Mason Mill Neighbors -
There is a lot of exciting news to share this week, and we've been pretty quiet since before the holidays, so this week's news blast will be in two parts.
This first message will focus on the status of the Mason Mill Road traffic calming initiative that so many of you have been working on, carefully and patiently, for so many months.
The short version is this: The Dekalb County Board of Commissioners (BOC) has agreed to hear and deliberate about our plan next week, at their Jan. 24 meeting. If they do approve the plan, we will be able to move to the final phase: the house-by-house vote that will ultimately determine whether Mason Mill Road will get the proposed set of speed tables, center islands, landscaping and signage.
You can get the background on this initiative on the Mason Mill Civic Association blog: http://masonmill.blogspot.com/2011/05/mason-mill-traffic-calming-faqs-may.html
At our most recent General Meeting of the MMCA (Nov. 13, 2011 - see draft minutes posted earlier), Committee Chair Mary Hinkel reported that the street captains had been going door-to-door to ascertain the level of support for the plan within the 150 households directly affected (by the County's definition) and thus eligible to vote. At the time of that meeting, they had been able to contact 98 of the affected households (the other 52 are a combination of renters, vacant houses, and otherwise "neighbors not heard from yet").
Of the 98 contacted, 90 reported being in favor of the measure, 3 against, with 5 maybes.
In light of this overwhelming support among those reached -- and it already being close to a sufficient number of "yeses" to formally approve the measure if converted to actual votes during that phase -- the residents in attendance voted unanimously to "call the question" and formally ask the BOC for approval of the plan. Mary then did so... and we waited to hear when the BOC would fit us into their agenda. (FYI They meet on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month.)
The BOC selected Jan. 24 as the meeting at which they will address our proposal. The meeting starts at 9:00am in the Maloof Auditorium in downtown Decatur. It is open to the public and broadcast live (on cable channel 23?) More BOC info: http://web.co.dekalb.ga.us/boc/meetings.html
So there we are. Thanks to a sustained effort by so many neighborhood volunteers over the past two years, we are finally getting a hearing on what probably is our one shot at getting our speeding and road safety issues taken care of. It's not clear yet whether we will need additional neighborhood presence at the BOC meeting - our process has been so thorough and participatory, and our support numbers are so overwhelming. We'll send another blast as the date gets closer, and if we really need more voices to help articulate our point, you'll hear from us!
Many, many thanks to Mary Hinkel and the team of street captains who have invested so much time and talent in this process so far, and who have gotten us so close to our goals.
Patrick Noonan
President, MMCA
There is a lot of exciting news to share this week, and we've been pretty quiet since before the holidays, so this week's news blast will be in two parts.
This first message will focus on the status of the Mason Mill Road traffic calming initiative that so many of you have been working on, carefully and patiently, for so many months.
The short version is this: The Dekalb County Board of Commissioners (BOC) has agreed to hear and deliberate about our plan next week, at their Jan. 24 meeting. If they do approve the plan, we will be able to move to the final phase: the house-by-house vote that will ultimately determine whether Mason Mill Road will get the proposed set of speed tables, center islands, landscaping and signage.
You can get the background on this initiative on the Mason Mill Civic Association blog: http://masonmill.blogspot.com/2011/05/mason-mill-traffic-calming-faqs-may.html
At our most recent General Meeting of the MMCA (Nov. 13, 2011 - see draft minutes posted earlier), Committee Chair Mary Hinkel reported that the street captains had been going door-to-door to ascertain the level of support for the plan within the 150 households directly affected (by the County's definition) and thus eligible to vote. At the time of that meeting, they had been able to contact 98 of the affected households (the other 52 are a combination of renters, vacant houses, and otherwise "neighbors not heard from yet").
Of the 98 contacted, 90 reported being in favor of the measure, 3 against, with 5 maybes.
In light of this overwhelming support among those reached -- and it already being close to a sufficient number of "yeses" to formally approve the measure if converted to actual votes during that phase -- the residents in attendance voted unanimously to "call the question" and formally ask the BOC for approval of the plan. Mary then did so... and we waited to hear when the BOC would fit us into their agenda. (FYI They meet on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month.)
The BOC selected Jan. 24 as the meeting at which they will address our proposal. The meeting starts at 9:00am in the Maloof Auditorium in downtown Decatur. It is open to the public and broadcast live (on cable channel 23?) More BOC info: http://web.co.dekalb.ga.us/boc/meetings.html
So there we are. Thanks to a sustained effort by so many neighborhood volunteers over the past two years, we are finally getting a hearing on what probably is our one shot at getting our speeding and road safety issues taken care of. It's not clear yet whether we will need additional neighborhood presence at the BOC meeting - our process has been so thorough and participatory, and our support numbers are so overwhelming. We'll send another blast as the date gets closer, and if we really need more voices to help articulate our point, you'll hear from us!
Many, many thanks to Mary Hinkel and the team of street captains who have invested so much time and talent in this process so far, and who have gotten us so close to our goals.
Patrick Noonan
President, MMCA
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