Expect the usual sales pitch for seeking
refuge from the “evil” county government.
You will be told that you as citizens will be able to control your own
city government. This isn’t really
true. Your city government will be
controlled by the chamber of commerce, a city manager and UN Agenda 21
implementation consultants. You might
also be told that they would fix the roads.
This isn’t really true either.
Your roads actually have a better chance of improving less expensively under
the county. You will also be told that
you can control your own zoning, but the UN now controls your zoning. You will experience unnecessary rules, fees,
permits and fines you’ve never seen enforced before, because the city will hire
a Manager, who will tell the City Council to charge these to make more money
for the City.
This is the worst of times and the best of
times. The best comes from the
availability of federal grants laundered through unelected boards like MARTA
and ARC. These alone, of course, have
caused prices for everything a city buys to double. This is not unlike the kind
of inflation in prices you see when a government agency locates a major
facility in or near a small rural town.
Rents suddenly double, home prices rise and grocery price rises
follow. In the end, some original residents
sell out and move to cheaper digs. This
is simple supply/demand economics.
In city business, the same supply/demand
dynamics is in play, especially when the grants all call for bike lanes, green
space, streetscapes, multi-use trails, parks, flowers, bushes and trees and
every city and county can apply. Although bids are taken to select vendors for
these luxuries, municipalities now use “formulas” to select vendors rather than
the lowest bid. This has fostered groups
of cronies who are well connected to the unelected granting bodies. The bad news is that these folks usually
screw up the project and have to go back and fix it. The really bad news is that the new city will
be “advised” to budget millions of dollars on “economic development” for
corporate welfare and UN Agenda 21 implementation. The cookie-cutter master plans and ordinances
will erode property rights and impose unnecessary expenses, fees, permits and
fines.
In DeKalb and Fulton, failure to maintain
roads, bridges, storm sewers, regular sewers, water lines and water treatment
facilities have them playing catch-up.
Roads are in bad shape and storm sewers aren’t far behind. This is very expensive critical
infrastructure that should require most of our tax dollars, but cities and
counties seem content to spend most of their money on luxuries instead of
necessities. The luxuries include
expensive cookie cutter master plans and land use and zoning ordinances. Unnecessary design costs accompany every road
intersection re-do. Road milling and resurfacing costs are double because of
road-bed rot.
The worst news is that the federal government
is bankrupt and has been for some time. Consequently, the Federal Reserve has
been busy “printing” a 450% increase in the money supply, so more inflation is
ahead. With just what they’ve printed so far, it will take 10% annual inflation
for 45 years to pay off this 450%. You
will all pay dearly for you new bike lanes and million dollar intersection
re-dos.
Many cities and counties have declared
bankruptcy over the past several years.
Most notable is Detroit, the victim of the total off-shoring of the U.S.
auto industry. Closer to home, Jefferson
County Alabama was ordered by the EPA to build a new water treatment plant that
expanded into a total re-do. They got
caught on the wrong end of a Bond flip and couldn’t make the payments. This
county outlawed septic tanks and wells to force citizens on to county water and
property values collapsed. In
California, no less than a dozen cities have gone bankrupt by backing large
commercial redevelopment projects and called to citizens to buy guns as they
laid off their police forces.
Cobb County’s Braves grab and future bond
cost puts Cobb on the radar for future financial difficulties. Likewise, Hall
County property taxes jumped an average of 39% and lake front property lot
assessments jumped 100% to 1000%. This could backfire as owners sell and buyers
disappear. Hall property owners are
going for an annual cap, like 3 or 4% on future property tax increases in
Georgia.
Counties are best equipped to deal with
services that require economies of scale.
These are typically roads, bridges, storm sewers, regular sewers, water
lines and water treatment facilities. Fire EMS, waste disposal and Police. It appears that city public schools would
make sense in Atlanta Metro.
New cities always want to set up their own
Police, Parks and Road maintenance programs, but there is little noticeable
difference from when the counties performed these functions. New cities near CIDs will spend too much on
“economic development” to re-do commercial areas. The CID folks will likely be involved in
cityhood campaigns, because they want access to tax dollars and corporate
welfare tax holidays for commercial development and redevelopment.
New cities bring excessive and intrusive
compliance with codes, permits, fees and fines. Voters don’t really benefit
from this extra layer of government, but the Chamber of Commerce, the CIDs and
ARC will push to get these unincorporated areas to set up their own
cities. They will then be able to set up
other unelected development and redevelopment boards to issue bonds without
approval of the voters. Georgia law
allows them to do this. Look at the Cobb
Braves Bond court decision.
Dunwoody would have done better to establish
a road and storm sewer special district to focus on critical infrastructure
rather than squandering millions on consultants, studies and corporate welfare.
With “free money” for now, cities are
scrambling for federal grants aimed at protecting us from global warming, a
hoax, to implement UN Agenda 21, a treasonous scam.
Our economy is being propped up with printed
dollars from a bankrupt federal government.
What do you think we should do ?
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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