The legislative hearing Wednesday night at the Maloof Auditorium had it all: passion, comedy, pleas, arguments, more passion and even some education. It was a valuable event for anyone in the county for many reasons and, for the most part, was surprisingly civil. The format was set up so state legislators from the county could hear from a wide ( Read more... )

In order for any of the new cities in DeKalb county to become real, they have to take over at least three functions of government from the county. Thankfully, schools are not yet one of the areas these in utero cities can handle, so they have to look at others ( Read more... )

I have attended a couple meetings recently on attempts to divide DeKalb County up into a bunch of cities. The last meeting was the largest, and there is a good write-up about it here ( Read more... )

I attended a meeting at Tucker library on plans for a DeKalb Country transportation plan. This was an early stage meeting, stemming in large part from the T-SPLOST defeat last year. The county is supposed to have a proposed plan completed this summer, so these early meetings are for community input. If you have transportation issues you would like ( Read more... )

I took a break from working the phones, e-mailing and cranking out economic data to go vote at the Tucker Rec Center. The first election official I meet is playing Slice It on her iPhone. I tell her I make games and she is shocked that anyone in Georgia does that. I go inside where the next election official is playing on her Windows phone. She ( Read more... )

Went to Rep. Scott Holcomb’s Town Hall meeting tonight. Some of same ol’ same ol’ - cops there telling people to remember to hide the GPSs in their cars when they leave them - but some interesting stuff, especially in regard to the upcoming legislative session. My favorite was an observation he made about T-SPLOST. For those Georgians who have not ( Read more... )

For all my Georgia and DeKalb County friends: I attended a town hall meeting at Lakeside High School with state senator Steve Henson and state representative Scott Holcomb last night for an overview of the legislative session that just wrapped up. Hard not to commiserate with Holcomb’s view that Georgia is currently in a race for the bottom ( Read more... )