About 35 people showed up Saturday morning for the 7th District Meeting hosted by Delores McQuinn at Mt.Tabor Baptist Church on Fairmount Avenue. The meeting agenda included the city budget conflict, the Downtown Master Plan (and Echo Harbor), crime, and community concerns.

Ms.McQuinn began the meeting with an update on the budget conflict between city council and the mayor. She then touched on the Downtown Master Plan, saying that the plan will next go to the Land Use commitee, and council will vote on the plan in probably October or November.

Discussion of the Downtown Master Plan prompted a question from the audience about Echo Harbor. Stating that “developers have a lot of clout”, the citizen declared that “we need 5 council members to stand against Echo Harbor”. McQuinn replied that while “we (city council) are not against development”, “access to the river and protecting the viewshed is essential” and promised that the coucnil is committed to doing what is right. It came out during this exchange that changes have been made to the Echo Harbor plan, but that no one has seen any new drawings.

Captain Paul Ronca of the First Precinct was next up. He stated that crime is down, though there has been some seasonal property theft: lawmowers, mopeds, theft from vehicles. The HVAC units are being taken from the outside of homes (mostly from houses under construction/renovation), keep an eye and ear out for that kind of thing. Ronca introduced Dective Lamont Tucker as a key element in the recent clean-up on 22nd Street, spoke to prostitution and gang concerns from Fulton, and took comments about prostitution north of Fairmount Avenue.

Ms.McQuinn then announed a few upcoming dates to note:

• National Night Out will be Tuesday August 5th (somehow the hottest day of the year).
• Aug 4th 9:30AM – Dig begins at the Lumpkin’s Jail location.

Up next were community concerns:

• A man spoke about a house that he has recently begun renovating on the 500 block 33rd Street, but the city wants to demolish it?
• There is a block of 35th Street that has dubios construction, people hangin’ out, drinking.
• Complaints from Fulton about DPW driving on lawns to paint street lights
• 1400 block of 23rd Street – vacant houses, not boarded up, folks seem to be doing illicit stuff in and around the houses.
• There seem to be a rash of older trees dropping limbs into the yards of older residents north of Fairmount Avenue.

Ms.McQuinn let us know about a skunk sighting on 33rd Street to end the meeting.

For what it is worth, in the audience were mayoral candidate Robert Grey, school board candidate Don Coleman, and representatives from New Visions Civic League, the Church Hill Association, and the Greater Fulton Civic Association. Mayoral candidate Lawrence Williams made a brief appearance as well.