Dunwoody City Council Elections

On November 3^rd, Dunwoody voters will elect a Mayor and 3 “At Large” Reps.  All Dunwoody voters will vote to fill these 4 spots.  Incumbents are avoiding criticism by not bringing up their existing problems and challengers are proposing new projects and priorities.  Most voters will make their choices based on whether or not they liked what the City Council did.  Many voters will support incumbents because they liked a sidewalk or playground addition. Many voters will cast their votes based on friendship or perception, not on results.  Challengers are disadvantaged because they are not widely known and time is short.  Our choices are limited and real issues have not been openly addressed.  

 

I tend to judge the 7 person City Council as a group.  I have been critical of many decisions this group has made since 2009 when the first Council was elected. 

 

Critical Issues

The most expensive infrastructure the city must maintain includes roads and storm sewers.  We also need to widen our intersections to relieve traffic volume and time our traffic lights.   

 

Roads

Asphalt road maintenance must be done on a 25 year cycle and cracks must be sealed as they occur, otherwise, moisture will destroy the road bed.  The longer we take to get our roads restored, the more expensive it will be.  Road bed replacements are easy to see.  They are the large rectangular patches on our roads.

Dunwoody is 25 years behind schedule in restoring the roads.  DeKalb got behind on road maintenance, but the city should have budgeted at least $4 million a year since 2009 for road maintenance.  Instead, the city only budgeted $2 million a year. 

To date, road restoration has been limited to 6 lane-miles per year and the cost has been $2 million a year. Dunwoody has 300 lane-miles of roads to maintain. At the current rate, it will take 50 years to restore our roads (300/6=50 years).  Roads should be restored every 25 years.  The cracks that appear in asphalt need to be sealed or moisture will deteriorate the road bed. After 25 years If the roads are not resurfaced, the road beds deteriorate and also need to be replaced where they fail.  After 50 years they need to be completely replaced.  The cost to mill and resurface and apply asphalt should be $75,000 per lane-mile unless the road bed is damaged. That can double to triple the cost of road restoration depending on how much of the road bed needs to be replaced.  

 

Storm Sewers

The storm sewer system in Dunwoody is not an enclosed system.  These pipes empty into lakes owned by subdivisions and creek beds throughout the city.  Silt from city pipes needs to be removed from these lakes and subdivisions pay the cost.  Creeks are subject to 75 foot stream buffers that will destroy your back yard.

 

To their credit, the Council did find storm sewer pipes that should last 100 years.  The storm sewer pipes that are failing had a 50 year life-span.  These pipes cross streets, so they correctly coordinate replacement to replace the pipes before we restore the roads. 

 

Intersections

The cost of redoing intersections has quadrupled due to excessive design and study costs.

 

Other Issues

 

Police

The Police budget has increased to over $8 million a year and is now over 30% of the city budget. Overtime costs could have paid for 2 additional Officers. This group looks top heavy with 2 Majors and 4 Lieutenants and 8 Sergeants. How much time does the Chief spend out of town? The Council needs to give this more oversight to bring it under control.

 

Zoning & Land Use

Our ordinances were not inherited from DeKalb.  They were cookie cutter ordinances that are identical to all other ordinances being implemented nation-wide.  They were predetermined to comply with ICLEI’s UN Agenda 21 implementation and distributed by the American Planning Association. The ordinances were based on the global warming hoax as a pretext to destroying US Home Rule. Our Master Plans were determined using the Delphi Technique that ensures that public input is restricted to pre-determined outcomes. We were asked: “Do you like picture A or B?  Nobody asked:” Do you want to continue with Williamsburg architecture?

 

Staff Supremacy

So far, the city staff has run the city.  Most of them work for consulting firms and are rented by the city. The Council routinely implements staff recommendations over public objections. It may make life easier on Council members, but it causes problems like the Manget Way “care home” and the split lot problem in Dunwoody Club Forest.

 

Project Management

The installation of cameras in Brook Run Park indicated poor selection of vendors, project management and poor judgment with the contract.

 

Gadgets & Studies

Too much is spent on gadgets, studies and unnecessary design work.

 

Density & Gridlock

PCID expansion is unhampered by the Council.  It is the city’s responsibility to provide the roads to accommodate development, but that should be done before the additions actually cause the gridlock.

 

MARTA

We are not obligated to throw money at increasing MARTA ridership, but we are building bike paths and multi-purpose lanes to the train station.

 

Wieland Project

The Georgetown subdivision development sponsored by the city is slow to develop and the cost to the city as a “redevelopment project” is growing. Why are lot sales stalled?

 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader