Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Dunwoody Election Season Starts, DeKalb Supt, Twitter, Dragoncon, GPC Town and Gown, and Economic Development

Six people registered for the November 8th elections with registration closing on Friday.

A divided DeKalb school board selects Atkinson A divided DeKalb County school board ended its two year hunt for a new school boss Monday and hired Cheryl L. H. Atkinson to become the next person to take over Georgia's third largest school district. Maureen DowneyMike Jacobs, DeKalb County School Watch Blog,


Labor Day Weekend in Atlanta: Dragon Con with Kids Sue Rodman explores Dragoncon for Kids in the link above and this parade is by far my boys favorite parade in Atlanta. Below is video I shot in 2009 and am guessing I will be back on a curb Saturday morning near Peachtree Center.


Mayor Wright has nominated me to serve on the Dunwoody "Town & Gown" Committee where the City works closely with Georgia Perimeter College to work out issues. I am looking forward to meeting the other new member who will be a high school student who is attending classes at GPC.  Does anyone know such a candidate?  Though I have yet to attend my first meeting, I am staying informed by reading the GPC Student Newspaper, The Collegian. I learned that GPC is in transition whereby they are morphing from a two year school to offering four-year baccalaureate programs. I learned that GPC President Dr. Anthony Tricoli has received a prestigious award by the the American Association of University Professors and that his wife, Robin was just named the President of Hiwassee College in Madisonville, Tennessee.  I also see that the school Rugby team is playing a little ball at Brook Run and could use a few members to join in the fun.  At one point the Atlanta Renegades (several Dunwoody residents) were also looking to obtain regular use of Dunwoody park fields but had to go elsewhere because of the lack of availability.

Finally the City of Dunwoody invested in itself late last year by hiring Mr. Michael Starling as our Economic Development Director who has worked tirelessly in selling Dunwoody as the premier corporate office location in the Atlanta Metro Region to potential corporate clients looking for office space. Dividends are now paying off with more to come.  Keep up the good job Michael!

3 comments:

Kirsten said...

I am disappointed to hear that GPC is trying to become a 4 year school. The location is horrible and they do little to improve the community. Getting up and down Tilly Mill is horrible and makes general neighborhood errands a real headache now that school is back in session. Every time I turn around they are adding more parking lots and more classes. Is there no limit? I know that we (Dunwoody) have no say in what they do, but I for one am not at all happy that they are there.

Bob Lundsten said...

I have a concern that we are using the idea of Park money to buy up space, not because the land would make a great location for a park, but instead as urban redevelopment funds. The city buys the land to stop any non-desirable types of development from coming into our community. (You know those “apartment people”).
Park purchases should be reviewed and evaluated by park people, not politicians. Does the purchase make sense? Is there a better place to spend the money? What are the development costs? What section of the public does the purchase serve?
Is the fear of apartments so great that we are going to spend $35,000,000 to buy up all the vacant space to stop them from coming?
My concern is not without merit. If you ask about the PVC farm, the number 1 reason you will hear as to why we bought it was to keep out 300 apartments, oh and then “maybe some green space”.

While a green space is a good idea, and I am not really opposed to the proposed purchase of the hospital, I just hope that this is not the trend. Let’s have a plan and then do something that we are not very good at, follow that plan.

My real fear and I am saddened that I even have the thought, is that "we" are against apartments, not because the over crowd the schools, but for the same reason "We"are more concerned about baseball fields than soccer fields. If we build them, THEY will come.
I have an idea, lets take some of that money and build a draw bridge, put a moat around the city limits and only let in folks that look like "us"
Vote for the Parks bonds, because you want well tought out and planned parks, not because you think it is the only way to protect us from the other Dunwoody

Chip said...

John:

Maybe you can actually get the Town and Gown committee to meet. The only record is an Agenda put out on Aug 26, 2010 (last year)and neither Councilwoman Bonser or Councilman Wittenstein ever bothered to follow up with this program over the last year. This is especially surprising since GPC is in Ms. Bonser's district.

There is significant work to be done to ameliorate the potential conflicts between the GPC and the City of Dunwoody, and this committee should never have been allowed to languish.

I hope you'll give it the attention it deserves.