EACA Community Meeting Minutes
September 11, 2018
Agenda
Welcome & Announcements
East Atlanta Strut, September 22
Neighbor in Need Gala, October 13
Atlanta Police Department – recognized upon arrival
Back to School
Jason Esteves, Chair and at-large Seat 9
Michelle Olympiadis, District 3
Leslie Grant, District 1
Cynthia Briscoe-Brown, at-large Seat 8
It Ain’t Easy Being Green
Alex Levy & Jay Kirkland, Parks Chairs
Ren McDonald, Trees Atlanta
Margaret Spalding, Saving Skyhaven
National Register of Historic Places Nomination
Update Stephanie Cherry-Farmer
Land Use and Zoning Updates – Andy Schneggenburger, Chair
Closing Remarks and Adjournment
Meeting start at 7:06pm
Welcome & Announcements
East Atlanta Strut, September 22 – 1-day festival in the village. Artist market, adult/kid games, parade at 2pm, 2 stages with bands. Food and fun in the village. Free admission $5 for a wristband for alcohol. Money goes back to the community. ~$25K in grants to different organizations. Volunteers are still needed – sell wristbands, set-up/break-down. 2 & 4-hour shifts. Free wristband, T-shirt, name put into raffle.
Neighbor in Need Gala, October 13 – Viva Las EAV – benefit for NiN. 3rd annual gala. ~$35K annually in home repairs, hence the need for fundraisers. At EAFM – glitz, glam neon. Enter on Stokeswood. Local restaurants are donating bites for the VIP reception. Live entertainment – Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Neil Diamond, comedy, contortionists and aerialists. $50 General admission 8pm / $100 VIP entry at 7pm. If you live within a 3-block radius, you will get $10 off on admission. If you are interested in painting, cooking, and sewing and DIY Nancy will be happy to work with you to get you a ticket. Nancy.carpenter1@gmail.com.
Atlanta Police Department – recognized upon arrival. Sgt Hynes – biggest thing as of late, car break-ins. Every single one is an incident with laptop or something left in the vehicle. Bicycle thefts – bring them inside and/or chain them up.
Back to School
Jason Esteves, Chair and at-large Seat 9 – 3rd year. Turnaround Plan – have seen successes but limited. Thinking through with administration on what is an excellent school. Plan to accelerate turnaround plan – Lewis Cartee is on the Excellent Schools Plan/Committee/Team? Improving 5- 10 -15 at a time is not enough. Come up with plan to lift the floor. Parents should feel comfortable sending their children to any of the schools within the district.
Michelle Olympiadis, District 3 – Parent. Junior at Grady, 8th at Inman, 5th grader. Serves on budget commission as well as audit. Approved this year’s budget – lots of discussion on millage 21.74 to 20.74 some tax relief on property taxes. Is there consideration for seniors? Those decisions are legislative GA Senate/House. Currently there is nothing in CoA to address. There was a bill that did pass that sunsets in 3 years that provides a $50K exemption on the ballot in November. ~$400 savings for the average taxpayer. Fulton Co was not equalized with the rest of the state, this last year up over 90% Fulton Co. froze under 80%. This year appraisals go back up. Financial Literacy – is that being taught at any of the HS? MS school – with the Federal Reserve Bank, Boys/Girls Club, Partnership with operation hope. Capacity – Room at BPA / Review formulas. Board Goals Master Facilities Plan, Comms Plan, Prof Dev map on how we are supporting our teachers. Leslie has got everything. Facilities – different ideas of how space is utilized. Howard in OFW, new additions school to accommodate 1375. Currently accommodating 2K. Constitutional amendment re. millage rate.
Leslie Grant, District 1 – Community coffees twice a month. If free tomorrow, screening of Maynard: The Movie $10 money for the PTSA. Calendar B – later start / ends before Memorial Day – ~60% chose BLG & MO – did not vote to renew superintendent contract MO: No comms plan for the district, no facilities plan for the district, right-sizing the budget. Schools running at or over capacity do not have the dollars as say BPA. LG: On board that hired Super; expires next year. The needs we had several years ago are not the same needs for today. Transformational approach. APS needs to grow. Get clusters stable so they can grow. We need a different leadership style. JE: The community wants stability. Strat Plan from 2014 runs through 2020. Progress in APS, not enough would like to see more. This board with super patched and stabilized this shaky ship. Instability with partners, teachers. UniDekalb – unsuccessful getting any facetime with Chair.
It Ain’t Easy Being Green
Ren McDonald, Trees Atlanta. neighborwoods@treesatlanta.org – Local nonprofit organization located in Reynoldstown. Planted about 130K trees. Front yard – up to 3 shade trees. Annual East Atlanta Planting – Jan 12th primarily on Ormewood Avenue / bit on Flat Shoals Avenue. Proposed planting in Unified DeKalb. Trees Atlanta does not have a contract with DeKalb. On January 12, Oakfield and Cloverdale triangle. Met with arborist for Dekalb – what trees? Tree bank not being tapped into. Would like to pass petition around for folks to sign in hopes to make this a less cumbersome process. Hoping this is the jumping off process to work in coordination with Dekalb/Trees Atlanta. Letter from EACA stating support. 1st and 2nd Russell Toning (arborist for DeKalb) the letter will be helpful to provide to leadership.
Margaret Spalding, Saving Skyhaven – Saving Skyhaven FB page. Saved for public use. Quick coffee & donuts (on property) will do again soon. Trying to engage school board chair. South River Water Alliance, Kathy Gannon, Larry Johnson. If interested, join on FB working on flyers. In the East Atlanta Strut – East Atlanta Canopy Crew Bill Gould – won the parade for Save Ormewood Forest.
National Register of Historic Places
Nomination Update – Stephanie Cherry-Farmer ~2.5 – 3 years – Sitting in the new Atlanta Historic District!! August 27 – nomination is finalized and sent to National Historic Registry. Incentives for commercial and private properties. Freezing county taxes for 8.5 years; now available. Draft materials on EACA website. stephanie.cherry@gmail.com for any questions. EACA did incredible job with SCF and GSU students.
Land Use and Zoning Updates
Andy Schneggenburger, Chair, land use@eaca.net. Meetings 1st Tuesday of the month at Village Church. Full NPU – 4th Wednesday at 7:30. Brief voting item – Re-zoning app annexation of couple properties Oakfield Dr/Stokeswood. Single family homes. Properties will need to be re-zoned to CoA classification. SF in UniD to SF CoA. Rezoning properties that will be annexed R4 designation. NPU LUZ voted unanimously to approve. Think about where we want the boundaries to end. Adding house to house may not resolve. Motion to approve support 20 / 0 / 0, 28 Townhomes on former Earthshaking property – EACA submitted input as townhomes will have negative impact on EAV and City approved SAP late last week and builder has submitted permits. We will be appealing SAP – will take us to BZA in the next couple of months and make our case there that the approval should be reversed. Andy very disappointed in their approval. Historical designation has no impact – does not restrict. Opposition to the SAP comes from the (panel that did work) mixture of use – need more active daytime use in EAV. Rational/sustainable reasons for opposition to SAP.
Zoning tweaks – Work going on to amend neighborhood /commercial. Multi-family. New development contains commercial. Did the city’s approval of the SAP have anything to do with proximity of building – was unconditional? Improving tools, we have and reminding folks of the tools we have. The city is in process of rewriting zoning – due to growth and trying to find ways to accommodate growth. Comes down to details and how things are managed on a case by case basis. Broader general – Triangle C1 to neighborhood commercial – LUZ is working on that. 16 people on committee. Planning to meet tomorrow evening; will reschedule.
Do you have thoughts on how the average person can have input? Tim Keane – Community Dev & City Planning: emails to the Mayor.
Closing Remarks and Adjournment
Parking at Branan Towers is for residents. Can park at 1st Iconium on meeting nights.
Motion to adopt financial report and notes from last month – Second.
Adjourn 8:23pm
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