The Dunwoody City Council meeting took about 15 minutes to rename an unnamed existing section of Peachtree Industrial Blvd access road to Peachtree Industrial Blvd access road. Watch the exciting action here.
Chief Grogan announced that Officer Ronny Delima and his wife welcomed their son Max into the world on Monday. Congratulations to both Ms. Delima and the proud Papa.
The City of Dunwoody offices are closed Dec 24th & 25th and will reopen on the 28th.
The December 28th, Dunwoody City Council meeting has been canceled.
John, in all seriousness, please specifically cite the exact phrase in Chapter 23 that gives the authority to create a street name for an “unnamed” street. City staff and our Police Chief say it is unnamed. Semantics do matter. Truth matters. If Council thinks it is acceptable to skirt our codes with a small issue, we won’t trust you on bigger ones. I can’t find the code you claim. If the process to give it a name takes longer for doing it the correct way, I would suggest it. “Renaming” an “unnamed” section of road is not the same as changing a street name. Be honest. We won't find fault with you for changing your mind.
ReplyDeleteJoe, PTIB access road has existed for quite some time and it is not a new street, nor an unnamed street. New streets are named via the developer as per his application as outlined in Chapter 14.
ReplyDeleteWhat the city was really doing was correcting the list of city street names which omitted the technical name of the PTIB access road into the register of Appendix A of Chapter 17. The link below is a good example.
http://jkheneghan.com/city/meetings/2008/12152008_Speed_Limits_Exhibit_A.xls
The city decided to use Chapter 23, article 1, Section 1, paragraph d as well as the other paragraphs in Section 1 to formally enter the name into the city registers.
If the city was trying to skirt the fine print do you really think that they would have made this go through the process? The city is following policy as far as I can tell, the City Attorney has confirmed that this is the correct procedure and the Council has taken no final action except referring this to the planning commission for their review of the application and their recommendation to council.
If you still have concerns, this matter will be going in front of them and there will be public hearings solely on this matter.
If between now and when this comes in front of me again, possibly with new evidence, documentation or rule of law; I will decide then if proper procedures were followed.
Until then I have to have an open unbiased opinion and let the process in place work.
Joe,
ReplyDeleteSometimes you need to pick your battles.
In this case I think the city is acting correctly.
But if you burn energy on something like this you lose your effectiveness on issues that really matter.
Not trying to stiffle you just a little bit of advice, and everyone knows MY advice carries so much weight .
Happy Holidays
Hi Bob – yes, I totally agree that this is not an issue worth losing sleep over. However, just last week you wrote on Rick’s blog, “The City should follow its own procedures, ALL the time.” If you are not consistent in your arguments, you lose credibility. This simple matter is worth highlighting as a principle, as it demonstrates how City Council is choosing to be creative with it’s interpretations of the law. If you choose to ignore this matter, you are in essence condoning it and giving your blessing to politicians who are not fulfilling their oaths. Where do you draw the line on ethics? When is ok for Dunwoody politicians to sort of not be honest?
ReplyDeleteJohn – this is so clearly an example of why Dunwoody is sometimes no better than DeKalb politics. The code you are citing proves my point - it is for a street name “CHANGE”. [Chapter 23, Section 1: “Procedure for changing street names”] What is the CURRENT name of the street? There isn’t one (according to our Police Chief and City Memo). Creating something is not the same as changing it. Did G-d change the world in six days? This is a great opportunity for honest leaders to step up and show by example that Dunwoody politicians won’t skirt the codes. If there isn’t a method to create the street name, make a new code. Big deal. Do things correctly. To answer your question: yes. As I have (tried to) clearly point out at council meetings, city staff sometimes does seem to put on a charade. [Maybe they will stop re-writing drafts between meetings?] Just because our attorneys say something is correct does not make it so. You could have objected to this at the work session.