From the President:
We hope that everyone had an enjoyable Veterans Day weekend. All of us on the Board wish to thank those of you who are serving or served as veterans. We appreciate the sacrifices you and your family made in service to your country. We celebrate and honor you.
Our next meeting: As you may remember, our plan was to invite our state representatives to the meeting and ask them to address key issues related to our community. Last week the Governor called for a special session of the State Legislature to begin at 10 am on the 29th of November. This will result in our invited state representatives who were to meet with us on the 28th to travel to Atlanta that day instead. We are checking schedules to see if we can move the meeting to the 27th or have an alternate presenter for the 28th. We should have this resolved in the next few days and will provide you with an update.
As you may recall the city established a Stakeholder Committee to study the issue of subdividing lots in the National Historic Landmark District. Last week the city introduced an ordinance at the Historic District Board of Review that will require any requests to subdivide or recombine lots to have a public hearing before being approved. Currently, any requests to subdivide or recombine a lot can be approved by staff at the Metropolitan Planning Commission without any input, or knowledge, of residents adjacent to the property. This change is long overdue. The next step for this ordinance change is at the City Council meeting on December 7. We will be supporting this modification.
The Home Tour committee has filled most of the docent positions, and they are getting ready to close the online signup system. However, they are maintaining a backup list for those who would like to serve as docents but were unable to sign up. If you are interested, email holidaytour@savannahdna.organd include your phone number. Also, if you determine that you cannot fulfil your docent commitment, please notify us at this same email address so that we can arrange a replacement.
Last, a reminder that this Thursday is the lecture and book signing by Mark McDonald at the Massie Heritage Center. Mark will be discussing a recently released book titled, Architecture of the Last Colony. This is an event co-sponsored by the DNA and the Center. The event begins with a social period at 6:30 and the lecture at 7 pm. I hope to see you there.
David McDonald
President
Downtown Neighborhood Association Savannah, GA Inc.