Mary Kay Woodworth was recently asked about the combined Lakeside/Briarcliff map.
Her response here: http://www.brookhavenpost.co/lakeside-briarcliff-to-meet-with-tucker-before-revealing-unified-boundary-map/22981/
She said she didn't want to "play all their cards."
So, we know who is playing games and it isn't us.
See the map below. THIS is TUCKER.
The blue pins are leaders in the Tucker 2014 group, which we previously exposed for being listed as a FOR PROFIT company! None of the other city groups have been set up as for-profit. And, it does not specify WHO is profiting, but we do know that it sure isn't the average citizen living in Dekalb County. We won't "profit" off any of these proposals and, instead, many people are fed up with everything and simply choosing to move away completely. There is only so much that people can take, after all. People generally do not enjoy or seek confrontation, change or public speaking and guess what, this city process will drag you into all three.
Here's a copy of what can be found on the Secretary of State's online business registry:
It's a insult to believe that there are people trying to help protect the community we all love and then have to admit that they are on a path that will never work in the long run. But, that is exactly what we have with the Tucker 2014 / Tucker 2015 mission to tie Tucker, Smoke Rise and all other unincorporated communities north of Ponce together while not grasping the reality that NO ONE can truly be a feasible city in they do not include the valuable property that lies inside the perimeter, where the Northlake shopping area was built in the late 1970s and where some of the very same folks you hear today talking about how they don't know where Tucker is located were actually working together to build and promote.
Back then, they referred to it at the Northlake area. Many people were sold their homes by Realtors who called the two to three mile radius around the mall, the Northlake area.
How can the VERY SAME PEOPLE who were instrumental in securing Tucker's first ARC grant for a Lifelong Community AND the Northlake Community Alliance's first grant to build and promote Northlake try to tell you, the legislators or their own neighbors that they don't know how Tucker defines Tucker or where Northlake exists beyond the mall itself.
We're referring to none other than: KEVIN LEVITAS, State Representative from 2005 - 2009 for District 82 in the house. Levitas was then a Democrat and faced a challenge to his seat by STEVE SCHULTZ, who also wished to represent District 82. Schultz was a Republican and, at the time, Levitas was a Democrat. Now THEY are BOTH on the SAME team, pushing for a city of Lakeside? A city that will take nearly all of Tucker's prime commercial district and leave many of its residents by the wayside, a fate that our own CEO (albeit an Interim CEO who was appointed by the Republican Governor who apparently still represents his own seat on the board of commissioners as an elected Democrat) has stated for the record will lead to higher taxes or lowered services.
But, wait, didn't we hear that Tucker WAS NOT feasible WITHOUT Northlake? Isn't that essentially what Tucker Civic told the public when we first asked them to get involved?
Leslie Richardson • 2 years agoThank you Cheryl, for reaching out to the Tucker Civic Association. Our answer to the question of incorporation is two-fold: one is on a practical level, and the other is more intangible. First, although we have a variety of thriving businesses in the area, we do not have the tax base to sustain incorporation. A city needs both the depth and breadth of solid and multiple commercial enterprises to warrant city-hood. We are, however, able to enjoy a good cost-of-living as well as traditional city services that are provided by Dekalb county. The second part of this answer is,as I said, intangible, dare I say emotional, in nature. Tucker is a community, not a city. One only needs to see how we rallied around Ace Hardware to see what we do for one of our own in a time of need. Tucker Civic Association has known this for a long time. Our new initiative, Tucker Lifelong Community, is a program we have developed with the help with grant money and dedicated professionals and volunteers. The TLC, as we affectionately call it, has developed a plan for the future of our community. Our focus areas are Living, Growing, Moving, and Aging. It includes everyone and excludes no one--Come on out tonight at 7:30 to our Kick Off Meeting at the Baptist Ministry center to find out how you can be a part of the future of Tucker! Thanks again, Leslie Richardson, President, Tucker Civic Association
And then someone else answered the initial letter, by saying:
and it concludes:
That bears repeating: Tucker... RECOGNIZED geographic area and SIZEABLE industrial base. 26,000 residents... boundaries of its EXISTING ZIP CODES 30084 and 30085. SUFFICIENT TAX BASE for FIVE INITIAL SERVICES.
In other words, Tucker was feasible then and we are feasible now. And that was an estimate being provided based on receiving NO money from the HOST credit. NONE! At the time, it was not worked out how cities and the county would share the HOST funds. But, even without it, Tucker was able to pay its own way.
But NOT in the configuration being presented by Tucker 2015. That is not our known and established community. THAT is not a clear, cohesive group in any way. It is an attempt to humiliate our community for trusting in the people who have led our very own civic, parent and business groups. Someone at Tucker Civic needs to explain.
Bruce Penn, the 2014 Tucker Civic President, released a statement early in the process. It is located here: http://patch.com/georgia/northdruidhills/tucker-civic-association-we-don-t-need-cityhood.
At that time, he was telling us that we did not need to become a city. And, it was looking like most people in the Lakeside map were agreeing with that sentiment, too. So, what changed? Where does Tucker Civic stand on this issue today? Why haven't they stepped up to offer their input as this seems like the sort of thing that a civic group would be best at handling, doesn't it?
Well, there could be a clue in Bruce's letter when he mentions the Main Street Tucker Alliance and all the money and transportation grants they were able to secure for Tucker. This is a clue because we know who ELSE was on that alliance board. Maybe others know this to be true, but if you never followed local politics before, this might be a big surprise.....
Here is one possible answer:
The names that appear as the leaders of Lakeside City Alliance and Lakeside YES include the same people who ran for District 82, were a part of the Tucker Civic AND Northlake Community groups as well as the Northlake Business Group AND the Main Street Tucker Business Alliance. So, our elected representatives and the community's leaders are now the SAME PEOPLE selling us out. WHY? What did we do, collectively, to bring on this change in them? Is it because we wanted better schools? Or did not want to put a cell phone tower right next to our homes or at our children's schools? It would help us so much if they would just explain the animosity toward Tucker so that we can at least have a fair fight. Right now, everyone is coming down on Tucker and we never asked for any of this. And those who used to represent us were all gerrymandered away in 2011. Call it a conspiracy theory or whatever you would like, but these things did not all happen due to some gravitational pull of the universe. Someone is on a mission to ruin Tucker.
And, whoever they are, we are assuming they already know this guy:
Frank Auman:
Frank Auman - who even had to list Stone Mountain, not Tucker, as his home when he registered as one of the many lobbyists working on Tucker 2014's payroll. Did we remember to mention that Frank Auman, above, was introduced to the Tucker community at a meeting just shortly before the holiday "Santa" announcement of the feasibility report? Even after many of us had asked repeatedly to join the planning group and volunteer effort for the city of Tucker and were turned away, Auman suddenly is front and center and being rewarded for his help.
No one knew he was then going to be immediately bumped up to lead spokesperson for the City of Tucker, in front of the committee and then lie right to their faces about where he lives and what he understands to be our community of interest.
And NO ONE agreed that Tucker should give up ANYTHING that is currently called Tucker. But, here was Frank Auman, giving up and giving away the bank.
In the video, you will hear as he refers the mostly absent committee away from the Northlake area as being the center of controversy and suggested, instead, that we were all fighting to keep Embry Hills and Pleasantdale in our map.
WHAT? Those areas are not in Tucker (hence, they have their own commonly referred to names) and probably do not want to be included, either, since the first is the area where a portion of the Lakeside City board lives and is also the HQ for the DeKalb Republican Party and the latter is a Lakeside High School feeder elementary that is on the docket for a complete rebuild thanks to our county's collection of an ESPLOST to fund infrastructure improvements in our system.
You can hear Auman give up everything that would have made us a viable city in his brief address to the Governmental Affairs Committee here:
Here is a list from the Government Transparency and campaign Finance Commission that lists the lobbyists working, supposedly, for Tucker 2014 with several of them being paid more than $10,000 for their "hard work" that no one ever recalls seeing or hearing.
and how did this all become news to Tucker's residents?
Through this person:
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| Mary Kay Woodworth who tried convincing an angry mob that she knows what is good for some of them, but can't offer it to the rest. It did not really go as well as she had planned, thanks in part to the unity of the Tucker community and the efforts of volunteers for Save Tucker! getting the word out to residents about what to expect from a meeting that was not going to be exactly what had been billed. |
... and Mary Kay was assisted by the host of the meeting ... the person who negotiated and approved borders before you ever knew they were considering it. The person who very likely gave your sign-in information from the meeting straight to Lakeside City volunteers there that night who looked a lot like the Tucker 2014 volunteers.
The person who hosted that meeting and duped a lot of us who were in her district for more than 20 years. Solid support she had from Tucker and look where it got her... uh... well, actually all things considered, she did quite well for herself, but let's not dwell on that. She had to admit wrongdoing in defrauding the taxpayer with phony invoices and non-consulting consultants, and she will have to serve a sentence of jail time, but keeps her pension paid for by us.
Meanwhile, we have the future of our historic community up in the air because we thought we were flying under the radar in DeKalb . Tucker was the "best kept secret" in metro Atlanta. It still is a great place to live, but we have a few more vacancies than usual, so if you want to move and help us when and if we need your vote, ask anyone where to find Tucker. OR just look on a map. We're in the same place we've always been, amid the crisis and chaos around us.
At least that's where things stand for now.
Thanks, Ms. Boyer. Thanks a lot.
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| Elaine Boyer, former Smoke Rise resident and secret champion for a Lakeside City takeover. |
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