Three Million Dollars!

You will be thrilled to learn that the City of Dunwoody is considering slashing the budget line item for the Donaldson-Chestnut farm from $2,945,000.00 to $1,500,000.00.

We've really dodged a bullet there.

Seriously folks, three million dollars! Of course, since this would be borrowed money, by the time we, the taxpayers finish paying down the bond, it will be six million dollars.

For that amount of money we should be able to move that farmhouse, THE farmhouse, the Spruill Center House, all the outbuildings and that faux thoroughbred horse farm fence over to Brook Run. We could even throw in that railroad Station House formerly housing the Chamber of Commerce. If we do that we should go dig up that rail car wheel buried over on Spalding as proof there really was a railway here.

Or better yet, move it all to the "Pipe Farm" on the south side, creating a "Historic Village of Dunwoody" as a gateway to the city. Plumbing is in, roads are there, though some can be removed. Just needs the buildings moved in and some landscaping. And what better place for a community garden?

Then we can sell off the Spruill and Donaldson properties to developers and get these back on the tax rolls. Surely developers would drool over prime real estate in the Perimeter Mall area, though DeKalb might want to build a school there. And we simply must enlist our Most Favored Developer to throw down some million dollar clutter homes on the Donaldson property creating a nice chunk of change on the income side of the City ledger. A real estate office, no, a bank would look quite nice where the Station House sits. That area needs more banks. The Farmhouse land would make a great round-about. Perhaps we can move the Dunwoody Obelisk from the churchyard on Roberts to a micro park in the center of the circle.

We need to "Start Getting Smart*" about our finances. Surely these options are better than flitting three million dollars of taxpayer money on someone's nostalgic trip down "Farmhouse Lane" in a city that bans urban poultry.