Slow Roll

How long can temporary last? Well when this city doesn't want to do something temporary can be rather indefinite. Point in case? The moratorium on drug rehab centers that started in February and was supposed to be over in July. Commitment? Not even a word they like to use. Turns out staff has been too busy not doing something and hasn't gotten around to figuring out what they were supposed to figure out. So they have asked for and gotten an extension on the moratorium. They are asking to for seven more months, doubling the time which suggests they are about half way toward done. Smart money says they haven't even started. Even odds they'll "need" another extension. 

They have no intention of lifting this moratorium and even if they do it will be to reveal a complete ban on rehabs. How can you tell? Because when these bureaucrats want to get something done they spend tens or hundreds of thousands of our dollars on outside consultants. And it gets done.

They Hate Us. They Really, REALLY Hate Us.

If Sally Fields lived in the Branches, either of the Winters, Creek or Hall, Redfield or a few other unnamed residential areas adjacent to or very near the Village, you could imagine that is exactly what she would say.  And she would be right.

This comes about because there has been a bump in the road on the developers' path to total destruction of our suburban shopping centers, Dunwoody Hall and Dunwoody Village. The planning commission has deferred a vote. Not voted the matter down, just waiting for a more opportune time. One might excuse this as incompetence that the planning commission did not already know of and have in hand the documents in question, or maybe they do and have and there is something else afoot. Maybe they really, really hate us.

And there is good reason to think that. After all, developers and profiteering businesses are openly shameless in their greed. They don't give us any consideration, let alone hate us. They are in love with money and that is merely the root of the evil afflicting us. We need to consider the trunk and the branches. And that lies with the bureaucracy at city hall. 

While developers and profiteers have molded Dunwoody to their liking since the very first day and the city is structured to allow this, the real hatred emanates from and festers within the city itself. It is at city hall where we find the intense hatred of suburbia and yes, the irony of this coming from what was created as a suburban city is lost on no one. And our shining example of successful suburbia is the thriving, vital shopping and business district known as Dunwoody Village. For several decades this center has well served the community and in return has been equally well supported by that community. Yes, developers are eyeing the lucrative opportunity to replace the Village with a mega-development high density retail and multi-story apartments to generate the footfalls. But make no mistake, in city hall's genocidal lust to destroy the Village the surrounding communities will not be just collateral damage-they have become secondary targets.

The situation appears hopeless and helpless. Loyal opposition has either passed or swum off to warmer waters. The DHA was a staunch proponent of city formation and one has to wonder if anyone in that organization was aware of the deliberate structural flaws in the city they helped create. Initially DHA did positioned themselves as the conduit to power, a stepping stone to city office, or more lucratively, membership on one of the many bureaus, administrations or boards. More recently they seem to have come to a fork in their road: continue as a remora  clinging to the power-hungry sharks at city hall; or advocate, as they once did so long ago, for the residents of Dunwoody. 

Doing Time

George Carlin liked to point out there are still some guys in hell doing time on a meat rap. The moral logic underpinning this odd reality is that at the time the offenders did the crime it was indeed a crime. That it is now no longer a crime does not absolve them of deliberately doing what they knew to be wrong. We have something similar with city hall politics though it is neither moral nor justifiable. 

At issue is visual pollution in Dunwoody Village. City bureaucrats and some on council are for expanding unsightly signage and are no longer content with on-the-QT support and negligence in enforcement. They now intend to allow by ordinance the promotion of their previously clandestine Uglify Dunwoody campaign. This was announced in a public notice in this week's Blue Bag Rag, the city's official organ, as an addition to the previous notice a week prior. Reports indicate that on Monday the mayor sent a resident a terse message indicating that a matter of egregious sign violations would be addressed that day. Perhaps Mayor Tardy was referring to this notice and the actions sure to be taken at the upcoming meeting on 10 August. 

Of course if you go to the City website to get the specifics of the text changes presumably allowing all manner of visual clutter you will come up empty:

Could They Be More Opaque?

Not a single link, not even to the items in the public notice a week prior. Let the open records requests begin and rumor has it they have. Rumor further has it that these requests are for communication between city bureaucrats and elected officials. Good, but not good enough. Yes, citizens do need to know which elected officials are behind the Uglify Dunwoody campaign if only to cast a more informed vote. 

Citizens also need to know, and deserve to be told, specifically which bureaucrats and businesses are involved in these community defacing activities. To know who made first contact. Know where contact was made, what records have been made and what actions were taken to avoid discoverable records. Citizens deserve to know who, and there may be more than one, is championing this through the process. To know who is responsible for drafting these changes, to know who has input and who approves the drafts. Citizens deserve transparency around the actions of the economic development group within the city which acts as little more than an unconstrained internal chamber of commerce free from any community consideration or oversight. After all, they can run a poll asking for community input on arts, why not do the same for their negative arts, their visual pollution? Is it because they really do not give a hairy rodent's rectum what you think when the businesses tell them to do something? 

Rest assured, this mayor and this council will pass the changes provided by their bureaucrats to align the ordinance with their deliberate acts and their passive-aggressive inactions. Nonetheless this will not, this cannot absolve bad actors of their prior bad acts for which they must still be held accountable. 

The Bleatings Will Continue...

...until performance improves.

A snarky Faux Fece-Book page was deleted as suddenly as it appeared. Does anyone doubt this was NOT at the direction of City Minions who were further directed by...?

Wouldn't it be nice if the folks running this City were as prompt and diligent in enforcing local ordinances? You know, the ones they wrote. The ones they passed into law. The ones comprising the very foundation of our mythical "local control."

Or maybe it is the citizenry who need to get with the program. Maybe we all need to join their echo chambers on Fece-Book or join their other twits by gorging ourselves at their Tweeter Troughs. Maybe we need to understand that this City is new age. Virtual. That their reality, the ONLY true reality, isn't where roads are paved (often incorrectly), where murders are committed (and left unsolved) or where "broken window crimes" occur every day (and remain unaddressed). We need to tune in to their programming. We need to understand how great each person at City Hall really is. We need to agree that every action they virtually take really is virtually wonderful.  Because that is the only reality they offer and they will abide none who challenge their realm. 

Dunwoody Prostitution Enterprise Exposed

A recent satirical piece in the Dunwoody Crier speaks to an ongoing prostitution enterprise in our fair city and to give the devils their due it is an extremely well written bit of satire. When you read between the lines, as one must do with all satire, one finds a lurid tale describing the underbelly of a City that cannot shake a shady cast of characters including a powerful pimp, his harem of whores and a seemingly limitless supply of johns.

The brothel operates from a shady location signified in time honored fashion with the lighting of a red lamp signaling to johns the availability of worldly delights without casting sufficient light for innocent, or even curious passersby to discern the true nature of the transaction.

The whores are caked in excessive makeup and reek of cheap perfume in an effort to cover the traces left by the uses and abuses of johns who have come before. They gather in a parlor resonating with raucous music making themselves available for casual consortation before getting down to the business of the house. The pimp looks on, directing favored johns to the whore most suitable to his tastes.

The whores offer only a feigned resistance that serves as a requisite foreplay, a feeble attempt to disguise a faded and damaged flower as a fresh bud ready to be plucked. Deep down they know the john knows yet they both spare the time for the courtesy of this small but unnecessary formality. The dirty ceilings serve as a constant reminder that this is a filthy business. That johns are never satisfied. Pimps never handle enough money. And that whores are one bump or one bad blood test away from what little they do have.

As is so often the case this story demands much of the reader and is best absorbed on a hot summer's night with a scotch at hand and the soundtrack to Body Heat playing in the background. And on some certain Monday night, if you listen carefully you will hear in the distance the music to which these pitiful souls dance their tragic pas de trois and you'll know just where that red light dimly glows.