase. The Bad – Only 9% of users use more than 20,000 gallons bimonthly, and only 2% use more than 40,000 gallons bimonthly so the rate structure doesn’t much encourage typical users to conserve. Over half of all users are in the 4,000-20,000 gallon category. It’s so broad that the rate structure is unlikely to encourage people to conserve their way to lower incremental rates. A typical 8,000 gallon user would have to half use to get to a lower incremental rate.)
Here’s a link to the rate presentation made to County Commissioners: http://www.dekalbwatersewer.com/PDF/RateStudyPresentation.pdf
Conclusion: A rate structure that better encourages conservation is a step in the right direction.
Program – $1,400,000,000 for maintenance and capacity improvements. The Good – DeKalb W&S infrastructure is aging and appropriate maintenance is prudent. (The Atlanta stormwater debacle illustrates the folly of postponing improvements.) The Bad – More than half of the program expense is to increase South DeKalb Sewerage capacity. DeKalb doesn’t have development impact fees, so this constitutes a subsidy on the order of a $500,000,000 subsidy for South DeKalb development. (Who says campaign contribution investments don’t pay off?) The big money new capacity items in the program: Double the capacity of the Snapfinger Waste Water Treatment Plant $324,000,000, Double the capacity of the Pole Bridge Waste Water Treatment Plant $216,000,000, Tunnel to connect the two treatment plants $200,000,000, East Area Tunnel $100,000,000. (The $500M subsidy assertion herein allows $200,000,000 cost toward improving plant processes and not merely the addition of capacity.)
Here’s a link to the $1.4B list W&S projects: http://www.dekalbwatersewer.com/PDF/2007-2011-Capital-Improv-Projects.pdf
Conclusion: Write your County Commissioners indicating strong support for the imposition of development fees. Don’t support any candidates for CEO or County Commission that don’t support imposition of development fees, especially incumbent County Commissioner that approved the expenditures and rate increases.
PS – The County deserves praise for making the detailed information that was used to develop this message available on-line!
We’ve gotten a lot of the slick one-page advertisements in the mail, but today we got a rare two-page anonymous attack letter in an actual envelope! I don’t want to glorify the hundreds of dollars they’ve already dumped into this particular septic tank by talking much about the letter, but there are a couple of general points and questions it raises for me.
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Mr. Roche entitled his message on ONA/NNA “a new low”; I’d like to be on record in my response to him and to you as “a new high in integrity”.
Mr. Roche uses the term “negative campaigning” when his description should be honest, direct and true statistics relating to our city and those seeking office in doraville. When the truth is uncovered, how is that negative? I have simply stated the facts – I think citizens deserve that and a whole lot more. That is why I want to represent my fellow Doraville residents.
My greatest concern is that Mr. Roche has aligned himself with Mr. Hart. They have campaigned together and you will see their signs placed next to each other. Mr. Hart placed this city in a terrible circumstance – both from a security standpoint and a truly negative one – when he attempted to fire our cheif of police, John King. Anyone who would sustain Mr. Hart’s actions and activites is suspect to me and should be to all of you also. There has been a complaint on this issue filed with the Secretary of State of Georgia.
Yes, I am open and direct. Stuart Anderson suggested that I wanted to “run the city”. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I want to REPRESENT you and help bring Doraville positive publicity, safe neighborhoods, clean parks and an influx of great new businesses and neighbors.
It’s really that simple.
Please don’t be confused with rhetoric from Mr. Roche. I have listed the facts and they are all a matter of record. Thanks to all of you who care and believe in our great city!