You live here. That is why they have to listen to you.

A developer wants something from your city government. Weekley Homes cannot build 220 houses on Dupree Road unless Woodstock annexes the land and rezones it from R-40 to R-4 first. That's a favor. Favors get granted quietly, in rooms where nobody who lives here bothered to write in.

You already know the feeling. You read about a project after it is approved and you think, well, that was decided a long time ago by people who were never going to ask me. Not this one. This one has a hearing on August 6 and a vote on August 24, and it has your council member's inbox sitting wide open between now and then.

We have run this play in Woodstock before and we know exactly what moves it. Not volume. Not outrage. Constituents. Council members sort their mail into people who can vote for them and people who cannot, and one letter from a real Woodstock address with a real ward attached outweighs a hundred names from three counties over. That's not cynicism; that's just how the job works, and it happens to put the power in your hands.

Here's the plan.

1. Send the letter. It is written and researched. Change the first line so they know who you are, because a letter with a REAL person like you in it gets read and a form letter gets tallied. Both help. Yours should be read.
2. Forward it to five neighbors inside the city limits. Not sure of your ward, or theirs? Check here: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/d0968c00628e4f818b03e7976cde4b6e
3. Come on August 6 and August 24. We will help you prepare a two minute script if you want to speak, or you can fill a seat and say nothing at all. Both count.

Do that, and here's what happens: Council members walk into that room already knowing their own voters are watching, and a project that only pencils out if the city bends four of its own rules stops penciling out.

Skip it, and here's what happens. Roughly 130 families lose homes they cannot move and cannot replace, 220 houses go up that none of them could ever buy, and even more traffic pours onto Dupree Road for the rest of your life in this town.

Two minutes. Send it.

If you have not signed the petition yet, do that too: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/reject-the-ansley-park-rezoning-dont-bulldoze-our-neighbors-homes