Wendy Butler - No
I agree, Wendy Butler would favor development
over individual property rights. She has
mentioned that she has the backing of the developers. Confirming that, she is the only candidate
with TV ads running, very expensive. I
must conclude that she is unashamedly seeking election depending on special
interest funding. The theory is ‘whoever
spends the most money wins’. However, in
the T-SPLOST vote July 31, 2012, the opposite occurred.
Her promise is to promote lots of “economic
development” projects aimed at using federal squander-grants and local tax
funds to encourage what I consider to be a boost to UN Agenda 21 implementation
in DeKalb. This would benefit CIDs
(Community Improvement Districts), big shopping malls, multi-use zoning and
large planned transit villages close to MARTA lines. This is the same model rejected by 66% of
voters in the T-SPLOST vote.
Wendy Butler is a Land Use Attorney and
serves on the MARTA board and is a Democrat. She would promote the creation and
support of Community Improvement Districts, a self-taxing, entity for large
shopping malls and large commercial development properties. Their funding includes federal and local
taxes, local city and county backing for bonds and borrowing, plus their own
revenue collected from owners and renters.
DeKalb Needs
DeKalb needs to move to a balanced budget and
put basics like roads, sewers and water first.
These cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace and we’re behind
on maintaining these.
DeKalb Development
Economic development should not use tax
dollars, but should be funded by the private sector based on demand. Retail
space needs to be maintained by owners, not subsidized by taxes. Most corporate welfare here revolves around
CIDs
DeKalb CIDs
DeKalb has a few CIDs, including PCID
(Perimeter Community Improvement District) with MARTA train and bus
access. Northlake Tucker has a CID with
just MARTA bus access. Brookhaven is
developing a transit village by the Brookhaven MARTA train station. If Lakeside and Briarcliff vote for cityhood,
they will also likely follow the transit village model of development. It’s embedded in European model federally
subsidized cookie-cutter plans.
DeKalb Footprint
Metro Atlanta was built for single family
homes to line their streets. The “downtown” high rise type developments sit
right next to tree-lined streets with single family homes on narrow streets.
Metro Atlanta is the least dense city of its
size on the planet. It has been built
out to accommodate subdivisions.
Madrid Spain is the most dense city of our
size on the planet, so the new urban “pack and stack” train riding model works,
just like New York City.
Transit villages require very high density. This
automatically results in road congestion in around high density developments.
This European model also requires very high
taxes. The new developments would use the cookie-cutter Agenda 21 model with
apartments over retail. Demand for this model is weak.
Public Transit
The problem with public transit is low demand
and low ridership requiring heavy subsidies to build, maintain and staff. Trains cost billions and we don’t have
billions.
I encourage MARTA to make sure that they
continue to increase their ridership within their footprint and work toward a
“break even” point.
Taxed Enough Already
If we admit that the federal government is
broke and resorts to printed and borrowed dollars to maintain its pace with
grants for states, we must conclude we shouldn’t be overspending and
squandering our tax dollars on mal-investments when our roads are rotting.
I would hope DeKalb District 1 voters would
avoid voting for Wendy Butler. I would
like to see a run-off between Nancy Jester and Larry Danese.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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