Attention all 2,400 Dunwoody businesses—-the city of Dunwoody feels you are vital to the community and wants to foster your continued growth and success.
And, to help ensure local business owners and corporate leaders understand their importance to the city, Dunwoody’s economic development office recently launched a business retention “listening tour” to, in the words of one city official, “make sure businesses that call Dunwoody home are happy.”
Entire article online here.
Who are "Dunwoody businesses"?
According to City Hall's own statistics, almost 80% of these have 10 employees or fewer. The most current numbers available indicate almost 400 of them are home-based. (That we are sure of - many home business owners hide. Some are deliberately trying to skirt the law. Others feel their enterprise is so small it's not worth the effort to do the licensing paperwork at City Hall.) That factors out to between 15-20% of your business community; a huge amount.
It is in City Hall's best interest to pay attention to the small, local, family-owned, and home-based operations as much as if not more than the large corporations.
Why?
Because the overwhelming majority of these small business owners are Dunwoody residents.
They are businesses that can VOTE.
It wouldn't be wise to piss them off to the point they decide to vote as a block.
Contrary to the NIMBY party line, there is almost no deliniation between a business owner and a homeowner in Dunwoody. They are not separate feudal kingdoms, eternally at war, with an alligator-stocked moat between them. Dunwoody business owners are not out to ravage their neighborhoods (you know - the ones they LIVE in....) and transform them into polluted wastelands. They're your neighbors. Like 'em or not, they are the people who walk their dogs and jog and play tennis at the local club. They're the people you buy products from. Or who provide services in your home. It amazes me that the occasional NIMBY uprising at some DHA meetings is so short-sighted they would alienate people they live with just for being a business owner.
But Michael Starling's office and City Hall for that matter aren't going to get drowned out by NIMBYs. I believe that the meetings being proposed are a safe haven for business owners to say what they think without being subjected to a "Lord of the Flies" scenario by an angry, mindless mob driven by fears whispered in their ears.
No matter how large or small your operation is... whether you work in Dunwoody Village, Georgetown, Perimeter, or at home - the invitation is out for YOU. Take advantage of it. Call Starling's office, make an appointment to visit, and say what's on your mind. This is not speaking in public, so you're not going to make yourself a target by standing up for yourself, your employees, your colleagues, and your customers.
As a business owner if you want your rights defined and defended, the welcome mat is out and the next move is yours.
Mr. Starling - please check your voicemail. I left a message for you.
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