Dunwoody City Update from Councilman Robert Wittenstein

Dear Dunwoody Friends and Neighbors,

This month, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that Dunwoody was entitled to a small share of the HOST sales tax revenue collected in DeKalb.  Most of the $80-100 million collected each year in sales tax in DeKalb is used to reduce our residential property tax.  Some is earmarked for capital/infrastructure projects.  During the cityhood movement, we asked the state legislature to help ensure that some of that money would be available to Dunwoody and they passed a provision setting aside a small portion for us to direct.  The County tried to stop the distribution in state court but lost.  That means that Dunwoody will receive from $2-3 million each year for capital projects.

This revenue forms the bulk of the funds we will use to repave our streets.  The same week we won the court case, we earmarked funds to work on the first group of streets.  Some people may wonder how we picked them.  We have agreed as a city council that politics will not play any role in deciding what streets to pave.  Getting your street paved in Dunwoody will not be about who you know.  It will be dictated by the condition of the road and the amount of traffic that road receives.  This year we will complete the following:

Street	Range	Activity
Vernon Lake Drive	from Mt. Vernon to Trowbridge Dr.	Deep patch and pave
Vernon North Drive	from Mt. Vernon Way to end	Deep patch and pave
Dunwoody Club Drive	from Happy Hollow to Winters Chapel	Mill and pave
Winters Chapel	from city limits to Charmant Place	Mill and pave
Joberry Court	from Chestnut Ridge to end	Deep patch and pave
Amberly Court N	from Amberly Way to end	Deep patch and pave
Trapnell Court	from Vernon Lake Drive to end	Deep patch and pave
Littlebrooke Ridge	from Littlebrooke Drive to end	Deep patch and pave
Littlebrooke Way	from Brookelake Drive to end	Deep patch and pave
Hidden Branches Court	from Hidden Branches Drive to end	Deep patch and pave
Ashford Center Parkway	from Ashford Dunwoody to Womack	Patching
Chamblee-Dunwoody Road	from Buckline Crossing to Nerine Circle	Patching
North Peachtree Road	from Peachford to Barclay	Patching
Spalding Drive	from Chamblee Dunwoody to Weldstone	Patching

We all recognize that this is a modest beginning for streets that have been neglected for many, many years.  We are establishing a 5-year paving plan.  Below is a link to the map of Dunwoody that shows the streets we expect to improve over the next five years.  We will re-look at this plan each year to make sure we are working on the streets in most need of repair.

 Dunwoody 5-Year Paving Plan Map

While I am gratified that this is many times more road work than we would have received from DeKalb, I worry that it may not be enough to gain ground on the years of neglect.  It costs a lot more to fix roads that are in bad condition than it does to provide lighter repairs to roads in fair condition.  In the long term, the most cost-effective way to tackle this would be to invest heavily over the next few years to bring our roads up to a higher standard and then spend our money  to keep roads from getting into bad shape.  That, however, would either require us to borrow money or raise taxes.  I don't know how the rest of the council feels, but I'm loath to support either.  So for now, we may have to curb our impatience to do more than we can afford.

As an update from last month, the proposed ordinance to severely restrict, but not prohibit, backyard chicken coops fell one vote short, so it did not pass.  The proposal to attempt to tax and regulate taxicabs based elsewhere but coming into Dunwoody to pick up passengers also failed.  Thank you to all of you who replied to my e-mail last month; I got over a hundred replies.

On a final note, we are starting to see a little bit of rezoning activity.  For the first time since we became a city we have a couple of rezoning requests working their way through the process.  I hope this is a sign that our economy is starting to improve.

Regards,
Robert