Community meeting and survey: Atlanta option

COMMUNITY MEETING on JANUARY 22

DeKalb County Commissioner Jeff Rader and Atlanta City Councilman Alex Wan will speak at a special MANA meeting on Thursday, January 22, at 7:00pm at the International Community School. They will discuss what is involved if Medlock decides to stay in unincorporated DeKalb County or considers the option to join the proposed Atlanta annexation map.

There will also be discussion of a brief new survey MANA is conducting to gauge neighborhood interest in this option.

NEW SURVEY

MANA volunteers started going door to door on Saturday morning to alert residents to this new survey and answer questions.

The purpose of this survey is to determine the level of support in Medlock for joining residents in Clairmont Heights and Druid Hills in their proposal to be annexed into the City of Atlanta.

The survey is available at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N5MVJGP

While many MANA residents would like to maintain the status quo as unincorporated residents of DeKalb, it is uncertain whether remaining unincorporated will be a possibility, and if so, for how long. If the annexation and cityhood efforts are successful, Medlock would be an unincorporated island, at which point the legislature could take it on itself to determine which municipality we would join. Annexing into the City of Decatur is not an option. Adding our neighborhood to Atlanta annexation map would give Medlock residents the opportunity to vote in a 2015 referendum.

The survey is open to all MANA residents, whether they are homeowners or renters. If you would like to help with this canvassing effort, contact medlockassoc at gmail.

Annexation into Atlanta: what would that mean?

The MANA Working group has done a lot of research on our neighborhood's annexation options. Our survey did not point to Atlanta as preferred annexation goal, but much has happened since we conducted that survey: City of Decatur rejected the notion of including Medlock Park in its annexation map, and a new La Vista Hills city has been mapped but its fate in the coming legislative session is uncertain (if approved, the proposal would still go to a popular vote). Although a number of nearby communities are clamoring to remain unincorporated, many individuals believe that sooner rather than later, north DeKalb neighborhoods all will be incorporated into new or existing cities. If we accept the idea that incorporation is inevitable, it is important to educate ourselves on the impact of joining a new city [such as those being considered in the current legislative session] or joining City of Atlanta.

Comparison of Unincorporated DeKalb Governance vs City of Atlanta
This file also available here [pdf file, updated 1/17/2015]

Comparison shopping: It has been, and continues to be, impossible to create a comparison chart for proposed new cities: they do not have charters in place because they don't exist yet. We can, however, establish a comparison between being in unincorporated DeKalb County and being in City of Atlanta. The MANA Working group has created an extensive comparison table. Rep. Rahn Mayo published an abridged version of this table in a recent newsletter that was distributed to his Medlock constituents recently.

At this time, the MANA Board is not issuing any particular recommendation other than to stay informed and continue to contact our elected representatives to ensure that our neighborhood's concerns are factored into any decisions made during the current legislative session and beyond.

We are working on a new survey to ascertain the wishes of as many residents as possible and planning a MANA community meeting for January (details coming soon) timed to take place before the survey's closing date.