The City of Decatur's budgets -- revised proposals for this year and next -- were presented to city commissioners. Now, they are up for public review. City Commissioners are scheduled to vote on these budgets June 20 and the City of Decatur is asking for your feedback on them, according to a recent Decatur Minute blog post. Don't miss this opportunity to have your voice heard and read what others are saying.

This week, Patch debuts its first of several local voices bloggers, including Terry Michel of Terry Michel and Associates Real Estate. Michel lives in Oakhurst with her chocolate lab mix rescue dog named Sweet Georgia Brown. A self-proclaimed, “stealth, under the radar techie,” Michel recently debuted DECATURdash, a free mobile app for Decatur events and activities. On Patch, Michel plans to blog about local real estate trends. She’ll take the pulse of the market, provide ideas and tips on selling or buying in the local area, and discuss trends in this ever-changing economy and how they play …

The Patch app has arrived! Stay connected to the Decatur and Avondale Estates Patch community when you’re on the go with our new, free iPhone app. (The Android version is coming soon, we promise.)   Here are some of the cool things you’ll be able to do with the nifty new Patch app: Upload your photos to Patch stories and business listings Comment on stories Share your favorite Patch articles and business listings with your friends on Facebook and by email Save events from your local Patch website to your personal iPhone calendar Save articles and other content from your local Patch site to …

Superintendent Phyllis Edwards has sent a summary to the school board for Tuesday's City Schools of Decatur board meeting at 6:30 p.m. at the administrative offices on Scott Boulevard. A few highlights from her summary: First, City Schools of Decatur is looking at longer school days. From the summary: Simone Elder is working on bus schedules and just the other day, we finalized the start and ending times with the high school getting a 15 minute earlier start and the elementary schools (K-3) will be starting 30 minutes earlier. We have been talking for some time now about the extension of the …

Want headlines from Decatur-Avondale Estates Patch delivered directly to your blog or website? Now you can stream all the latest Decatur and Avondale Estates news or just certain categories for you and your visitors. That was one of several recent changes to Patch, including free classified ads and the top headlines from nearby Patch sites. Our new widget feature allows you to create a box you can easily insert into Web pages. It’s customizable by topic, so if you just want sports, you can limit the feed to sports, or if you just want school news, you get school news. Scroll down to the …

Know a great kid who made Eagle Scout, or did your soccer team take the championship? They may be our next Decatur-Avondale Estates Whiz Kid honoree. Each week, Decatur-Avondale Estates Patch will seek suggestions from readers for individual kids, youth groups, teens, and even sports teams that wow us with their accomplishments. We want to hear about these amazing children and teens and select one each week as the Decatur-Avondale Estates Whiz Kid. Submit your nomination by sending an e-mail with the information to renee.valdes@patch.com. Be sure to include all of the following information: …

Greetings from your friendly neighborhood Decatur-Avondale Estates Patch editor. I want to invite you to join us in an exciting project that we're launching for mothers in our community. We are recruiting a Moms Council of three to five knowledgeable mothers who would help us answer questions posted by parents, lead discussions of key parenting topics in our area, and reach out to online and offline moms’ groups in the community. As a council member, you'll help us improve our coverage of families by suggesting stories to write and you'll also help us recognize outstanding kids in Decatur and…

If the District of Columbia can tax plastic bags, why not Decatur, Ga.? Before such a decision is made on whether to tax  or ban plastic shopping bags, the City of Decatur is asking residents to fill out a 5-question survey posted to its Decatur Minute blog earlier this week (see posting below as well). Besides plastic bags, the city is also looking at styrofoam takeout containers. Fewer than 10 percent of these items actually get recycled, according to the city. In D.C., the 5-cent bag tax took effect last year. Officials had estimated that the tax would generate an estimated $10 million …

For the past several weeks we've been working to build this site, finding writers to cover the news in Decatur and Avondale Estates, building the most complete directory around, creating a community calendar and making it easy to use. We wanted to take this time to tell you why we're here and what this site is all about. Simply put, it's about you. We've built this Patch so that you have plenty of opportunities to comment on stories, share your opinions, post photos and announcements and add events to the community calendar. We hope that our site will strengthen the community, but we can't do…