Your Local Government Pontificator
Entries by Al Arnold (391)
Trickle Down...
Trickle down. When we hear that phrase, we think of economics. At least I do. The success of "trickle down" economics is subject to debate, as is any economic theory. There is another "trickle down" effect. This one is not subject to debate.
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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Al Arnold
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It's a Parade!
Two things small time politicians need to be good at is:
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?
Bureaucrat Bingo
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 |
Bikers of the world...Unite!
Back in 2001 when gasoline at the pump first went over $2.00 per gallon I purchased a small motorcycle. A Kawasaki 125 Eliminator to be precise. Well, I just never got around to riding it as much as I anticipated. For a number of reasons I didn't. So, I decided to sell it.
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.
Fourteen bicyclists ticketed by police for riding two abreast during rush hour on Hastings Way last month are fighting their $20 citations.
"It isn't a big deal to pay it, but we weren't doing anything wrong, so why should we?" said 19-year-old Katherine Hahn of Eau Claire, who uses her bicycle often to get around the city.
Hahn and 13 others ticketed entered not guilty pleas last week in Eau Claire Court. Three other bikers entered no contest pleas.
Yup, that's right. Eau Claire, WI is writing tickets to bikers for riding on the street.
State law allows bicyclists to ride two abreast if the lane is wide enough to allow them to travel safely and such operation doesn't impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic.
"It was rush hour, and there were a lot of vehicles out there, and (the bicyclists) were causing traffic to go less than 10 mph," said Jason Kaveney, the Police Department's community relations officer. "Hastings Way also is too narrow for them to ride side by side safely."
Hahn disagrees.
"We weren't impeding traffic at all," Hahn said. "We were just doing our thing in the far right lane, and people (in motor vehicles) just switched lanes and went around us."
The posted speed limit is 35 mph on the section of Hastings Way where the bicyclists were ticketed.
"We also talked to the officer and he said there wasn't any minimum speed limit," said Drew Kaiser, 26, of Eau Claire. "His justification was that any vehicle, whether it be a car or bicycle, if it's going that slow it's dangerous because it's impeding traffic.
"But he also conceded that a car going 5 miles per hour isn't illegal."
"It's a $20 citation," Kaiser said. "It's not like it's breaking the bank, but it's more the point that there isn't any postings saying that bicycles aren't allowed.
"There isn't a sidewalk or bicycle lane for us to bike in, so our only other option if we want to travel in that direction is riding in 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!
Farthest of the "Far Left"
Smart Growth...Comprehensive Planning... Call it what you want, every local government should plan for the future.
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.
Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, County Board Chairman Scott McDonell and the "progressive " majority on the County Board advocate the "New Urbanism " of high density housing controlled not locally, but by the county.
Do the following New Urbanism-like statements sound familiar?
"Suburbs are chaotic and depressing agglomeration of buildings covering enormous stretches of land. "
Mixed-use developments, as opposed to single family homes, "allow easy access to public functions and services -- day care, restaurants, parks . . . transportation. "
"High-rise housing is more equitable, promotes a sense of community and should be the primary unit " of housing.
"High-density housing will allow easy access to public transportation, " which is better than private transport that has "produced an overwhelming set of unresolved problems. "
The "economic advantages of public transit for getting commuters to and from work areas are obvious and an answer to congestion. "
All of these statements are from the book "The Ideal Communist City, " written by the planners at the University of Moscow in 1965. See Randal O'Toole's book "Best Laid Plans," 2007, p. 171.
The Soviet Union went on to build these filing cabinet " apartments at a density of 70,000 people per square mile in Moscow (higher than Manhattan). These apartments and similar ones in the former Communist East Germany have now mostly been vacated, abandoned and torn down, much like the ill advised "Urban Renewal " and "planned community " high-rise apartments built by the federal government from the 1950s to the 1970s. Those in Chicago and St. Louis became so crime-ridden, residency fell to 35 percent before they were finally demolished -- again using federal grants to do so.
The point: Top-down planning by the Central Committee, the Politburo, the Capitol Area Regional Planning Commission and our Dane County Board does not work. It worked in a totalitarian, brutally-controlled socialist society only as long as the inhabitants had no freedom of choice.
County leaders exhibit an appalling lack of trust in our free-market system that has created the greatest and richest country in the world. They have disturbing disdain for local control of zoning. They dismiss the judgment and intelligence of their own neighbors, citizens, farmers, businessmen, developers, village and town councils in Dane County.
It ain't called the People's Republic of Madison for nothing.