Mr. Dean, the city is in start-up mode. As the city grows and expands its governing role with more government and regulation, so will expenses increase. Just wait till we bring on the police department and parks. Let’s see what happens in the third year when we are a fully functioning city and have a good idea of the actual revenue stream.

By the way, how are all of those Smart People in Dunwoody doing?

Special hamburger and a Cheerwine?

Well, Hamburger and the NOCity DeKalb Democrat bureacracy backers have been soooo right about Brookhaven thus far, surely we should heed this dire prediction as well!

/sarcasm off

Page 5 of the PDF attached to the article speaks to HamBurger's point.

Mr. Dean, I understand your distaste for “DeKalb Democrat bureaucrats” and their backers. But continuing to state that folks that were not proponents of the city are all in the same category does not and will not make it so. Having a pea for a brain must make that difficult for you to fathom. However, please do not stop with your simple minded posts as I find them amusing. Especially since you are clearly not yet aware of how much you have in common with me politically.

Please pass the yellow mustard!

The current figures for the 'Police Budget' is enough to pay the startup costs for 22 officers.
Not a major step forward in added security.

How many Byesers promised the CVI was conservative? Ops. Millage rate at 335, there goes that lower tax claim.
How many people did you look in the eye and promise lower taxes?
How many people did you look in the eye and tell them the CVI was conservative?
When will those pristine parks as promised?

Noticed those questionable revenue streams seem to be way lower than what Byyeser promised.
Dean what happened to that CVI study being conservative?
How do you plan to fund a police force?
Or will now claim we only need 30 officers?
I know this, I did not look people in the eye and lie to them.

"Let’s see what happens in the third year when..."---Hamburger

The city government should be in full swing running residents out while raiding real estate.

How was it put?

Ah yes: "Gentrification."

Dean,

Of the C4ND-BYes-City of Brookhaven Commission-Subsequent Governance of Brookhaven: not that I'm religious, but apropos:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits."

Mr. Tom, my, those are some HUGE rose coloured galssusses you are wearing!

Please pass the yellow mustard!

Wow, by your logic, mayor jerry mccheese davis qualifies for a Nobel Prize.

Tom, maybe he should have honored the bribe from the pony. Do you really believe the Pony won't sue?
Do you really believe the Pony won't win this lawsuit?
Win or Lose, with those budget numbers, can Brookhaven really afford the lawsuit?

..can "Brookhaven really afford..."---Brookhaven4u

... the city government's charade?

Ke$ha,
I live where I have for 30 years.
The 'city' is just a new, opportunistic infection.
But I'm sure my increases in property taxes will force me to help 'support' it whether I want to or not.

Mr. Bradbury, late last week (January 18) many folks started receiving a mailing from the city of Brookhaven from Mayor Jerry Max welcoming them to the city of Brookhaven and inviting them to come to the January 24, meeting at Marist for the town hall meeting. As I discussed this with my fellow city citizens, it became clear that this “Welcome To The City Of Brookhaven” mailing was for a select, special few residing primarily in district one.

Just curious, did you or anyone else receive this special welcoming mailing? If so, what city district are you in? And, if you did not receive this mailing and you are not in the special district one, how do you feel about this? As it stands now, apparently, district one is the “chosen” district! Plus, who paid for this limited mailing?

If you did not receive this special Mayor Jerry Max mailing, would you like a special hamburger and a Cheerwine as a consolation prize?

Please pass the yellow mustard!

Oddly enough, I got the mailer here in the bastion known as 'District 2'.

I got the mailer on Buford Hwy in District 4...

Hamburger conspiracy theory number 43- ".. i it became clear that this “Welcome To The City Of Brookhaven” mailing was for a select, special few residing primarily in district one."
Then come the facts-
" I got the mailer here in the bastion known as 'District 2'."
" I got the mailer on Buford Hwy in District 4."
Apologeticus is in District 3 and received the mailer.
Hamburger admits that District 1 got the mailer.

It has become clear that when confronted with black and white facts which completely contravene Hamburger's false and cooked up claim(s), Hamburger ignores and moves on to the next false conspiracy.
I am becoming more and more sad for Hamburger and will apologize on Hamburger's behalf for all of Hamburger's past, present, and future flasehoods.

Falsenhood 451 admits that Dekalb is a "dysfunctional government". He prefers that we continue feeding that government all of our tax dollars and leave all of the authority over our local lives within the hands of Dekalb's dysfunctional dreamland.
The city has taken back some of our tax money and some of the authority to preside over some functions from the county. You now can easily vote the officeholders in Brookhaven out of office if they prove to be "..another superfluous layer of dysfunctional government." Or you can dissolve the city and put everything back under the complete control of DeKalb county where the indictments continue to flow and the money is missing.
In the pioneer days you would have been on of those folks who....well, lets just say you wouldn't have been a pioneer.

Mr. Tertullian, the facts are that this was a limited mailing and not every household in the city was a recipient of this special mailing welcoming us to the new city. Conspiracy theory number 44 – Maybe the recipients were based on the voters voting for J. Max for mayor! You like that one?!

Please pass the yellow mustard!

"Falsenhood 451 admits that Dekalb is a 'dysfunctional government.'---Apologeticus

Sort of like going from a toothless boogeyman under your bed to one under your covers and actually bites.

Displacing DeKalb County governance with this one was, and will remain, no solution.

Never even intended to be one.

"Oddly enough, I got the mailer..."---Eddie E

So did I. And took special notice of its last line. Of the Parks and Police Department yet to come.

Like trinkets tossed from a Carival float, the issue of parks improvement was tossed like cheap geegaws while our State Congressman, and author of the legislated mandate for a new City of Brookhaven, lied about the Constitution of the State of Georgia prohibiting "townships" (a nullifying factor among others still) which, instead of a "city," would have denied this city's founders virtually having its own police force and that force's surveillance.

The established start and annual maintenance cost per officer determined by the 'Police Commission' was $100k.
One can only 'assume' that the 2.25 mi. is for the international staffing search, because it won't fund a police department.

Do we in year 1 need to have to vote to raise the millage cap from 335 in order to pay for a proper police force?

"...a proper police force?.."---Brookhaven4u

"Proper"? By this city government?

A government which has had no qualms at all with police moonlighting as private security guards for privately-owned bars and stores---ALSO?

Left allowed, graduating to a whole security force (member unidentified and thus secret) for an entire neighborhood---ALSO?

What's next?

The $2.25M for Brookhaven Police is only for a FRACTION of the fiscal year...we will continue to "rent" Dekalb Police (included in the $2.25M) for most of the year. The extrapolation of the number of Brookhaven police officers and their salaries is completely irrelevant. There's also a $4M contingency included in this budget...

B'haven will take the line item that was police services on the tax bill and use some of that for city services not related to police. The county has ZERO obligation to provide any police services once B'haven PD is stood up. Right now they are only obligated to provide a response to a call for service (911)although I have seen them still on patrol in B'haven. Since there is NO city court my guess is there is No city ordinance enforcement by the county police. I would like to know how they are dealing with traffic enforcement but since the motorcycle officer in front of Montgomery Elem has disappearred, I suspect traffic enforcement in B'haven has abated. Perhaps he will return once a city court is established and the county and city settle on a price and service level. D'woody just revised their pay scale and the median for a police officer is $47,850; doesn't include the benefits. A department would still need a building-utilities, equipment-service contracts, dispatcher and other non-police employees. The "fraction" is expected to cover half the year since the mayor wants his police force in June or July. Reading and listening to the elected it sadly looks like public safety will be down graded. Wish there was a malpractice option for voters.

Mr. Chris, as noted above, folks paying attention to their city “get” the rollout of the new city and the related acceleration of costs as the new city progresses. Are you paying attention to city sources of income and its payback when you view the budget? Are all obligations named and listed for disbursement? My galssusses are steamed with kitchen heat and I may have misses a few bucks. Let me know if you see what I do not see . . . Are we paying our obligations? Or, has CP provided us with a very creative budget that is a sandbox mind field next to a cat colony?

The contingency you speak of may not really exist.

Please pass the yellow mustard!

"The $2.25M for Brookhaven Police is only for a FRACTION of the fiscal year..."---Chris Horner

It could be what the city's lawyers supposedly require to study, or pay for a study, on just who to appoint to police us.

Brookhaven4u, you lie. And here's the proof. You commented on December 9, 2012 at 5:20 to a post I made one minute sooner. I told you the year one revenues would be significantly lower and even provided reference to the CVI study where it pointed that out. Just face it, you only hear what you want to hear and aren't concerned with facts. Here's a link proving you weren't "blindsided".

http://brookhaven.patch.com/articles/brookhaven-commission-holds-final-meeting-sunday-night

Mr. Tom, let me encourage you to run for political office in Brookhaven. You have exactly what it takes. No ethics!

As for the mailer, how does it feel to know that I count and you don’t?

Cheerwine and a special hamburger?

Could you repeat that, but this time try lucid English.

"...Win or lose that litigation, where is the pay to play I was warned about?"---TomMiller1

In the income in pay alone for the work created by the city for the (supposedly) opposing law firms no matter the outcome?*

Even when the outcome of the litigation may be a foregone conclusion?

Or even not?

In the lawyers in the city government, or contracted by the city government's lawyers, simply keeping---despite winning or losing the case---all the proceeds in taxes for the litigation to themselves?

Didn't they "play" also?

When there was no public mandate for even the City of Brookhaven (rather than an invented one), couldn't this City of Brookhaven have simply invented a pubic mandate against the Pink Pony?

"Didn't they 'play' also?"---Me

Some even ran for public office---and won.

Didn't they?

Instead of a Mayor, Police Chief, and "Finance and Administrators" why don't we just get a Sheriff? Right now it just seems like we have an expensive layer cake that doesn't even feed the new city's needs. We will barely be able to cut the grass let alone do "improvements"!

"$300K for 12 parks for a year?? That's about $30K per park -- barely enough to cut the grass."---Brookhaven Maven

I'd cut my neighborhood parks grass for even less.

But---oh?

As I had to witness last week: 'thirteen' pine straw tossers along one hundred feet of a high of a gated Brookhaven condo comunity plus one foreman and, of course, a multi-thousand dollar pine-straw truck.

"Pine straw"! In Georgia!

Even the Eskimos wouldn't think of buying ice much less going to the expense also of fourteen people being paid to scatter it neatly alongside their igloos.

I wish I had my camera with me that day and posted it to the i-net with a mulitple choice question aksing just where the viewer thought the photo, depicting the high-walls and numbers of laborers on its outside and their strutting foreman, was taken:

1) Happydale, Washington, DC?
2) The Zona Rosa, MxCty, Mexico?
3) Brookhaven, GA, USA

By far: The answers would have favored #2

"I'd cut my neighborhood parks grass for even less."---Me

But that would be 'American Outreach'.

MxCty forbid!

"MxCty"! Which the City of Brookhaven's founders certainly do heed.

"...why don't we just get a Sheriff?..."---Mike

Because we are disallowed.

Obviously, the city founders require their own enforcers.

I guess it depends on how long it takes to get the telegraph wires stretched out.

Mr. Tertullian, pray tell why citizens should have to apologize for questioning and demanding a responsible government? Is there anything wrong with making sure Brookhaven does not become plagued by some of the same problems in DeKalb that prompted the creation of this city?

In a response to Mr. Chris above I inquire about city obligations and their payback. Are they detailed in this budget? The way I see it there is no contingency. Please correct me if I am misinterpreting what I see.

Speaking of parks, I thought these two articles might give us guidance:

http://tinyurl.com/ay95msx

http://tinyurl.com/adu26kq

Special hamburger and a Cheerwine while you read?

Until an adequate Police force is fully functional, what reason is there to spend a penny on parks purchase?
Until the new regime is ready to face reality and budget for a Police force of at least 65 (preferably 75) why come up with a ridiculous number of 2.5 million (which is half the amount for the woefully inadequate number of 53 officers with no set-aside for paying Dekalb County in the interim and eventually to take up the slack for an inadequate level of protection).
I don't really care what we were ordered to accept at the 'townhall meeting', at some point, a dose of reality MUST enter into the discussions!

Dear Leader CEO Burrell Ellis wicket just got stickier:

""They should almost always belong to targets of the investigation. You can't listen into everybody, you're supposed to listen in to the target," said Manny Arora, who spent seven years as a prosecutor, and now 13 years as a defense attorney.

He said for a judge to sign wiretap warrants, prosecutors have to show probable cause that a crime has been or is being committed, and that they've tried other means to get the evidence. He said recorded conversations can be extremely damaging in a case.

"It's an incredible worry. If the motion to suppress doesn't succeed, you're going to be taking a plea because there's really nothing left to try. It's sort of like saying they caught you with the money in your briefcase, or the drugs in your car," said Arora."

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/evidence-new-search-warrants-show-wiretaps-dekalb-/nT9hh/

County apologist Eddie, puh-leeze just give it a rest, things are going to improve, in spite of your allegiance to a corrupt County.

So you are saying that the 2.25 is enough to pay DeKalb and start up an adequate police force? Laughable.
Don't mess with the reserves, they are for unforeseen expenses. An underfunded Police budget is not an unforeseen expense.
So the CVI was wrong for the first year? What year can we expect the CVI to be relevant?
Did our fearless leader in running up to the election state that Excess HOST Funds would have our city starting up with over $2 Million surplus when confronted with the true revenue of our property tax? I took that to mean the first year. Why was this not disclosed to the voters before the election?

Burrell Misdirector,

Look over here, something shiny...

Don't pull back the curtain, because you really don't want to see!!

Burrell Misdirector,

The issues in the County are no longer the primary issues of Broken Havenz.

We have our own level of lofty mis-projection to deal with.

Like it or not, we need a real, adequate (read 75 fulltime sworn officers) Police Force because we have decided to step away from the only Police Protection we ever had.

Innuendo about the CEO doesn't change that, but hey, if it makes you feel better, keep all three of the cups swirling around the pea. What will that do for the Citizen waiting on TinyTownPolice?

"...budget number on police..."----apollogeticus

"Police"? Surely to be contested even to the nullification of the city given (but not only), the author and principal sponsor of the legislated city, Mike Jacobs, having deliberately misled the voter-citizens of the referendum tby stating"townships" (which, in lieu of a "city" would ***not*** have required its own police force), was "probited" by to the State of Georgia's Constitution.

"Despite the State of Georgia Constitution's preamble allowing it, no statement anywhere in the State Constitution prohibiting townships plus Jacobs, having already been the author of the state bill also, that was to have the State of Georgia comply with the National Voter Rights Act, in his own hand, having already included "townships" in that bill.

"Like it or not, we need a real, adequate (read 75 fulltime sworn officers) Police Force..."---Eddie

Sheer and dangerous baloney.

The city can permanently contract DeKalb county's police or, better yet, dissolve itself as a city and, if there be a genuine public mandate, reconstruct as a township.

For the very good reason, as you put it yourself, of the City of Brookhaven being, "new" or not, a "regieme."

"Mr. Tertullian, pray tell why citizens should have to apologize for questioning and demanding a responsible government?"---Hamburger

Because, in 'corporatist' goverance, it is the civic duty of citizens to not only serve government but also serve government obediently and uncritcally. Even if the criticism be constructive.

Learn your place.

Do learn also that, since the conception of this City of Brookhaven, and its goverance, the truth can only lie in lies yet to be discovered.