No Mask Mandate, New Speed Tables: Decatur City Commission

DECATUR, GA — At one of the first in-person meetings since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Decatur City Commission members discussed re-implementing a mask mandate, installing speed tables along Avery Street, a tourism update and adding technology upgrades to the City Commission meeting room.

Here's what you need to know:

1. Masks are still not required in the city of Decatur.

Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest mask-wearing guidelines, Decatur City Manager Andrea Arnold did not recommend a mask mandate as of Monday, citing the city's vaccination and infection rates — as well as local business's mask requirements — as reasons.

The four census tracts in Decatur range from 49 percent to 68 percent of residents receiving one vaccine dose, and from 44 percent to 62 percent of residents being fully vaccinated, Arnold told Decaturish based on a COVID-19 dashboard the city uses.

"I think what I’m hearing is that we’re not ready to do anything quite yet," Mayor Patti Garrett said during Monday's city commission meeting. "We would like to ask the city manager to continue to monitor the numbers and the trends and use our emergency management team to see what their feedback may be."

The CDC recently updated its guidance to recommend that vaccinated people resume wearing masks in indoor public spaces, particularly those with high risk for transmission (i.e. grocery stores, schools, retail shops, etc.).

2. More speed tables will be installed on Avery Street.

Avery Street residents submitted a petition to the city requesting more traffic calming measures in the 100 and 200 blocks to slow traffic through the neighborhood and improve pedestrian and school route safety, according to city documents. There are already speed tables installed on nearby blocks of the street.

The petition was signed by 23 residents and approved unanimously by Decatur City Commission members. Exact speed table locations will be determined in the field to avoid conflicts with driveways and utility lines, city documents show.

3. New technology is coming to Decatur City Commission's meeting room.

Commissioners unanimously approved up to $55,000 for new technology upgrades to the commission meeting room, awarded to Swagit Productions, LLC. The existing tech system was installed in 2012, according to city documents, and has only received minor hardware upgrades since then.

"Swagit’s offerings are proprietary and grant hands-free recording, uploading and archiving of meeting videos as well as hands-free indexing, time-stamping and cross linking of recordings to agendas," a memorandum for the project said. "The new system will also allow the indexed and archived recordings of board and commission meetings to meet [Americans with Disabilities Act] captioning requirements."

Work will start in 45-60 days and will be completed in one week after it starts. City officials said the upgrades will make it easier to continue streaming meeting videos online.

4. Several tourism initiatives are in the pipeline.

Linda Harris, assistant city manager of community and economic development, gave a tourism update during the work session prior to the official commission meeting, and mentioned several initiatives the department is working on to better serve the city of Decatur. It plans to:

• Hire a part-time employee to help staff the Visitors Center
• Open the Visitors Center seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Add a new automated events calendar widget to the website
• Sponsor Placita Latina, a new Hispanic Heritage Month pop-up festival, in collaboration with the city of Avondale Estates
• Sponsor the International LGBTQ+ Convention in Atlanta