Casting Call

The Professional Resisters (ProRes) leadership selected an interesting poster child in their fight against this administration's enforcement of U.S. laws: Seamus Colleton, an Irishman who entered under a visa waiver and overstayed...by somewhere close to two decades. This is a long time by any measure but when you consider the ProRes believe the statute of limitations on immigration offenses is somewhere between five, ten, maybe fifteen...minutes, well twenty years is virtual infinity. Hell, there are carpetbaggers here in daVille who think that after five years they're a native. 

The ProRes story on Colleton is simple: an immigrant seeking a better life, a chance at the American dream. He came here, settling in Boston, taking work as a plasterer. He got married and has two fur-babies. Then, down came ICE, and he is now detained thousands of miles from "home" (pick one) while his distraught pups sit at the door awaiting his return. 

Crocodile tears, right? Everything the ProRes say is correct. But then someone exhumed Paul Harvey. The rest of the story.

Did Colleton come to the U.S. for a better life? Absolutely, but the bar was set low. Why you ask? Glad you asked. That's because there was a bench warrant out for his arrest because he failed to show up in court to face drug charges. He had been apprehended with a sufficiently large quantity of drugs that he was all but certain to spend many years in an Irish prison. Does ICE have him detained far away from Boston? Yes. Yes they do, but only after they offered him the choice to be deported or detained. He chose to be detained. Here's where the dogs come into play. Tugs at the heart strings, doesn't it? You can almost hear Sarah McLachlan, can't you? You see, Colleton was fleeing more than just unpleasantries with the Irish authorities, he left behind a young woman, the mother of his 18 month old twin daughters. Nearly two decades of no contact whilst he pursued his dreams in America. No birthday cards. No Christmas Skype calls. And absolutely no child support. It wasn't until he was detained that he reached out and no one has a plausible explanation. His daughters, now nearly twenty years old, want him to return to Ireland. To face drug charges. They're pissed. 

If you step back, get a broader view of recent ProRes actions something interesting appears. They've made a pivot to white. It seems the casting call for street protesters was "middle-aged (or older) white women, angry preferred." What would Marshall McLuhan say? Since José Antonio Ibarra didn't work out as their poster child for the ICE is Bad campaign, maybe they shifted towards a whiter shade of pale. And where better than Ireland to find a pale-face? Bonus points for showing that ICE is actually going after an unlawful resident from Europe. Or is it?

And the moral to this story? When someone with a political agenda, or worse yet, a political business, tells you a story, be very cautious about what you believe. Think about that if you show up a Vintage Pizzeria tomorrow. 

Is It Enough?

In a recent discussion regarding the Flock contract, Mother Mayor opines:

"These changes don't feel insignificant to me. And, again, I support this technology, but ... we need to own the data, we need to control how it's retained and we need to control how it's accessed, and it feels like this latest round of changes just suck that right away from us."

Wow Mother Mayor, want to apply that kind of logic to the propose changes to the city charter that open up very wide avenue for unrestricted tax increases without the burden of putting that to the citizens of Dunwoody? See, you may not think so, but quite a few citizens, and taxpayers, in this city would say that these changes don't feel insignificant either. Yet you're out there on social media promoting and defending these changes with rather dismissive comments regarding how "this clears up some contradictions in the charter about assessments." Pray tell, what exactly are these contradictions?

The proposed changes clearly state that no referendum is required nor is any limit imposed for Special Tax Districts, general obligation bonds, and (heaven forbid) revenue bonds. Anyone who has been watching the shenanigans at city hall will expect a flurry of "Special" Tax Districts being created.

King John offers his $0.02:

Heneghan opinion - I believe this modification sidesteps the Charter requirement of a maximum ad valorem tax rate of 3.04 mills by not counting taxes for Special Tax Districts, general obligation bonds, and revenue bonds. 

One of the constant chants coming from the pro-Dunwoody crowd was "Local Control!" Said it loud. Said it proud. But how do we, the people, exert Local Control? If you would actually read the city charter, you might be called on, some day, to fess up to the fact that our elected officials are virtually powerless. That's why when there is an issue and someone invokes "Mayor Deutsch" your response, if there is one, is to tell them which city bureaucrat to email and to please cc the mayor. Why? Because you are prohibited from doing exactly what you told them to do. We elect folks who cannot tell anyone, except the City Manager (when he's around), to do, or even look into, anything. Nada. And both city managers have made it clear to our elected officials that he only has to keep four of them happy. Not ecstatic, just not pissed. 

So the only way, we the people, can exert Local Control is thru the ballot box--voting on referendums. You undermine that, you take that away, you are clearly stating that we the people should be subjugated, that we should be held powerless, and subject to the whims of unelected bureaucrats. You have made it very clear where you stand on the issue of real Local Control.

But here's is the closing question: is there any level of taxation where the Mayor, or these unelected bureaucrats would say is enough and any more is just too much?

Stretching Credulity

We wouldn't be here were it not for a period of mass insanity, or just an intense wave of polyannishness, quite a while ago, but here we are. And where is that?

Destruction from within.

The bureaucrats, and at least one elected official, trying to figure out how to walk away from foundational commitments to fiscal prudence, and modify the city charter to allow them to up taxes when they want, however much they want. 

One elected official has espoused the view that these changes are a "back door" tax increase, while another asserts it is a full frontal assault. Perhaps they are both right. It is a back door if by that you mean that bureaucrats can raise taxes without putting that to a citizens' vote. This is what is being proposed in the case of special tax districts, capital bonds and "revenue bonds" which sound a lot like payday loans and probably as responsible. Another perspective is this is being writ large in black and white, so there is no back door to it all all, this is pushing the ballot box out of the way by force. 

This does raise some questions, especially for those who "fell for it" back in the day. Is this what you were promised to get your vote? Didn't think so. And what about those special task districts? What do you think will happen there? Very likely you will see a growing number of them, not necessarily restricted to commercial districts. Imagine this: some bureaucrats decide that if folks in residential areas want cops to ticket speeders in their neighborhood, well, then, they'll call that a special tax district, jack up the taxes, and then maybe, just maybe, actually write some tickets. Or, maybe not. After all that is what they promised to do to get your vote. And, money is fungible, so they'll just be displacing the other tax revenues to their playthings. 

This has gotten out of [our] control.

The only voice of reason, the only ounce of integrity at city hall comes from King John. You would do well to listen to him.

Open Letter

Tucker Citizenry
c/o Tucker, Ga

Subject: Do Not Do It---Just Don't

Recent reports in credible media indicate there is a move afoot in Tucker to start "their own Police Department." We at The Other Dunwoody cannot advise you strongly enough to reject that. There are quite a few examples why you should.

Look to Sandy Springs. The SSPD has been operating in what may well be violation of Open Records laws, and at least are working diligently to minimize transparency. This is problematic on many levels. It should be obvious that police who operate behind the veil of secrecy are, by definition, secret police. Is that what you want? Is there any way you can guarantee, perhaps by loss of office or job, that elected officials and bureaucrats cannot create such secrecy? Is it worth the risk? A secondary issue is that they, the police, their bosses, the elected officials, want to operate in the dark. Ask yourself why. Come up with three reasons why that is good for your community. 

Then look to Dunwoody. They have a Lenco Bearcat, an armored personnel carrier. But why? It isn't like we can get police to patrol our neighborhoods and streets. Well, the answer is simple: it was granted by the feds. You may already be suffering from outsiders wiping out local control by paying city hall to do the outsiders' bidding. Adding a PD is yet another attack surface. 

There is the issue of competence, evidenced in Dunwoody by an early fatal shooting of a driver by a police officer. If you've been paying attention to Minneapolis you've heard the observations that a fatal shooting of a driver there was thru the driver's side window---with the implication that the officer should not have fired as personal danger had passed and the fatal shot changed the vehicle from a "guided missile" to an un-guided missile, increasing danger to the public. That exact scenario played out in Dunwoody's early days, and had the driver not been White, Ferguson would have been a footnote to Dunwoody. And then there's the "dick pics." Are these the kind of antics you want? If not, what will be put in place to prevent them? When they do happen, what will be the consequences? How can you be certain? 

Do not fall into the trap, the sales pitch, that "all things DeKalb are bad, and anything we do will certainly be better." Why? Because it is simply not true. You can do worse, and if your sister cities are any indication, you absolutely will do worse. 

You cannot fix stupid, as we in Dunwoody well know, but you can stop it. Say NO!

With highest regards,

Thaddeus Osborne Dabell (TOD)

Watch The Tantrums Begin

DeKalb County Schools are once again facing realities, not new realities, just the same old ones. Enrollment is declining. Some schools are at or above capacity but far more are under capacity. Even some "neighborhood schools" are under capacity, including the sacred cow: Vanderlyn. In the AJC's reporting on the issue, Vanderlyn was in the lede sentence. 

There are other forces at play. Those with power have decided that neighborhood schools belong in the previous millennium. State funding essentially dictates 950+ seat elementary schools. Many are hardly half that capacity with Vanderlyn being one. The fervent support for Vanderlyn is largely because it is a neighborhood school and consequently homes in that neighborhood carry a price premium. The property value issue is always raised when DCSD considers changes to Vanderlyn. 

Vanderlyn is now on the list for closure. 

After the shock, and it may already have dissipated, expect a rapid response from Team Vanderlyn to prevent any changes impacting that school. Expect them put away the "greater good" arguments they use discussing other issues. 

What Waste

There is a bit of a disruption in the farce primarily around storm water. Seems the city has been using, some say abusing, the private waste water infrastructure in some neighborhoods. This [ab]use is costing these groups of homeowners and the city is ignoring their concerns. 

It is almost a shame the city founders insisted on taking over storm water, especially since they've tapped the funds for their spending peccadilloes. Priorities. Think about that every time you pass one of those Dunwoody Dildos. 

Would the county be any better? City propagandists would say thee nay, but maybe. We're no longer serviced, for storm water, by the county, but we do get water/sewer from them and maybe that's an analogy. Maybe not, but maybe.

Now that's a water bill. In Dunwoody. Notice anything interesting? No, no, not the Total Amount. Well maybe, but the amount is fairly low because there is no charge for sewerage. Why would that be? Because this homeowner is not connected to DeKalb Sewer and ... wait for it ... consequently does not pay for sewer service. 

Wow! What a concept. 

Imagine a community with privately owned roads and a retention pond system to contain all storm water runoff---from roads, roofs and yards. This community would use no storm water facilities beyond what they own and manage. Should they pay anyone else any fees whatsoever to anyone else? The city seems to think so. In fact, the city thinks they can dump stormwater into this private system without compensating them at all. 

Still think all things DeKalb are bad and all things Dunwoody are great?

What Changed?

A recent front page article in the Blue Bag Rag, which really shouldn't have been published, simply reveals the state of stupidity at city hall. It's ostensibly about Flock O' Cameras, but it is so full of nonsense one can only suggest that you "lift the pants, it's too late to save the shoes." 

Where to start?

Oh, let's start with the money. Where does this article say it comes from? Well, it is claimed to be PCID funded, the same PCID that back in the day was quite proud of getting 19 dollars of OPM for every dollar they ponied up. So...yep...outsider money to do what outsiders tell you to do. Sounds like city hall has a pretty loopy definition of "local control." But...wait for it...later the article mentions concerns about a private company using public money to surveil the public. Where the hell were these concerns in the first place? If city hall's greed overcame these concerns back then, why not now?

What changed with the Flock agreement, when, and why wasn't it noticed until now? With the army of money sponges we have at city hall, when they actually come to the office, why did we not have a single bureaucrat to monitor the T&C's, and changes thereunto, for outsourced responsibilities? Maybe we should fire a great number of useless bureaucrats and find someone who can bird-dog outsourcing contracts. Sounds like a win-win.

Then there is the big constitutional so what? You're in public, on public infrastructure, with a vehicle identification that, by law, must be visible. As a federal court has pointed out this violates no constitutional right, even if it were the government doing it themselves. Now, if a private company were to do this, constitutional rights don't apply because those rights protect us from the government, not from each other. 

And then we get to the real issue, or at least part of it, the issue that has the Blue Bellies running this shit show clutching their pearls: ICE. Mentioned ICE twice in this rather short article. First that ICE seems to have accessed some data from the Sandy Springs' (our big sister) Flock O' Cameras followed later by reported assurances from Flock that they don't do that. Heaven forbid that ICE should use every resource available to do their job. Maybe Dunwoody considers itself to be the gold standard of governance, one that ICE should emulate: just don't do your job. Don't even try.

It is a curiosity that city hall doesn't want to get criminals off our streets. And you only need pull the thread a bit before the whole sweater of "undocumented immigrants" unravels. Do they have a driver's license? Acquired by what means? Falsified statements and documents? And you want motor-voter, don't you?

Then you gotta bottom-line it. Are these spend-then-tax Blue Bellies really only pissed because they, well really PCID, are paying and ICE is free-loading? Well, as far as we know that may be the case, because no one seems to have asked if ICE is paying for Flock data services. Maybe if ICE went down to city hall and said "let's make a deal" and threw some money their way, they'd be cool...like ICE. That's how we got interstate lanes in folks' front yard. OPM and other people's agenda. City hall's definition of local control: we take their money and we control it.

How Do They NOT Know?

Here's a news flash:

"DeKalb County is encouraging state lawmakers to allow rental registries to enable local governments to maintain lists of properties and their owners."

DeKalb's CEO piles on with:

"many code violations occur at rental properties, but it’s difficult to enforce municipal codes when the county doesn’t know who the property owner is"

Wow. Let's see. Maybe the property owner is the one listed on the title. Maybe? Or, could it be who you, DeKalb County, sends the property tax bill to? You do send out a property tax bill, don't you? And if it doesn't get paid, then you auction the property, right? And don't you know then who owns the property?

Whether it is a rental property or not, a code violation is a code violation and it should be addressed as such. Hard stop. And you know who to contact about it because you know where you send the property tax bill. Even if the property is mortgaged, you know who owns it.

So what is this really all about?

What's Wrong With This Picture?

No Yellow Line Down The Middle

 

You Gotta Wonder

You gotta wonder how many folks in Kingsley were around when the citihood movement spun up.

You gotta wonder how many of those folks were involved with Dunwoody Yes! or Citizens for Dunwoody. 

You gotta wonder how many of those folks voted yes on the referendum.

You gotta wonder how many of those folks actually read the city charter before they voted. 

You gotta wonder how many have ever read the city charter.

You gotta wonder how many are surprised how things have turned out at city hall.

You gotta wonder how many still think benign neglect of DeKalb was worse than Dunwoody's willful negligence.

You gotta wonder how these folks took the decision to hire a lawyer.

And finally...

You gotta wonder where DHA has disappeared to.

Smile

Smile Like You're Trying Not To Laugh

 

Owner-Occupied

The Life South property appears to have more lives than the Cheshire Cat. Gone are the hundreds of apartments as are the false claims this would be meaningfully age restricted. Now we hear about 40 or so townhomes that will be "owner-occupied." But will they? Really? Can we believe anything spewing forth from city hall? Well, if the Cheshire Cat were actually there, there might be one grain of truth.

Is it even possible to guarantee a development is owner-occupied and not easily converted to "investment rentals"? As it turns out, yes. Yes it is. However, this cannot be done without some effort and it cannot be done with a mere HOA, as restrictive as they seem to those who suffer under them. It will probably take a condominium, a much sturdier and respected legal entity. 

For insight and at least one existence proof, we need to look east. To Athens GA. Athens is a very interesting real estate market and in fact is interesting in almost all aspects. It is not uncommon for parents to buy a condo for children, often sequentially, attending UGA. Afterwards, many became student rentals. There is also a significant number of small time investors who will buy a condo for the rental income. You can identify condominium communities with significant rental units by the decayed appearance and associated depreciation over time. Just like a regular apartment. After all it is a business.

One condo community, perhaps a unicorn, has legal support for exclusive owner occupation of the community's home. This is supported in the founding legal documents of the Condominium (what a novel idea). From the Declaration of Condominium:

(A) SINGLE FAMILY USE. All units shall be restricted exclusively to a single-family residential use. No unit or any limited common element, or any portion thereof, shall at any time be used for any commercial, business, or professional purposes. The common elements shall be used exclusively for the recreational and service purposes for which they are intended. No units shall be used for any rental whatsoever, with the exception that (a) the rental of a unit shall be allowed during the period of administration of any Estate of the owner thereof, not to exceed three (3) years of rental, and (b) rental of a portion of a unit by the owner-occupant thereof. Upon the death of said unit owner, the property must be offered for sale to an owner-occupant, occupied by an heir, or leased only in accordance with (a) above. Each lease is subject to approval of the Board of Directors, and prospective lessees are required to indicate to representatives of the Board of Directors that they have read such Rules and Regulations. 

You can, sort of, rent your unit, but only if you're willing to die for that opportunity. Amending the Declaration of Condominium requires a supermajority of unit owners, providing the best insurance that it will remain owner-occupied. The units in this Athens condo carry premium prices relative to other communities simply because it is owner-occupied, and individuals, for their own wants or greeds, cannot change this. Owners know that without this provision, their wonderful, owner-occupied community can be converted to a rental community. And if it can be it will be. 

The question is simple. Will the city, thru its zoning process, require air tight legal structures to guarantee these units are exclusively owner-occupied? If they don't, their statements about "owner-occupied" are lies. One someone's behalf.

Homestead Season

We're entering tax season, income and property, as early in the year is your opportunity to investigate your homestead exemption options. The standard exemption you get for just living there, but there are many more. At least in DeKalb county. Some are for various service members, some are for disability, and some are age. The key element of some of these exemption classes is the homeowner is exempted from any and all school taxes, a vast majority of the total tax burden. 

Naturally, those adhering to the notion that more government makes a better world detest these exemptions claiming that everyone should pay because we all benefit from an educated population. There is an implicit, and false, assumption in this argument: that public schools, who are levying this tax, are actually educating all those kids. They address the fact that public schools are handing out diplomas to kids lacking the intellectual stamina to read all the way to the end of a sentence, by simply ignoring the fact. In their world, no fact that does not support their dogmatic beliefs simply does not exist. You can't argue with that. 

Beyond the standard exemption almost all the others are means tested, and for some olde fartes in daVille this inflicts the pain of envy, because in neighboring Cobb County, you simply age into it.

Combine these high taxes, the highest in the state, with bottom-of-the-barrel education outcomes and looming prospects of school redistricting and you must wonder about those homeowners who say they moved to Dunwoody for the schools. What were they thinking? Well, they weren't. That's the only reasonable explanation. Is the commute really that much worse? Hardly. The schools are better. Are the taxes higher? Nope. The schools are cheaper. Are the houses inferior? Not by a long shot. You don't have to jump through hoops for that homestead exemption. 

If you live here, fine. Just don't move here because the schools are so good and such a great deal. They're not.

No Other Option...Really?

Fortune magazine reports that Gen Z students are making it into college "unable to even read a sentence" and this worries professors. Their concern? It could lead to a generation of anxious and lonely graduates. 

Let that soak in.

Fortune doubles down:

"It's leaving colleges no choice but to lower their expectations."

Here's another choice: maintain (or raise) your entrance requirements and your expectations, and simply do not accept applicants who cannot even read a sentence. Professors have lamented that critical thinking is no longer a valid issue, which makes sense when you're dealing with folks who struggle and usually fail to find the period at the end of any given sentence. 

Then Fortune triples down:

"With students struggling, academies have been forced to adapt---a move critics describe as 'coddling'."

Of course when they cannot read a sentence asking them to read a few dozen pages is like asking them to climb Everest without a Sherpa, which is nearly as difficult as going half an hour without a screen. But folks, including some of the non-reading Gen Z cohort, are suggesting that college is not for everyone, and they are self-identifying as not college candidates. It is worth noting that college administrators seem to disagree, perhaps because their jobs depend on the myth that your life is worthless without a college degree. A degree that is increasingly not worth the cost and approaching objective, absolute worthlessness. 

Is it ego? Is it greed? Is it self-interest over all else? All of these? Why would anyone, Fortune magazine or the academies, not recognize the vast number of young Americans who are not college-ready, and that lowering standards to well below high-school levels is exactly the wrong thing to do?

Door Knockers

You've had a job, haven't you? Of course you have. Most likely you've had a job requiring a pre-employment drug screening. Equally likely that job did not require post employment, suspicionless drug tests. Almost as if a drug free workplace is a one day event, with that day coming before you're actually at the workplace. Afterwards nobody cares, so...toke up.

It is the same as politicians. They come out to press the flesh before the election, with feigned sincerity they do their best to fool you into voting for them. Afterwards they really couldn't care less about any of that, any of you. Sure, they may have these "public input" online push polls gathering "data" you'll never see, just so they can say they're still "in touch." Hardly.

Want proof? You need look no further than city hall. Do you think those nattering nabobs have a clue about your issues...your concerns? Only if you're as clueless as they are. Are you?

Life On The Train

Suppose there is a train, running at a constant speed down a straight, level stretch of track. The train sports an engineer and a conductor. Passengers are split equally between men and women, and includes a small group of blind men. All of the men sit on one side of the train while the women are seated on the other as the women detest Allspice and the men are not fans of Chanel No. 5. A specially outfitted car carries a circus elephant that had been left behind to recover from a head cold. 

Along the track there are four observers one at each end and two in the middle with those at the ends and one in the middle on the same side of the tracks. The engineer likes to blow the whistle constantly because he's an imbecile and it makes him smile. The conductor collects tickets and breaks up fights. Sometimes.

So, train's moving, whistle's blowing. The bloke standing at the end of the tracks behind the caboose, with the train moving away hears the whistle and knows it is flat. At the other end that bloke hears the whistle coming towards him and knows it is sharp. The blokes in the middle hear it coming towards them, then moving away. They hear a whistle that is sharp, briefly on pitch as it passes, then becomes flat as it moves away. The exact same train observed at the exact same time and three different observations. Which is correct? Do you take a vote? The two blokes in the middle heard the same thing, while those at each end heard something different to the middle and the other end. The conductor, and all the passengers, hear an incessant but on pitch whistle. So who's correct? Turns out they all are. Four observation locations, four different observations and all four are correct. At the same time. 

These observers aren't just listening they are looking. In the train windows and inside the train. The three blokes on the one side see passengers. They are all men, so they conclude it is a train full of blokes. The lone observer on the other side sees windows full of women, concluding it's a mobile hen party. The conductor walks down the aisle looking to one side and seeing women, to the other are the men. The conductor knows there are both men and women on the train. Do you take a vote? Three blokes saw a train full of men, one saw only women, and the conductor, who is actually correct, sees both men and women. But who gets believed?

The blind guys who have never seen an elephant, literally and figuratively, send their most trusted member to the circus car to feel out the situation. Almost half an hour later he returns and tells the blind that an elephant is a huge creature with two tails, a small one at one end, a large one at the other. They both "wag" and each has a wet spot beneath. He offered other details regarding leathery hide and tree-like legs, but it was the two tails that fascinated. Even some sighted, who had never seen an elephant, were convinced this was indeed a wonderful animal. Others, who had seen elephants, claimed the "big tail" was actually a very long nose, that operated like a monkey's tail...it could grab things. Unsurprisingly, no one who believed two tails was ever going to believe the Pinocchio story. 

Is there a point to this? That, dear reader, is for you to decide.

Be Prepared

For promises broken. 

Not like they haven't been already, but if you read the Blue Bag Rag you noticed Mother Mayor getting front page ink to let you know what's coming, even though they've already crossed more lines than Trump. We no longer have the city manager reporting to council. No, no. Not his idea of fun? Beneath him? Regardless, the city charter calls for the city manager, and the city manager alone, to show up. In fact, the city charter has no notion of a "department" of city manager and one of the few things council can actually do to rein in this madness is to eliminate that "department." Immediately.

Without delving into the dick-pic fiasco, the city police department is objectively inferior to what we had as unincorporated DeKalb. Well, if one of your key performance indicators is "cops show up in our neighborhoods to enforce laws" but maybe that's not your KPI. Is yours PR stunts like coffee with a cop? Really? 

Then there's the bloat. Mapping all the bureaucratic entities this city has spun up would be a full time job and it is one of the many jobs the city isn't going to do. Because that kind of transparency is unflattering.

So Mother Mayor has been sent out to grease the already slippery slope. Who's pulling those strings? In any event they are about to run, not walk, away from every founding principle, every promise made. All to gorge themselves on greed. Will enough ever be enough?

Proxy Voting

Proxy. This word gets tossed around quite a bit, and not just lately. Back in the early days of the civil rights movement ZIP codes were (and still are) closely associated with demographics. It was common for insurers and lenders to change rates or even refuse to serve certain ZIP codes, claiming they were not discriminating based on race.

But it sure looked like they were.

So some laws were passed. These laws removed intent from discrimination...it no longer mattered whether you intended to discriminate if the outcome was indistinguishable from intentional discrimination. If it looks like intentional discrimination then it was. And it wasn't just ZIP codes, insurers and bankers, it was employers inferring from names or colleges the race of an applicant with that affecting the hiring process. Recently there have been accusations that higher ed has been using these same proxy indicators to favor demographics they prefer. 

There are other proxies, codewords, for race. Urban is a euphemism for Black, despite the fact that a lot of non-Blacks live in cities, but should there be a dramatic increase in Whites, that is decried as gentrification. So...maybe? Products can also be proxies. Remember Colt 45 Malt Liquor? Cadillac cars? Or...how about this: fried chicken. 

Maybe the recent council votes were not about traffic and drive thru congestion. In both cases these were fried chicken emporiums. Were all the requirements placed on the applicants just a way of saying no? For reasons having nothing to do with traffic or walkability? Remember, if it looks like racism, it is racism.