Briarcliff Goes Public

The City of Briarcliff Finally Goes Public

Proponents of the proposed new City of Briarcliff have finally gone public by providing a website to make information available to local residents concerning their proposal, and to raise funds for the state required feasibility study.

You can find their website here.

The Briarcliff site also has a new map for the proposed city, as seen below.  A full pdf version of the map can also be found on their website, here.

The City of Tucker Initiative would like to welcome the City of Briarcliff Initiative to the World Wide Web, and commends them for their choice of a name as they move forward.  A wise decision indeed.

The Next Tucker Together Informational Meeting - May 21, 2013

Informational Meeting
May 21, 2013 - 7pm
St. Andrews Presbyterian Church

Brandon L. Bowen

Please join Tucker Together next Tuesday, May 21 at 7:00 PM at St Andrews Presbyterian Church for the 2nd in a series of meetings to explore the processes and possibilities of Tucker becoming a city.  We welcome guest speaker Brandon L. Bowen,  partner with civil trial firm Jenkins & Bowen, who will discuss zoning and planning possibilities in a potential city of Tucker and as a county service.  There will be an opportunity for questions and answers.

Areas seeking to incorporate must provide at least three of the following services, either directly or by contract:  law enforcement; fire protection/fire safety; road and street maintenance or construction; solid waste management; water supply and/or distribution; waste water management; storm water collection and disposal; electric or gas utility service; code enforcement (building, housing, electrical, etc.); planning and zoning; or recreational facilities.  We will be continuing through this list at subsequent meetings.

Tucker Together’s goal is to provide access to information so that we can explore our options as a community.  We are also accepting donations to fund a feasibility study that will help us better understand Tucker’s viability as a city.

For more information, please visit Tucker Together on line.

Donations can still be made to Tucker Together at their donation page.

Car magnets will be available for $10.00 at all Tucker Together events, at Cofer Brothers and at Local 7.  All proceeds go towards funding the feasibility study.

T-shirts with the Tucker, GA magnet graphic can still be bought from Yellow Llama, either at their store at 2321 Main Street, or through their website at YellowLlama/TuckerTogether.  A major portion of the proceeds will go towards the Tucker Together feasibility study fund.

Donate to Tucker Together!

Donations Needed!

Tucker Together needs your help to fund the feasibility study for our community!

Feasibility studies take into account the residential, commercial and industrial areas of a community to attempt to determine an estimate of what those different revenue sources would generate.

Please go to the Tucker Together website to make a direct donation.

Car Magnets

Tucker, GA car magnets can be bought at any Tucker Together event for $10.00.  All proceeds will go towards the Tucker Together feasibility study fund.

Yellow Llama

T-shirts with the Tucker, GA magnet graphic can be bought from Yellow Llama, either at their store at 2321 Main Street, or through their website at YellowLlama/TuckerTogether.  A major portion of the proceeds will go towards the Tucker Together feasibility study fund.

For our friends at the LCA . . . 

Tucker Together Informational Meeting, April 30, 2013

 Informational Meeting, April 30, 2013

Tucker Together's first information meeting was held at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church on Lavista Road in Tucker.  With the general purpose of these informational meetings being to provide Tucker residents and business owners with basic information to allow them to make an informed decision about incorporation, this meeting's particular focus was on Public Safety.  The meeting was moderated by Ann Rosenthal.

The first half of the meeting featured a presentation  by the DeKalb County Police Department, represented by Police Chief Cedric Alexander.  An audio recording of the meetings introduction, the presentation by the DCPD, and a follow up Q & A session for just the police can be found here.  (This audio clip is edited to just include the police presentation.)

A concern raised by several attendees was that the Public Safety discussion was limited to just the county police as there were no representatives from any of the smaller cities.  It would have been much more helpful to have heard of how police services are offered and budgeted in some of DeKalb's cities, which might have included Dunwoody and Decatur, as their experiences would be more consistent with a proposed City of Tucker police department.

The other half of the meeting featured representatives from the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University, to include Dr. Katherine Willoughby and Prof. Jim Martin. The audio recording of their presentation and the followup Q & A  session can be found here. (This audio is also edited to include only their portions of the meeting.)

Tucker Together's next informational meeting will be held on May 21, 2013, also at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church. The focus of this meeting is believed to be Planning & Zoning.

Audio for the DeKalb County Police (with meeting introduction by Ann Rosenthal)

Audio for the Andrew Young School

The Tucker Initiative Answers Some Questions.

The audience was encouraged to ask questions of all the speakers after their presentations, and those questions and answers are included in the audio recordings.  However, some of the answers were either too short and lacking in detail, or the intent of the question was misunderstood.  So, the Tucker Initiative is offering its own answers

Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver's Town Hall Meeting

Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver

Incorporation Town Hall Meeting

Last night, May 6, 2013, Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver (D), Decatur, held a Town Hall Meeting at Clairmont Hills Baptist Church, featuring several members of DeKalb County's delegation to the Georgia General Assembly, other local elected officials, and spokesmen for the various community groups investigating incorporation. They were there to discuss the various cityhood bills that were dropped in the final days of the General Assembly, the goals and concerns of the local communities, and the impact incorporation may have on DeKalb County. Overall, it was a compelling and comprehensive review of the current community interests in incorporation.

Legislators in attendance at the meeting included:  Sen. Fran Millar (R), Dunwoody, Sen. Jason Carter (D), Decatur, Rep. Michele Henson (D), Stone Mountain, Rep. Pam Stephenson (D), Atlanta, Rep. Tom Taylor (R), Dunwoody, Rep. Howard Mosby (D), Atlanta and Rep. Scott Holcomb (D), Atlanta.

Conspicuous by their absence were Sen. Steve Henson (D), Tucker, Rep. 'Coach' Williams (D), Avondale Estates, and Rep. Billy Mitchell (D), Stone Mountain.

The sole representative for DeKalb County was Commissioner Jeff Rader, District 2. In view of the importance and potential impact incorporation will have on DeKalb County, it was very disappointing that no other elected official from DeKalb County was in attendance. Among those absent, along with CEO Burrell Ellis, were Commissioner Elaine Boyer, District 1, Commissioner Kathie Gannon, Super District 6, and Commissioner Stan Watson, Super District 7. Considering the fact that much of the motivation driving the incorporation movement is directly related to the failure of county leadership, it is quite telling that our elected officials chose not to be involved or to engage their constituents in these important discussions.

The various community groups represented at the Town Hall Meeting included the Lakeside City Alliance (Bernie Knight), Tucker Together (Michelle Penkava), City of Stonecrest (Jason Lary), Briarcliff (Don Broussard), Druid Hills Civic Association (Bruce McGregor), and Chamblee Annexation (Elmer Veith).  Other speakers included Tom Gehl of the Georgia Municipal Association, Nancy Love of the Civic Association Network (CAN) and Andrea Arnold, representing the City of Decatur.

Audio Recording of the Town Hall Meeting

For those of you who were unable to attend the Town Meeting but would like to hear the entire presentation, a recording of the entire two-hour long meeting can be found here.  In particular, I am making this audio recording available for the senior leadership of the LCA who were not in attendance.

The Tucker Patch at the Town Hall Meeting

Tucker, Lakeside Cityhood Discussed at DeKalb Cityhood Meeting

The Tucker Patch was also at Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver's town hall meeting, and this morning posted an informative article with several short video segments of the various speakers, including Tucker Together's very own Michelle Penkava.

Michelle Penkava

You can find the article here.

Please go to the Tucker Together website and make a donation towards funding the feasibility study.

The Peach Pundit at the Town Hall Meeting

A Snapshot of the DeKalb Cityhood Debate

The Peach Pundit posted an interesting article about Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver's town hall meeting last night, held at the Clairmont Hills Baptist Church.  You can check it out here.

A Voice Urging Restraint

From an email sent out by Tom Doolittle (You can learn more about Tom here.)

DEKALB LEGISLATORS TO HOLD TOWN HALL MEETING

Subject:  Legislation Surrounding Creation of Cities

Neighborhood leaders of groups are very important to this meeting (while not minimizing the input of individuals)

The meeting is only tangential to favoring cities in this area vs objecting to them. This is about whether the current legislated process is uniformly relevant to the entire state, is applicable to areas with no historical unity of purpose and follows current constitutional imperatives, such as home rule and the direct regulatory relationship between state and county governments. (Obviously, a person can be interested in state law without favoring or not favoring cityhood referendum results).

The City of Stonecrest

Jason Lary and his Seal
for the City of Stonecrest

The Proposed New City of Stonecrest

An article posted today in the On Common Ground News describes the proposed new City of Stonecrest, located in the far southeastern corner of DeKalb County. Led by Jason Lary, the new city has the support of Sen. Ronald Ramsey, Sr., (D) Decatur, representing Senate District 43, which includes the Stonecrest area.

The article on the City of Stonecrest can be found here.

Update:  Newer maps of Stonecrest can be found here.

Maps of Stonecrest can be found here.

The Andrew Young School

The Andrew Young School of Policy Studies

The Andrew Young School of Policy Studies is one of the two organizations prequalified to perform the city feasibility study required by the State as part of the incorporation process.  Their website can be found here.

A sample of one of their studies can be found here.  This was a study performed by AYS on behalf of DeKalb County concerning the revenue impact upon the County resulting from the incorporation of Dunwoody.

From the Fact Sheet on the AYSPS website:

A Suggestion for Tucker Together

Tucker Together's first map of the proposed City of Tucker was quite ambitious, as it crossed I-85 to include commercial development north of the highway.  This may present a challenge to Doraville, so we'll simply have to wait for their reaction.  Could be interesting.

But if we're going to be this ambitious, I say let's go all the way.  I would suggest that the City of Tucker should include additional areas west of I-285, to include Mercer University - Atlanta, the Presidential Commons office complex, and the rest of Embry Hills.  I believe these areas have much more in common with Tucker than they do with Druid Hills and Briarcliff.  The border, if moved south of Mercer University, will follow portions of North Fork Peachtree Creek and Henderson Mill Creek.  Henderson's Mill on Henderson Mill Creek has a long time connection to the Tucker community.  Its history can be found here.

So, adjacent to Tucker to the west, I am showing the proposed City of Lavista Hills as taking in the rest of unincorporated DeKalb County, inside the Perimeter and north of Decatur and Avondale Estates.  With the city boundaries as drawn, both cities will be of equal size, around 60,000 to 65,000 residents each.

A pdf version of this map can be found here.

Tucker Together

Tucker Together

A new group has been organized by the Tucker community which will be tasked with investigating the possibility of municipal incorporation for Tucker.  Tucker Together will not be an active advocate for cityhood for Tucker, but will serve as an educational forum for the Tucker community so that the residents of the proposed new city might make an informed decision.

Please go to the Tucker Together website here to register for additional information and to volunteer to help with planning and event management. Tucker Together will also be accepting donations towards the cost of a feasibility study to be conducted by either the Carl Vinson Institute or the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.

A map issued by Tucker Together is available here.