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.

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. 

Local Control? Not So Much

The city's proposal to rape the east side of Tilly Mill Road to install one of their nonsensical, misplaced lanes inspired by the Eisenhower Interstate highway system. Oh, yeah and pushed on communities far and wide via the "PATH Foundation"--other people, not from around here, using other people's money coming from god-knows-where and possibly more than just a little of ours.

How local is that? Not very.

Unsurprisingly some really, really local villagers, who are more than a little upset about outsiders paving a slice of their paradise, have come up with a plan that is acceptable to those who actually live there, is far less costly, improves traffic safety and lo and behold, is the epitome of "local control." 

Perhaps a bit too local, eh? Seems like folks at the city are very cool to the idea and are punting to the PATH Foundation for a rinse and repeat. One council-folk even stated that they would devise a plan that "the best interests of the city and its citizens." Unpack that. It is either casual political blather or a surprising dose of honesty. Note that first in line is "best interests of the city" which is the most important thing in this city and we can expect that what the city wants the city will get. So don't expect the plan originating from hyper-local-control to ever be put into place.

What IS A Budget Anyway?

Council passed a budget touted as "holding the line" on spending and services and yet this budget includes salary increases. Hmmm...now just what line were they holding? It also has burgeoned to completely consume the revenue bump from the millage rate increase and even then requires draining $2M from reserves. Companies across America are managing financial hardship with pay freezes, layoffs and restructuring. But this is government run by bureaucrats who will do anything to up the headcount and increase pay. What line really concerns them?

King John rose to the challenge, at least verbally referring to what he saw as "an ugly baby" and suggesting "the toddler picture doesn’t look like it’s going to be much better." He also noted that it is a structural deficit that has him concerned. From this we can conclude that the structural deficiencies are intentional and the only option that we (or council) will ever be presented with to alleviate them will be larger tax increases. KJ also questioned the bureaucratic priorities. It is about time someone did. 

“I’m just concerned that we are funding things that the public doesn’t want and not funding things that they do want. I’m particularly concerned that we have sidewalk projects in this budget when we have heard from citizens that they want to slow down on them.”

There are likely many more opportunities to inject some sanity into the lunacy of city hall. But that's not going to happen. A high ranking bureaucrat told council that the budget can, and will, be modified throughout the year. “This is something that will be modified 20 or more times throughout the course of the year.” Again, is there really a line being held? Do they write this budget on toilet paper? They may as well. At least then it would be good for something.

Tough Going

The spinmeisters at city hall are aflutter. That said, most of what they say is just because they fell like they have to say something. They've proposed a budget with a baked-in deficit despite an over 10% increase in the millage rate suggesting that yet-another millage increase is in their plans. 

Well, that one is obvious as they decided that a mid-term election year with guaranteed high turnout is not the best time to present the voters with a referendum that perforce includes a millage rate bump. At least if you want to get your hands on that money. And they do. So they'll sneak that one in during vacay season in '23. 

Since there seems no oversight or other control at city hall to rein in the bureaucrats and their addiction to budget bloat we can expect millage rate increases on an ongoing basis. Not surprising since we've had nothing but tax increases since this city was founded.

Mystery Solved

You know all those dump trucks barreling through the Village and blasting past Austin? No? Really? What, are you on city council?

Turns out this isn't just the Dunwoody PD and City Manager's refusal to enforce our laws, it is quite a bit worse. These trucks were hauling away asphalt from road milling prior to repaving. That's right. City Hall not only refuses to enforce traffic laws they are actually paying to have them violated. 

Only in Dunwoody.

What Do You Envision...

...when you hear the word "path?"

Is it something like this?

Looks a LOT like a path, right?

Do YOU call THIS a "path?"

You have to wonder how the word "path" can be associated with the two vastly different things. In today's world the second is called a "path" as a way of "managing perceptions." In the '50's and '60's it was called marketing. In the first third of the 20th century it was propaganda. In the late 19th century it was called by what it actually is: a lie. 

You've got to wonder why the bureaucrats running this city are so hell-bent on ramming this down the community's throat, especially in the face of vocal opposition. Maybe it is grant-grubbing or friends&family, or both. In any event they will claim that these highways-by-the-road are highly sought after by members of the community. Only one problem: they cannot back that "assertion" up with actual factual data. 

These bureaucrats are using the not-so-local-control government paradigm of "trust us, we're the government."

Do you trust them?

Adult Supervision

It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry. The city has done it again. Implicitly acknowledging that city hall is lacking in core competencies council has unanimously voted to spend $117,500 on consultants to tell the city manager what to do about dysfunctional police command. Seems the city's army of bureaucrats can't get their heads around this so hiring someone with the sense god gave a pigeon to "sit" on a statue makes a silly, Dunwoody kinda sense. 

But the real kick in the crotch is where they got the money. Turns out unassigned monies from the general fund. WTF! Is this a bucket of mad money? And if they have money lying around why, why, did they have up the millage rate on top of the never ending tax increases? WTF are we really paying for? Bureaucrats who self-assess their abilities at levels that require expensive outside help? And they told us this city was going to be fiscally prudent and well managed. What. A. Whopper.

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.

Floor Wax? Dessert Topping? Just Another Scam?

 

They're calling it a nursing "facility," because Pill Hill is just toooo far away. Well, that's ONE thing they're calling it. But they're downplaying the fact that it really is just a sleight of hand to inject even more high density housing into a city founded on the promise that such development projects would never see the light of day. 

Doesn't really matter what they call it. It will be built on a foundation of broken promises.

Misleading Headlines

A (fairly) recent dropping of the Blue Bag Rag sported an above-the-fold main headline of "Police get aid in behavioral health." Sounds great, right? Anyone who has been paying the least bit of attention knows that Police Command is a dumpster fire that seems fueled by an eternal flame. Everyone knows they need some professional help when it comes to behavioral (and mental) health. 

But this is not what is happening.

Rather than spend some money to put a lid on this raging fire and perhaps even slow the exponential rate of increase in legal and compensatory payouts, this money is to be spent because folks at city hall have determined real people in the Smart City need these services. Or, perhaps, this is just another budget and headcount expansion. These is another factor that seems rampant within the bureaucratic mindset: there is no such thing as community policing and this adds to the growing list of reasons that a cop will not respond.

Is that a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?

Being Kind

No. No. Not TOD. The author of a recent letter to the Blue Bag Rag regarding a tax hike. How was this author being kind? Because the author was actually referring to city bureaucrats' plan to increase the millage rate, because the fact is that the City of Dunwoody has increased taxes each and every year of its existence. Once and only once did anyone on city council dare to even suggest adjusting millage rates down to ensure a revenue neutral (no increase) tax level. That went over like a lead balloon and has never been mentioned since. 

But we need more residents, more voters like that letter writer who have had it with a bunch of unelected bureaucrats running amok.

Doubling Up

City bureaucrats are doubling up on financial pain inflicted on residents. They're going to take the city into debt AND increase the millage rate. Now the debt, bonds, is allegedly for "unfunded capital projects" but no one knows where these projects came from or why they are on any lists and are clearly out of budget. All we know is these did not come from the community. The millage rate increase is just another insult added to the injury of year-after-year tax increases. Each and every year. 

At this time these are being presented as "proposals" but make no mistake for these bureaucrats it is a done deal.

Butcher Eminent Evil

Looks like the unelected bureaucrats down at city hall have gone a bridge too far in trying to steal property from First Baptist Atlanta.  The Truth Butcher claimed the hasty retreat came “after First Baptist Church Atlanta shared new information about the history and plans for this property that had not been communicated to the city previously.”

We're gonna call BULLSHIT on that. It is their job to know what is going on in this community, what residents find important and the historical importance of all elements of Dunwoody, not just the things important to their developer overlords. God knows they have a large enough "chair force" to have someone stay on top of this and it is certainly the mayor and council's job to make sure this happens. That is a job that is not getting done. Perhaps even worse is what spewed out of the mayor's mouth: “The point of posting the notice [about eminent domain] on the property was to foster communications. Clearly this process worked because we heard from a lot of people.” WTF? Is she clueless or does she just think everyone in the "Smart City" is stupid? They were required by law to post the notice (or they wouldn't have) and what brought out the protests was a call from the altar. Period. Hard stop. Worst of all is the firmly held belief at city hall that if you do not, proactively, inform them of your history, the history of your property and your plans for same, then they'll just come steal it if it suits their mood. Is it city hall or a den of thieves?

Let's hope that our "city leaders" recognize this is not a one-off little fuquey uppey and that the rot at city hall is extensive and requires a hell of a lot more than virtue-signalling on social media.

Rush Job? Snow Job?

It could be both. It seems the city's bureaucrats have managed to get the attention of some in the public. It is negative attention, but when you're narcissists even negative attention is better than none.

The bureaucrat's goal is the same as always: get their greedy hands on more money. In this case by way of bonds. That we will pay off, because developments don't pay taxes. So their snow job starts with a long list of projects that they (rather arrogantly) say are merely proposed and may not be the final projects. Does anyone really think this is anything other than bait-and-switch? And yet it appears they have, out of thin air, generated a laundry list of "unfunded capital projects." WTF? These un-elected bureaucrats have created their own "need for bonds" by making up projects? And where did the ideas for these originate? Maybe with well-connected Friends and Family.

Is anyone out there finally realizing that this city is operating from the DCSD playbook and doing about as well?

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.

Panning For Gold

Mayor, council and city bureaucrats bugged out to gold country to ponder how to part you with more of your gold without you having any say in the matter.  Now there was a lot of suspicious talk going on, like the myth about citizens having any demands or expectations that city bureaucrats give a rip about, but the common thread was how to extract more money from us in such a way that we could not possibly prevent them from pilfering our pockets. Some talk about raising the millage rate (we've had nothing but TAX increases, but via the backdoor) but it seemed there was one significant stumbling block: the city charter. The sales (snow?) job used to sell this dumpster fire to the voters hinged on limited government, local control and fiscal prudence, none of which sit well with the bureaucrats the voters (unknowingly?) turned their lives over to. But the charter has a baked in millage rate limit and requirements for referendum to make some of their most coveted changes. But they left themselves a backdoor: no referendum is required to change the charter. They can do that with just a little help from their friends. 

The current train wreck at city hall has folks calling for top-level resignations and firings which is sending chills down the collective bureaucratic spine. So, perhaps there is some trepidation around initiating a re-write of the city charter. Maybe, just maybe, there will be a citizen revolt with the people who live here demanding that those we elect be assigned actual responsibility for city operations. Maybe then the citizens of Dunwoody will get what they thought they voted for in the first place.

Truck About

There's talk amongst the city bureaucrats (who mostly do NOT live here) about converting the intersection of Roberts and Chamblee Dunwoody into a round-a-bout. Ostensibly this is to alleviate traffic backups but since much of the cause of these backups are downstream of this intersection that is bullshit. So who knows? 

There is another problem, very important to city bureaucrats, with the simple, one lane round-a-bout. It doesn't work for trucks. Yes, given the no-truck zone status of C-D and Roberts (both school zones) this should be a non-issue but since the city all but encourages open violations the actual fact is these (illegal) trucks must be provided free access. And the city has a plan. They're going to make it a double lane round-a-bout. Not because there are so many residents needing to do a 270, but because the extra width makes it that much easier for (illegal) truck traffic to easily clear the intersection. 

Seriously, is there any bureaucrat at city hall that gives a shit about the folks who actually live here?

Concrete Issues

What is with all the concrete trucks racing through the no-truck zones on Roberts and Chamblee Dunwoody? They aren't accessing a work site within that area, they are just passing through.  Quite a few of them so where ever they are headed is a pretty large worksite. The kind of a development might be getting special zoning changes and tax handouts but most certainly one requiring permits from the city. Bureaucrats at city hall might feign ignorance but they are the folks handing out these permits to their developer friends and family so this would be disingenuous to say the least. Applying the "reasonable man" test suggests incompetence or something far worse. No matter, this is just another example of city bureaucrats serving outside interests no matter the harm to residents. 

Is this what you thought you were getting when you voted "Yes Dunwoody!"???