If I didn’t know better, I’d be arguing that this county known as “DeKalb” is really just a front for some sort of screwy non-profit that doles out money to lawyers.

From the AJC…

A federal court jury on Thursday awarded two former DeKalb County parks employees $185,000 in damages in the long-running racial discrimination case against the county.

In the culmination of a case that wound through the courts for six years, the jurors found that former DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones, Jones’ former executive assistant, Richard Stogner, former parks director Marilyn Boyd Drew and DeKalb County itself were all liable for damages.

The decision came after seven days of testimony before a jury of six — five white and one black — in a cased filed by four plaintiffs who claimed Jones, DeKalb’s first black CEO when elected in 2000, orchestrated a scheme to replace three top white managers in the parks department with blacks.

The case has been long and costly, with DeKalb spending more than $2.5 million in attorney fees for its defense.

An email sent out by the Hank Johnson campaign late last week telegraphed to the world that a new poll recently put out by Lake Research Partners shows Johnson with a substantial lead over his potential competition in the District 4 congressional district.

Johnson has a +28 point lead in a four candidate field including Vernon Jones, Connie Stokes, and Lee May.

On the full four way ballot, Johnson has more support than all of his opponents combined, and he is already only 3 points away from the simple majority necessary to avoid a runoff.

And in head to head matchups, Johnson easily defeats his two closest challengers.

According to the poll, Johnson currently holds a 40-point advantage over from DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones and a 39-point lead over DeKalb County Commissioner Connie Stokes.

Since this press release went out, it has been announced that potential challenger and DeKalb County Commissioner Lee May had dropped out of the race to “focus on the county’s deficit.”

It’s still early in the race, but such huge discrepancies may be hard to make up.  Especially for an already well-known challenger like Vernon Jones.

If you can’t be a Senator, might as well be a Representative!

The AJC’s Jim Galloway breaks the news that former DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones will soon be back on the campaign trail, announcing this afternoon at 2pm his intent to run against incumbent Hank Johnson (and other former Jonesians Connie Stokes and Lee May) for Georgia’s Fourth Congressional District House Seat.

Let the games begin!

Vernon Jones may have vetoed the 2:30a bar closing time bill passed by the DeKalb County Commission last month, citing potential lost revenue, but that hasn’t stopped him from coming up with alternative means of deterring the most egregious and annoying nightclub offenders.

Connect the dots.

First, Jones vetoes the earlier closing hours bill, allowing bars in DeKalb to remain open ’til 4am, unlike neighboring Atlanta, which closes up shop at 2a.  Nightclubs and bars breath a sigh of relief.

Then comes Operation: Hammer Time.  County Police descend upon nightclubs, bars and strip clubs issuing 78 violations and making 109 arrests for things like permit violations.  Nightclubs and bars are caught off guard and begin reaching for the oxygen mask.

This was followed by the less-exciting sequel: Operation Hammer Time II where restaurants and hotels got the same treatment.

Then today the DeKalb County Zoning Board of Appeals ruled that the controversial nightclub that started this whole fiasco (Pure Atlanta) was not appropriate for C1 commercial zoning because it does not have a kitchen (and therefore cannot be considered a “restaurant”).  The board stated that nightclubs without kitchens should be grouped along places like bowling alleys and movie theaters as “recreation”.

The ruling has wide implications for any nightclub or bar in the county that doesn’t cook its own food.  If the ruling still stands after appeal, many nightclubs and bars could be shutdown.

Just like after Operation Hammer Time, county officials are playing dumb to the broader implications of this ruling.

From the AJC…

Kristie Swink, spokeswoman for the county, originally said the decision was not meant to close the club and that the planning department was going to review the ruling. A day later, she said the ball was in the club’s court and it had to successfully appeal the board’s ruling or be shut down.

But ultimately, as anyone that’s followed this months-long story can see, when you begin connect all the dots, you get a picture of a CEO that wanted to use quieter, alternative methods (law enforcement, zoning board) to deter nightclubs from crossing the county line into DeKalb, instead of a highly public, blanket legislation.

Here we go again.

Even Hammer knew he couldn’t repurpose “Can’t Touch This”.  But the DeKalb police are intent on wearing out this tired old phrase.

After a bar and nightclub crackdown a couple of weeks ago, which came suspiciously on the heals of CEO Vernon Jones’ veto of an earlier end to pouring hours bill, the  DeKalb police are at it again.  However, this time around the AJC is priming the public for a gripping crackdown of hotels and restaurants.

I wait with bated breath to read how the AJC sensationalizes this story without the half-naked strippers they focused on the last go round.

I smell a Pulitzer!