Franchise Fees: With Interest

Probably the most enduring post on TOD is Franchise Fees 101 and it is generally assumed this is due to folks trying to figure out how much the plunge into the deep end of the citihood pool is going to cost. It must be noted that other diatribes on these taxes (What Do Franchise Fees Buy? and Franchise Fees: What Are They Good For?) see little or no traffic.

Perhaps when the reader figures out that it is just another tax from just another taxing authority they give up. They may not even go so far as to learn that even the cable companies are now on a statewide franchise whilst the local yokels keep dragging in the money. So you pay and you pay and you cannot even go down to City Hall to raise a stink over that cable that has been lying across your yard for the last four months. Not their problem, take it up with the State. Oh, and good luck with that.

Or maybe they just total up the cost of Franchise Fees and shrug "this is chump change." It is. In comparison to the other costs (think of FARA writing Home Alarm Registration city ordinances) foisted on you by your newly minted and inexperienced (incompetent?) City Council that would indeed be the case. The fact of the matter is that Franchise Fees are the least of your worries if you're being driven like cattle into the slaughterhouse of Citihood.

Do not let Franchise Fees distract from more dangerous problems. A quick survey can be found in Shout Out To Frederick County, MD. It is incomplete but it is a good start.

You might also look to the track record of nearby upstart Cities, particularly Dunwoody and Brookhaven if you're forming your new circle of governmental hell in DeKalb County. Dunwoody has recently employed the sneaky back-door tax increase by keeping the same millage rate but refusing to craft a revenue neutral (lower millage) tax. This allows politicians to say "we did not raise the tax rate." Legal but deceptive and exactly what they've complained about for decades when the county does it. Then there's Brookhaven. Riding in on their moralistic white horse to joust with the strip clubs only to come out of the engagement muddy and bloody but with saddlebags overflowing with lucre. We'll not go into how quickly Lysol can stain a reputation.

We'll blast past it. 

The real canary in these mine shafts is the City Attorney. If not directly involved in founding these cities they are at least well connected to the powers behind them. And that both Dunwoody's and Brookhaven's CAs have gone down in flames leaving a dark trail of ethical smoke should give anyone even pondering a vote FOR another city like these (and they're all like these) considerable pause. Who are these people? Consigliere? And who the hell are they beholden to, our local version of a political Mafia?

Now you're catching on.

These cities are based on a particularly nasty foundation of greed and a lust for power because to a large degree this is a zero sum game. In their scratching and clawing to get "their share" they will set aside the truth in favour of convincing prevarications, what little integrity they  have will disappear and any transparency will be thru their distorting prism.

Though the citihood outcome is unavoidable there is a way out. Push for an amendment to allow these cities to form their own schools. Now these schools won't be any better (probably worse) but there are enough lemmings out there who will race to the cliff of "local control" that your home value will see a significant bump. Remember the end of busing (aka M to M)? Same thing, only more so. Once the bump kicks in and before the fools realize City Schools are same song second stanza, you cash out. Just get the hell out of Crazy Towne.

Three Pee Uh-Oh

Part of the smoke and mirrors used to push new cities thru the political sausage grinder is the proposition that all good things happen when you build your city around "Public-Private Partnerships." Better Service At A Better Price[TM]. That's what you are (being) told. As existence proofs they will point to Sandy Springs and Dunwoody.

Small problem: that was then and this is now.

As time goes by these "local governments" take on all the attributes of the more distant non-local governments they so detested. Sandy Springs somehow found it in everyone's best interest, certainly the new government bureaucracy, to bring more and more functions in-house. Same with Dunwoody as our 2016 budget calls for replacing contracted services with new hires. Governments. Politicians. Bureaucracy. Bloat. Synonym.

Dunwoody's case is a bit more puzzling than Sandy Springs. Sandy Springs jumped into the deep end of Three Pee Uh-Oh pool, outsourcing nearly everything but the elected offices. To a large degree that includes outsourcing transparency as corporations are not subject to FOIA requests. But Dunwoody was a bit more moderate, modeled more like Sandy Springs as it was at the time Dunwoody incorporated. By then Sandy Springs had already acted on their Three Pee Uh-Oh buyer's remorse which set in very early on.

With Dunwoody, now, it is the temporal juxtaposition of two announcements that raises eyebrows. First, a judge has sided with the medical corporation planning a residential mini-hospital smack in the midst of a neighborhood of McMansions. Apparently our swift thinking and even swifter acting "Staff" gave them an early go-ahead. Council tried to override and the judge got involved. Even better, rules and ordinances crafted by "Staff" and approved by Council were so simplistic in their protection of neighbors' interests that it could be circumvented by a single LLC and only thirty days. Basically the judge called them all out labelling "Staff" and Council as incompetent fools. Who are we to disagree? This was all foreshadowed by Council stepping in to override a Zoning decision on a lot subdivide choosing political expediency over legal process to quell neighborhood whining. Sadly that developer lacked the resources to put them in their place.

So now the 2016 budget calls for boarding more "Staff" on this ship of fools. One could argue that it can only help as these new fools cannot be as bad as the current crop. One would be ignoring the fact that outside sewerage treatment dilution is no solution to pollution. The stinky floaters will still be bobbing on the surface.

The key takeaway for the soon-to-be cities of Cliffside and Tucker is that what you are being sold will not be what you'll have after only a few years. Assuming you even get it in the first place. That's the real Uh-Oh. 

Two Big To Fail

The shakers and movers trying to shake and move their way to the cities of Briarcliff and Lakeside have decided to form a conga line and dance down to the Gold Dome to jointly promote their merged effort to form the city of Cliffside.

Arrogant? Yes. These two groups have been sparring over prime business tax revenues as if they are the only two that can lay claim when in fact several key pieces really belong to Tucker. Or so would say an objective outside observer. As would almost anyone who has lived around these parts for a couple of decades.

Greedy? Absolutely. By joining forces they hope to (and will) force Tucker (against THEIR community will) to cede prime revenue generating properties because all these crusaders for local control simply cannot afford local control. At least not on their own. They need tax revenue from non-voting businesses to pay for what they will then call "Their City." These folks are part of Romney's forty seven percent--takers, not makers.

Bullying? Without a doubt. And they will bring in their back pocket muscle--State Reps and Senators--to ensure that resistance is minimal and easily steamrolled. Tucker will be eviscerated and left with little choice but to sink into decline or be annexed and lose its identity.

And that will be a great loss since of the three communities it is Tucker which has the most cohesive, longstanding sense of community. It is so strong that newcomers are often surprised to learn that Tucker isn't already a city. Now the forces of greed and arrogance will conspire to ensure it never is.

Propaganda Payout

When I was just a lad of ten, my father said to me,
"Come here and take a lesson from the lovely lemon tree."
"Don't put your faith in love, my boy", my father said to me,
"I fear you'll find that love is like the lovely lemon tree."

Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.
Lemon tree very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat.

A recent visit down the rabbit hole revealed much unrest in The Wold. Not The Other Dunwoody, but in THE Dunwoody. The original one---you know, the funny one. If what the nuns said is true and disappointment is the result of unmet expectations then there's a lot of lonely expectations out there because they've yet to meet with anything resembling satisfying results. Or so it would seem.

And it is no longer the usual suspects that need to be rounded up and shot for not being pretty and not being proud and perhaps complaining just a bit too loud. We are now seeing disillusionment take hold amongst not only ardent supporters of citihood but also amongst those who took lead roles in the early days of charting the City's course. Some had already been dismayed to find that not everyone in Dunwoody thought exactly like they nor did many others find the need to change so many things simply because we were now unshackled from the chains of Decatur. And they were facing increasing resistance from a City Hall that was establishing itself as the sole power 'round these parts. It turns out to be much easier to grow a bureaucracy than a garden. And a brown thumb and someone calling "switch" comes in handy.

And this disappointment is not the result of incompetence, at least not exclusively, but rather because quite a few unreasoning folks believed what they were told setting expectations beyond any realistically achievable level. Under ordinary circumstances these "tellings" would be mere prevarications but when put to the purpose of manipulating an audience and used in conjunction with other contrivances to achieve an end completely divorced from the merit of the means then what we have is "propaganda".

One powerfully persistent misleader goes like this:

"81% of the citizens of the metro-Atlanta area where I called home had just voted to form the newest city"

Not all citizens in Dunwoody could (or can to this day) vote and of those who could a majority did not as the vote was held at a time most opportune for passage rather than greatest vox populi. But the lie persists in a strength and rap-like repetition that would make Goebbels proud.

Equally prevalent and more destructive are the chants of "local control" and "our neighbors". Like the others these are 81% false.

So now we enjoy the fruits of the seeds that were sown when any means necessary was brought to bear on the goal of secession. People are increasingly pissed off. Just like they were before we made ourselves a City, but this time they're not pissed at DeKalb, they're pissed at City Hall--for the very same reasons. A critical thinker would expect no less but had we a sufficient supply of those we'd not have the main ingredient for this bullshit bouillabaisse. Some say this Smart City maintains this deficiency pointing a Vernon Jones-like finger at those who protest and while these protesters are ineffective they are improving every day. But under no circumstances should those who fomented discontent be surprised that the army of World-War-Z-like angry zombies they created has turned on them. After all these shakers and movers worked pretty hard to become a local version of Decatur's dysfunction. They may have missed the mark creating "better" government but they were spot on when they said that voters wouldn't have to drive as far to complain.

Some say the zombie whiners are wasting their and others' time on something of little consequence and have rolled out the "Starbucks Defense" used by those who want to minimize the impression of government malfeasance by ignoring the aggregate and focusing on the "small amount of money/discomfort/inconvenience" suffered by individuals. Karma should be given greater respect.

Others claim that the zombie army is misdirected and that there are bigger fish to fry citing DeKalb County Schools. This is reminiscent of Kings of old who sent idle armies on Crusades lest they turn their swords inward defiling and deposing Kings and Court. But the decay of DeKalb County Schools is not a recent truth and it begs a question. If fighting the good fight against DeKalb County Schools is both noble and winnable why didn't all the City-Hoodies fight that good fight, that Crusade, against DeKalb County government? Is it simply that in their mind victory is singularly defined as "we're no longer part of DeKalb?"

It looks like we're embarking on another war against "Big Bad Dekalb" and should expect no different results this time around.

Local Control In DeKalb County

If forming cities made sense to folks in Dunwoody and Brookhaven desiring adequate local control over their government do you suppose they might want their own charter schools to have equally local control over education?

Dunwoody: Showing Europe The Way

Dunwoody has not only been the role model for our neighbors to the south but has spread its religion of "I, Me, Mine" across the pond. In Spain, the Catalan separatist movement has been re-energized by the economic crisis as Catalonia sees itself as net donor supporting the economically weaker areas whilst sharing equally in the harsh austerity programs. They want to keep their wealth in Catalonia and to hell with the rest of Spain.

Catalonia announced a snap election potentially opening the way for the country’s most economically important region to declare independence. “The hour has come to exercise our right to self rule,” said Artur Mas, Catalonia’s president.

Under the current fiscal system, Catalonia collects taxes from its residents, but turns them over to the central government, which then disburses a designated amount to each region to pay for public salaries, social services, infrastructure and the like. In 2009, the latest year for which figures are available, Catalonia provided 19.49% of the federal government’s tax revenue, yet received only 14.03% of the state’s spending.

Previously, Mas had called for a fiscal reform that would enable his government to collect its own taxes and turn over a designated amount to the central state (rather than the other way around). The courts struck this down silencing all moderate voices in the region.

He is not alone in his separatist views. “We have no other option since our will has been totally ignored” says Soledat Balaguer, a member of the secretariat of the Catalan National Assembly. “Catalonia needs to be its own state.”

Sound familiar?