Dalton politics

Dalton Mayor David Pennington ran for office vowing to cut spending and reduce taxes.
He meant it.
Pennington is making a lot of people angry in the process, but he's leading a long-overdue "reassessment" of the city's spending habits, even if it means delivering a swift boot in the backside to some previously comfortable sacred cows.
Pennington has had the audacity to actually say that city government here can be smaller and more efficient. He's right, but that isn't keeping a growing number of critics from lashing out at "King David."
Pennington has had the audacity to suggets that city police and fire departments can withstand 5 percent budget cuts. The reaction on the part of some has been frenzied. Criminals will soon be flocking to lawless Dalton. Fires will burn out of control. The sky is fallling. The sky is falling.
Don't be fooled.
The bureaucrats who are pretty much used to getting what they want from the mayor and council are going to have to work a little harder to justify their budgets. They're gonna scream loudly and try to scare the general public into thinking that disaster is looming.
It isn't .. not if those managers can effectively deal with the new budget situation.
Times are tough right now and local government cannot not be insulated from economic realities.
Hopefully mayor and council will stay on this course.