Heneghan’s Dunwoody Blog

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Great new blog - DeKalb County School Watch

http://dekalbschoolwatch.blogspot.com

A consortium of parents, educators and politicians maintaining a steady dialogue focused on improving DeKalb County, Georgia schools and providing a quality, equitable education for all of our nearly 100,000 students.

I have been an avid reader of the on-line newspaper GoDeKalb.com for several years, not because of the great news stories (some of which were written by The Crier) but because of the comments left by people who were intelligent and passionate about the stories that were there. The comments are either left anonymously under a fictitious screen name or you could use your real name. For the most part whether you used your real name or not, it really didn't matter because over time the readers judge you upon the quality of the comments you post.

During the pre-Dunwoody incorporation the posts regarding Dunwoody were informative, argumentative and mostly respectful of the other commentators. I grew to respect the anonymous writers both Pro & Con to the Dunwoody cause.

Besides Dunwoody the other big story being covered was the DeKalb County School System, it's successes & failures, discussions regarding DeKalb County School Board meetings, the internal workings and the analysis of what was happening behind the scenes because of policies like No Child Left Behind. My favorite commenter on school issues is I person I have truly grown to respect, goes by the name Cerebration and she has just started her own blog dedicated to discussing all facets of the DeKalb County School System.

Items already being discussed since the blog started a couple of week ago are...

To all the Parents of DeKalb County school children; I highly recommend this site.

City Council to discuss Zoning, City Budget and Business Licenses on Monday.

Monday at Dunwoody United Methodist Church there will be a City Council Work Session and I have linked all of the documents that I currently have available. In fact Chapter 24 the Zoning ordinance has already gone through a number of revisions and I have uploaded that document for your review. If you are technical expert in any of the subjects below, I would appreciate your review of these documents and your suggested modifications if you see the need for changes.

We will be having a public hearing on December 18th, the meeting on the 22nd is still questionable and I believe our budget hearing is scheduled to take place on December 29th. These items will be firmed up on Monday night.

Preliminary Agenda for Monday

Discussion of proposed Chapter 7 (“Building Code”) of the City Code and Ordinance to adopt and approve Chapter 7 of the City Code.

Discussion of proposed Chapter 14 (“Land Development and Environmental Protection”) of the City Code and Ordinance to adopt and approve Chapter 14 of the City Code.

Discussion of proposed Chapter 16 (“Offenses and Violations”) of the City Code and Ordinance to adopt and approve Chapter 16 of the City Code.

Discussion of Chapter 17 (“Traffic and Public Roadways”) of the City Code and Ordinance to adopt and approve Chapter 17 of the City Code.

Discussion of Chapter 21 (“Signs”) of the City Code and Ordinance to adopt and approve Chapter 21 of the City Code.

Discussion of Chapter 23 (“Streets and Public Roadways”) of the City Code and Ordinance to adopt and approve Chapter 23 of the City Code.

Discussion of Chapter 27 (“City of Dunwoody Zoning Ordinance”) of the City Code and Ordinance to approve Chapter 27 of the City Code.

Discussion of a Community Council for the Dunwoody Zoning Ordinance.

Discussion of the Sexually Oriented Business Licensing Ordinance.

Introduction and discussion of the City’s 2009 Fiscal Year budget.

Presentation by Joanne Tuttle and Brian Anderson of fee proposals for business licenses.

Map of Dunwoody & City Boundaries

My server logs are telling me that a number of people are looking for maps of the City of Dunwoody, therefore I will list the maps that I have available for your viewing pleasure as well as provide the Boundaries for the City of Dunwoody.

Dunwoody_Map.pdf

Several years ago when I was assisting the Citizens for Dunwoody Committee in setting the city boundaries, I created a simple yet very effective online tool so I could view any property line in the new City of Dunwoody. Today the only change in my map from that time is the fact that the line for the city goes up to 285 instead of now encompassing it. Other than that change, the map is flawless.

The good folks over in Doraville experienced a messed up election for the annexation for the property between our two cities and the matter is now in the courts. During the legislative process we had to be prepared to take those properties in case Doraville or the State demanded that we do so, therefore the following map was prepared, but never expected to be used. Since DeKalb may not want to serve the area in future when Dunwoody is completely up and running; there is a slight chance that the State may mandate that it be serviced by one of the existing cities.

Could the next map foreshadow the future boundaries of Dunwoody?

Future_Dunwoody.pdf

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Dunwoody City Manager outlines his vision for a Police Department

Though tonight's meeting had a lot on the agenda, much of it procedural, either tying up loose ends from the Midnight starting session or prepping for the marathon sessions that it looks like we are going to have next week.

That being said, there were a number items of interest to listen for on the audio but many of the procedural items could be skipped. If I had a limited amount of time to listen to the audio from the meeting, I would look at the agenda and then start at the public comment. After the public comment I would then jump to section "I" with the introduction of Chief Grogan and stay for the City Implementation Update. Then I would skip most of new business and jump to item "J 10" which starts a long conversation on the future of the police department and listen until the end.

Unfortunately our Mayor was under the weather and we wish him a speedy recovery. Councilman Wittenstein was also missed at the meeting due to work travel.

12082008_audio.mp3

Some of the items you may want to listen for...

Public Comments from Dunwoody based builders looking for the moratorium to be lifted and a later discussion that it may be lifted on December 31 with permit applications being accepted prior to that for a possible Dec 31st approval.

Public comment asking for more public comment time prior to each new ordinance vote and a later discussion that asked to put it on the agenda for action at the next meeting.

A discussion of the 2008 and 2009 Dunwoody business licenses and the procedures that the city will be following to grant them.

An update of our future Dunwoody Court System and the impact it has on the DeKalb County Police writing tickets in Dunwoody.

The approval of the police pay and management structure of the Department which was preceded by an in-depth discussion from the City Manager, the Chief and the Council regarding the over all structure of the Department. (Thin management structure, 12 hour shifts and a total of 44 personnel were estimated when including civilians.)

The meeting ended with a discussion of our future meeting schedule since we already have an action packed public hearing on the 18th regarding zoning, signs and sexually oriented businesses. At the moment the work session for December 15th is still on the schedule but it might get cut or combined with a voting meeting and the voting session of the 22nd is also questionable due to limited availability of several council members. The missing council members will be polled as to availability and the meeting schedule will be set.

All in all, even with all the large amount of procedural stuff we covered, it was still a very good and productive City Council meeting.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Dunwoody Crime - now is the time to start telling the City Council what type of Police services you want.

On Monday there will be an introduction of the Chief of Police, William “Billy” Grogan as well as the authorization of the police departments management structure (Deputy Chief, 3 Lieutenants & an Executive Assistant, as well as their pay scales).

Every City Council meeting has 30 minutes of public comment at the beginning and additional comment time at the end; therefore if you want to express your hopes & concerns over the future Dunwoody Police Department. Now is the time to start talking to us.

For example: Councilman Taylor and I were contacted by a small neighborhood on the far southeast side of the city to discuss the amount of crime in the area. Councilwoman Bonser joined us at the meeting to discuss the situation and to learn of the special needs of the general area with its older, very dense residential housing and its high percentage of non-English speaking residents. The meeting went well, we passed along a good bit of information. I informed them that the city would be doing what it could to reduce the crime rate in the area and that we would be speaking to the Police Chief about obtaining a number of officers who can speak Spanish.

My goal is to get an active police department in place, have them dedicated to Dunwoody (vs being pulled to Buford Highway as DeKalb is now), have them not only handle the routine calls but also have goals and strategies to lower the City's over all crime rate. That being said, I would like to see the department adopt an electronic reporting system and have the citywide crime data available to anyone who would want to know where the crime is occurring.

DeKalb's Interactive Community Policing program doesn't have the capability to put all crime reports on the internet but the local precinct will send your neighborhood watch coordinator the crime stats if so requested. This week the North Precinct sent all 60 of the Dunwoody neighborhood watch coordinators, all of the crime calls from each of the three Dunwoody territories. The data provided is very telling as to what crime happened where in Dunwoody and it reaffirmed that the residents complaint was valid with a large amount of the pedestrian robberies happening within a few blocks of them.

In these tough economic times, crime and murder is at an all time high in DeKalb County and the Dunwoody community has also been affected of these rising crime rates with a number of murders taking place within our borders.

Chief Grogan will not have an endless budget to set up his department yet he will have my full support to do what needs to be done to best serve the citizens.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Dunwoody Dec 8th - Police Chief / Police Management Structure, Zoning, Land Use and Sexually Orientated Businesses.

The rather long agenda for the Monday December 8th, Dunwoody City Council meeting is linked below but please allow me to list the items of interest as I see them. Agenda & relevant document folder.

Monday Dec 8, 2008 @ 7 p.m.
Dunwoody United Methodist Church
1548 Mount Vernon Road

At the top of the agenda is public comment and all residents and business owners are encouraged to tell the City Council what is on their mind. The City Council meetings have been averaging about 40 to 50 people per night and it seems that the same 5 citizens come to the podium every week to speak. I am very appreciative of those who come and voice their concerns but I would also love to see more people take advantage of this opportunity to make their issues known.

The City Manager has informed us that he will be giving an update on City Implementation.

There will be an introduction of the Chief of Police, William “Billy” Grogan as well as the authorization of the police departments management structure (Deputy Chief, 3 Lieutenants & an Executive Assistant, as well as their pay scales).

I believe the only second read on the agenda that hasn't been completely vetted was the Georgia Power franchise fee and that is rather straight forward.

There will be first reads on the following ordinances, with no discussion until the following meeting.

Earlier in the week the City went out with an RFQ for the Comprehensive Land Use Plan.

There will also be a reminder at the end of the meeting that we will be having a special called public hearing on December 18th for adopting the Dunwoody Zoning Ordinance and the Dunwoody Sign Ordinance.

Because of the public hearings on the 18th the meeting scheduled for December 15th will probably be canceled, but then again the Council may want to have a work session to hammer out the many first read ordinances that they are receiving at this meeting?