Packed Decatur City Hall heard plenty about annexation Mon. night

An overflow crowd, with people standing around the walls and packed in the hallway; heard from anybody who wanted to speak about possible annexation Monday night.

The most organized opposition came from Area 2, between Church and N. Decatur Rd. toward town from Suburban Plaza. Many in that group cheered and clapped when one of theirs spoke.

The hearing started at 7:30 and was over around 9:30.

The Commissioners made no comment during the hearing, but addressed several misconceptions at the end of their regular meeting.  Those will be delineated here a little later this AM.

This Decatur eLife video explains the long, drawn out process of considering annexation.

Even though probably something like fifty people spoke for 3 minutes or more (and this blogger has pages and pages of notes), their points can be boiled down to a few themes:

THOSE OPPOSED TO ANNEXATION

• Their taxes would be significantly higher, possibly driving them to an insolvent position.
• Their property values would not go up enough to justify the higher taxes.
• DeKallb services are adequate, and Decatur services would not be significantly better.
• Decatur schools are not that much better than Fernbank, DHHS, and other DeKalb schools.
• The qualify of Decatur schools would be severely stressed

THOSE IN FAVOR OF ANNEXATION

• Their kids will get a better education in Decatur.
• They will get much better representation in a small town vs. a big county.
• Taxes will be lower in a bigger city, as a result of economies of scale.