Like A Cold Sore That Won't Go Away

Dominium, so aptly named, is persistent if nothing else and is acting with Trumpian sense of entitlement and ownership of facts: "no one under age 55 will be able to live there,"  where "there" is an incredibly out of place high-rise apartment on Ashford Dunwoody. Like Trump, who has his own facts, he has a reality problem with Congress. Seems the 104th passed something called HOPA (Housing for Older Persons Act) which explicitly defines the rules for 55+, including the 80/20 rule and that only one resident need be that old.  This is an actual "act of Congress" that Mr. Dominium has no control over, so despite his protests, the actual fact is that, by law, folks under 55 can, and very likely will, live in these apartments. Otherwise, honestly (that's a stretch) why would anyone build three bedroom apartments? 

The fact that this man's proposal is so inappropriate that even advocates of urbanization are against it is concerning. What is more concerning is the bureaucrats at city hall that are actively advocating for this proposal. The folks are on our payroll, and they have not a single clue about, and even less consideration for the people living in this city. They don't know us. They don't care to. They don't work for us. So who do they work for? And what is the power these outsiders have over city hall bureaucrats?

Maybe it is time for a "power down reset," rebooting this operation with lots of new faces. 

Rolling Out The Red Carpet

This city put out the welcome mat for developers on day one, after all we had a Developers' Authority before we had a city hall. Now the city is rolling out the red carpet for developers wanting to build apartments. Hundreds, soon thousands of apartments since incorporation. 

And the folks that run this city want even more.

It is as if they are cold-calling any and all commercial property owners suggesting they do a tear-down and re-build converting these properties to huge apartment developments. Irony? Absolutely. Remember that one of the things the Dunwoody Yes! folks claimed would change was the zoning backdoor that let commercial property owners build apartments without a zoning review. Now this city is encouraging exactly that.

Since this city is so good at collaboration, how about they collaborate with the school system. Maybe they could work together to convert one of these commercial properties into a school for the students already in all those apartments this city has encouraged. You know, give these families a sense of place, a neighborhood school around which to build community. Is that because they don't care about the folks living in apartments any more than they care about those living in our neighborhoods? Is it because all they care about is making a place for developers?

Retirement Age

Ah, the "retirement age." So many meanings. Is it the period of time we are now entering where significant numbers will age out of work, to be followed by a dip in the size of the next generation to age out? Is it how old you must be to start collecting Social Security? Is it when you start "aging in place" whatever the hell that is?

Well, aging in place is the easiest to answer: it is a marketing ploy used by developers to force high density where it isn't wanted and doesn't belong. Think: the Life South property. This tactic is nothing new. We've been treated to "live-work-play" and "transit oriented development" and "mixed use," all marketing slogans used by developers to take our community where they want it to go---profits for themselves. Now we have the mantra of "age in place" and "affordable housing" to convince folks that hundreds of apartments should be built where none are needed. And they apparently have the shakers and movers at city hall, including the city manager, in their pocket. The DHA? Not so much. 

The plan is simple, use these marketing tactics to push the development over the line. Pressure has been applied, "deferral is denial" in an attempt to force a hasty decision, thought this has been walked back. A good mantra for those in the approval chain would be "make haste slowly" but that isn't likely to resonate with city hall. The actuality differs from the marketing promo. By quite a bit. First, the plan calls for a 55+ community of affordable apartments, whatever that means, with the implication this will have no impact on schools. After all how many 55+ have kids in schools? Well, that there is a fork in the road. Turns out, the rules for 55+ are pretty loosey goosey. Only one of the renting adults needs to be over 55, the other could be significantly younger and might well have school age children. Then there is the 80/20 rule, which says that up to 20% of the units could be rented to anyone of any age, which explains the developer's plan for three bedroom units. Even then there is the issue of enforcement. With resident owned 55+ units there is a HOA which is responsible for enforcing residency rules and is granted some means to effectuate enforcement. These are rentals, managed by a for-profit management firm whose primary objective is maximize profit by way of maximizing occupancy, a clear disincentive to enforcing the 80/20 rule. And will the city do anything? Hell no, they don't enforce sign ordinances or issue traffic citations. They're sure as hell not going to get involved here, and it isn't clear where they would even get the data needed to monitor residents' age. Same for DHA. 

Now if the developers were really committed to building something for that age-in-place crowd, they'd make it a 62+ development. Here we're talking a bit higher bar for the residents as both adults, assuming two, must be 62 or older. Even better, and easier to monitor, all residents must be 62+ and there is no 80/20 rule. Enforcement is stricter and it is much easier to implement oversight, And, at 62, you're getting pretty close to retirement age, or at least the minimum age to take Social Security. For now. You're not likely at this age to have school age children so there is no reason, no rationalization for three-bedroom units, allowing for more units in total. For developers isn't more better? Also, this is the time of life where many people are making the transition from work to fixed income. 

No one should be surprised if the developer pushes back on any suggestion that their age-in-place profit-taking scheme be compromised with a 62+ requirement. But here's the thing to watch for: how does the city manager react to such a suggestion?

Look! Up In The Sky!

It's not a bird. It's not a plane. And it certainly isn't Superman. It's some guy in a T-shirt and underwear standing on the fifth floor balcony looking down at your kids playing in your back yard. At least that is what the city's bureaucrats have in store for you. Yes, if you live near by the village they're going have their developer buddies build hundreds of rental overlooks ideal for destroying whatever privacy you thought you had.

Is this what you voted for when you said "yes" to creating a city? No? Then consider that next time you get a chance to vote. 

What? When?

Some of the city's founding fathers have become outspoken of late, decrying the dumpster fire they set alight. No, they're not apologizing, they are chastising the bureaucrats running this shit-show. Well, someone should. And there is much to worry about as well described elsewhere. 

But it raises questions. Where are the other founders? Not just the locals currently playing but the two big hitters. Where are Fran and Dan? Are they proud of what's going on? Supportive? Is this what they intended? And let's be clear, this is intentional, just look at the city charter.

In this section we get:

Who knew? That's a serious question, not a joke. Which of these founders was responsible for this? Who approved of it? Which ones even read the charter before they went out selling it to the voters? Did they really not know that a vote for this city was the last meaningful vote allowed in this city? Do they not understand that this clause means that none of the clowns we elect can do anything, unless you consider a chit chat with the Top Bureaucrat "doing something"?

There is a small ray of hope in section 2.12 subsection a:

The council can eliminate bloat by excising it bit by bit. Well, to be honest, not THIS council, but there is hope that one can be elected that might wield the sword. The only other option is to fire the city manager, something with increasing appeal. 

Collateral Damage?

Yes, losing water without notice, especially during a shower, can be annoying, but the plates are great. At slowing down speeders on Chamblee-Dunwoody Road, which is never going to happen if we rely on DPD to actually enforce traffic laws. 

This obstinate refusal to patrol our streets brings up another issue: they don't enforce the "no truck" zone either, even though it includes school zones. And then, if you've lived here long enough, it may occur to you that the repeated failures of this water main, started, and then picked up speed, once we had a city. Hmmm.... Perhaps there is a really good reason to NOT have heavy trucks frequenting this stretch of road. Possibly this is adding stress to subterranean infrastructure. Perhaps it is just the straw on the camel's back, or maybe it is more impactful. 

Could the county recover maintenance costs from the city due to the city's negligence? Or perhaps the county should hold off on a proper fix until the city is under a court order to do their job. Regardless, the CEO should be looking into this. Lord knows lots of bad things happened when that city referendum was approved. Maybe she can step up, step in, and get some things fixed around here.

Rightsizing

The Atlanta Board of Education has approved a budget that removes 135 positions garnering a $25M savings. Details, like hi/lo/median aren't available but this represents an average burdened cost of $185,185 per position.  Assuming the burden, employer taxes, retirement contributions, health insurance, etc., is 50%these are positions commanding over $92K/year. On average. Some higher, some lower. All sizable paychecks. This rightsizing is justified as [re]focusing on the core mission, the obligations to the children and the community. 

How much money could Dunwoody save were they to [re]focus on this city's core mission and promises made? 

Sit Down Old Man

The Blue Bag Rag recently reported on a dialogue between former councilman and mayor, Dennis Shortal and a representative of TSW, hired by city bureaucrats to do their job regarding zoning code rewrites. Shortal gave a history lesson as it seems that the history behind this city has either been forgotten or is simply being ignored. Smart money is on the latter. He was met with a rebuke: "much has changed since 2020, and Dunwoody's zoning is outdated with leftovers from its time as part of unincorporated DeKalb County."

Wow. So much bullshit in so few words.

Turns out that Dunwoody is over fifteen years old, not five. What else does this hired gun not know? Well, that would include "not everything in pre-existing zoning is bad just because it is the same as DeKalb County," but you can be sure this shill was told to use that justification, Or how about this: zoning codes do not come with a five year expiration date, but maybe TSW will be back around in 4-5 years to rake in more money on the next re-write. Have you got that Dark Side Of The Moon ear-worm yet?

Shortal was spot-on, but neglected an important fact. No matter what folks were sold on fifteen years ago, when that referendum passed they handed the keys to the kingdom over to unelected bureaucrats. And these bureaucrats operate in their own best interest and the interest of developers. And that's why we're getting a zoning rewrite and you can rest assured it will benefit lots of folks, but not the citizens OF Dunwoody. 

Trickle-Down Economy

Economy, as in "take care of your needs and watch out for your greeds." Unsure whether the federal cash cow is going to deliver any milk, the City of Atlanta is looking at some serious belt tightening. Well, not serious, as at least one member of council has suggested there are some weighty salaries that are not needed. 

How can this possibly be? How did we come to a situation where we're handing out hundreds of thousands in burdened costs to unnecessary employees? Surely our leaders are prudent care-takers of the public purse. And if you believe that, Elon Musk has some swampland on Mars he'd like to sell you.  

This fiscal prudence seems to be a direct consequence of the feds turning off the previously free-flowing tap delivering beaucoup bucks to urbanity insanity across the USA. What is interesting about the proposed budget for the next fiscal year is the lack of a revenue line item for "Federal Largess." 

Clearly the feds were funding a significant portion of previous years' income, so what, were they simply not reporting this on the budget? Or did they remove it from the upcoming budget because they expect it to be zero? Even so, they should list this as a source of revenue even if is drier than the Sinai. But what if it didn't show up on any budget? Was this federal money obfuscated? Was it a slush fund, perhaps used to fund six figure salaries for unnecessary employees? Were these friends and family? 

More importantly is this trickle-down, fed-driven "economy" we're seeing in Dunwoody, though woefully inadequate, merely a smaller version of what we see in Atlanta? It begs the question: how many unnecessary bureaucrats with excessive salaries do we have on the payroll? How will we ever know?

Original Sin?

Is this it? Is this the original sin?

Is the original sin really giving our data to unelected billionaires? Really? Here's a thought: maybe the original sin was giving our data to unelected bureaucrats. Maybe we should stop doing that. Maybe we should do something about them.

Preemptive Shame On You

In a Talk Back in the Blue Bag Rag, founding councilman Danny Ross offered up some historical insights on the genesis of the city, commitments made, offering a "shame on you" for what is certainly about to happen. He offers an insider's perspective and all that he says is true. If this were being written by Paul Harvey, we're now at the point where he would offer "the rest of the story." But it's not, and we're left with few facts and many questions.

Who wrote the original city charter? Out of the gate, it seemed heavily influenced by developers. But who actually decided that this city should have elected officials, that we vote into office, with no operational responsibilities whatsoever? Was this based on the [unofficial] plan for a Public-Private Partnership where almost every service was put out to competitive bids ensuring best service at the best price? How could anyone, especially anyone in politics, NOT know that you simply cannot build a government bureaucracy that will not expand without bound? And yet we got exactly that, an administrative bureaucracy that is metastatic, a parasite that will consume the host. 

We don't have the equivalent of the Federalist Papers so it is good that we have someone like Danny Ross, and that he is willing to speak up. But...wouldn't it be nice to hear from Dan and Fran, the originators of this...whatever it is...about how proud they are of their little experiment?

Hasty Retreat

Why is it that city bigwigs must run off somewhere (other than here) to talk the big talk and plan the big plans? Is that because there'll not be very many citizens OF Dunwoody there? Of course the big, if not the biggest topic was how they take more of your money. Does greed know any limits?

Apparently not.

Their biggest debate wasn't whether to pilfer your purse or not, but rather how to do it. One proposal was to simply raise the millage rate by removing the current limit by ordinance, IE: without your vote. The other was to create "special" tax district, in an effort to disguise a tax as something else. One is what we're accustomed to, politicians raising taxes, and the other a bit more clever, raising taxes by adding a new mechanism, and allowing the political prevarication of staying under the millage limit. Wait until they disclose this is not either-or and they do both. 

Unlike Atlanta where Dickens has asked for departments to report on the impact of 5%, 7.5% and 10% budget cuts, Dunwoody fixates on higher taxes. Clearly, city staffing, operational costs and mission has expanded without much in the way of  restraint. And why should there be any restrain? Spending OPM is fun, and gives staffers increasingly valuable connections. And we, as voters, have been asleep at the wheel, electing promise-breakers who are addicted to spend-then-tax. Shame on them, but not without shame on us. 

But there are other options, ones this city would consider their kryptonite, but should be up for discussion nonetheless. How about we stop giving enormous tax breaks to developers? After all we're sitting on some of the hottest property in the southeast, and they should be competing for the chance to build here. In fact, they should be paying. It's called "impact fees," and developers should be paying for the costs their, highly profitable, development imposes on existing taxpayers. Have you heard mayor or council suggest anything faintly resembling this? Didn't think so. 

Politicized

This seems to be the word of the week, at least for legacy news. They see, and say, T2 is politicizing the government, like that is a bad thing, because it checks the unchecked administrative state.

Wow.

The defense of this opaque and confusing administrative state borders on hysteria. Even members of congress aren't sure which programs in our schools are DoE or HHS, suggesting there is no meaningful oversight by the creators this alphabet soup of a government. So let's not kid ourselves, the administrative state is not a government of, by or for the American people. 

That is because it is distanced and protected from our democratically elected officeholders. Over the past 100 years, congress has created and nurtured this administrative state transferring the power and authority of the democratic republic to their creation. In so doing they have ensured that our vote doesn't matter, because in their mind, elected officials no longer matter. At least one seems to disagree, claiming that the electorate's will has authority over the administrative state.

Is this politicized, or is this democratized? Maybe this is something we should try in Dunwoody, especially if the city charter is as malleable as our little administrative state thinks it is.

Drug Money

Drug dealers have a special way with sales: the first one's free. Free samples are used in other fields, but it is particularly effective with an addictive product. Apparently this tactic is being used at city hall (and you thought it was just prostitution), on city hall. And the drug? Money. And the cost of the drug? More money.

Sounds like a recursive call to the stupid(){...} function. Because it is.

This manifests itself in do-what-we-say grants that gets whatever-they-say started but is insufficient to cover the real and often recurring costs. But the power of addiction is strong and it seems as if everyone at city hall has that monkey on their back. That's how we came to forsake our morals, cast aside integrity and embrace our current spend-then-tax addiction. 

Makes you wonder if we can pack them all up and send them to rehab.

Permission To Speak Freely...

...or perhaps accurately. Or, maybe not so much.

Seems the Dunwoody PD filed their usual false police report when making a prostitution bust in which they refused to properly identify the location substituting the city hall address as the scene of the crime. Now there might be some pimping and whoring going on there but there is no way there would ever be an arrest.

The Blue Bag Rag reported the location as Le Meridien hotel in their "Police Blotter" section. How do they know when the city consistently lies? Well, there was a separate arrest report that revealed the location of the sting. Apparently they put two and two together. 

Wouldn't it be nice if the city just quit lying?

It's Freezing Out There

Social media is lighting up with deluges of disinformation around city taxation as we have intentionally entered the overspend zone. Yet again. 

One of the key topics coming from the "spend then tax" crowd is that damned legal document known as the city charter. Seems when this fuster cluck was being sold to the electorate the pro-city folks included a maximum millage rate in the charter. The pitch at the time was this would guarantee we'd not end up with out of control spending and taxing, and since everybody agreed THIS city would be fiscally responsible (wink, wink) it wouldn't ever be an issue. Until it is. Like now. Another interesting deception coming from this crowd spins around the word "invest," as in "invest in the city." Sounds good, right? Problem is none of these lip flappers can can actually show how this so-called "investment" actually pays off. They also fail to mention that these "investments" come with ongoing operational costs for security and maintenance. Who's going to pay to keep these twelve foot wide "investments" clean and safe? Oh, yeah, that would be us, the taxpayers. So they are really "investing" in a future of never ending tax increases.

Another deception centers around the property valuation freeze. Left out of these hyperbolic complaints is the fact that this freeze only applies to homestead properties, which, in the state of Georgia, means you must own the property and it must be your primary residence. Interesting side effect: if you're also a citizen it makes you eligible to become a voter. In the city. Ooops. What this set of whiners neglects to point out, front and center, is that commercial properties, including rental properties, are NOT homestead properties. No freeze for these. Just never ending backdoor tax hikes. This might explain why the city has become a proponent of apartments everywhere. The other fact that gets buried is that when a home sells, it is marked to market. Per Rocket Homes, this includes 43 homes sold in August alone (in July the number was 51). So the freeze gets thawed and the city sees a huge jump in a sold property's valuation. Cha-ching. Maybe that's why the try so hard to piss off long term residents. To get them to sell out and move on.

These folks absolutely refuse to entertain the notion of cost containment. They won't even consider slowing the rate at which they balloon city spending. It is as if the world will implode if they don't spend at least 5% more each and every year. Heaven forbid someone should question why a city of this size needs an assistant city manager. Really? They do like to compare Dunwoody to other cities. Notably those in other counties, and cities which by any objective measure are not comparable. They want everyone to share their fear of missing out but they seem terrified of being ourselves. 

Why is that? Because these folks have no vision but they do have an excess of envy.  So when they see someone else getting something, anything, even if it is inappropriate for Dunwoody, well they lust after it. Not because it is any good, but simply because somebody else has something they don't. It is easily mistaken for a herd mentality but it is far worse. It is greed and jealousy. 

This is why we need to "right size" city government. And "right" means smaller.

Did You Ever REALLY Believe?

Did you believe all the hype around the referendum? Really? Well, do you remember that one huge bone of contention was the county allowing the direct conversion of commercial properties to apartments? Remember when Dunwoody was actually proud of being suburban, before suburban became a bad word? When the fight was to prevent transients in apartments in deference to owned homes, townhomes and condos. 

Well, now we have a city founded largely on control over zoning and limiting transients in rental housing. Guess what? Folks down at city hall, elected and those just bought and paid for, have decided Dunwoody needs 300 more apartments because, well, a developer tells them that. Since when did city hall become beholding to developers instead of the residents, the voters? Well, that would be about 15 years ago. Seems like this was a take-over plan from day one.

So. Did you ever really believe what you were told leading up to the referendum? Or, did you know, at least down deep, that you were being lied to? Maybe you were repeating the lies. Either way, are you actually happy with how this has turned out? Really?

Very Revealing

If the blue-bag-rag coverage of the retreat is accurate, and there is no reason to believe it isn't, much was revealed. When asked about impediments to their 10 year goals, someone, mayor, council, both, but someone, offered: "community resistance at the polls." Have we really come to this? Are we saddled with politicians who are openly opposed to the will of the electorate? Perhaps it is time for a recall. Perhaps we have the government we deserve.

There was one voice of reason: 

"everything boils down to quality of life for our existing residents. If we are looking to attract new businesses and people to the community, it's quality of life." 

Wow. Who knew that folks who were attracted to Dunwoody for a certain quality of life might want to maintain that quality of life, or through their own eyes see it improve. Unfortunately that view is not shared by Mother Earth Mayor and some on council. Nor by bureaucrats in the Shining PATH's rolodex. 

And that force is strong in city hall. Even though a referendum comment observed "I think they told us ... that they really just want parks," the notion of floating a parks-only bond in the fall was shot down. Why? Again, Mother Earth was having none of it, as this would be yet another impediment to a dream of paving paradise, while touting lack of community support for the projects. This directly contradicted the aforementioned "they really just want parks" conclusion. Mother Mayor prefers a cult-like religious movement: 

"... what we lack is a passionate group of citizens asking us for these improvements. We didn't have a base of support that could rile up their friends." 

Based on past performance one can only assume that "improvements" is Shining PATHs. Furthermore this turns a blind eye to the loud mouth PATH supporters on [anti]social media and a deaf ear to the reality that this tactic of using "passionate" advocates "to rile up their friends" back fired.

Place Identity

This is an interesting thing in today's America and like most other things it is divisive, or perhaps simply reflects baseline divisiveness in society. It is even more interesting here in Dunwoody. 

Before the city referendum was passed Dunwoody had an identity. And it was a good one. So good that nearby locations adopted "Dunwoody" in their name to add a certain cachet otherwise missing. There are still quite a few subdivisions and apartments in neighboring cities carrying a Dunwoody label.  This Dunwoody character was one of comfort, convenience within the community, and accessibility to things like work and entertainment without the annoyance of those being on top of you. It was suburban. Largely single family with an enthusiastic support for that place identity. People wanted to move here, to live here for the location, the convenience and the inherent stability. But it was suburban.

Then the city rolled in. With it came bureaucrats who run the city and elected officials who have no operational responsibility, capability or accountability, and who are prohibited by law from attempting to exert or influence any of these. The bureaucrats, often not from here and many not living here, are driven by their own priorities or the priorities of outside influences by way of funding from other government entities and grants. If there is a grant, or state or federal funding to do something, then that is what they will do, without any regard for the wishes of the folks who sought Dunwoody out as the place they wanted to live because of the place that it was. The promises made before the city was chartered have been washed away by organizational greed.

It isn't clear if city hall is its own echo chamber (it probably is), or if they are cult-like in following the Shining PATH Foundation (seem to be), or if they just thought the voters had dumbed-down (or just gotten wiser), but their vague, flimsy excuse of a funding referendum went down. Hard. And they seem clueless and their acolytes have resorted to divisive pejoratives in [anti]social media. Perhaps, if they are smarter than everyone else, as they seem to believe, they can gain an understanding of their failure by studying an article on the left's failure to comprehend rural Americans, a demographic upon whom they liberally heap their pejoratives. They might find, and should ponder, things like this:

...consider how rural voters' choices are frequently rooted in values and place-based identities that place a strong emphasis on self-reliance, local control and a profound sense of injustice regarding the lack of recognition for rural contributions to society.

[emphasis added, and perhaps read "rural" as "Dunwoodians"]. What has baffled the left is that rural voters are choosing those who have demonstrated they will send less outside money to rural areas because the left has little comprehension of, or toleration for, self-reliance and local control. They don't understand why they cannot simply buy these peoples' votes. Here in Dunwoody those in operational control of the city cannot fathom why we would turn away outsiders' money if all we have to do to get it is, well, whatever these outsiders want us to do. That is because city hall no longer understands that the voters who supported this city wanted self-reliance and freedom from outside control, and that is what they were promised. A promise that has been broken. 

We WERE Warned

Shortly after the Shining PATH Bond failed we were warned that folks addicted to endless taxing, spending and bureaucratic bloat, some of whom count themselves amongst the original evangelists of citihood, are now trying to market a workaround to violate all the promises made when they asked for our votes. It makes you wonder if they knew this all along with no intention of hewing true to the stories they used to herd the sheep. And that original promise? Fiscal responsibility. The promise, backed by the CVI study, that the city could provide services superior to the county on an $18M annual budget, which adjusted for inflation (42% over that period) is less than $26M. That was the promise, and to calm any fears and mistrust of future greeds, the millage rate was capped. In the early years city bloat was satisfied with back-door tax increases due to rises in property valuations, but bloat has a way of snowballing and millage rate increases were required to feed the beast. 

Now even that cannot satisfy current bureaucratic bloat and the sales pitch is neither unexpected nor clever. Riddled with political speak and equivocations, it attempts to conflate wants with needs. It also speaks from the rather odd perspective that the failure of the Shining PATH Bond means that Dunwoody voters will not approve any referendum, when in fact it is more a statement that the community does not want these cult-like paradise pavers desecrating our city. This is further ignored when we are treated to a false dilemma: do we want reduced services like police, road paving, and parks/sidewalk maintenance (note there is no mention of Shining PATHs), or do we want higher taxes? Assuming a tax referendum would fail, the proposal is to bypass any millage rate referendum in favor of "special tax districts," creating another form of back-door taxing. Again, we were warned.

Is this a serious proposition? Really? 

How about you, the royal you, live up to your original promise? Wouldn't that be a breath of fresh air? And just how are we to believe promises made now, often by the same folks who made these broken promises, that somehow this is different, that we should place any trust in them? Or how about this: how about instead of more, and more expensive policing, we put in place a department, within a sound city organizational structure, that is well managed and doesn't cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in doomed, self-inflicted legal battles? Or maybe we realize that crisis funding, known to be temporary, isn't an opportunity to permanently bloat the bureaucracy? Or maybe the tax base would not be, or would not have been, on a downward trend had they not handed out tax "incentives" like mardi gras beads and maybe, just maybe, imposed impact fees on developments that everyone knows were going to happen anyway? That all sounds like fiscal prudence, doesn't it? And that is exactly what we were promised, so if they'd like to withdraw that promise, that commitment, how about we dissolve the city charter first? Maybe we were better off as a part of unincorporated DeKalb, because that seems to be the underlying truth of what they are saying now.

And think about this: the current DeKalb CEO is far, far, better, by any measure, than the current Dunwoody City Manager, and we get to elect the CEO.