Cheerleaders

Back in the day, waaaay back in the day, when cheerleaders were athletes, they were selected on capabilities and not just looks or appeal. Those days are gone. 

Read the city charter.

You will understand why the current mayor is so popular. She's a cheerleader. And her fans like the cheers. What they do not understand is that she doesn't and cannot really do anything. Except be a cheerleader. 

Does that make you happy?

Have They Considered DIY?

Fine. We know they are grant-grubbers. Have been since day one. And they do need to tick some boxes to grub those grants. But you have to wonder why it is city hall is spending over $166K "develop a road safety action plan." Now we know these plans, like the PATH[etic] plans aren't worth the paper they're not printed on, but for the love of god why do we have to spend this money? With the bloated city payroll you'd think they could have hired someone who could string together the blather that would pass muster and earn that grant application tick mark. Or, how about this? Why don't they use ChatGPT to "develop" action plan? In fact we could ditch PATH as well. 

It is worth noting that this is not even what a normal person would call a plan. It is a plan for actions to be taken to come up with an actual plan assuming they follow thru once the Fed's check clears. Not likely. 

Eminent Evil

Skip To 1:22:31

 

Less than a dime on the dollar. That's what our unelected city bureaucrats think they can get away with. They're offering under $400K on property that has an existing, arms-length, valid offer of just under $5M.Given the overtly cozy relationship these bureaucrats have with developers it is impossible to believe they didn't already know that, so this is premeditated. (Would anyone be surprised if they took it, had a change of mind and handed it over to a developer?) Given this is not anywhere on the approved Parks Master Plan, there is certainly some other plan at work. Something hidden. Something dark. Something rooted in greed. Something evil.

We gone from organized malfeasance to institutional evil.

The Tail Between Two Cities

And the cities are? Lawrenceville and Dunwoody. So far away (not really) and yet so close (really).  

Sex related hijinx in the PD? Lawrenceville, check. Dunwoody, check and maybe keep on checking. Similar outcomes? Not so much. In Lawrenceville we get some firings, with cause. In Dunwoody we (don't) see primary actors being disappeared and allowed to resign. How can the lack of accountability in Dunwoody possibly be what is best for this city?

Po-Po DUI? Lawrenceville, check. Dunwoody, check check. Outcomes. Lawrenceville, again with the strict adherence to good sense and quick dismissal. Dunwoody offers (to some?) a mulligan and we'll never know about the second since public records were made public before Truth Botcher could slice and dice the presentation. Remember, you eat first with your eyes, especially handy when you want to make something look better than the bad taste it leaves in your mouth. One must wonder if everyone gets a mulligan or is it a select few? If the latter what does that do to morale?

Cone of silence? Again, each city earns a full complement of check marks. It's almost as if opacity is systemic in local governments (and we wanted more of this?). But again, Lawrenceville comes under the scrutiny of the AJC and Dunwoody gets a pass from them with the AJC reluctantly playing catch-up to the local rags who had nothing holding them from publication. Obviously the AJC doesn't allocate investigative resource where the malfeasance is greatest. Maybe that is just too obvious...too easy...like shooting fish in a barrel. 

Maybe not.

Publius Identifies Dunwoody Failure

In explaining the underlying design of the new republic, the United Stated, Publius touches on topics and offers thoughts that are no less relevant today than when pen was first put to paper. One point brought by those opposed to a republican form of national government was the power vested in the chief executive, the President. On the contrary Publius argued that a strong executive, answerable only to the people, was necessary to a properly functioning government.

The administration of government, in its largest sense, comprehends all the operations of the body politic, whether legislative, executive, or judiciary; but in its most usual, and perhaps its most precise signification it is limited to executive details, and falls peculiarly within the province of the executive department. The actual conduct of foreign negotiations, the preparatory plans of finance, the application and disbursement of the public moneys in conformity to the general appropriations of the legislature, the arrangement of the army and navy, the directions of the operations of war, these, and other matters of a like nature, constitute what seems to be most properly understood by the administration of government. The persons, therefore, to whose immediate management these different matters are committed, ought to be considered as the assistants or deputies of the chief magistrate, and on this account, they ought to derive their offices from his appointment, at least from his nomination, and ought to be subject to his superintendence. 

And therein lies the problem with Dunwoody and all the other poisoned-mushroom cities springing up around us. Rather than follow Publius' sound advice, Dunwoody founding fathers chose to deny a representative form of government, operated by those elected to do so, and in such a manner that it serves the needs of the citizenry but instead to empower un-elected bureaucrats more beholden to others than to the citizenry. In effect, they sold the elected offices before the first election was ever held and in so doing installed corruption as a structural, foundational cornerstone of that government.

Dunwoody has proven, by eviscerating the offices held by our elected representatives, that Publius was indeed correct. There is no need to continue proving it.

They REALLY Should Get Out More

Notice anything wrong with this picture?

Where the Hell IS Dunwoody Drive?

 

This is directly from the bozos at city hall. Looking at the sign pictured in the masthead above one has to wonder who the hell these folks are, where the hell they're from and how the hell we get rid of them. Or maybe they just decided to rename roads willy-nilly because, well, they just don't give a rodent's hairy rectum about anybody or anything in this city unless it comes with developer or business connections. They should tell Google about their changes as Google seems to be living in the alternate reality inhabited by actual residents of Dunwoody.

Still Looks Like Dunwoody ROAD

Maybe instead of raising our taxes they could fire the incompetent bozo's at city hall. If they get rid of all of them we should be able to house the dozen or so remaining employees over at the annex on N. Shallowford. Assuming they can find the address.

Size Matters

This isn't about "small government is better government," because that has been proven false. Frankly it was obvious from the beginning as the intent then, and borne out by history, is that the original "small government" had no provision, no motive and no intent of remaining small. And it hasn't, has it? 

But this isn't about right-sizing government, it is about a two-faced government obsessed with size. Just start with the proposal by this city to reduce the size requirement for planned development from five acres to one acre to make life easier for developers. This city doesn't take a knee for developers, they're down on both. At the far extreme is the lack of any reasonable restriction on building heights in the Village, even noting that such restrictions apply elsewhere. If the city or even just the seven dwarfs cared about residents they would be actively working to ensure that any building with commercial activity is restricted to one floor, that stacked-flat residential is verboten and multi-floor residence conform to the same height restriction as neighboring residential.

There is something that impacts residents, specifically fence heights. The current height limit is eight feet and the city wants this lowered to six feet, with one of the dwarfs regretting a previous vote, now wanting to flip-flop because they have now been personally impacted. That kind of vision and leadership should be run out of town. If you want an eight foot fence the city now wants you to come to them and take a knee, or maybe two, to obtain their approval.

That's the story of Dunwoody...spread 'em wide for developers and clamp down on residents.

Work Really Cuts Into His Day

You probably have a job. All in that would consume 40, 50, maybe more hours of your week. Especially if you hold a non-clock-punching, exempt position, leaving little time for fun, games and time with the family. Unless you're heading up the police department in one of the built to suit (developers and businesses) faux-cities.

Like Dunwoody.

Dunwoody's Top Cop (his words, not ours) is also an instructor at Guardian Leadership. This is in addition to his very own consultancy advising wanna-be-s on how to become just as good a cop as he. In between he's been the globe-trotting cop FROM Dunwoody. So is it any surprise that when he actually is in town and at least somewhat attentive to what is going on in his own department he is penning or just signing off on white-washing reports to deflect his and his department's culpability for extremely unsavory goings-on?

Is this really what the city wants? Apparently, as the city manager has done nothing about this, has said nothing about this, and so it must be concluded, at the very least, he approves of this.

So what to do?

Fire the city manager, with cause, for dereliction and replace him with someone committed to serving the residents of this community. His replacement's contract will ensure this is a condition for ongoing employment and given the disastrous experiences we've had with run-of-the-mill city managers this will require vigilance and frequent review. The first action of this manager would be cleaning house. In the PD and throughout city operations. Hard as it is to believe, in little over a decade we've allowed bureaucratic bloat to spread like kudzu. 

So how to do this?

This will require some significant changes in our elected representatives at city hall. Very likely some, perhaps most, are not salvageable and require replacement. With significant improvement over the current office-holders. 

Only then do we stand a chance of making the best of a very bad situation.

Inhospitable

And unsavory.

After purloining a regional artist's work the city has received an award for having done just that. Though it was a blatant misappropriation for self-serving, but well connected interests a hospitality group determined it was worthy of an award. Not to Kofke, the artist and IPR owner, but to the purloiners of his work. 

It is a twisted world we live in when those who deserved a criminal conviction instead are given awards. Shame on the perpetrators and shame on this misguided group.

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.

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.

We Have Met The Enema

We've had the "Save Dunwoody" movement receiving the apathetic reaction of "from what?" and now we know: from "us" depending on how you actually define "us." Bringing this to the forefront is the temporal juxtaposition of the aggressive effort on the part of city hall to rape Dunwoody Village and the comments of the outgoing DHA president who is calling out the bureaucrats and politicians invested in this rape and pillage as having abandoned any commitment to Dunwoody residents in favor of greed: developer greed; business greed; and political greed.

One might dismiss this as a parting shot from an outgoing president and surely the Seven Dwarfs would like to think that is the case. The problem is the president is merely rotating out, remaining on the board. Furthermore, the DHA has taken the action of hiring a lawyer to call the city out on the rape of Dunwoody Village, reminiscent of days of yore when the DHA prevented the development of a mega-Publix across the street from the library. Due to their efforts a community of townhomes and unattached single family homes, a much better complement to Dunwoody, are there now. 

So maybe, just maybe, the DHA has shaken off the role as pipeline to the politicians selling us down the river and has regained their position as the rightful defenders of Dunwoody residents as the loyal opposition to forces of greed that are making DeKalb County look benign. 

It Worked

You're probably wondering, what, if anything, during these trying times has worked. Fair enough. But it should come as no surprise that what has worked is a government deception, with a local news outlet declaring that a Sandy Springs restaurant had "opted out" of the local mask ordinance.  Now you're wondering how that is a deception. Well, it is the same as it was when Sandy Springs, and Dunwoody rolled out their local ordinance with a sign requirement if you did not opt in as required by the Governor's Executive Order. Driven by a desire to provide cover to profiteers it was crafted to mislead. 

But it was unadulterated crap from the get go. Just look at the signage requirements. Text, font and size are government diktat. But, whatever idiot came up with this dropped the ball. They did not diktat the color nor the color of the paper allowing anyone who wants to resist government over-reach to simply print the required signage in black ink on black paper, perhaps misleading some to think it is a BLM virtue signal. The sign ordinance from Dunwoody was nothing but political posturing, just like a mayor blathering on about CoVid and schools, or CoVid vaccines, neither of which are in her purview. And if there were any doubt masks are political one simply needs to note that after the election Democrats behave no differently than Republicans and have apparently stashed their masks in that junk drawer alongside their pussy hats. 

Just Give It ALL Away

It is bodacious. An affront to common sense. An insult to residents, taxpayers and voters.  And absolutely predictable.

The mere residents have known for some time now that this city is of, by and for businesses and developers so this next step in handing the keys to the kingdom to monied interests comes as no surprise. 

But it raises some interesting questions.

Who knew? What did they know? When did they know it? 

It is no stretch to conclude that what has happened is actually according to plan. Plan by the real power behind the citihood movement. By those who rallied the troops. Got out the vote. Benefited from the outcome. Key individuals worked together, worked with outsiders and worked to the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. The worked closely, in an orchestrated fashion, yet none dare call it conspiracy. But look at the outcome.

And many of these folk have not and never will go away. Like that cold sore that just keeps coming back we now have a shaker-mover on a newly formed Urban Renewal bureaucracy at city hall. When did he discover that we were so urban, have been for so long we're up for renewal and are so fond of our urbanity that we'll gladly write the check? Is this a city for the citizens or a subscription to corporate welfare's version of Garden & Gun? There is one striking similarity: what is going on in this city will leave you sobbing just as hard as the "Good Dog" column.

Get Smart

Cisco tried. They really did. They worked hard. They looked high and low. For a Smart City. Couldn't find one. Surely they looked at the city that brags soooo much about how smart they are. After untold millions of dollars Cisco pulled the plug. Walking, at a good clip, away from any notion that these unicorns, smart cities, even exist. But if they did look at Dunwoody, and any of the newish cities in the area, they would have seen a bureaucracy dedicated to businesses and the support of developers where the people, through their representatives are structurally restricted from advancing their concerns. How smart is that? Apparently not smart enough for Cisco. But what do they know?

Quarter Acre And A Tool

We seem to have a recent spate of the Seven Dwarfs singing "Urban, urban uber alles" which at first seems quite odd. It came up in the great deer hunting hand-wringing sessions where someone laid out the line about "with 1/4 acre lots" as if ALL lots in Dunwoody are that small. Far from it. A quick ride through Dunwoody, say Happy Hollow south to the dead end, turn right, head on over to Peeler and scoot west to Chamblee Dunwoody and you will pass a significant number of lots much, much larger than a quarter acre. And you might be surprised to learn that quite a few Dunwoodians are on septic which is rarely done on 1/4 acre. Or maybe you'll remember the early days when the city wanted to locate pocket parks under power lines only to learn that land, with the easement alone more than 1/4 acre, actually belongs to homeowners adjacent to these lines. Of course city hall's hired guns and the dwarfs doing their bidding are not going to share those tidbits. 

Because the city wants to eliminate suburbia with suburban-scale lots replacing these with clutter homes on 1/4 acre lots, with high rise residences in Dunwoody Village, and with apartments everywhere. Why? Well developers certainly "support" this, but so do government grants. You probably feel a bit like Mr. Winkle, awakening to find out that the suburban home you bought is actually urban, and in decline. We now have a Friends-and-Family bureaucracy at city hall to deal with "urban renewal." Non-stop grant-grubbing. 

But they may be too late. Although significant investments have been sunk into propaganda suggesting this overly high density wasn't really about profiteering by greedy developers but was demanded by the coming wave of Gen-Z and Millennials the truth leaks out that as these younger generations come of age they actually prefer suburbia over urbanity. And this comes from credible sources like Forbes, and Business Insider and not some industry owned propaganda bureaucracy at city hall. And guess what these youngsters are really looking for? They want deluxe, upscale homes in the suburbs. EXACTLY what Dunwoody has always offered. EXACTLY what the city was allegedly founded to protect. And EXACTLY what folks at city hall who've sold out to developers intend to destroy. 

Is There No End...

...to the incompetence? 

Just look:

What's wrong with that picture? OK, fine, you're right. Latest update is weeks ago on a topic that is moving faster than a city bureaucrat handing out tax breaks to developers. To find out what is really wrong you have to see this boondoggle of a website in action. New! Improved! Really?

Look at the first thing under Resources: Dunwoody COVID-19 followed by FAQs. Yep, two separate links. Sorta but not really. Click on one, either one. It doesn't matter because they take you to the same circle of interweb hell:

Pretty cool, huh? The entirety of city hall summed up in a very short URL. What is this city about? Blank and blocked, that's what. At least if you are a mere resident. 

Million Dollar Man

A few hundred thousand dollars here a half a mil there and pretty soon you're talking real money. The kind of money that can break a budget. It is a direct consequence of leadership failure that has persisted since this city was founded, it has run unabated and it has only gotten worse. Despite that the city has dodged more than a few bullets. They have been the poster child for DWB civil rights violations calling in neighboring jurisdiction's indicate-on-cue drug dogs in support of illegal detentions. Today BLM would cancel this city for far less. Undercover operations that were clear civil rights violations. Two police shootings have resulted in fatalities and thankfully both were white or Ferguson would be a footnote to Dunwoody. The rot has now turned inward with the kind sex hijinks that would leave Larry Flint shaking his head.

The city manager who is ultimately responsible for this goat rodeo has shown no interest in taking action. The seven dwarfs are, by the very structure of the city, all but powerless with only one lever to pull: firing the city manager and finding a replacement that will serve the residents rather than everyone but. And yet, they too have refused to address this train wreck in a meaningful way. 

Clearly strings are being pulled and not by anyone who gives a damn about the people who live here. There is no end in sight and apparently no cost too great.

Should He Resign?

Hell no!

He should be fired. With cause. Same fate should await his boss. But it should not wait a single day longer.

Pandemic Delusion Syndrome

The pandemic seems to be closely related to some serious disturbances in the farce, with some new and some amplified continuations of previous farcical behaviours. Let's look at a few.

Shocking to some is the rapid development and rollout of the picnic table app, to which TOD would simply say: make sure you pack your own picnic basket. What has some folks aghast is the fact that they've been at it for a decade now and still cannot get an app in place for identifying, tracking and resolving code violations. 

This leads immediately to the city's "enforce on complaint" which is employed whenever someone at the city feels like it. Complain about trucks violating the no-truck zone? Tough luck. Your neighbor keeping his motorized trailer in his driveway? Well there are about 1500 reasons for the city to jump on that. Some have suggested this is a follow the money issue as they have been told that there is not enough money in ticketing trucks. Frankly if Dunwoody were to apply appropriate fines there would be hell to pay with the folks at city hall who work on behalf of local businesses. 

And there are quite a few on our payroll working for business interests. We have a director of economic development and that's not to help out home-based businesses with their SLUP applications. Then there is the manager of business retention. Really. Now what do you suppose they do? After all doesn't "manager" mean there are employees being "managed?" Funny how there is no "manager of neighborhood preservation" or "director of resident satisfaction." Come to think of it, it really is NOT funny. 

Then there is the whole DPD kerfuffle, a raging dumpster fire that has become Dunwoody's version of the eternal flame. We've had police shootings with two "civilians" killed. There have been DWB and civil rights violations some yielding expensive court cases. If that's not enough we face a string of pending cases alleging  sexual harassment and the Top Cop will not answer questions about what he knew, when he knew it and if that wasn't until a lawyer dropped a dime, how he could be so clueless about what was going on under his nose. It is worth noting that he was not the candidate preferred by the Police Task Force and he has now lost support in the community with some calling for his resignation. Here's the punchline: the Top Cop's side hustle is coaching other cops on how to be a police chief every bit as good as he.

That DWB history is coming back to haunt with the BLM movement and SSR confessions all around. But not Dunwoody. Our Top Cop trots out personnel stats showing we have enough Black officers but might be short on Asians--the inconvenient minority. This dismissive approach to SSR hasn't worked well in practice. 

And we move on to the racial/racist underpinnings of the city itself with King John protesting that there was "nothing racial goin' on" yet immediately there were plans made to drive out Hispanics in PIB apartments and the power structure of the city and all its satellite organizations remain lily-white. But no "spoon-feeding" in this town. 

Let's close for now with the non-stop hating laid on the village. What's with that? Why do so many folks, hired guns as well as the seven dwarfs, so hate the village? They are hell bent on eliminating the village overlay with particular animus towards sign ordinances. In their recent "public survey on signs" it was all about the village. What about the similar business-retail at Mt. Vernon and Jett Ferry? Why no questions about signs that might be appropriate there? Or how about the business-retail center at Chamblee Dunwoody near 285? Why is the village singled out for 3000 rental residents (and yes, they will be rental, sooner or later)? Why not preserve a vital, vibrant SUBURBAN shopping and business center that has grown, organically, to serve the needs of the surrounding suburban neighborhoods? The Mayorette claims the village is the commercial center of Dunwoody, a mental turd that stinks up her "shilling for business" claims that high density residential is necessary for the amenities she wants-like perhaps a pandemic petri dish? Maybe she should head south from her office and see the real commercial center or maybe she should just lead the way for our top cop by submitting her resignation so the residents and voters have a chance to get someone who represents their interests.