To the editor:
I just watched the videos from the Nov. 12 Dunwoody City Council meeting and was amazed that items were on the agenda as “new business.”
I understood that the council voted to remove additional funding for the Vermack/Womack roundabout project at a meeting last month. It appeared that this “discussion” under “new business” was really a vote to continue funding work on this project.
Obviously Dunwoody Public Works Director Michael Smith does not want to see his pet project deleted from the city’s agenda. Is Michael Smith actually an employee of the city of Dunwoody, or a contractor? I have been confused for a long time about how this “lean city government” continues to discuss a government complex as part of Project Renaissance, when my understanding is there are very few actual employees of the city of Dunwoody.
On the matter of the trees in the Dunwoody Village Parkway, as I last understood there was a fundamental question of whether the parkway had ever been dedicated to DeKalb County, therefore the city of Dunwoody, making it inappropriate to take any further actions or discussions until that fact was determined.
Again, as a discussion item, this “discussion” seemed to turn into a “vote” by the council, and Mayor Mike Davis seemed to be the one leading that vote. When people protested the actions of the council, he basically told them to shut up.
As a taxpaying citizen of the city of Dunwoody, I wish to express my dissatisfaction with the way this meeting was conducted, and the decisions that were made by the council concerning these two subjects. I am still not sure when all these people continually referenced provided input on these projects.
The last time I checked, the city of Dunwoody had 46,000 residents. Bill Grant continues to throw out the number — 1,500 — that had input on the parkway project. Is that 5 percent of the city’s population? I also wonder if that is 1,500 unique taxpaying residents of the city of Dunwoody, or the same 300 people who attended five meetings.
Steve Chipka