TN Homeowner Fails to Pay $75 Fee, so Firefighters Watch His House Burn

Firefighters watch as home burns to the ground: If you live on unincorporated land near South Fulton, Tennessee, and don’t pay a $75 per year fee to the city for fire protection, the firefighters are not allowed to save your burning house. What a terrible policy. Because of it, a neighboring house also caught fire.…

Plan Commission Resignations

Joe Gastiger and Tom Specht both have sterling reputations, as their dignified resignations from the Plan Commission this week attest. It’s an old-school gesture of protest, and all too rare. The story is here, available for about a week. Keep an eye on Lunatic Fringe of DeKalb at FB, in case there’s some action.

Conflicts of Interest & the Tip of the Iceberg

Council’s affirmation of the mayor’s removal of John Guio from the Plan Commission for reasons of ethics comes as no surprise. I wonder, however, if any of the aldermen get that wife Sue Guio’s former position with the city presented more in the way of potential conflicts of interest than her place on the board…

Ethics in the City

City Council on Monday is set to decide whether the mayor’s removal of chair John Guio from the Plan Commission for an ethics violation is proper. You’ll have to excuse me for not believing the party line here. IMO this was a move based on politics, not ethics. Consider: — Another Plan Commission member, Vince…

Civic Campus Master Plan

Wow, they already have an architect involved: The Library is proceeding with their plans to purchase the Clinic properties. The School District has expressed interest in having its administrative office space relocated into downtown. Other governmental units may also have interest in a downtown presence. With what will become a sizeable amount of publicly owned…

Rename DeKalb?

Some of the world’s great cities changed names. New York was New Amsterdam. London was Londinium. Mexico City was Tenochtitlan. So, why stop at brick mania? Why not rename DeKalb? Think of all the jobs we could create by reprinting all of the stationary! What shall we call it? Yep, file this one under snark.…