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December 23, 2008
In case you haven't heard, Sembler Corporation's contract with the DeKalb Housing Authority to purchase the Park at Briarcliff apartment complex has expired. This is great news for Central DeKalb and indeed all of the taxpayers of DeKalb County.
I would like to thank all of the folks who supported StandUp DeKalb in the fight against Sembler. Whether financially, on foot in freezing weather with petitions and signs or on blogs spreading the word, you did it ! Some folks might say "It was the economy, Stupid", but the economy didn't come into play until after hundreds of voters got loud and vocal with the Board of Education and the Board of Commissioners. We let the Board of Education know that there would be a price to pay if these irreplaceable school properties were sold to a developer for any price. Sembler chose not to pay the board's final price, and perhaps that was due to the faltering real estate market (note the loss of most if not all of their initial major tenants at their Brookhaven project !), but StandUp DeKalb and its supporters kept this issue in front of the media and the school board and that's what really did it.
We must continue our vigilance though. Sembler Corp. and employees and relatives gave at least $18,000 to a successful candidate for the school board in this Fall's election; several thousand dollars were spread across other candidates for the Board of Education, Board of Commissioners and CEO; and we've been told that Sembler was planning to rework their offer to the Board of Education after the election.
As Flo Wolf, immediate past president of the Merry Hills Homeowners Association said in an interview with the AJC, "I have been trying to suspend my skepticism, but I feel we haven't heard the end of it''
AJC article on Sembler