Save Tucker!

Water Bill Town Hall - TONIGHT at 7 p.m. Cheryl Miller from Brockett Heights · Just now Water main breaks are all too common in our county. Oct. 6, 2016:   If you have had issues recently with your water bill, or suspect that your water meter has been tampered with, changed or otherwise left to report inaccurate or unreliable data back to the county, PLEASE try to attend tonight's meeting at 7 p.m. The location is 1300 Commerce Drive in Decatur. Commissioner Nancy Jester is hosting the town hall, but residents from all districts are invited to attend. If you have been victimized by over the top/inaccurate billing, please plan to speak up in order to document for the public record the extent...

Hi Save Tucker followers! It has been a little while since we updated our blog, so we wanted to let you know that we're still here and we're still following the issue of new cities in the metro Atlanta region.  We try to give you our two cents on most of these topics, as often as possible.  But, even being prolific bloggers and involved citizens, we still need a break sometimes.  Plus, we wanted to give the new city of Tucker a chance to really get up and running before we started to point out anything that might be a cause of concern.   Since we live here, we are very hopeful that our new city council members and the mayor will be the upstanding citizens they want us to believe they are.  And, we want to believe that they have the best interest of all Tucker in mind with every decision they make. Of course we are still skeptical because of things like this:  Yes, that's three of our elected city leaders trying to evade a simple question just...

Barnes-Sutton faces Steve Bradsaw on Tuesday, July 26.  IMPORTANT RUNOFF ELECTION TUESDAY, JULY 26!   DEKALB COUNTY'S DISTRICT 4 CHOOSES BETWEEN INCUMBENT BARNES-SUTTON OR CHALLENGER BRADSHAW!  If you DID NOT vote in the last election, do not despair, you can STILL VOTE in the July 26 Runoff so long as  you were registered to vote at the time of the first election.  To have a say in this runoff, you will need to ask for a "Democratic ballot" for you to cast your vote on. From the desk of the group "Unhappy Taxpayers and Voters," we received the following: To DeKalb Teachers and Georgia Teachers: Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton (of the 4th District in DeKalb County) has a long history of arriving to work late (Commission meetings and/or committee meetings) and/or not showing up at all. We ask that you review the following records (prior performance and work history/records of arriving to work on time and/or showing up) and ask if teachers that...

Note:  We continue to follow this story because Save Tucker! was told by a follower that this particular principal was specifically selected by the same individuals who were involved in the push for a Lakeside City.  Their plans would have devastated the Tucker community by splitting it up and leaving some without any commercial tax revenue in their region to help keep their own property taxes affordable.   We want others to understand that the decisions these self appointed leaders wanted to make would have been bad for everyone, regardless of where you lived.  They made decisions based on the old-school DeKalb corrupt way of doing things.  The methods that have left their own community to clean up and fix the messes like this one... bringing in a principal based on who he knows, not what he knows.  Maybe now they will stay out of the schools AND regional politics?  We can only hope.    This article below is from the AJC: After oust...

In an email sent to its supporters this week, Lavista Hills Alliance announced that it is closing down some of its operations and suspending some of its campaign activities.  They also alluded to a long-forgotten challenge they once made to the accuracy of the vote that sent Tucker toward incorporation and sent them home empty handed.   According to the email, which was forwarded to us by an anonymous source, Lavista Hills' leaders are still holding out hope that the state department will issue some kind of a final report, telling them whether or not they found any fraud in connection to their allegations against the DeKalb Board of Elections and its Superintendent, Maxine Daniels.    Save Tucker! followers may also recall that we, too, had questions regarding the fairness of some of the voting procedures taking place in DeKalb, mainly the allowing of candidates onto ballots without properly verifying their stated place of residence.  We  ha...

Two and a half years ago, concerned neighbors began meeting about our issues with the motels at 285 & Lawrenceville Highway. We reached out to County leaders and have met with them a number of times.  Dekalb County sought a technical assistance grant from the Atlanta Regional Commission to study the area and make recommendations for next steps. It has been a very difficult process, and we have often felt discouraged, but we have persisted. We have not seen any of the recommend ations for this grant, so we have no idea what to expect.  DeKalb County is ready to share their overall findings/recommendations with all of us. An Open House Meeting has been scheduled for Thursday, June 2nd, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Rehoboth Baptist Church. It is tremendously important that we have a good turnout for this meeting. They need to see that we still have a high level of concern and engagement. Please share with your neighbors. --  Jack Sartain

Georgia may be a conservative state, but that does not mean it does everything the "old fashioned" way.   Let's just take today, for example.  Today is the primary election for many important offices throughout the county of DeKalb. And, even though you might normally think of a primary election as the time when each political party gathers their registered voters together to vote for the best potential candidates to square off against one another in a general election, that isn't how we do things here in Georgia.  Nope. Don't ask us why because that would require someone to do some more research on that topic and currently our research department is a bit understaffed and over-committed.  So, let's just skip the "why" part and jump right into the good stuff.... WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ME?   So, you are probably wondering what all this non-traditional rule bending might mean for you, the DeKalb County voter who lives somewhere near what is cu...

Tucker Day returns to Main Street Tucker on Saturday, May 14th.  Enjoy a grand parade plus musical entertainment throughout the day.  Some of the acts include the 80ators, The Young & The Elder, Bill Turpin & Shoulderbone Creek Orchestra, Back in the Saddle, Scene of the Crime and Flat Rock Swing. The event will be held from 9 am to 5 pm. For more information, visit TuckerDay.com.

We're not sure what is going on here, but thought you would like to know about these local non-profits that are in danger of being dissolved.  Is the new city government planning to take over all these responsibilities so that volunteers will not be involved in matters that we previously had a lot of local control over?  (like zoning, permitting, etc.)  A simple review of the Secretary of State's website shows something is going on in Tucker since the community voted to become a city - all of its notable non-profits are now at risk of being administratively dissolved.  You can try it for yourself here . It is also interesting to note that many of our newly elected council members, including the Mayor, have been linked to many of these groups or relied upon their endorsements and support in order to get into office in the first place.  But, here is an overview of what you will find: Tucker Civic: Has not paid its annual dues to the state of Georgia s...

Here are minutes from the DeKalb County Elections Board Meeting held Feb. 11, 2016.  Save Tucker! comments are numbered below the minutes, corresponding to the highlighted areas by color.  Challenge of Tucker City Council Candidate Katherine Atteberry – The Board was provided with a copy of an e-mail from Ms. Cheryl Miller stating that she wished to challenge the candidacy of Tucker District 2 City Council candidate Katherine Atteberry, and alleged that Ms. Atteberry did not live at her registered address.  Upon checking Code Section 21-2-6, it was determined that another elector can only challenge a candidate within the two weeks immediately following the qualifying period and that time has expired.  However, the Board has the authority to challenge a candidate up and until an election.   Ms. Daniels and Mary Frances went to the candidate’s address and saw no indication that the home was abandoned or vacant, as alleged .  Further, Ms. Daniels check...

Left, Michelle Penkava (Dist. 3), Anne Lerner (Dist. 3), Frank Auman (mayor), Bill Rosenfeld (Dist. 1), Honey VandeKreke (Dist. 1).  Absent:  anyone from Dist. 2 because the election was still taking place.  There was  no legal authority for these individuals to begin conducting business on behalf of Tucker as the city election was still in process.  And, to make matters worse, they claimed that the charter required them to take office.  That was a bold faced lie to their constituents and they even made THAT through a third party via social media and other unofficial means, rather than answer for themselves. Newly elected Tucker Mayor Frank Auman (center) and four council-members were sworn in to their positions on March 8 at Tucker High School.  The council members represented exactly 2 of the 3 districts.  Despite the fact that they were not bound by any particular charter requirement to do so, they decided to move forward without the ...

There was good cause for celebration late in the evening yesterday, March 29, as the unofficial election results were announced and locals in District 2, Matt Robbins and Noelle Monferdini took the last two seats on Tucker's new city council.  Save Tucker!'s leadership was advocating for the election of these candidates, who had been narrowed down to a smaller group from the large  number originally in the March 1 race.  Quite a bit of controversy was started when the other council members and the mayor chose to go ahead and begin the business of the new city without waiting for District 2 council elections to be completed.  They were sworn in during a historic ceremony and that left more than 10,000 people, a full third of the new city, feeling  very angry and slighted.  Monferdini and Robbins both passed the Save Tucker! residency check, which we ran on all candidates after becoming concerned when we had difficulty reaching one after months o...

Sometimes you can learn as much about a person or organization based on what they do NOT say or AVOID saying, as you can learn from listening to them talk about the things that matter to them.  That was the case at the March 21 candidate forum for District 2 Tucker council candidates. We learned about this notification:    "Come hear from all four District 2 run-off candidates! ... by Tucker Civic Association. Submit your questions for the candidates by Noon on March 21 to: Malisa Anderson-Strait: district2 @ tuckercivic .org."     So, we submitted the following email with questions.    __________________________________________________________________________________ On Mon, Mar 21, 2016 at 1:04 PM, XXXXXX  (Save Tucker!) wrote: SORRY THIS EMAIL IS A TAD PAST YOUR DEADLINE. PLEASE CONSIDER ANY OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS FOR TONIGHT’S DISTRICT 2 FORUM AT TUCKER RECREATION.  THANK YOU! ...