Death or Taxes

Nancy Jester Town Hall Meeting - How To Appeal Your DeKalb County Property Value Assessment  

Wednesday 1 July, 2015 7.00pm - 8.30pm
Dunwoody City Hall 41 Perimeter Center East, Dunwoody, GA 30346

Home business owners with licenses anywhere in DeKalb County:  check your tax assessments.  Your home is assessed $265 for sanitation.  However, your actual bill is likely to be $400 just because you have a business license.  Even if you do not produce any more trash than any other household.  Even if you are following every regulation to the letter.  Even though your home is designated as a residential area.  If you possess a 8.5 x 3.6 inch piece of paper, the County has reserved the right to re-designate your home as a "commercial" area and increase your taxes. 

Make sure to ask your local elected representatives and others running for office if they believe you should be fined for having a business license and why.  I plan on doing so and remembering the answers on election day.

If you live in Dunwoody, this meeting is even more critical.  It turns out that if you own your home, and your home has increased in value, you are entitled to a refund due to a snafu at City Hall.

Per the AJC, quoted on the Georgia Pundit blog:

The refunds will be paid as a result of reporting by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and questions raised by Sen. Fran Millar, R-Atlanta, and DeKalb County Commissioner Nancy Jester.

The error occurred because Dunwoody officials didn’t notify the county, which handles the city’s tax billing, after voters approved a tax exemption during a November 2010 election, said Dunwoody Finance Director Christopher Pike. The measure passed with 81 percent of the vote.

The tax break provides residents with a discount on the city portion of their tax bills to negate tax increases caused by rising home values.

“It’s great news that the oversight was uncovered and remedied, but it’s still disturbing that this could be something that’s voted on and then all of a sudden it’s one big nevermind,” said Al Tiede, who has lived in Dunwoody for 24 years and believes he’ll receive a refund.

It’s unknown how many people are owed refunds and how much money they’ll receive. DeKalb Tax Commissioner Claudia Lawson said her office is reviewing tax bills from 2012 to 2014, and she plans to have more information next week.

Once the county recalculates taxes, the city will be billed and then refund checks will be mailed to residents, Lawson said.

AJC Article (requires subscription) 

GA Pundit

It's time to stop making mistakes, gang.  From slicing and dicing city codes during ratification to create massive loopholes to "forgetting" to inform DeKalb County of tax changes, to personal zoning tweaks that come dangerously close to ethics violations, to petty battles that lead to legal settlements and long-standing citizen feuds,  Dunwoody is at risk of becoming the corrupt incestuous enclave that our critics have claimed we always were.  Don't get me started on the philosophy of "redevelopment by neglect"  approach being taken with the theatre at Brook Run.  Lots of talk of community pride, and then (to quote my friend Al above)  "Nevermind".   

It's an election year.  Start paying attention to the details and taking them seriously if you want to earn (or keep) your seats. 

Let's hope no one running for office commits a JMax between now and November.  There's enough excitement to come.

INTRODUCING: Learning on the Log

Learning on the Log is an activity center and preschool for children with a variety of developmental delays that focuses on teaching them how to build relationships.  For many children with autism, ADHD and related disorders, summer camp and team sports are not an option.  LOTL fills that void with programs that emphasize what campers can do, rather than what they can't.



Learning On the Log - Part 1 - What is Learning on the Log? from Jim Ross, CinematixHD on Vimeo.

I learned of LOTL when I was looking for day camp and preschool options for my then-3-year-old son who has severe ADHD and sensory processing disorder which led to developmental delays.  The preschool he had been attending kept repeating how much trouble he was and was taking time and resources away from the other kids in class.  An occupational therapist recommended LOTL for preschool and for day camp.  PJ took to the program right away and his ability to function in a classroom gradually improved, as well as his willingness to talk.  To quote his teacher, Miss Wendy, "Anyone who thinks this child can't be taught can go suck it."  That was the first time I wasn't judged because my son wasn't hitting the standard milestones "on time". 

However, their original website did not convey the quality and depth of the programs.  The staff were using a DIY website builder provided by Network Solutions.  I don't care how "easy" those programs are made to appear on commercials, DIY kits are very difficult to use and get a professional result.

The new site that I built is based in Drupal 7.  This CMS allows for fine-tuned permissions for each user that has to interact with the site either as a family registering for programs or an administrator managing their content.  The theme was designed around their logo and other branding styles and is built in HTML5 and CSS3 with JavaScript to make it completely responsive.  (Give it a try on your tablet or phone - all of the content and blocks visible on your laptop or desktop can also be accessed on your smaller devices.) 

The content types were customized so that an office administrator can just add the type of information they want (front page news announcements, blog posts, the slideshow of sponsors in the bottom right corner) and it shows up where it belongs.  No one has to torture themselves figuring out how it works, just follow the steps to add the information and it just goes where they want it to go.

There is a fully-hosted e-commerce system.  First to launch is the swag shop with t-shirts and tchochkies.  Later on, this will be expanded to include an online class/activity reservation system.  That should be live and working no later than January.  Again, the facility's admin staff were instructed in how to manage the store merchandise independently, review their reports, track stock levels, etc.  The payment gateway is a combination of PayPal and WorldPay, the latter accessed via PayPal's Payflow system, acquired from VeriSign.

Newsletters are distributed via Constant Contact.  Self-hosting newsletters is more trouble than it's worth between authentication setup and spam algorithms.  That "Newsletter" box at the top of each page will start the double-opt-in process to sign up.

Other third-party integrations include Facebook (using the new Page Plugin that replaces the deprecated "Like Box"), Instagram, and Twitter.  Videos are embedded individually from YouTube and Vimeo, as well as a slideshow of videos introducing Learning on the Log on the front page.  Like all of the other content types, the staff can change the videos, including the slideshow, at any time through a custom interface created for that purpose in only a couple of steps. 

Each page has the ability to display a completely different full-width header image.  During editing, a selection of photos is available.  The admin selects the one they want to display on each page with a checkbox in only a second.  Stay tuned as more images are added to the site for use on different pages and blogs. 

The next stage has begun development.  In the final version of this site, families will be able to establish accounts and register for classes or day camp right on the site and then check out through the shopping cart already established. 

I'm especially proud of this project.  Even with all of the features, building and designing it was a one-woman job.  I hope all of LOTL's families and friends enjoy and have an easier time accessing their childrens' programs.

If you embed your Facebook page into your website, read this update!

(Talk with your webmaster if any of this sounds like Greek.)

For years, it was possible to use a variety of methods, including IFRAMES to embed a Facebook page (or a Facebook group, if you found the trick) into a website.  You could engage your customers and draw them to your social media with a "Like" button, a scrolling view of page posts, and a list of other "Like"-ers.  A great way to draw attention to your Facebook community without paying FB for it.  ;-)

On June 23, 2015, the rules are going to change.

Facebook is upgrading their API (application programming interface) and the popular "Like Box" will disappear.

This is the message  you get if you are attempting to create a new "Like Box" for your website.

It will be replaced with the Page Plugin app.  (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/page-plugin)

The interface that sets the size and source of the embedded box remains the same.  However there are two important differences in how the plugin displays:

1)  The width of your new "box" is set in pixels and can no longer be set as a percentage of the width of the page or sidebar where it's embedded.
2)  Embedding in your page requires JavaScript just inside the  tag and a second script in the location where you want the box to appear.  That means, no more IFRAMES or other alternative methods.

If you are using a content management system (eg, WordPress, Joomla, etc) to maintain your website and you have been using a plugin or module to embed your Facebook page, check with the developer ASAP to determine if they will upgrade their plugin to accommodate the new rules.

SDOC is in the process of evaluating all of our clients websites and upgrading their source code so their Facebook embeds will continue to appear properly.  We are manually embedding Facebook's scripts into the theme (look and feel) files without the use of modules or plugins for those customers using open-source content management systems.

There's plenty of time to make the change so give us a call or contact your webmaster ASAP to ensure your social media integrations will still look great after June 24!