Lakeside Delay Advantage

The Voters in the proposed City of Lakeside have an opportunity to save a bunch of tax dollars and ensure that your priorities are included in the new city budget. The Lakeside Bill failed and you have 9 months to do your homework. You will need to save the 1) a copy of the SB 270, the failed Lakeside Bill, and 2) a copy of the Proposed City Lakeside Feasibility Study by UGA.pdf.

Read the Bill and note the type of government and its powers.  The Bill language will end up in your city charter.  Beware of the “strong city manager” model, outsourcing work to consultants, it will result in overcharging.  Ensure that you rewrite this Bill to your liking.

Read the Feasibility Study and look at the proposed budget on page 20 of the pdf (page 18 of the study).  The budget looks exactly like the Dunwoody budgets. We found the $2 million for Community Development only benefitted the consultants who suggested it.  Make sure the city accounts for how this will be spent.  I would take $1 million from Community Development and $1 million from Parks and $1 million from Police and spend this extra 3 million on roads and storm sewers. 

If you use the documents available on other city websites as your starting point and remove the abuse, you will have a better starting point and will not need to pay consultants for the same documents.  The only thing these consultants are expert in is implementing Agenda 21 at the city level and that’s where all the overreach and abuse come from. Everything consultants do will need to be undone.

If you don’t get ahead of the road rot, the roads will cost twice what they should.  If you attack all the road bed failure you can find, you will save millions of dollars.  The road bed is laid in a separate process and costs twice what milling and resurfacing cost. Parks can wait. They should be maintained but not “improved” or added to with land purchases. For Police, $6 million should be enough.

Watch out for Land Use Plans and Zoning.  Freeze it to match DeKalb rules until you do a thorough analysis for yourselves.  Resist additional fees and inspections.   Don’t allow minimum lot size to be less than the average lot size in your existing residential neighborhoods and subdivisions. 

Watch out for Stream Buffer requirements.  Although Georgia law sets them at 25 feet from an active stream, you have decades before you are required to comply.

Watch out for on street bike lanes.  You are not required to have them.  Watch out for “green space” you don’t need it and it undermines property rights.  Check your easements on your property plat and challenge any that seem excessive.

Don’t allow federal grants from MARTA or GDOT or any government agency.  They offer to give you generally 10% to 25% of the cost of a project, but the rest will come from your tax money.

Georgia law allows for a lot of abuse by local government. Under Georgia law, local government can borrow up to 10% of the recorded value of all property in your city, including your property.  It should be limited to city owned assets. Georgia law allows redevelopment powers you should not approve.  This allows the City Council to create separate entities governed by appointed, unelected officials with borrowing powers.

Bonds are a bad deal for taxpayers and there is no reason for cities, counties, school boards and states to borrow any money unless they want to buy police cars instead of leasing them. Government entities should set up accrual accounts and pile up reserves for capital expenses and never pay fees or interest for anything but life and death issues. 

Economic Development is a nice way of saying tax subsidies to crony companies.  Keep City tax money separate from private enterprise activities.  Don’t let the City retain the rights to condemn or buy property without a vote by the voters.  Don’t let the City take on any debt or sell any Bonds without voter approval. Don’t let the City

Municipal consultants and developers and law firms make campaign contributions to city and state politicians.  Two of these municipal consultants can be found on Tom Taylor’s contribution list.  They are JAT Consulting and Calvin Giordano & Associates.  Read their websites and you will see they both claim credit for the City of Dunwoody start-up. Taylor serves as GA House District 79 Rep and served previously on the Dunwoody City Council.   Look up Mike Jacobs campaign contributors and you will find the pro-T-SPLOST groups.  Neither have much in the way of campaign contributions from regular voters.   

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader