Dog found near Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve

This dog (no microchip) was found near the Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve earlier this month.

A kind neighbor has been holding on to him (?) but will need to surrender it to animal control or rescue soon.

If you know who the owners might be, or an interested in a small, sweet "mini-pin" or rat terrier-type dog, please email medlockassoc@gmail and we'll put you in touch with the person who is taking care of this puppet.

Puppies, kittens and flowers oh my!-- help Friends of DeKalb Animals

from Friends of DeKalb Animals

"Plant a Little Love  Our organization needs your help. For every purchase made on this site, Flower Power Fundraising will give 50% back to Friends of Dekalb Animals. Read through this page and see how you can help today! 

A Personal Message from the Campaign Manager  Plant a Little Love !! All of us pups, cats and humans at Friends of Dekalb Animals have spring fever so we decided to spread some sunshine and hold a plant fundraiser. 50% of proceeds will be donated to FODA by Flower Power, so order some bulbs or seeds for you, your mom, your best friend and your neighbor ! Plant a little love in your garden and help homeless animals ~ how fun is that ? For more info on our organization's life saving mission, please visit www.friendsofdekalbanimals.org

http://www.flowerpowerfundraising.com/campaign?q=campaign&campaign_id=18303"

And if you don't need flowers but still want to help, you can make one-time donations via Paypal at www.friendsofdekalbanimals.org.

DeKalb Commissioners transfer economic development oversight to new board

Decaturish has a great report on how the DeKalb Board of Commissioners has decided to set up a new, independent government agency to oversee County development that

"... transfers economic development activities to the board, removing them from the supervision of the county CEO. 

The commission’s actions followed a scathing report produced [by] Angelou Economics on the county’s market conditions. The report, which the county commissioned, said declining tax revenues and a culture of political corruption are holding back the county’s economic development efforts.

... Angelou Economics found the county’s tax digest has decreased 50 percent in the last six years as new cities have formed. DeKalb also suffers from a higher crime rate than its neighboring communities, including Atlanta."  Read on @ Decaturish

Did you catch that: "the county’s tax digest has decreased 50 percent in the last six years as new cities have formed." The last six years counts from 2008, the year when the bottom fell out, heck broke loose, and development stalled or retracted everywhere; it's fair to guess the national economic mood had some impact on the digest, too. Still, we have to acknowledge that as commercial property leaves the County, any new (taxable) development due to recovery will also be happening and most benefiting those incorporated areas.

Did you know that DeKalb is quite remarkable in terms of patent activity?
This is but one slide from the Angelou Economics report. 

The document that informed the Board's decisions can be found at http://www.co.dekalb.ga.us/
pdf/2014_02_17_dekalb_county_market_assessment_report.pdf Definitely click on that link and learn more about our County!

The Angelou Economics report gathered information through its http://dekalbcounty2020.com/ link. Matrix Consulting was hired to collect information to help overhaul the County's permitting and licensing operations; their survey can be found at www.surveymonkey.com/s/
DeKalbCustomer  It is uncertain if information submitted to these surveys is still being collected.

Another Medline update

https://sites.google.com/site/medlinelcistudy/

Awesome Jen Price at Sycamore Consulting has shared some documents from the second of three LCI Core Team Meeting. The core team consists "of stakeholders with knowledge and expertise" who can help guide the study "through the identification of issues and opportunities, development of plan goals and objectives, and review ...  the feasibility and effectiveness of recommendations." The meeting primarily summarized the feedback that was gathered during the Medline community meeting last week. A key item was to mark our calendars for March 29 for the public meeting / charrette, where the study group consultants will unveil some of their proposals to see what the community thinks. The location will be announced soon.

Until then, Jen wanted everyone to know that links to slides from the two core meetings so far can be found at  https://sites.google.com/site/medlinelcistudy/core-team while materials from community meetings are housed at https://sites.google.com/site/medlinelcistudy/community-workshops. As additional meetings take place, you can go to those links directly for updates.

Under the core meetings section, you will also find a presentation titled "Health in the City" that discusses the history of the national health care infrastructure that led to building complexes such as the DeKalb Medical Center, Piedmont Hospital, etc. The presentation helped put in context how the DeKalb Medical site came to be (it was a 40-acre berry patch until 1960-ish) and where it and others hospitals like it may be headed as modern health care switches to a wellness emphasis and telemedicine, outpatient services, retail providers and smaller (acute, urgent care) models challenge the traditional hospital concept. The Medline study is in part named to reference the medical center's influence in the area;  whatever changes may come,  DeKalb Medical can be expected to remain an important player in the area's form and function.

At the March 6 meeting, Mike Sizemore (from the Sizemore group who leads the study) mentioned a walkability study conducted in Kennesaw, GA that has good examples [pages 49 – 56] of the complete street concept ("complete" means that the street is designed to serve not only cars but also pedestrians and cyclists). The presentation, titled "AARP Active Living Workshop", is now available via the Medline website at https://sites.google.com/site/medlinelcistudy/resources [note: it's a large file, it may take a minute to load]. This report is worth reviewing: it has a lot of images that can give us ideas for how to fix some of our vexing, unfriendly roads.

The Kennesaw/ AARP report includes many tasty nuggets such as (on page 9 and on):

Speed kills: if you want to survive, be picky: make sure you only
get hit by cars traveling under 20 mph! Red indicates # dead
pedestrians for every10 who are hit by cars traveling at noted speeds.

•  A 5 to 10 mph reduction in traffic speeds increased adjacent residential property values by roughly 20 percent. Reduced traffic volumes on residential streets increases home values by an average of 18 percent.
• A 10-point increase in Walk Score increases commercial property values by 5 percent to 8 percent. ... a one point increase in a neighborhood’s WalkScore (www.walkscore.com) increased home values as much as $3,000.
• Cycling and walking investments return up to $11.80 for every $1 invested.

Those who were closely following the North Decatur Road Safety Audit will find much to like in this report, so check it out!

Lastly, the study group has generated a lot of maps describing the different attributes of the Medline site. Those maps can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/medlinelcistudy/community-workshops.  Maps begin on page 17 of the first community workshop presentation.

MANA statement to the GA Legislature regarding cityhood and annexation

... from the MANA Board. 

March 5, 2014  

To the Members of the Governmental Affairs Committee: 

The Medlock Area Neighborhood association has closely followed the cityhood proposals for DeKalb County.  We have strongly supported the City of Briarcliff Initiative because it is the only cityhood proposal to give our neighborhood the possibility of expressing our opinions through our votes. Now, we are appalled to learn that part of our neighborhood is being excluded even from the latest proposed Briarcliff map because of back room deals with existing cities, in our case Decatur. We realize that maps will be changing until the final vote. However, the ham-handed way this issue has been handled has reflected badly on everybody involved in it. 

We are not naïve about the political process, but a major argument in favor of new cities is that they will lead to more transparency in government, at least in the beginning. This process has destroyed even that tattered illusion. It has created more distrust in government than existed before, which is saying quite a lot. 

We respectfully ask you not to consider arbitrarily breaking up existing neighborhoods under any circumstances because a small piece of the neighborhood borders on something that an existing city MIGHT want in the future. The Medlock neighborhood goes all the way to Scott Blvd and should not be truncated because of some vague desires that will probably never be acted on. Even considering such action is arrogant, manifestly unfair to the citizens of the entire area, and wrong. 

More importantly, we urge you, our elected representatives, to assume responsibility to slow this race to cityhood. It has become confusing, embarrassing, and damaging to all of us. If there truly are valid reasons for a new city, then waiting a year or so should make those reasons more valid. Of course, there are terrible problems with DeKalb County, but creating flawed new municipalities will not help anybody, except those who profit from them.  As it is, this entire process has created frustration and cynicism among the voters and done severe damage to our belief in the possibility of true democracy in Georgia.

Please stop this.  You can do better, and you owe it to the voters to give us all more time to consider the details and implications of these proposals. 

Thank you.

Sincerely,
The Medlock Area Neighborhood Association (MANA) Board
medlockassoc@gmail.com

---

If you would like to reach out to your elected officials, the House Governmental Affairs Committee will hold hearings about both the Briarcliff and Lakeside proposals today March 6, 1-3pm. See the meeting notice here. Per the Briarcliff Facebook page, Briarcliff statements will be heard at 1pm and Lakeside's at 2pm. The Briarcliff Facebook page also has a map with directions. 

If you can't make it to this meeting, we encourage you to call or email the House Governmental Affairs Committee:

Rep. Alan Powell	alanpowell23@hotmail.com
Rep. Alisha Morgan	alisha@alishamorgan.com
Rep. Amy Carter, Chairman	amy.carter@house.ga.gov
Rep. Barry Fleming	barry.fleming@house.ga.gov
Rep. Bruce Williamson	bruce.williamson@house.ga.gov
Rep. Buzz Brockway, Vice Chair	buzz.brockway@house.ga.gov
Rep. Darlene Taylor, Secretary	darlene.taylor@house.ga.gov
Rep. Dustin Hightower	dustin.hightower@house.ga.gov
Rep. Howard Mosby	howard.mosby@house.ga.gov
Rep. Hugh Floyd	hughfloyd@mindspring.com
Rep. Jay Powell	jay.powell@house.ga.gov
Rep. John Meadows	john.meadows@house.ga.gov
Rep. Larry O’Neal	larry.oneal@house.ga.gov
Rep. Mark Hamilton	mark.hamilton@house.ga.gov
Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver	mmo@mmolaw.com
Rep. Rusty Kidd	rusty.kidd@house.ga.gov
Rep. Tyrone Brooks	tyrone.brooks@house.ga.gov

Additionally, you may want also want to communicate your thoughts to the Speaker of the House, David Ralston (david.ralston@house.ga.gov) and to Senator Jason Carter (jason.carter@senate.ga.gov), who recently aired his concerns about the current process.

For your convenience, all the emails above in an easy cut-and-paste format:  

alanpowell23@hotmail.com; alisha@alishamorgan.com; amy.carter@house.ga.gov; barry.fleming@house.ga.gov; bruce.williamson@house.ga.gov; buzz.brockway@house.ga.gov; darlene.taylor@house.ga.gov; dustin.hightower@house.ga.gov; howard.mosby@house.ga.gov; hughfloyd@mindspring.com; jay.powell@house.ga.gov; john.meadows@house.ga.gov; larry.oneal@house.ga.gov; mark.hamilton@house.ga.gov; mmo@mmolaw.com; rusty.kidd@house.ga.gov; tyrone.brooks@house.ga.gov; david.ralston@house.ga.gov; jason.carter@senate.ga.gov

Georgia rides to the Capitol [Mar 18]

Do you ride a bicycle? Would you ride a bicycle if you felt safer on our area streets? Join the annual Georgia Rides to the Capitol event! Riders gather in downtown Decatur and depart at 10:45 a.m. and reach the Capitol at 11:40am. The ride is free but you should register in order to be covered by event insurance. Read on for more information...

See full-size version at
http://www.georgiaridestothecapitol.org/images/flyer-2014.pdf

"Hi All,

The ninth annual Georgia Rides To The Capitol bike ride is coming up Tuesday, March 18th. I know a lot of y’all have done this ride and we hope y’all can join us once again.

The ride supports cycling advocacy efforts in Georgia and we routinely have over 30-40 metro area mayors and other elected officials join us on the ride. The ride is split into two parts – the Decatur option leaves from the E. Lake MARTA station parking lot (north side of DeKalb Ave.) and is a slow paced, 5 mile ride to the state capitol. We always have plenty of beginners, families and folks just riding for fun!

The ride is police escorted to the capitol, but cyclists are on their own for the return trip. Last year we had Lt. Governor Casey Cagle address the riders along with other statewide officials. It’s a great way to show support for cycling and an opportunity to meet (and ride with) a lot of elected officials!

For details, start times and registration (all pre-registered riders are covered by event insurance AND receive a free commemorative leg band), please visit the website:

www.GeorgiaRidesToTheCapitol.org

Please feel free to spread the word! Apologies for any cross postings.

Fred Boykin
Event Director"

DeKalb Cooperative Extension Annual Plant Sale [order by Mar 10, pick up on Mar 22]

Order form and list of available plants from http://www.caes.uga.edu/extension/dekalb/documents/2014PlantSaleOrderForm-webversion.pdf

DECATUR – DeKalb Cooperative Extension is pleased to announce its second annual Plant Sale. The office will accept orders between January 6, 2014 and March 10, 2014.  The one-day pick up is Saturday, March 22, 2014 at the DeKalb Cooperative Extension office.  We have several varieties to choose from including azaleas, blueberries, hydrangeas, gardenias and many more.

“Although this is just our second year, we are excited to see this annual sale grow.  We are committed to helping citizens realize and understand the role they play in the beautification and sustainability of their own neighborhoods, said Jessica E. Hill, Director of the Cooperative Extension office in DeKalb.

For more information about ordering plants or to learn more about other programs and services, please contact the DeKalb County Cooperative Extension office at 404-298-4080 or visit us at www.ugaextension.com/dekalb.

Lynwood L. Blackmon II
DeKalb County Horticulture Agent
DeKalb County Cooperative Extension
4380 Memorial Drive, Suite 200
Decatur, GA 30032
404-298-4087
404-298-3084 Fax
blackmonl@dekalbcountyga.gov