City of Dunwoody Financial Reports CAFRs

The Budget for the City of Dunwoody is just a projection of revenue and expanses, but the CAFR includes the audited of all financial records. For example, the transfer of property from DeKalb to the City of Dunwoody shows up in revenue in the CAFR. 

Total Revenue

2009   $17,174,010,  2009 CAFR page 34

2010   $36,778,355,   2011 CAFR page 10

2011    $27,388,979,   2011 CAFR page 10

Remembering the $22 million budget we heard about in 2011, we see an extra $5 million was actually received.  Some of this is due to payments due and the gradual development of fee type revenue generation like licenses, fines and death by 1000 permits.  We also heard that PCID contributes almost half our city revenue.

The CAFR reports federal and state grants as revenue after it is received.  In 2010 and 2011, the City of Dunwoody received $620,443 in federal and state grants.  There is more grant money in the pipeline.  For example, the $1 million grant for the $2.3 million redo of Dunwoody Village Parkway will be paid after the work is done.  Many of these grants have strings attached that require the City to do things most voters disagree with, or believe are stupid and low priority.  The on-street bike lanes, concrete bike trails and public transit accommodation are useless to subdivision dwellers who drive everywhere in their cars.

Agenda 21 implementation slipped in as the City formed.  All the resources available to new cities were provided by Agenda 21 funded and approved agencies and consulting firms.

The extra $1 trillion in federal spending is Obama’s printed and borrowed additional stimulus money and in many cases had to be used to extract matching funds of real money from taxpayers.  For the Dunwoody Village Parkway, the federal DOT bribe was $1 million grant to our $1.3 million match.  For the Brook Run “trail”, the feds offered a $100 thousand grant to our $320 thousand match.

When the City of Dunwoody was formed in 2009, the City Council chose the path of “maximum free federal money” in exchange for taking grief from its armed citizens for spending money on stupid things like “livability” and “complete streets” requiring bike lanes, bike trails and promotion of public transit.  The early grants were for plans, designs and consultants to ensure that these plans and designs were Agenda 21 compliant.  If you look at Dunwoody’s Master Plans and then look at all other cities Master Plans, they are the same.  This “cookie cutter” approach was developed by ICLEI, the local UN Agenda 21 implementer.

Every time the City Council votes to move forward on these plans, they reignite the outrage in this unruly mob.  All City Council members agree with the voters’ view of real priorities, i.e. turn lanes on main arteries and intersection improvements to relieve car traffic congestion.  But, alas, there was no grant money offered for things that made sense and they also signed up for this kind of development  Several citizens have challenged City Council members to stop applying for these squander-grants and even give the money back….and they don’t get much of an answer.  If you break ranks, there are financial and political consequences Terry Nall called Blacklisting.

The problem with signing up to “maximum free federal money” sustainability bronze award status is its unstable foundation.  Sustainable, Smart Growth cities with “complete streets” presupposes that CO2 is a pollutant and man-made global warming is real.   Neither are  true.   We don’t have to give up our cars to save the polar bears.  It’s all nonsense made up by United Nations funded junk science pin heads. The Agenda 21 implementation we are seeing is thinly wrapped in a romantic “new urban planning” fairy tale.  The fact is, trillions of printed and borrowed federal dollars are funding this fantasy and taxpayers will suffer crippling inflation when the dollar crashes from all of this overspending.  Spending money on nonessentials breeds resentment in voters who recognize things like bike lanes as mal-investments.  There are political consequences for doing stupid things.

In the western states, Agenda 21 implementation includes the EPA and Interior Department shutting off water to rural towns and farms, impounding Wisconsin cheese to bankrupt dairy farmers and setting up tyrannical Regional Governance in California’s largest cities to confiscate private property and bankrupt the state with $ trillions in debt for public transit pipe dreams like our own “Concept 3” for MARTA expansion. 

In Georgia, the Agriculture Department is trying to close 100 free range chicken farms with unnecessary regulations.  Obama’s Rural initiative is being implemented by Georgia’s “Regional Governance”.  It supports EPAs “no dust” provision and the Department of Labor’s “no farm kids working” provisions.  I know these Georgia farmers and they are all getting their pitchforks sharpened. Rural Georgia needs to protect its water supplies from EPA seizure.

Back to Dunwoody Priorities, street widths in DeKalb and Fulton Counties were never planned to be widened beyond their 2 lane capacities.  Some home set-backs on Mt. Vernon are deep enough to have allowed this, but not all homes have this extra depth to their front yards.  Newer developments have been built even closer to the roads.   Current plans don’t include main road widening for cars, indicating that, for now, Dunwoody is declaring itself to be “not a major cut through city”, but it is a “ minor cut through city” and will continue to be if the Perimeter area PCID expands. 

When Alpharetta was built, they did a better job of widening their main roads.  John’s Creek’s McGinnis Ferry Road was finally widened.  Roswell and Sandy Springs have some tight roads and Cherokee County has time to purchase road easement for future expansion.

I think most Dunwoody residents believe Mt. Vernon Road and Chamblee Dunwoody Road need to be expanded with turn lanes & intersection improvements, but there are no grant funds for real needs.

My time with the Transportation Leadership Coalition (Traffic Truth.net) taught me that taxpayer funded buses are absolutely unnecessary. Bus service is cheaper and more reliable if it’s run by a private company.  That should mean that MARTA could drop its bus service and we could close GRTA and private bus service companies would take over. 

 I also learned that DOT grants included retail development along rail and trolley lines, despite the fact that retail is less than 80% occupied.  The T-SPLOST offered almost $1 billion in federal grants in exchange for our $8.6 billion in real money.  Government has become accustomed to “slush funds”.  These loopholes need to be closed.  The mal-investment created by governments and crony developers needs to be curtailed.

And finally I learned that all the cities who invested $ billions on public transit have not increased ridership much beyond 5 % over the past 10 years and their roads are still congested.  We are a low density metro area and will fight for the freedom to remain so.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader