Bring Back The Magic*

Nothing can tear you apart

If you keep living straight from the heart

Though you know that you're gonna hurt some

The magic will come

If you keep living straight from the heart

You will know when to stop and to start

Once you see that no one really wins

Then the magic begins

Bring back the magic

Don't make life so tragic

Bring back the magic

Don't make life so tragic

This magic doesn't work. Not even in Margeritaville, and certainly not at Dunwoody City Hall. It seems that one former councilman did not get the memo. Neither did the Blue Bag Rag as they have been spending ink letting him vent his disappointment and frustration. 

This is quite baffling. This councilman was a vocal supporter of forming a city, certainly had access to the proposed city charter (everyone did), and also must have known that the neighbors we could elect to council or to be mayor would be powerless. It is there in black and white. Given this, how in the world can "local control" exist? Is he, or anyone else for that matter, at all surprised at this bloated, self-serving bureaucracy, with its insatiable greed for outside money? If he wants the city to "do the right thing" he surely understands that for them the "right thing" comes with lots of money. All he needs to do is scrounge up a grant. 

But this is getting a bit tiresome, like watching and listening to Ernest Angley: entertaining at first; amusing at its best; but mostly unbelievable as all faith healings are. There is no pentecostal politician, certainly not a former politician, who is going to lay hands on these bureaucrats, yell "Heal!" and suddenly they become righteous, faithful or even honest servants of the citizens of Dunwoody. 

He made a deal with the devil and took the road paved with mere intentions. Welcome to hell.

* Apologies to ParrotHeads everywhere.

Always Late To The Party

Do you ever feel like Dunwoody is run by folks who can never catch a trend in time? Like they don't do what the cool kids are doing until they've built up enough envy and jealousy, and by then the cool kids have moved on? It's not just interstate lanes in your front yard or Dunwoody Dildos at the outskirts of town, it now is apartments.

That's right, apartments. Seems the boom is over, which is a kind way of saying "developers can no longer get filthy rich building apartments." That's not to say these gulag-like atrocities are not still being built, but if developers cannot get some kind of lucrative sweetheart deal, well, then, they just cannot engorge their purses. Rental demand is being depressed because the fact is these apartments really are not "affordable" unless it involves subsidies, which are getting scarce, so developers profit the most building luxury apartments. Does anyone think that the developer's and Dunwoody bureaucrats' damp dreams about that high rise on Ashford Dunwoody was going to have apartments that meet the average person's idea of affordable?

So, you have to wonder... What was the motivation for all those bureaucrats to unanimously recommend this high rise apartment complex? Do we need to follow the money, or can we just ask? Are they just trying to play 'keep up with the Joneses?" And then they get a public spanking by a unanimous vote from council rejecting their plan. After all, they only had to convince four folks to go along with the plan. Maybe they should have had an ice cream social, as the rumor mill suggests a vote might be had for a pint of Ben & Jerry's. 

At this point, who, outside of these bureaucrats themselves, can justify what is going on at city hall? As some have pointed out, we have elections coming up and it might be a good time to ask some questions. 

Conservative, Liberally So

The left have left the building. Intellectually at least. The Grey Lady, a reliable leftist mouthpiece, went full lunacy attempting to disparage Fork In The Road, at one point saying it was a flop because only 3% took the fork whilst the average attrition rate is 5%. Sounds like a flop doesn't it? Sentences later she weepingly declares this Fork will cause untold hardship all across America as Federal services collapse. 

Can anyone outside of the echo chamber swallow this drivel?

Then there are the boo-birds swarming around Musk and DOGE. Their criticism is priceless: "he's an unelected government employee," unaware that his mission is to eliminate all those unelected  federal employees who serve their bureaucracies but not the electorate.They work for the federal government, not for America.

On top of all this, the left, who we all know are the best educated amongst us (because they told us so), cannot seem to put together a coherent thought, let alone a logical argument. They find themselves in quite a conundrum, blindly defending the status quo of opaque bureaucracies teeming with apparatchiks. Isn't that the definition of "conservative?"

And exactly what is it they want to defend, to preserve?

A very good example is the OPM-Office of Personnel Management. Administration employees went to OPM with what one might think is a question OPM could easily answer: how many federal employees are in probationary status and where do they work? The answer? "We don't know, we'll ask around and get back to you." THAT is a prime example of the efficacy of a federal bureaucracy. The administration found the answer, and some probationers actually work at OPM, or at least did until very recently. Apparently they weren't savvy enough to join the 3%.

Who Died?

This is an interesting nugget from the 2024 budget used as groundwork to justify never ending spending and associated taxation:

Today’s City needs police services but at a staffing level appropriate to the community, instead of the levels suggest by the incorporation study, along with compensation appropriate to retain officers. Repaving is being handled by SPLOST, but the transportation needs in a dense area such as Dunwoody are a never-ending battle. The current SPLOST has limits which have to be handled by tax dollars. The parks system, and now trails, are amenities that today’s residents expect. No longer is the desire modeled for this to be minimal efforts. Over half of the people living in the City today did not know the City before incorporation. They moved here from places with parks and trails and expect the same – along with programming befitting those features.

Now let's try to keep true to one thing: we (used to) have a democratic form of government. The unelected bureaucrats at city hall really, really hate that and will do anything to undermine democratic rule by the people. Especially if that means they might have tighten a few belts. But here's something all fans of democracy should rally behind: the referendum forming Dunwoody was ratified by the electorate to be the city that was put before them and changing that should come from a similar vote, not by some army of self-serving unelected bureaucrats.  After all, who died and made them god?

You might argue that the recent Trail Referendum (be honest, a vast majority of that money was going to PATH, which is why they weren't transparent) is just such an update to the original referendum. If you make that argument, or if you were involved in both votes, you may begin to wonder just where this train went off the rails. You see, the cumulative inflation since this city was founded to today is 43% yet the 2024 budget is over double the inflation adjusted budget we voted for at incorporation. Again, who died?

Maybe it is time to right-size this city. We can start by eliminating the assistant city manager position and hire a city manager that will be committed to and deliver on what the electorate, and the city charter they approved, demand. 

No Place To Hide

As predicted council voted to increase the millage rate and now there is no political cover. In the past council and mayors excused their consistent, non-stop tax increases by saying "we did not increase the tax...rate." Ahem. Now they have blown that cover and the mayor, as required by city bureaucrats, is out front trying to sugarcoat their stupidity. Isn't going well. Mostly because of dearth of data and the enormous distance between truth and what is said. 

The first thing greased out is the property value freeze. OK. Want to back that up with some data? You DO have an overpaid army of bureaucrats at city hall, maybe one could pull together a quick analysis of residential property (developers' property pays no taxes) showing percentage of residential digest vs years of ownership. Because, as you know homes mark-to-market whenever they sell so the excuse of frozen assessments should be easily backed by data, right? Unless the data actually tell a completely different story. What do these data say, mayor? Are you suggesting there have been no houses sold in Dunwoody in the last 11-12 years? Because that's what it sounds like.

Next excuse? Police. No kidding, really? The Dunwoody PD. This is where it goes from "you can't handle the data" to "you're too stupid to not believe this." Scary thing is, she may be right. But by stepping far outside the realm of credibility with "public safety is City Council’s primary responsibility" nothing that follows can be believed. If this had one iota of truth to it the mayor and council would look to the south, to Atlanta, to see how they are handling force shortages: community policing and quality of life enforcement. Want to give that a try, mayor? Want to address the real, morale crushing issues with PD command? Didn't think so.

Or how about you do what every business in the USA is doing right now: right-size your workforce; focus on your core charter; put a stop to the metastatic bureaucratic bloat; and stop giving tax handouts to developers. Get. Your. House. In. Order. Or is that beyond your ability? If so, step aside and let someone more capable take the reins.