Fool me once...

...shame on me. Fool me twice...

Perhaps that isn't going to happen. The backlash against Citizens for Dunwoody is beginning and let's hope it isn't too little, too late.

The Peach Pundit has taken notice of our impending financial woes. While that is mostly outsider gloat, there are some inside the city who are less than pleased. One commentator on Heneghan's Dunwoody Blog was surprised at the announcement of a budget shortfall. Another interprets recent events as the beginning of good old boy politics in Dunwoody.

Citizens of Dunwoody are beginning to feel duped. Because they were.

The referendum was rushed with the vote held before task force reports were available. Decide for yourself if that was intentional, but it is becoming increasingly clear voter ignorance was on the side of cityhood. Everything is on an accelerated schedule except full disclosure. That can wait. The nonprofit lobbying organization, Dunwoody Yes, even failed to file required disclosure reports on time.

Yet there was time to issue an RFP. From an organization with a top ranking official who has close ties to CH2M. Interestingly, CH2M was the only qualified bidder. You connect the dots.

The Carl Vinson Institute was given direction that resulted in a fairy-tale scenario supporting financial feasibility. Self-appointed leaders have acknowledged ignorance on significant revenue sources including the ever-popular backdoor tax known as franchise fees. Now we find out they had no firm grasp of cash flow--they didn't know that certain business taxes wouldn't be available until the end of 2009, or...perhaps they did.

This fiasco was created by The Few, The Self-Appointed, The Self-Righteous, but not without our help. Sadly, many of these same people intend to and probably will run our new city. Only a fool would expect them to do better after these elections than they have so far.

Let's hope we don't have a city of fools.

TOD