Plunkett Raysich Presentation at Buildings and Grounds Meeting on February 21, 2007--Costs of Options discussed in the PRA report are detailed. Options Explained. Costs range from 30 Million to 44 million.
The Evansville Observer Archive: The unofficial history of Evansville, Wisconsin from 2005-2013: Thousands of Video and Audio and Articles; Free: To Search scroll to the Search this Blog line and enter name of person, topic, or issue. Then scroll up to see all articles. Or use Google Search by topic. Enjoy.
I didn't have time to watch the whole thing which by the way is quite long and could have used a shorter synopsis, but what I did see indicated to me the same old problem. No one wants to address the politics of growth. These guys move the discussion quickly and seemlessly through the growth estimates as if they were some minor detail and not the main point of all this. They then get on to their serious business of crunching big numbers with great and complex professional expertise and all nod their heads as good responsible citizens agreeing with the seriousness of planning for "the inevitable." When will anyone in public life in this town ever acknowledge that this is something we can have a choice about if we would ever be given an impact study of residential growth and its tax implications? The money makers and all the "responsible" politicians that service them apparently don't want to touch that one with a ten foot pole. If they did the public might get wind of the fact that these budget busting capital projects may not actually be necessary. If we took control of this growth, and we can and we should, we would allow it to happen only on a system of revenue neutrality. The long term impacts of any residential building would be required to be sufficient on their own to cover current and future costs, or it would be required, if we desired to have such housing that didn't cover its own costs, to be sufficiently offset by commercial growth. This is the only way we'll ever get a handle on the ever rising taxes that result from no rational controls. The school board is not without responsibility in this and should do more than simply react to decisions or lack thereof made by the city and township. However much state funding formulas are skewed towards a growth model, we still suffer negative impacts that outweigh those revenues in the end. I challenge those in government to give us a fair and transparent accounting of these future growth impacts and who of us will be required to subsidize them if they go forward.
ReplyDeleteBesides the first sentence, this post was right on. Complaining about the editing on a free video that a volunteer captured with there own equipment is kinda weak. People don't realize that blogs like the Observers are labors of love. It's like Little Red Hen syndrome, people don't realize how easy they have it. No one shows up at city meetings, yet they complain on blogs in there underwear.
ReplyDeleteTake that last post and email it to the mayor, city admin., city council. Other than that, good post.
I am very appreciative of the Observers' efforts, and your correct in noting that I didn't need to be commenting on the length of the audio post. It's just that the medium is frustrating in that you can't fast forward on a long stream to self edit it.
ReplyDelete