The city of DeKalb held another growth summit meeting during which the community development department regaled the assembled group with tales of school capacities.

The panel, which was comprised of city employees and DeKalb citizens, discussed at length the “worst case scenario” numbers Paul Rasmussen, community development director, had come up with.

Essentially, the numbers show that elementary schools are above capacity and are expected to have more students than the expected capacity.

These numbers are the result of the proposed buildup of all lands outlined in a report sent to the Growth Summit Committee.

“Even at the worst case scenario, we have enough sewer water to support the additional units,” Rasmussen said. The additional units are proposed housing units in various projects in DeKalb County.

Rasmussen emphasized that these figures are the worst case scenario and many factors can cause them to become less drastic.

“My biggest fear is that people are going to say, ‘Oh, my God, we’ve got 6,000 units,’” Rasmussen said. He said the numbers are intentionally the way they are because developers often ask for the most land use they can get and then reduce the number later on.

“We’ve been getting statistics here that are eye openers,” said Dennis Collins of the DeKalb Sanitary District. He said he thought the group had received the information it needed to move forward.

Collins said the school system has a real problem that needs to be addressed.

However, the purpose of the growth summit was emphasized by DeKalb Mayor Greg Sparrow during the meetings.

“I don’t want people to get the impression that we’re going to solve this here,” Sparrow said. He said the meetings were held to give the community an opportunity to voice its thoughts on community growth.

Sparrow also said the meetings were being televised on community access to make them available to the community.

“I don’t know how many meetings were going to need to have,” Sparrow said. He thought a couple more meetings would be enough.