Thursday, January 1, 2009

Moses Runs Dunwoody

"Set my people free!"

After gaining freedom from the evil, dark pharaoh, Moses led his people for forty years. Forty years of wandering. Thirst, starvation and abandonment (remember the first trip up the mountain?). Forty years of hearing about how bad the pharaoh was and how the Israelites were headed to a land of milk and honey, to their promised land. How this exodus would yield something better.

Now that Dunwoody is freed from the evils of southern oppression what have our prophets offered? What is the vision of Dunwoody's promised land? If you believed one of the lesser prophets, Porter on the Hill, it was a budget that is "fiscally conservative, [with] proposed service levels as a 25 to 30% improvement over what DeKalb currently provides". Or perhaps you're a fan of the Great Prophet Millar who preaches that the extra year he provided was "to try to get the best data for people to make a decision."

But what have these prophets really offered our tribe, outside of unrealistic promises? They brought down from their mountain new, puritanical laws ostensibly intended to preserve the purity of their nation. They found sanctuary in secrecy, using available technology to promote their agenda and foster cronyism, but somehow avoiding the opportunity to provide transparent, open governance. They moved rather quickly to increase the financial burdens on businesses and residents. They held glad-hand events for pollyannish sycophantic toadies and of course, their glamor shots adorn their new taxpayer funded (but not taxpayer supporting) website.

And Dunwoody's head prophet declares his city "Fully Operational". And what does that mean? Are Dunwoody Police patrolling our streets? NO. Instead there is the same police protection Dunwoody already had---terrible, to have heard our prophets talk about it before the referendum. But that's OK, because now we pay more for it. Well at least we have our parks in place, right? NO. What we do have is an ever increasing payroll and a pothole patrol. That's Fully Operational in someone's twisted world, but not in The Other Dunwoody.

If history serves as a guide we should all remember that Moses never saw the promised land and for good reason. After forty years of tortuous wandering someone else finally stepped up, helped those of weak character and failed integrity, and led the worthy to the promised land.

Where is our Joshua?

TOD