Mayor, Fairburn council member to be on board

The National League of Cities elected two officials from Fulton county cities to its 2017 board of directors during its annual business meeting in Pittsburgh: Union City mayor Vince Williams and Fairburn city council member Elizabeth Hurst.

Williams and Hurst are among three from Georgia, including Savannah mayor pro tempore Van Johnson, on the NLC board.

Board members will meet during

GO Fulton South Learning Community Career Fair. 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dec. 17. Free. Westlake High School, 2400 Union Road, Atlanta. The South Learning Community serves schools in the College Park, East Point, Camp Creek and Fairburn areas. Special education, foreign language, elementary education, math, science and ESOL, art and music are being recruited. Applicants should bring copies of their resume, teaching certificate and/or GACE scores. Register by Saturday at eventbrite.com/e/ go-fulton-south-learning-community-career-fair-tickets-28848022211.

Station partner says new project ‘catalyst’

The ceremonial groundbreaking for the mixed-use project E.co East marks the first significant new development in east Decatur in over a decade.

“This is a real catalyst, a jump start,” said architect Jack Honderd, one of three principal partners of East Decatur Station.

EDS opened in 2004 and the partnership has accumulated 35 acres from New Street to Sams Street that have mostly remained unchanged at light industrial.

Honderd believes that several factors may now collaborate to change that. E.co East, with a proposed 378 market rate apartments, 92 affordable senior apartments and 22,000 square feet of retail/restaurant, is one.

Another is City Schools Decatur’s purchase last summer and this fall of roughly eight acres on Talley St./South Columbia Drive, a likely site for a new school. Third is the city’s potential purchase of the AT&T property, also on Talley, where Decatur leaders would like to build a storm water maintenance pond and park.

“I admit, I thought some of this would’ve started happening 8 to 10 years ago,” Honderd said. “But in the end, organic, long-term growth is going to be better than planned, forced growth that has to meet a timeline.”