The "trickle down" effect of public confidence in political leaders.

The latest Gallop poll on public confidence is very disturbing.

Gallup's annual update on confidence in institutions finds just 12% of Americans expressing confidence in Congress, the lowest of the 16 institutions tested this year, and the worst rating Gallup has measured for any institution in the 35-year history of this question.

Twelve percent confidence rating of Congress!

Even though the Supreme Court (32% "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence) and presidency (26%) are rated more positively than Congress, all institutions are at or near their lowest ratings to date. The rating for the presidency is just one percentage point above its worst rating of 25% from 2007, while the Supreme Court's rating is its worst.

The public's confidence in President Bush is at 26%. While still a horrible confidence rating, it is more than double the confidence rating we have in Congress.

There is only one reason the public confidence in these political leaders is so low. They have earned it. The "trickle down" effect of these low ratings can be felt in every State House, City Council, County Board and on and on and on. Politicians at every level are paying for these low ratings whether they have earned it or not.

I don't see an end to this crisis of confidence.

Do you?

Happy Birthday America.

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1)  Chicken Dinner Circuit

2)  Parades

My State Assembly Representative is really good at both of those. She has been in office for over 20 years.

It is for this reason I was shocked... SHOCKED...to read that the Republican and Democrat  parties will not be allowed to participate in a parade.

According to the Kenosha (WI) News...

A local GOP official is crying foul over the city's refusal to allow the party to enter a float in Sunday's Kenosha Civic Veterans Parade.

Erin Decker, the Republican Party of Kenosha County's float committee chairman, recently sent a letter to city aldermen and county supervisors, asking them to request that city Project Coordinator Penney Haney allow the party to participate in the parade.

Haney, who assumed oversight of the parade after the former parade committee's recent demise, countered that she has chosen this year to simply follow previous parade policies, including a restriction prohibiting the involvement of political parties.

Excuse me? A Fourth of July weekend parade honoring veterans...and no politicians allowed? 

Well, not exactly.

While political parties and candidates for office have been excluded from the Kenosha parade, sitting elected officials - including those up for re-election - are allowed spots in the event. Those on this year's parade roster include U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.; state Sen. Robert Wirch, D-Pleasant Prairie; state Rep. John Steinbrink, D-Pleasant Prairie, and various partisan county elected officials.

Incumbents can ride in the parade, but challengers can't? Who's paying for this?

The parade is funded largely by contributions from the city and county governments. The county is contributing $12,500, and the city is putting $10,000 toward this year's event.

So, let me get this straight? Taxpayer money is funding the parade and the politicians  who voted to fund this parade, can be in the parade... but anyone who might run against them...can't?

And ... they are getting away with this?

The following is brought to you by Freedom Advocates.

Anyone who has ever sat through a "Planning" Meeting will love it.

It is fun!

It is easy to play!

It is simply called...

Bureaucrat Bingo

Don't get bored - be creative. Enliven community "visioning" meetings and workshops with bureaucrat bingo cards. Here's a great example!

Here's a consensus process diversion for those subjected to facilitators at community “visioning” meetings and workshops. Do you feel frustrated and stifled during these sessions? What about those long and boring surveys, questionnaires and workbooks?

 Here's a way to change all of that:

 1. Before (or during) your next meeting, seminar, or workshop,prepare your "Bureaucrat Bingo" card by drawing a square -- 5"x 5" is a good size -- then divide it into columns--five across and five down. That will give you 25 1-inch blocks.

 2. Write one of the following words/phrases in each block:

Consensus, Quality of Life, Core Competencies, Best Practices, Sustainable, Smart Growth, Triple Bottom Line, Capacity Building, Visioning, Holistic, Facilitator, Benchmark, Social Equity, Action Group, Environmental Justice, Precautionary Principle, Fast Track, Paradigm, Civil Society, Empower (or empowerment), Gaia, Global Government, United Nations, Regional, NGO (Non-Governmental Organization), Public/Private Partnership, Business Council or other appropriate words.

 3. Check off the appropriate block when you hear one of those words/phrases.

 4. When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, stand up and shout "BUREAUCRAT!"

 Testimonials from satisfied "Bureaucrat Bingo" players:

"I had been in the meeting for merely five minutes when bingo , I won!!!"-- Steve, Monterey CA

"My attention span at meetings has improved dramatically."-- Rowland B., North Dakota

"What a blast! Meetings will never be the same for me after my first win."-- Spirit Moon, Austin Texas

"The atmosphere was tense in the last consensus meeting as 11 of us waited for the last box. The speaker froze as seven of us shouted "BUREAUCRAT" for the third time only half -way through the meeting," - Jeannie, NC

What did I replace it with? How about a 3 wheeled adult tricycle?

 A Sun tricycle... A "Made in the USA" trike. (Mine is Henry Ford Black)

 I took possession on this past  Saturday... the day that gasoline went over $4.00 in my hometown.

Look at that basket on the back. I can carry stuff in that! I did yesterday. I went to the grocery store and had two bags full.

While reading my Sunday papers yesterday I then came across this article about bikes in the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram.

Yup, that's right. Eau Claire, WI is writing tickets to bikers for riding on the street.

When I rode my little Kawasaki, I didn't feel a kinship with the Harley riders.

But, I do feel a kinship with these riders.

Fight on...and Good Luck!

Can anyone name a successful business that doesn't plan for the future? Their plans change over time, but they at least have a vision of where they want their business to be somewhere down the line. Local governments need to do the same.

It is what that vision is that becomes the sticking point. Example?  Madison, Wisconsin.

At least this Opinion in the Wisconsin State Journal by William Richardson indicates a difference of vision for Dane County.

Golf carts aren't just for Police Departments however, they can be for anyone...some places... maybe?

 The debate is raging full force in parts of Indiana, according to IndyStar.Com.     

Nadine Urban gets more upset every time she looks at her parked golf cart outside her Boone County home.

Gas prices have topped $4 a gallon, and Urban, a retiree, would like to use it to run errands around Lebanon. She was able to do that after the town adopted a 2006 ordinance allowing golf carts on local streets.

But a ticket from a State Police trooper and a subsequent local court ruling forced Urban to park her electric cart -- and town officials to shelve their ordinance.

The problem: As more people drive carts off fairways and onto streets, local officials are left to sort out safety issues that aren't clearly addressed in state traffic laws.

I say...  let's start sorting these safety issues out. Huh?

It costs about 3 cents a mile to operate an electric cart, compared with about 37 cents for a car with gas at $4 a gallon.

If a bicycle can be on the road...if a horse and buggy can be on the road...is it too much for people to expect to be able to drive this energy efficient method of transportation to run errands around town?

I think not...How about you?

What do you think of when you hear those words?

The first thing I think of is...  Terry Nichols.

I think of a whole city of angry ...  anti government ...  zealots.

I must not be alone.

The Kingman Daily Miner reports...

Has your home recently been engulfed in flames, blown to pieces in a hurricane or crumbled by an earthquake? If so, Kingman wants you.

That is one of the messages a group of community leaders plan to send as part of the long-existing and recently revived Route 66 Association.

About 20 people met Tuesday evening in the old Elks building downtown to come up with ideas to attract new residents and new commercial development, end the squabbling in city government and do whatever they can to help revive the struggling local economy and to bring back Kingman's positive image.

The problems over land deals and government policies that have caused so much controversy the last few years admittedly can't be fixed overnight, but having all the major players in the room was a start, the organizer said.

All agreed that the political turmoil of the last several years and the continual back and forth between various factions in the community have tarnished Kingman's image. One city councilman recently cited a resident who called the twice-monthly public meetings "the best reality TV show (people) had ever seen."

(Kingman isn't alone there. I believe every city's Council meetings are great reality shows.)

Led by business owner and reformed government critic Scott Dunton, the local leaders - including city officials and their watchdogs, developers and their critics - discussed ways to "accentuate the positives and de-emphasize the negatives," as Kingman developer and Scottsdale resident Richard Campana put it.

The residents of Kingman have their work cut out for themselves. I wish them good luck.

Where do they start?

As for immediate action, Dunton and the growing Route 66 Association plan to throw a party and possibly a street dance downtown.

Get drunk and party.

Good Start!

According to the Wisconsin State Journal, the gawkers of Lake Delton are not very welcome by some.

Visitors have long been coming to this tourist village to be near the water and watch daredevil waterskiers.

Now some are coming to gawk at a different spectacle -- a naked lake bed exposed after flooding breached part of the shoreline earlier this month and drained the 267-acre aquatic playland...

Gawkers are a mixed blessing for this community, bringing some extra money to businesses that need it but also adding a nuisance for residents trying to move on after trying days.

"You see the very best and worst in people, " said Pat Schultz, 54, whose home is one of the nearest to the site of the shoreline breach that also destroyed a section of Highway A.

In the first days after the disaster, Schultz estimates that more than 1,000 strangers tramped over her then-debris-strewn property to get a glimpse of the lake before her yard was cordoned off with police tape. But Schultz also noted the kindness of acquaintances who showed up to help her family clean up.

Around the state, gawkers have also been reported in other communities such as Janesville, where the curious have gathered to see carp swimming in floodwaters covering Main Street. But Tony Hozeny, a spokesman for Wisconsin Emergency Management, said Lake Delton -- which drew extensive press coverage in the region -- is the spot that has drawn problem onlookers.

Authorities including the National Guard have been deployed to keep people away from flooded areas in various communities due to concerns about contaminated water and unstable ground.

Over this past weekend my wife and I took a little trip down state.

And...we gawked at Lake Delton.

We didn't trespass on private property. We didn't walk the drained lake bed.

But, we gawked from a distance.

Guilty!

According to this AP story found in multiple places...

The body that represents the country’s local authorities has told its members to stop using management buzzwords, saying they confuse people and prevent residents from understanding what local governments do.

The Local Government Association, whose members include hundreds of district, town and county councils in England and Wales, on Friday sent out a list of 100 “nonwords” that it said officials should avoid if they want to be understood.

The list includes the popular but vague term “empowerment”; “coterminosity,” a situation in which two organizations oversee the same geographical area; and “synergies,” combinations in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

The association’s chairman, Simon Milton, said officials should not “hide behind impenetrable jargon and phrases.”

I can hear the cheering of the citizens...can you?

"Why do we have to have 'coterminous, stakeholder engagement' when we could just 'talk to people' instead?" he said.

Amen ...

but my favorites are yet to come...

Officials were told to ditch the term "revenue stream" for income, as well as the imprecise "sustainable communities." The association also said councils should stop referring to local residents as "customers" or "stakeholders."

Unfortunately there was nothing about using the term "investing" when referring to spending tax money.

What brought this on?

It was the proverbial "straw that broke the camels back" that brought about this approved list of words to avoid.

The association sent its letter after reports that one town council had told staff to use the term “thought showers” instead of “brainstorming.”

Officials at Tunbridge Wells council in southern England felt brainstorming might offend people with epilepsy, a condition that involves periodic electrical storms inside the brain.

However, the National Society for Epilepsy said it had surveyed its members and they did not find the term offensive.

Sanity wins a small battle ... against the war on political correctness!

Enter Victoria, British Columbia.

According to the Ellen Perlman on the 13th Floor of Governing .Com...

Cities fighting to be the greenest in the land should look to Victoria, British Columbia, for some tips.

Victoria is doing additional things I hadn't heard about elsewhere. I observed a few this week while walking around Canada's "fittest city."

For instance, do your city streets provide solar-powered trash compactors? How about parking that encourages fuel efficient cars? Victoria is full of those hyper-tiny Smart cars, in lime, pink, blue and other colors. They are encouraged, in part, by special parking spaces just for them. (Or any other vehicle that is a maximum of three meters in length. I guess lawnmowers also would fit. Perhaps a mini Cooper or a Volkswagen?  I haven't measured those recently.)

Anyway, those Smart cars fit snugly between the white lines painted on the street.

Victoria is also a biking city, with clearly marked bike lanes on the roads, and this week, a  Bike to Work week. Biking amenities are getting more common here in the States, too.

Victoria, in general, seems to be very aware of doing its part to save the planet. It's a walkable city, and bus service seems extensive. 

And to think, we still have people who fight against sidewalks.

The comments following this article were also very interesting ...

and...

Well done Victoria but too bad you treat the ocean as your private cess pond. Do something about the raw sewage..PLEASE!

Would the real Victoria...please stand up?