Last week was a major week for Evansville, with the public financing of two bond issues, one for water and light infrastructure and the rest for other public improvements. All around town things are being torn up and changed. It's little late to go back to no growth.
I have always had a fondness for Zen sayings such as the title of this post. It may have been due to one afternoon when just after I had a Chinese fortune cookie that said " Not now, but soon," I got laid off, but whatever, I have always loved the Zen sayings.
Evansville is on a growth bicycle. The Wisconsin Journal has an interesting opinion piece in Sundays edition explaining why now, more than ever, GROWTH is the key to municipalities avoiding higher taxes or lower public services, or both. Because of the property tax freeze, it is essentially either grow or die.
The surge of energy due to the new Evansville High School has given Evansville the boost to get on the growth bicycle. Now the trick is to stay on it. Not wobble. Not be confused. The trick is to get quality growth and keep the formula of affordable family living in a friendly small town setting.
The debate has been not whether to grow, but how and where and at what pace. Residents may vigorously differ on those issues and have on this site. The danger it seems to me is from those who do not want to talk about it. Those who maybe would rather be surprised down the road by a huge tax bill due to poor planning of pace of residential growth.
As Mr Connors noted at the Finance committee meeting last week, yes we are bumping up against our levy limit for valuation now, but once the new valuation comes on the tax rolls for new construction, Evansville will be fine. The other way of stating that is that without growth, we would not be fine.
So, let's think of growth as a bicycle. It is important to talk about the pace and skill of the rider. Let's just hope we can keep a level of growth that will avoid the peril of wobbling. Wobbling would be the state estimate of Evansville population growth.
Click on the post for the Wisconsin Journal op ed piece. What are your thoughts on the growth bicycle?
Thursday, September 01, 2005
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I am all for Evansville's growth to continue. With more housing, we will have better services available to residents on Main Street and on the east side where business construction is focused.
ReplyDeleteTo stray from this path would be suicide at this point.
The property taxes in the city have become prohibitively expensive, and I really hope the new assessments and additional housing stock lead to lower mill rates. If mill rates do fall (as they should) then I think we will witness a rise in property values. Right now Evansville house prices lag behind communities with equivalent services and distances from Madison.
I hope that we don't become afraid of our success, and continue the investment in preserving this wonderful community.