Clearly Dunwoody has lost its moral compass if ever it had one. As there is now one serious member of the Fourth Estate who is taking a hard look into the steaming manure pile on Ashford Dunwoody, TOD will defer. Instead we'll look at important but perhaps a bit more subtle takeaways from Billy Boy's CYA report from the perspective of Action Items.
Topping the list: all Police Officers under the rank of lieutenant must be paid a living wage. It was clear from the report that higher ranks were (ab)using the power of their office forcing subordinates to do literally obscene things in order to access extra work necessary to feed their families. Even other perks of the job, like take home vehicles, can be bent to this purpose. The solution is as simple as it is obvious, simply pay these officers a living wage. Furthermore the pay scales should overlap such that an officer who wishes to serve the community as an officer is not forced to abandon that path to "move up the ranks" for greater pay. It is not unreasonable that a senior officer be paid more than a rookie lieutenant. This also produces a system where recruitment pressures are relieved allowing the department to leverage turnover, even create it, in order to improve the ranks. This may appear expensive, but clearly there are some in the higher ranks whose salaries can be repurposed to this end. Even should the payroll increase we have clearly been confronted with "you pay for what get." If nothing else changes as a result of this train wreck, this is the change to make: pay these Police Officers a living wage.
Establish a Citizen Review Board. This is not uncommon and not always opposed by the Police Department. Due to the structural constraints imposed by the city charter the Council simply cannot effectively take on this responsibility. The events leading to this report make it painfully obvious adult supervision is required as the bureaucracy has steadily and deliberated moved away from the original mission of serving the residents of Dunwoody to serving the business interests exploiting the community. Consequently the CRB's scope must cover all operations of the city including captive corporations where city employees sit on boards. The CRB must report directly to Council, must have authority to access all city records, and must be able to interview city employees as required to fulfill oversight responsibilities. There must be a mechanism for the public and employees to anonymously
identify issues warranting investigation and upon recommendation of the CRB and
approval of council a special investigator with subpoena powers should
be appointed working under the supervision of and reporting to the CRB.
HR policies are profoundly FUBAR and need to be fixed ASAP. Even the CYA report seems dismissive of intra-departmental fraternization, when it should result in immediate dismissal with cause. Even inter-departmental fraternization should be verboten. Nepotism restrictions should be expanded and rigorously enforced. These employees are being paid to do the people's work not operate a bordello.
It is time for a power-down reset. Council must convene a Citizens Task Force (remember when those were THE thing? Before the referendum) to review the organization of the city bureaucracy and examine unit missions. This must result in a streamlining restructuring that eliminates organizational units whose operation is not mandated by charter nor supported by founding principles of the citihood movement. The money saved by mission realignment and reorganization should be diverted to aforementioned proper compensation of Police Officers.
There is more that can and probably should be done but if only two (one in addition to Numero Uno) are expeditiously implemented this city might just stand a chance of being the city we were promised.
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