Urban

Initially it seemed ludicrous when Dunwoody set up a team focused on "urban renewal" both because it relabeled a suburban bettendorf and because we surely had not been urban long enough to "renew" anything. Clearly it was a money-grab going after federal funding.

That said, perhaps that IS the definition of urban: how addicted to federal dollars is the local government?

Andre Dickens, mayor of Atlanta, urban by any definition, fears the federal funding D-T's. He's worried about water infrastructure, saying "because the size of the problem is in the billions, and we can't expect local governments to repair billion-dollar infrastructure on our own financially." He should be worried as this comes across as entitlement. Here in Dunwoody, the city made a commitment to install turf on a school's field, and now is claiming unexpected poverty. The mayor quoted in the blue bag rag says, "The fact that the bond failed, we’re now in a really big period of uncertainty because we don’t have any idea if there will be federal funding for infrastructure." Wow. Grass is infrastructure. Perhaps that is what you have to call it to get your hands on OPM. 

So here's a thought exercise: what would happen if a particular local government, say Dunwoody, were instantly weened from the federal money teat? What "right-sizing" would occur? How? Would entire activities be shuttered? Everyone takes a haircut? The more dramatic the change, the more urban the government. On the upside, perhaps it would remove the outside influence of "free" money, putting an end to the political prostitution we suffer today.

Ever Heard Of Google?

Or Yelp? Zomato? Open Table? 

Like, you know, when you're looking for a place to eat or shop? For the fun of it, just Giggle "Dentist near me" or "Best hamburger." It worked in the later years of the 20th century and it works even better now. 

And yet...

We have profiteers with their bureaucratic minions at city hall who are hell bent on promulgating visual pollution thru rampant, devil-may-care signage throughout the city. Why? Because they can. And just why can they? Well, first they have greater pull at city hall than anyone actually living in this city. Then there is the brutal fact that they do not have to justify anything. All they have to do is say "this works, we want it, so get those ordinances in compliance and do it NOW!" Do illegally located sandwich board signs really work? Who knows. The profiteers have no data, no idea. Who cares. They don't care and they don't need to even consider joining us in the 21st century. As long as the profiteers want it, the city bureaucrats will take a knee. No skin off their collective nose since most don't live here and may not even drive by the garish eyesore they've created. 

And the dwarfs? Well...who knows what they're doing and who they're doing it for.

Good Witch? Bad Witch?

GLINDA

And so, what the Munchkins want to know is, are you a good witch or a bad witch?

DOROTHY

But I've already told you, I'm not a witch at all. Witches are old and ugly. (High pitched giggles are heard) What was that?

GLINDA

The Munchkins. They're laughing because I am a witch. I'm Glinda, the Witch of the North. 

DOROTHY

You are! I beg your pardon! But I've never heard of a beautiful witch before.

GLINDA

Only bad witches are ugly. 

This is probably one of the most subtle insults on the silver screen outside of just about any Rosalind Russel dialogue. Bad witches ugly. Good witches beautiful. Which witch are you? The homely one? Perhaps somewhat handsome? Somewhere on the spectrum. Not that spectrum. The spectrum that starts at ugly ending at heart stopping gorgeous. 

Where's our Dotty? Who, or rather what is our Dotty? Our Dotty? That would be local control. So, is our local control a good witch or a bad witch? Which witch is it? Or is it a witch at all? Or, like witches in the storybooks is local control just a convenient myth?

Since local control is THE foundation of this city this topic warrants a bit of pondering.

It has become painfully clear that our elected officials, the seven dwarfs, are not in control of much of anything that goes on at city hall. They have some of the best seats at the theater but they're not the actors on the stage, not the director, not the writer and certainly not the producer. They ARE the groupiest of groupies. They get the best seats. Befitting their egos but not conferring any real control over our locality. Try this thought exercise: identify the dwarf that will raise a hand and fess up to instigating, driving and directing all the local zoning changes to support developers' goals for Dunwoody Village. What's that you hear? Munchkin laughter.

So who is running the show? And where are THEY from? And do they live with the consequences of what they do to OUR community? Are they good witches? Or, are they bad witches?

Well, the general label applied to our masters at city hall is "bureaucrat." Witch might seem more appropriate, but we're stuck with bureaucrat. And they're not from around here. They're from the North (community development) and the South (economic development) and seemingly every where but here. You do a little bit of very simple internet searching and you'll begin to wonder if any bureaucrat at city hall from the very top down currently living OFF this city actually lives IN this city. To be honest it appears that we Munchkins are being ruled by witches from somewhere else working on behalf of someone else. This should be shocking. It is insulting. It is ugly. At least we don't have to ask if these are good witches or bad witches. And if local control is truly foundational we know why this leaning tower is about to topple. On us. Not them.

Full Disclosure

That's what we need. And that need is critically important at this time as we watch, almost helplessly, as Dunwoody city bureaucrats work diligently to attack us in our very neighborhoods as they seek to destroy, to rape and pillage Dunwoody Village. This is being spearheaded by none other than Richard McLeod, the bureaucrat in charge of "community development" who appears to live in Fulton County (by way of property records) and seems offended when he has to drive through the Village to get to his little gold mine.

“I drove there when I got the job here, which was 40 years later, and I said, ‘Wow, the village looks exactly the same."

Yes. That is a WOW! So the folks who actually live here, work here and shop here and have liked it here, some for well over 40 years, have caused a great offense by maintaining a lifestyle they enjoy. Wow indeed. We seem to have committed the heinous sin of offending an arrogant outsider with our very presence, a situation he intends to change using our own tax dollars. Just when we were thinking that the worst thing about drive-through traffic was speeders endangering our children. 

But it gets worse...and back to the point.

"I started talking about it, and more and more people said how they wished something could be done with the village.”

Really? Prove it. Or were these just your developer friends from outside Dunwoody?

And prove it you should. Let's see every communication between this and every other city bureaucrat, both inside and outside that bureaucracy, regarding Dunwoody Village. All emails. All phone Call Detail Records. All meeting itineraries, minutes, lists of attendees and recordings. We know you have them because you just spent quite a bit of our hard-earned tax dollars buying vast SSD storage to back this up. Or are you somehow not quite up to speed on record keeping? Wouldn't that be convenient? And let's see the full results from that easily manipulated internet survey. Show us how the respondents were authenticated and how each voice was given equal weight. Let's see some accountability as we've already seen how easily you dismissed and ignored the issues raised by nearby residential citizens. Many of whom have lived here for decades, pre-city and very much pre-you.

And why wouldn't the city be open? Be transparent? Show some honesty? Some integrity? What have they got to hide? Who are they protecting? It sure as hell is NOT the people who live here.