Here’s the October 16, 2006 city council meeting, with just a little bit missing at the beginning.
Thanks to John Noonan for going to the meeting & recording it!
DoraBlog
Small town politics, deep in the heart of metro Atlanta
Thanks to John Noonan for going to the meeting & recording it!
As pointed out by a commenter, Creative Loafing’s endorsements are out:
District 81: Republican lawmakers tried to bulldoze stream buffer zones in 2004 and would have gotten away with it if not for House moderates like Rep. Jill Chambers, R-Atlanta. Democrat Bob Roche has some good partisan fervor to help drive his campaign, but Chambers has been effective on transportation and environmental protection issues, and she occasionally provides a breath of pragmatism in the GOP caucus.
Here’s their pick for the state senate campaign:
District 40: A lawyer with a mechanical engineering background running for a second term, Sen. Dan Weber, R-Dunwoody, is an earnest legislator well-schooled in community issues and willing to buck GOP orthodoxy — although some constituents were put off by his quixotic effort last year to ram through a city of Dunwoody. Martin McConaughy, a green-conscious retired math teacher, has slim hope of victory in this heavily Republican district. Providing he maintains his thoughtful approach toward lawmaking, Weber has earned a return ticket.
Below is a video recording of the City Council meeting from October 2, 2006. Most interesting to me was the discussion that took place during the first hour regarding the townhomes proposed for the Winter’s Chapel area. I was also very interested in the discussion in the last hour about how the city plans to deal with the deteriorating water pipes that run through it (bottom line is that there currently is no plan at all):
Special thanks go out again to John Noonan, who has taken time out of his day to record these videos and burn them to DVD for me.
The AJC has made its endorsements for the elections in a couple of weeks. Most interesting to me is the enorsement of Bob Roche over Jill Chambers–for many of the reasons that have been mentioned on this blog:
Voters in District 81 face a quandary. Incumbent Jill Chambers has been a rare and valuable commodity, a moderate Republican. But she serves a Chamblee community that is increasingly Democratic, and this time faces a viable opponent in Democratic computer consultant Bob Roche, who is smart and informed.
That may be why a worried Chambers, a business owner, has resorted to a low-blow campaign, peppering her literature with unsubstantiated accusations. She has shown a tendency to make unsubstantiated charges in other forums as well, forfeiting her moderate reputation and perhaps her grip on this district, thus giving voters valid reasons to replace her with Roche.
Less surprising is the endorsement of Dan Weber over Martin McConaughy in Senate District 40:
In state Senate District 40, one-term incumbent Republican Dan Weber, a mechanical engineer from Dunwoody, faces Democrat Martin McConaughy, a retired schoolteacher from Tucker. McConaughy brings intelligence and fresh ideas, including a “HOPE Returns” plan that would use HOPE scholarship recipients to tutor elementary students during summer. But Weber is also smart and articulate, and deserves one more term to prove himself. His biggest handicap is an unwillingness to buck his party even when he disagrees with its positions on education funding and other issues. His intelligence doesn’t do his constituents much good if he can’t find the independence to use it.
In the comments of my last post about Tom Hart’s reprimand by the city council, one of Mr. Hart’s defenders got very angry with me–making lots of assertions about how unfair the world is for Tom. The only one I’m going to respond to is this:
also don’t believe Joseph is unbiased, as he tries to claim he is reporting what is going on in the city. He is reporting his spin on what is happening, conviniently ignoring all the facts and happenings that don’t fit his position.
I’d like to have all the people reading this to please take note: everything I write on this website is colored by my worldview. Nothing I present here is “THE absolute, unbiased, total picture of everything happening in Doraville.” That’s not why I started this blog, and I don’t even think that kind of writing is possible.
Anyone in a public office deserves to have a spotlight shone on them sometimes. It’s not my job to coddle Tom Hart or any other politician. My disapproval of Tom does go back farther than this most recent incident. It actually stems from the first mailing I ever received from him when he ran for mayor and promised that he would bring a baseball stadium to Doraville if he was elected. My view was cemented during the candidate debate that the Oakcliff neighbors put on last year, where Tom Hart made the claim that there are no businesses in Doraville. Hart’s refusal to speak with Atlanta’s gay newspaper, and all the subsequent erratic behavior have only been icing on the cake.
So there’s my bias. Be sure you keep it in mind when reading what I write. That said, don’t get pissed off at me for having an opinion.
I’ve been remiss for not bringing up Tom Hart’s censure by the Doraville City Council before. If you haven’t heard the story, Hart has been accused of threatening the city clerk & verbally harassing a crew of city contractors. Since being rebuked, Hart is not allowed to speak directly to any city employees & the council is working on some “tighter” ethics legislation (whatever that is meant to do).
Hart’s acused treatment of city employees fits in with a previous description of an encounter citizen activist Susan Crawford had with Hart & that was described here in June:
At any rate, when I suggested people might be more excited about having a sit-down restaurant instead of Baldino’s in a soon-to-be-vacated existing downtown building, Mr Hart got quite upset, ranting and blustering. He then began imitating me (I can only assume and hope) by pirouetting and talking in a shrill high-pitched voice, making silly foo foo gestures, wrapping up the performance by yelling in my face about DUI schools.
This man should never have been elected to public office, and I believe that any city council member should be wary of associating themselves too closely with him. Jason Anavitarte already lost some credibility last year by supporting Hart in the run-off election. If Mr. Hart has other council people willing to defend his current outrageous behavior, they are going to have to explain their support when his house of cards comes tumbling down.
This is the Doraville City Council meeting from September 18. It was recorded by John Noonan. A big thank you to him for making this available!
Inside Doraville, I’ve found that public discussion about our city’s police force is nearly always full of praise–almost reverent in tone. Affection for the DPD is so high that each year, citizens volunteer to organize an event called “Police Appreciation Day.”
Recently, though, Doraville councilman Ed Lowe seems to have publicly made a rare negative statement about the city’s police force–and much political hay is being made of it. At a September 5 council meeting, Lowe allegedly made a comment about how the police force (during a previous administration of which he was a part) used to stop and ticket people who hadn’t really violated any law. Since I wasn’t at the meeting & the minutes don’t appear to be posted on the city website, I don’t know what Lowe really said or what he was trying to convey.
Mayor Pro Tem Anavitarte was quick to respond, however, sending the following letter (which someone recently forwarded to me) to Lowe, Mayor Jenkins & Dekalb District Attorney Keyes:
From: j.anavitarte@att.net
Date: 2006/09/07 Thu PM 03:30:47 EDT
To: cityhall@doravillega.us
Subject: ATTN: Councilman Ed LoweSeptember 7, 2006
To: Councilman Ed Lowe
From: Mayor Pro Tem Jason R. Anavitarte
Subject: Alledged Allegations of Wrong Doing by Doraville Police Department
Councilman Lowe:
I am following-up on your accusation made in public at the September 5 Doraville City Council meeting that Doraville Police Officers have cited traffic offenders without a law being in place and that you knew of or heard that specific wrong doing like this went on in the past under the previous police Chief and former administration. If this is the case I would ask that you present the facts to the public and disclose this information. I find it very disturbing that a public servant and elected official would withhold such information and would find it just as high as the potential crime to know such information and not disclose it to appropriate authorities or the public at the time. I hope that you as member of the former administration can provide this information in an expedited fashion to the Doraville City Council and DeKalb District Attorney’s Office for review.
I trust you have your facts in order and look forward to assisting you help prosecute any police officer who has knowingly broke the law as you stated September 5th.
Regards,
–
Jason R. Anavitarte
————-
Mayor Pro Tem
City of Doraville
3725 Park Ave
Doraville, GA 30340-1111Cc: Mayor Ray Jenkins
Doraville City Council
District Attorney Gwen Keyes
More developments as they unfold…
In the mail today, we received what I think is one of the meanest flyers Jill Chambers has ever sent out. It acuses Bob Roche of not supporting “our schools” because he failed to vote in 2 elections (held on March 18, 1997 & March 19, 2002, respectively). She arbitrarily gives him an F- for missing this vote (which was probably missed by plenty of other people in Georgia & the 81st district–if you’re one of them, you get an “F” too, I suppose).
From what little information I can dig up about these missed elections, they seemed to be referendums asking voters to approve a Special Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax (SPLOST), the proceeds of which would go to Dekalb County schools. It’s hard for me to get too upset over someone missing a vote on this issue–especially if they might be ambivilent about raising taxes to fund a school board whose policies he or she might not agree with. In fact, if you think about it, it’s kind of funny that Chambers (a self described “fiscal conservative” Republican) is upset that someone didn’t vote to raise taxes.
The thing that offends me most about the flyer is a picture of a fat guy in his underwear with dirty socks, and a beer…picking something out of his teeth. The caption reads “Hey Bob, what was more important than supporting our schools” — basically trying to paint Mr. Roche as a fat slob who was too lazy to vote. The ad hominem personal attack is what really bothers me.
When comparing the two candidates, it becomes obvious that Roche’s campaign is a real long-shot. At the end of September, Jill had raised over $235,000 versus Roche, who has raised less than $12,000. She certainly has name recognition, and a record to run on. And somehow, even with all of this in her favor, Chambers still feels a need to paper our neighborhoods in mean-spirited attack ads. It’s like she thinks she can’t win unless she rips the other guy apart. I don’t get it–and it makes me question her character.
Since she’s a reader of and commenter on this blog, I’d love to hear Representative Chambers explain why she feels she has to run on non-issues & ad-hominem attacks in order to win elections. Trust is the issue, and it’s hard to trust someone who does everything she can to disgrace her opponents.
