Let AI Do It

It is time for a start.Well past time, in fact. Since before this city was formed there was a sincere dedication to opacity. Did you ever see the officially published Task Force reports? No? Well, there's a reason for that. They, many of whom fancied themselves the powers-to-be, had no intention of anything resembling full disclosure. So no surprise that this city keeps all the juicy bits of information behind an enormously expensive pay wall. Might as well be locked up in Fort Knox. 

We can do better.

And it is easy to do because we can let AI do it for us. And we can start with the easy button, addressing opacity with a "service" that is a self-proclaimed leader in the use of AI. That's right. Let's use Flock on Flock. Start simple. Post a daily report of all the license plate numbers, with state, captured inside the city limits. Stretch goal: list the number of times that day the plate was surveilled. Then any of us, we the little people, would have automatic access to public data. It would be fun just to sift thru the grift looking for out of state plates, your own plate, your spouse's plate, your neighbors...this could replace death scrolling. 

So how will the city say no?

They may pay-wall it or just claim it is too expensive. Really? This truly would be trivial for damn near any half-assed IT geek, and frankly requires no AI. There are other fun things that AI could be used for, but this is no heavy lift. But, it is critically important not to strain the brains of the city bureaucrats. Keep it stupid. Simple? There is one thing they will probably bring up as an excuse for not doing this: privacy. Kinda sucks the air out of the room, doesn't it? They've justified their overarching surveillance because this is all in public, tracking plates that are required to operate vehicles in public, so there is no privacy. How could there possibly be a privacy issue posting this info? There isn't. They just think you are that stupid.

They have some proof on their side. After all, you did vote them in.

Ableton Mableton

If you guessed the answer to "who said this?" was "the mayor of Mableton" then give yourself a pat on the back. The "tool" to which he referred is Artificial Intelligence. Using AI to provide broader, better services without an excess of money sponges. 

Broadly speaking there are two types of AI: Large Language Models (LLMs) and Agentic AI. The former gives answers while the latter gets stuff done. Both can make very important contributions to open, transparent, democratic governance. Seems to be what they're doing over in Mableton. 

With LLMs working on fully digitized records we, the people, can ask questions and get answers. Immediately. Accurately. Without spin. With proper configuration and training an LLM can properly redact sensitive information, far better than any money sponge, at a relative cost indistinguishable from zero. Suppose you wanted to know how many citations for code violations were issued in your neighborhood in the last three years. Nearly instant answer. Want to know how many tickets have been written to trucks violating a particular no-truck zone since the city was founded, organized by year and month, you can get that question answered. Want a copy of all contracts under the city manager's signing limit, by year and by each city manager? That is just a few keystrokes away. 

Agentic AI is even more powerful which is why it terrifies entrenched bureaucrats. Should we be running audits? Certainly. With Agentic AI this wouldn't be an annual event, not quarterly or even monthly, it would be continuous. It could be triggered by real-time events, like whenever someone with the city makes a charge on a credit card or P-card. Any inflow or outflow of money could painlessly trigger an audit and an audit report. Or, it could be done on demand, on request. Even by one of the We The People. Or, suppose you need to monitor T&Cs for bought in services, so you don't get surprised by vendors like, say, Flock. Agentic AI can do that. Is it worthwhile to monitor processes, say applying for a business license, to ensure proper, timely operation? That can be done.  

Could this happen at the City of Dunwoody? This is what a technologist would say is "possible, but not probable," while a cynic might say "humanly possible, but not with the humans we have available." Don't hold your breath. 

Man Plans. The Gods Laugh.

Or perhaps the city plans. The citizens laugh. Or so it seems from the front page article in the Blue Bag Rag (print edition only, hmmm). Seems like the city had a plan obtained at cost from the PATH Foundation, or simply foisted on us by PATH and as it so happens significant, vocal residents really do not like this plan. 

So guess what: they're probably going to change "the plan," calling into question not just this plan, or this part of it but all other parts and the process thru which these "plans" originate. Plan thrown out there? Check. Perfunctory "public info/input sessions?" Check. Rubber stamp by council? Check. Total train wreck? Double check. 

The real problem is not with the Peeler Road section of this interstate lane, it is with the process of turning over planning for things in the city to agenda-fueled special interest groups. PATH doesn't give a hairy rodent's rectum about the folks who live in Dunwoody. They only care about paving. Anywhere and everywhere. 

Maybe the only path we should pave is the one that takes the PATH Foundation the hell out of Dunwoody.

What's On A Website?

Have you used the city's website? Lately? Pretty slim pickings, eh?

If you need proof, cruise on over to the calendar, search for the upcoming special called meeting being held at Vintage Pizza and click on that link. Now muddle around to get to the agenda. Three items: Call To Order;  Dunwoody Village Planning Discussion; and Adjournment. For funsies click on the Planning Discussion for item details. Spoiler alert: all you will get is "Dunwoody Village Planning Discussion." Maybe if they cannot post a proper agenda and meeting materials they shouldn't be having this meeting. Not now. But, it would be worth attending just to see how much alcohol is involved in the "planning" that goes on in this city.

If that didn't steam your broccoli check out the PD request for public feed back. The online form is "unobvious" and once you get there it is far from a solicitation of your views and opinions. Instead it is limited to two questions: what are we doing great; and where could we improve? And before you submit you must agree to "Terms and Conditions" which you can read before you submit by clicking a link. Or can you? You will get a pop up window with this text: "By using the Social Pinpoint Mapping Tool you are taken to have accepted these Terms and Conditions set out below." Only one problem...there is nothing below. So does that mean there are NO T's and C's? Or are they just lying about their existence and hiding the details? At least the survey is operating as well as anything else in this city and definitely NOT at internet speed.

Happens All The Time

Seems there was a bit of an altercation in Dunwoody Village with a belligerent brandishing a firearm while an employee escorted her out of the premises. In and of itself that might be a little bit frightening, but what is even more concerning is the reaction of the employee. Seems they didn't want to file a report. Why? "Because things like this happen all the time."

What does that say about the efficacy of law enforcement? Maybe if we had community policing we'd have a community where these things don't happen all the time.

Defunct The Police

In a recent letter to the editor the writer pushed back against the movement to force schools to install traffic enforcement cameras in school zones. His point, well made, was that turning this function over to private profiteers would result in a company putting profits over safety. This touches on the point that it is always about the money.

And that is a touchy point that should be touched a little harder. It begs the question: what exactly are we paying for this city to do? Specifically when it comes to the police farce it certainly is not to provide enforcement, particularly enforcement to ensure the safety of our roads and neighborhoods. When they refuse to protect our children in school zones then we need to consider alternatives. Maybe instead of privateer's cameras we should give traffic enforcement authority to our school systems' SROs. Let them keep our streets safe and let them keep the public safety enforcement revenue in public hands.

What Is "Value?"

The season is upon us and all the tax-hike supporters and apologists have taken to the PR circuit in support of yet-another-Dunwoody-tax-hike. A city PRopagandist dares anyone to find another city with this millage rate. One of the dwarfs touts the great value this city offers, suggesting that may accrue to residents. But maybe not. 

Both beg the question: what is value? In the real world, outside the distorting lens of self-serving politics, value is getting a good or service at a reasonable price to the buyer and one that supports the ongoing operation of the provider. Not cancerous metastatic growth, but sustainable operations. So given that tax hikes and uncontrolled bureaucratic growth has been a plague upon us since the very beginning, what do we, the mere residents of Dunwoody get in return?

We might start with the three P's, the bedrock from which the pro-city fundamentalists screamed their message of fire and brimstone, of hellfire and damnation should we not all line up in support of this faux neo-city. You may have noticed the pavement work on Mt Vernon in the Village. Again. All because city bureaucrats couldn't resist meddling in the engineering work done in the original effort. Is that value? Maybe parks? Well, if you consider paving an interstate lane of concrete through a natural setting aligned with leave-no-trace or a good use of money then you might see value. If you look real hard. Then there is the dumpster-fire called the Dunwoody Police Department. Is an endless string of lawsuits, inevitably settled at great cost, currently running into the millions of dollars a "great value?" Is a police chief stating, in discoverable emails, that enforcing traffic laws in our communities "isn't worth the cost" what residents would consider value? Is allowing that yahoo to cling to his job until the end of the year just so he can retire with full benefits any real value to residents?

Then we have the supply side. While the city bloats its headcount, absorbing functions (e.g., Chamber of Commerce) that rightly belong far outside city hall, they are handing out millions of dollars to powerful developers. This is done by way of tax exemptions. That's right. While we mere residents have seen nothing but year over year tax increases, crony capitalism ensures that developers won't pay a dime. 

Is that what these yahoos call "value?" Maybe they think the folks who live in this city are as clueless, as detached from reality as they are. Their only problem is that we actually see our tax bills because we have to pay them.

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.

Guest Post: What The Truck?

Your head has to have been in a warm, dank, dark place for quite some time if you are not painfully aware of the dumpster fire that the city manager and the seven dwarfs have made of the Dunwoody PD. So stand up, make that popping sound and listen up: they've made it even worse.

That's a real Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, now ain't it? So we have a police farce that can turn a walk about into a fair-weather tax collection opportunity by fining folks stopped at a red light. Same po-po that REFUSES to enforce the no-truck zones. Same po-po that REFUSES to patrol for speeders in our neighborhoods, instead expecting a nanny-nanny-boo-boo post on FeceBook to do THEIR job for them. 

And why might that be? 

Because the speeders may well be speeding to a job or a shopping spree at one of the profiteering Dunwoody businesses and as we all know the folks running these businesses have city hall on speed dial. Same for habitual truck violators. The city is one citation away from a hands on lesson on how shit flows downhill.

So how are phone-taxes different?

Because the cop can make a much, much better assessment as to who they are collecting their tax from thereby ensuring it will not be business related taxation but a local resident. After all the city has to get the money to pay businesses to come and stay from somebody.

That somebody might just be you.

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. 

Dunwoody And Deer

What is it with Dunwoody and deer? If you've been able to stomach the recursively negative political ads long enough you may have seen that Dunwoody has deer and someone has been taking them out. 

But the internet, fueled by rumors, has a particular twist on this story and if there is any relationship between these rumors and the truth then it may well be the city that is behind the deer cull. 

And it does start out very believable. 

It appears that a deer was struck by a truck delivering to a local business and as one would expect if one has ever seen these trucks speeding through the ironically named "no truck zone," there was significant damage to the truck. Word on the web has it that the affected business dropped a dime on a buddy at city hall (they ALL have a buddy at city hall) to get the city to address the deer problem. Some have suggested the business demanded the city reimburse for the cost of repairs but there is no word yet if the city sent a check or is just issuing P-cards to every business.

This is alleged to have spawned quite a few meetings involving various city employees dedicated to the happiness of businesses and developers. It was quite a crowd and it isn't clear if social distancing could be maintained. They were all there. The director of economic development. The manager of business retention. City manager. Sub-manager. Assistant to the sub-manager. Business development zoning coordinator. They even caught Billy between some of his many on-the-payroll extracurriculars. Someone sighted some of the seven dwarfs. 

The notion of a cull was pre-decided by the impacted business though the process itself was delegated to the business support employees at city hall. One suggested this become a police responsibility until someone else reminded everyone of the Christmas deer slaying and how poorly it was handled. Shots fired and the carcass left to rot in the street. You might have expected Billy to represent for his cops but when he found out that, even in season, ten-point bucks don't sport a woody he went back to dorking with the camera on his new iPhone and left the meeting mumbling something about "I thought this made things look bigger." 

This left them looking like a scene from Jaws, the one where the city decides to hire Captain Quint and the city's business support team decided to hire a professional. That there was no money funneled to a well-connected consultant to provide support for this decision is where credulity becomes a bit stretched. Apparently someone, a relatively recent transplant from up north, had been leaf peeking in the mountains and seen hand-crafted cardboard signs touting "deer processing." This individual stopped to offer a recommendation for a professional sign printer, one well-connected with the city, and took the opportunity to investigate just what "deer processing" means. This resulted in a list of names, including some in Dunwoody proper, who might assist in the culling operation. Deals were done, strictly on the Q-T as is the city's standard procedure and the deer cull began. 

And city hall once again plays the fool on local media.

Don't Cry For Him Argentina

Back in the latter part of the last millennium Argentina earned a world-wide reputation for disappearing people. This practice was recently adopted by the Dunwoody PD as they very quietly erased a charter member of the force from the city. Nominally the officer was allowed to resign and there is an investigation ongoing and a whistleblower lawsuit brought by yet-another-party.

And rumors are melting down the ole coconut telegraph with tales of the unspeakable, even for The Other Dunwoody and we're frequently on speaking terms with the F-word. If these rumors pan out Catholic Priests and Boy Scout Leaders will look tame by comparison. And the GBI had better take over the investigation.

Suggestions are that the kind of activities that resulted in this whitewashing disappearing are not recent raising the question of who knew what and when did they know? If they found out more than a week ago then why wait to act? And if the police chief just found out about something going on in the department for some time then one might conclude that it wasn't going on under his nose because his nose was pointed elsewhere.

You'd also think this city would have had enough already. The first city manager hired the police chief against the recommendation of the Police Task Force making it clear that this city was never going to really be about the folks living here. The current city manager, who, if this has been ongoing malfeasance, should also be in the know and should also be on the hot seat.

In a time where police have done an outstanding job undermining public trust swift action is called for. Plainly put, if there is a scintilla of truth to these rumors the mayor and council must take a stand, remove much of the top echelons at city hall, particularly the city manager, the police chief and their direct reports. They must be decisive, and for once, on the side of the residents and they must act quickly lest the department lose accreditation or the city see the charter revoked.

And the kicker? This is a city who's PD has made much noise about sex trafficking and all they have been doing to get a handle on it. It will just drive this ear worm right thru your head.

Now THIS Is A Crime

Click on over to this Smart City's website, poke around a bit and you may well run into this road apple of incompetence:

Couple of problems with that. First the browser in use is Chrome and HTML5Test gives:

You may be confused by "ECMAscript" and it does sound like a skin disease, but it is an International Standard of which Javascript is an implementation. You will find that V8, the scripting engine used by Chrome (among others) is pretty complete, even 100% with some of the later releases of the standard:

Now, you may be an apologist who thinks it is really difficult to properly determine that a browser is running Javascript or you may even believe that the F&F crew who set up this half-arsed website are justified in using non-standard features of their fave, probably outdated, browser. You'd be so, sooooo wrong:

And it comes from a land down under. Maybe they have better F&F mates.

What is it about government IT that cultivates cronyism, incompetence and waste? Remember all the networking gear lying about at APS? For years. But we need look no further than our very own IT Cluster Eff down at city hall. Seems they bought something that cost more than $50K (amazing that some IT bozo is allowed to spend <$50 w/o council approval, but then that is the nature of the disease) and forgot to put it before council. Now city staff are patting themselves on the back for a "good catch" and the item appears on the agenda for council's back-dated rubber-stamp thereby condoning staff's abundant incompetence. In fact, if you read closely, you'll notice that the purchase was in the amount of of $86,971.04 but council will approve $100K. For a flash-only backup storage controller. Yes sir, not one of the more economical yet perfectly adequate hybrid systems because when you're spending OPM and making friends in the vendor community the sky is the limit.

You just cannot make this up and as long as this city hangs around you'll never need to try.

Will It Really Make A Difference?

You know, the VRU ordinance that recently sailed through council like dysentery through a refugee camp. Don't know what that is? Well, dysentery is ... oh, VRU? OK. It stands for Vulnerable Road Users and it is a local regulation being pushed through local rule-writers across the country, much like the home alarm regulations squizzed out by FARA. Remember them?

The reason that VRU is all show and no go is because this city has amassed quite the reputation for NOT policing in our communities. In particular the city treats quality of life issues as if toxic somehow posing an existential threat. They are significantly less afraid of global warming than they are of community policing. So this regulation will, like most others, go unenforced rendering it mere words on paper.

These trendy feel-good regulations are just that: feel-good opportunities for city hall self congratulation. And they are far from "local control."

Please Daddy! Please Don't!

Stop it Daddy. It hurts. Stop. Please!

Don't you just want to scream? You know, when someone who claims to "serve and protect" instead works diligently to "annoy and offend." So when Daddy, our paternalistic City government, gives you that 4AM wakeup call, you aren't just annoyed, you are downright offended. After all, there are still quite a few "Smart Folk" in daVille and they are quite capable of determining when their succulents are at risk. While the "Smart City" protestation has been dropped, all that city hall has done is acknowledge that they have no brain cells to rub together in hopes of generating an intelligent thought.

But it really was a wake-up call: wake up to the fact that there is something seriously rotten at Dunwoody City Hall. And stay waked. Until the rot is excised. And this rot runs deep.

Superficially it would appear that the po-po have tried to be your papa. And they aren't. They are not adult enough, responsible enough. Just watch, they are about to throw Nixle under the bus, and while there are serious problems there, this would be a juvenile diversionary tactic to keep you from looking too hard at who is really at fault. That would be the po-po, who seem to think their job is anything but community police work. But also their bosses: the City Manager and Council who let them shirk their responsibilities and who refuse to hold the Police Chief responsible.

There are many problems with Nixle. The TCPA should protect us from businesses of that ilk. Protect us from automatic dialers. From recorded messages. Except of course from politicians and governments and this is what Nixle will hide behind. "Papa made me do it!" But there are bigger problems. There are the lies. The City claims that Nixle harvested numbers from the "white book." Had one of those delivered lately, have you? So how did cell phones show up on the list, keeping in mind the TCPA takes a very dim view of calls to cell phones? They also slimed out: Nixle called numbers in Dunwoody. And yet some folks in Gwinnett county, definitely NOT Dunwoody, received calls.

But that isn't really the worst of it. The worst thing is that the City of Dunwoody took it upon themselves to start cold-calling residents. Not. Their. Job. Making matters worse, this was not an opt-in service. After the fact there have been some indications that you can opt-out by calling Nixle. Right. Yet again, the Federal Do Not Call List is ignored. This time by your local-yokel out-of-control government. Maybe when they touted "local control" they were referring to their control over you and your life. 

City Diss Service

Did you get the call? You know, the warning about a freeze this Friday? The one that came in at 4AM Thursday? Yeah. THAT one. And has anyone from The Other Dunwoody thanked any of you ass-hats who voted this disaster into existence for your service? No? Well, we'd like to here but words fail us. Adequate pejoratives are yet to be defined.

Motha Trucka

Some pissed-off truckers seem to have taken matters into their own hands.

One Truck Over The Line

This sign has been in this condition for a couple of MONTHS and the city is clearly not interested in doing a damn thing about it. They're too busy running all their bureaus, administrations and committees, hobnobbing with well-heeled developers and establishing those relationships that yield lucrative no-show positions for friends and family.

Ten years into this failed experiment and all we have gotten is overpaid, negligent, nay, incompetent,  staff and yet another bunch of elected yahoos who need constant watching.

Nailed It!

To a pole:

Signs nailed to phone poles in the same week folks down at Taj Mahal nearly dislocated joints patting themselves on the back over what a great job they think they do. They cannot keep their own signs up and the illegal ones out. Only in government is that just cause for a raise. 

Do You STILL Believe?

Before the fateful referendum, Fran (of Fran and Dan fame) had a conversation with a member of The Other Dunwoody who felt things were moving a bit too fast. Fran ended that conversation by saying "don't you just believe we'll be better off as a City?"

And now here we are. Sure, we got a new parkway. But we also got a rapid slide into a lower level of service, particularly with regards to code enforcement and police presence. It is worth noting that a call to 911 will come up empty on the code enforcement front because that isn't what cops are for. They're shuckin' and jivin' in a lip sync contest.

So Fran, what have you wrought?

The Penzoil Sign (at the right) is STILL Illegal

Moving the sign onto the grass may have opened up the sidewalk but it remains out of compliance with city ordinances. After all, THIS is what we were promised.

Last Work By Norman Rockwell

So, yeah, moving the offending sign allows these folk their promised right of passage. But we are obviously still not paying folks at the City Taj Mahal enough to get the job done. JiffyLube may well have pastured the Penzoil sign but they also offer us this.

That's right. TWO illegal signs. You just have to wonder who is getting a lube job. Oh, and does Fran STILL believe?

Found Art Foundry

Dunwoody has long been known for its Arts Festival where folks can wander about and get information on kitchen remodeling, window replacement and home equity loans to pay for it all. Now a group of residents have caught the art bug and have formed a non-profit to encourage the collection, curation and presentation of "Found Art" in public spaces. The head and co-founder of Dunwoody's Found Art Foundry, Steve Butterworth could hardly contain his excitement saying "we're bringing out art previously rejected as unwanted imbuing the community with a uniform sensitivity for these previously unwanted artists and their art." His partner and co-founder, Ruddy Kalman added "all too often we filter out the extraordinary beauty of our environment and what we hope is for the community to open themselves to new art that offers a more universal guidance, helping us navigate the complexities of modern life."

So what is the Found Art Foundry? Well it is an increasingly cohesive amalgam of local activists and artists who have joined together to use readily available materials "found" in the public domain to create art for public display. As Ruddy describes it "we're taking public eyesores, creating compelling art and returning this to public spaces."

Sounds like a win-win-win. Here is how it works. Artists, along with a growing group of volunteer helpers, routinely scour the city collecting illegally displayed signs. These signs are then used to compose an artistic collage--writ large--again for all to see. You may already have noticed the positive community impact with the removal of illegal signage of all shapes, types and forms: from not-yet-open businesses to flamboyant (and flagrant) booster groups but what you cannot yet see is the work going on to transform these eyesores into soaring works of art.

We can hardly wait.