This is to follow-up on how to handle settings.py in an application specific way.  Generally speaking - the Django community does not feel that the this issue requires a single encouraged solution.  The feeling is that different situations and deployments call for different needs and thus it should be up to the developer to decide. 

The link below is from the Django wiki, and enumerates ideas and concepts for splitting up the settings file.

http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/SplitSettings

I feel we should review and decide what idea will work best for us and enforce it as part of our own development procedure.

- Eric Helms