Thursday, March 14, 2024

Oh Publix! You Were Doing So Well.

Some time ago, as rumor has it, a resident spoke to the folks at the Publix in daVille regarding the no truck zones. From that time forward Publix has routed their trucks to avoid the no truck zones as they should. And as they did. Until today. 


There is some reason to believe this was a mistake. The driver originally intended to turn left, perhaps after seeing the "no truck" sign on Roberts, to continue on Chamblee Dunwoody at which point the driver may have seen the "no truck" sign on CDR. In any event the driver stopped, mid intersection, and after some delay continued on Roberts. Without the requisite forty acres the choices were limited. 

Perhaps if the driver had seen the "no trucks" sign at the corner of CDR and the Parkway this would have been avoided. It is hard to fault a driver for not seeing a sign that is flat on the ground and has been for over a week. It is perfectly reasonable to fault a failed city government. 

Monday, March 11, 2024

Thursday, March 7, 2024

Timing Is Everything

With the coronation of a new DeKalb School Superintendent, Dunwoody's Top Cop finally got his long lusted for authorization for speed enforcement cameras in school zones. To be clear, and Top Cop has been, if not for these cameras there will be no traffic enforcement in school zones. Never has been. Never will be. Actions speak louder than words.

And then the law stepped in. Or it is about to. 

It appears that Dunwoody's FOMO (on $$$) is well founded, regardless of the pre-authorization protests that it isn't about money (it is) and it is all about children's safety (it isn't). How do we know? Because these speed enforcement cameras are in operation in other jurisdictions and it is most certainly about the money. Again, actions really do speak louder than words. In these jurisdictions it has become all too clear that for-profit companies have been abusing the opportunity to fleece the flock and the flock is pissed as they feel they've only authorized real cops to do the shearing. Under the gold dome, Representatives and Senators have heard from constituents and are actually listening. They are working on HB 348 which would apply some serious limits on the financial operation of these camera systems, and HB 1126 which rolls back the 2018 law thereby prohibiting the use of these cameras. 

Has the window of opportunity closed or can Dunwoody pull off a quick money-grab? The smart money is betting on greed.

Monday, March 4, 2024

No New Toys...

...until you learn to take care of the ones you already have.

Put A Rock In It

This is how Dunwoody takes care of infrastructure. Now if you'd give them $60M they'd replace all this with an interstate lane as mandated by The Shining PATH. 

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Only A Government Can Do This

If you've been keeping track of the alleged murderer of Laken Riley you may have noticed something absolutely gobstopping. If you haven't, well, everyone hopes you come out of that coma. What you may have noticed in about one third of the news outlets is a quote from the Feds regarding the interactions between Customs and Border Protection and the arrested alleged murder. Let's quote the quote:

"...arrested Ibarra Sept. 8, 2022, after he unlawfully entered the United States near El Paso, Texas. He was paroled and released for further processing."

So much is wrong with this failed state gobbledyspeak. Unlawfully? Say what you mean, and you mean he is here illegally. But what leaps out of this mind fart is "released for further processing." What kind of processing? Who does this processing? When does it happen? Come to find out they expected a recently released unlawful actor to...and here's were it gets Orwellian...follow the law. That's right, someone in D.C. expects a person who just got caught, red handed, breaking the law, to come on in for fingerprinting and then file an asylum claim. No worries, no hurries, whenever you get a round tuit. The folks touting "common sense" when it comes to gun control are senseless when it comes to border control. And do not mention his brother, who is also here illegally, using a fake green card, because pulling on that thread exposes the ugly underside of the illegal immigrant industry, and those in government who support it. 

Perhaps you can be forgiven if this hasn't shown up on your radar. If you're true blue, you probably tune in to the over 60% of media that are left-leaning, who've ignored the illegal immigrant fact, whilst doing some victim blaming suggesting women shouldn't be out alone. It is as if they are saying "girls, it just ain't safe, and we're OK with that." Well some folks are not OK with that. Anyone, male, female, or swirling in decision, should be able to engage in an outdoor activity, solo, without putting their health or life at risk. If the allegations are true, the murderer used a weapon of opportunity, and we all know who gave him that opportunity. It wasn't the victim. 

Monday, February 26, 2024

Hard To Keep A Good Sign

Good sign run over once again.

Note The Tire Track

Pole banner put up by some city minion, without even considering removal of the illegal commercial sign. 

Is This An Endorsement?

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Willis Wonky

Fani, Fani, Fani. What have you done? It seems you've painted a target on the back of every Black person in America. And you sucked your dad into this, with him testifying:

"It's a Black thing. Most Black folks, they hide cash or they keep cash." 

Really? Is that part of "The Talk?" Whatever. Now you've got every bad actor out there thinking any and every Black person is a walking ATM.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

One Of These Is Not Like The Others

OK, OK. Two of these are not like the others.

Can You Find Them?

The first is obvious. It is the closest light that just cannot seem to stay on, switching on/off every few minutes. Has done this for quite some time. The other might be less obvious. Not much but a little less. It is the glaring, gawdawful super bright, super white LED light. The only one on the entire parkway. This is how this city does infrastructure maintenance. Do you really want them to get their hands on more infrastructure?

Friday, February 16, 2024

Whisper Sweet Nothings

Folks are at it again. The "local control" banners, buttons and bumper stickers are being handed out, this time for the proposed city of Mulberry. The referendum bill has passed in the legislature and the governor has signed off, and an interesting city it will be. The city charter is worth a read and in the vein of "there ought to be a law," reading the charter should be required before you're allowed to vote. 

There are some key takeaways.

Like Dunwoody, the city tax millage rate is limited by law. Unlike Dunwoody, it is pegged at 0 mills. That's right, ZERO. Can you imagine how our crop of tax-and-spend whiners would squeal with a limit like that? Of course the Mulberrians must be on constant alert as at the first charter "update" some greedy bastard will want to raise that limit if not eliminate it entirely. 

Perhaps more interesting is all-things-city-manager is left blank, as in "reserved." Perhaps they are wise enough to avoid a city manager and the inevitable bloated bureaucracy that entails. Maybe they want to ensure a limited time contract, say 3 years, for the city manager. Perhaps they will contract it all out and given it is "city-lite" that may be the plan. Or it may be a sneak attack against trusting Mulberrians. In any event, prudent Mulberrians should ask, and demand, answers to critical questions. Go not blindly into that danger zone. 

Worthy of note is that the city will not provide police and fire, keeping these services with the county. Would that we had been so wise. Perhaps the Mulberrians have learned from the huge mistakes made by Dunwoody (can you say "losing court battles?"). But they also need to be on guard against a "developers' authority" and selling your soul to outside grants. That is if they are really committed to local control.

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

We WERE Warned

Shortly after the Shining PATH Bond failed we were warned that folks addicted to endless taxing, spending and bureaucratic bloat, some of whom count themselves amongst the original evangelists of citihood, are now trying to market a workaround to violate all the promises made when they asked for our votes. It makes you wonder if they knew this all along with no intention of hewing true to the stories they used to herd the sheep. And that original promise? Fiscal responsibility. The promise, backed by the CVI study, that the city could provide services superior to the county on an $18M annual budget, which adjusted for inflation (42% over that period) is less than $26M. That was the promise, and to calm any fears and mistrust of future greeds, the millage rate was capped. In the early years city bloat was satisfied with back-door tax increases due to rises in property valuations, but bloat has a way of snowballing and millage rate increases were required to feed the beast. 

Now even that cannot satisfy current bureaucratic bloat and the sales pitch is neither unexpected nor clever. Riddled with political speak and equivocations, it attempts to conflate wants with needs. It also speaks from the rather odd perspective that the failure of the Shining PATH Bond means that Dunwoody voters will not approve any referendum, when in fact it is more a statement that the community does not want these cult-like paradise pavers desecrating our city. This is further ignored when we are treated to a false dilemma: do we want reduced services like police, road paving, and parks/sidewalk maintenance (note there is no mention of Shining PATHs), or do we want higher taxes? Assuming a tax referendum would fail, the proposal is to bypass any millage rate referendum in favor of "special tax districts," creating another form of back-door taxing. Again, we were warned.

Is this a serious proposition? Really? 

How about you, the royal you, live up to your original promise? Wouldn't that be a breath of fresh air? And just how are we to believe promises made now, often by the same folks who made these broken promises, that somehow this is different, that we should place any trust in them? Or how about this: how about instead of more, and more expensive policing, we put in place a department, within a sound city organizational structure, that is well managed and doesn't cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in doomed, self-inflicted legal battles? Or maybe we realize that crisis funding, known to be temporary, isn't an opportunity to permanently bloat the bureaucracy? Or maybe the tax base would not be, or would not have been, on a downward trend had they not handed out tax "incentives" like mardi gras beads and maybe, just maybe, imposed impact fees on developments that everyone knows were going to happen anyway? That all sounds like fiscal prudence, doesn't it? And that is exactly what we were promised, so if they'd like to withdraw that promise, that commitment, how about we dissolve the city charter first? Maybe we were better off as a part of unincorporated DeKalb, because that seems to be the underlying truth of what they are saying now.

And think about this: the current DeKalb CEO is far, far, better, by any measure, than the current Dunwoody City Manager, and we get to elect the CEO.