Stay In Your Lane

Seems like the Seven Dwarfs and most of the bureaucrats at city hall want to do anything but their own job. We, the people, are treated to this:

Wow! Dunwoody's got a vaccine site. What could that possibly mean, since, well Dunwoody has nothing to do with the delivery of vaccines and never has. But take a click on the wild side and see what we got:

Look at that. Only one click away from propaganda to admission that this city doesn't have anything meaningful to offer, like an arm jab, on the Covid-19 vaccine front. 

So why the hell are they doing this? Why can't they take care of their own business before they posture and grandstand on an issue they have absolutely no responsibility for nor any authority to address? Is it because they want to distract us from the fact that they're not doing the job they were hired for, and by hired we mean "a referendum was passed." Now the politicos may actually be, all too infrequently, beholden to the voting public, but the bureaucrats seem to have forgotten that without the vote of the people creating this city they wouldn't have the jobs and paychecks they now have. Yet it seems we have too many of each of those, jobs and paychecks, because a whole bunch of folks are doing things that aren't any of their business. Maybe they should get back in their lane and do their jobs. With a little less attitude and a whole lot more gratitude.

Perimeter Mall Closes Food Court...

...and moves it to Dunwoody Village. Can Perimeter Mall caliber crime be far behind? Will the city do anything about that? Does anyone at city hall have the stones to even try?

Don't Work So Hard...

...they will just take it away. That seems to be the message from the woke-ity woke cancellibs and one guy seems willing to call out the woke folk on their intentional systemic racism: 

He even seems to think it is about time for people of color to stand up for themselves.

Maybe this is the start of a new movement in our society-MAMA: Make America a Meritocracy Again.

Guest Post: What The Truck?

Your head has to have been in a warm, dank, dark place for quite some time if you are not painfully aware of the dumpster fire that the city manager and the seven dwarfs have made of the Dunwoody PD. So stand up, make that popping sound and listen up: they've made it even worse.

That's a real Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, now ain't it? So we have a police farce that can turn a walk about into a fair-weather tax collection opportunity by fining folks stopped at a red light. Same po-po that REFUSES to enforce the no-truck zones. Same po-po that REFUSES to patrol for speeders in our neighborhoods, instead expecting a nanny-nanny-boo-boo post on FeceBook to do THEIR job for them. 

And why might that be? 

Because the speeders may well be speeding to a job or a shopping spree at one of the profiteering Dunwoody businesses and as we all know the folks running these businesses have city hall on speed dial. Same for habitual truck violators. The city is one citation away from a hands on lesson on how shit flows downhill.

So how are phone-taxes different?

Because the cop can make a much, much better assessment as to who they are collecting their tax from thereby ensuring it will not be business related taxation but a local resident. After all the city has to get the money to pay businesses to come and stay from somebody.

That somebody might just be you.

Now? Or Forever?

The pandemic has touched nearly every aspect of every one's lives. None have been more greatly impacted and none are more important that our community of developers, particularly the developer of the property at 84 Perimeter Center East. From the developer's statements in justifying this entirely unnecessary and unwanted development of even-more-apartments we learn that the pandemic has drastically and permanently altered the hospitality industry making the previously planned hotel unprofitable. And if developers are about anything it is profits with the city more than happy to help out with a $7M boost to their bottom line. But not to worry, a vast majority of that money is robbed from your children's education. No harm, no foul, right?

What's really interesting is how very quickly they pivoted from hotel to apartment. It's as if that was what they had planned all along.

If Only

If only...local politicians could do this:

Self-Decapitating Slug

Maybe they could grow the heart needed to serve the community. But if the problem is in the head...break out the Morton's.

Gulag DaVille

Foreshadowing is a wonderful thing but only if you pay attention. Currently in view is what Dunwoody Village will look like after city hall has razed it and sold off the bits. They've offered us a picture of the cookie-cutter pablum pushed by their "friends" in the development community:

Prison? Or, just ugly?

Now, you could scoot over to Sandy Springs, the big sister that stokes our jealousies, and see multiple instances of these horrid offenses to the aesthetic sensibilities, or you can just truck on down to Perimeter Square where the shaker's shake. Right there at the corner of Perimeter Center West and Perimeter Center Place you'll see an early, smaller prototype of what city hall has in store to "vitalize" daVille. It should be noted that daVille cannot be re-vitalized because, well, it already is, as it has been for some decades, vital. But developers want to change all that and city hall agrees with some or all of the seven dwarfs' endorsement.

So take a little time to scope out the prototype and then next time you visit daVille imagine everything you see replaced with dozens of these odious monoliths punctuated all too frequently with high-rise apartments. That's what city hall is going to do because that is what developers are telling them to do. The only thing to be haggled over is how much of a tax break the city will throw at their bottom line.

Job One

Reports have surface recently in one of the local rags indicating that the mayorette and some of the other dwarfs are "concerned over pandemic learning loss." 

Wow! There is a lot hidden in there, most of it unadulterated hypocrisy.  How so? Let us explore the ways.

Perhaps the biggest, stinkiest floater is the simple fact that this city by way of mayor, council and developer's authority actively and aggressively work to undermine our schools. They do this by taking properties off the tax rolls, moving all that money directly into the profits of greedy, but well-connected developers. To be very clear, the city is doing this unilaterally, without school board input even though the vast majority of tax diversion is being taken directly from the school system. Just look at your own property tax bill. Yet we have "representation" at city hall that have the chutzpah to express concern about our children and our schools. There is a special place in hell for these kinds of politicians and it seems that social distancing is not an option. 

Then there is the obvious. No elected official at city hall has any responsibility for our children's schools. Nada. Hell, they won't even provide enforcement when schools violate city ordinances and building codes. Why? Is it because there is no money, no power, no prestige in doing the nitty gritty work? Or is it just because they have no interest whatsoever in residents' quality of life? That they are no more likely to support us than they are to rein in an out of control developer's authority, or misplaced government instituted chamber of commerce, or the incompetent leadership at city hall, particularly in the city manager's office and the police department. It is as if posturing about things outside their purview means no one will notice their failure to serve this city's residents. 

Maybe if these political do-nothings showed as much concern about fulfilling the commitments and responsibilities of the offices they hold instead of anything but that, this city wouldn't be the raging dumpster fire they have let it become. 

Plunk Your Magic Twanger Froggy!

It has long been observed that when folks have no clue how something works it is indistinguishable from magic. This is even true of things someone may know how to operate, like a car or a computer or a cellphone. Both the number of things and the number of people that describes is growing faster than the universe is expanding. 

One area of concern is the deep ignorance around money, what it is and how it works. Once upon a time money was needed to buy goods and services. Now credit, accessed on cards, cellphones and computers, has so abstracted money that it is intangible, reduced to an ephemeral concept. Similarly, money as a reward for work or services has not only been reduced to a concept, the bond between work delivered and monetary compensation has been obliterated. Pay, or whatever it should now be called, is an entitlement, a divine right, like cable TV. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the expanding corps of government employees, and within that cohort none are more bedazzled about all things money than teachers. 

This isn't just about teachers who whine about low pay and demand raises. It is more than an intellectual moat between the concept of work for hire, it is complete, perhaps willful ignorance of what money actually is, how it is created, how it is managed and how it serves the economy and the greater good. Instead, they put their faith in Froggy's magic twanger. 

They demand raises about as often as they exhale with the money plunking down by magic. A couple more plunks on the magic twanger and all DCSD HVAC systems are not only brand spanking new they are upgraded with the latest anti-virus technology. Plunk again and foam-in, foam-out hand wash stations appear as if by magic. For these folk money has always been an abstraction. Their pay is based on endurance, not accomplishment explaining why merit is never even measured. The more they inhale, the more they exhale, the more they expect to be paid. They cannot comprehend a world where a raise is earned because it is not a world they have ever encountered. And they've never worked for an organization that had to compete for customers' money, so it may be excused as trickle-down entitlement. 

But there is no Froggy. There is no magic twanger. And money doesn't just "plunk" into your account and it doesn't matter if that account is held by an individual or an organization. There is really no magic.