Strong Towns sez: "We Don't Need More 'Invitations to the Table.' We Need a New Table."

The table used to sit at the Roadhouse. I'm not sure where it is now.

Probably in the Down-Low Bunker.

We Don't Need More "Invitations to the Table." We Need a New Table.

Two years ago, I wrote about how most public engagement is worthless. I am not a fan of the ways we have oriented local government vertically, to essentially be an implementation arm of state and federal policy instead of servants of urgent local needs. While we’ve done this internally within local government, we’ve evolved our public engagement process for similar objectives.

You can think of local public engagement as peaceful pre-crowd control. How do we provide enough opportunity for feedback and engagement so that we can say that everyone was heard, but not so much that it actually refocuses our priorities from those that we hold internally? From my 2018 column:

I’m a planner and I’m a policy nerd. I had all the training in how to hold a public meeting and solicit feedback through SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) questions. I’ve been taught how to reach out to marginalized groups and make sure they too have a voice in the process. That is, so long as that voice fit into the paradigm of a planner and a policy nerd. Or so long as I could make it fit.

There has been a lot of conversation about this here at Strong Towns since that article, and the follow up by Rueben Anderson (Most Public Engagement is Worse than Worthless), were published. Common approaches to public engagement are broken because the objectives of that engagement are wrong.

A tweet by Bernice King succinctly summarizes the power dynamic at play.

I recognize the moment we are in and am not wanting to take away from it, but I would build off the core insights of that tweet by expanding it in the way Chris Arnade has described the “front row” and “back row” Americas. A year ago, Arnade wrote about those who own the table and control who is invited ...

Memo to Team Gahan: "Nine Things Local Government Needs to Do Right Now in Response to the Pandemic."

Charles Marohn has some really good advice for local leaders. The only question is whether his words are equipped with the latest in bunker penetration technology.

Nine Things Local Government Needs to Do Right Now in Response to the Pandemic, by Charles Marohn (Strong Towns)

Local governments are on the front lines of our nation’s response to the combined public health and economic crisis created by COVID-19.

Local leaders are being forced to adapt to new realities in an environment where the individuals, families, businesses, and civic organizations within their community are under extreme stress.

And, for the most part, local governments have found themselves on their own, without financial support from the state and federal governments, spectators of a clumsy response.

To make it through this crisis with the least loss of life, to set ourselves up for the strongest possible economic recovery, and to keep our community dialogue productive and healthy, local government must fill the leadership void.

It’s time for local governments to be the leaders their communities need. Here are the first steps to making that happen ...

You get only the first one -- this being the tip City Hall will find most difficult to wrap its avarice around.

A Necessary Mental Shift for Local Leaders

We’re in a time of transition, the process of defining a new normal. The way things used to be, local governments were largely the implementation tool of state and federal policy. In the emerging reality, our systems need to become more bottom-up.

To build strong and prosperous communities, a local leader must:

Step Up. Recognize that local government is not the lowest form of government in an ecosystem of governments, but the highest form of coordination and advocacy for your community.

Orient Horizontal, Not Vertical. Firmly ground yourself in representing the people in your community. Orient yourselves to zealously serve their needs, particularly in the face of established top-down systems that are not.

Be a Voice of Unity. Understand that, in such an emotional and volatile time, with so much difficult work to be done, divisive language will slow you down. Be your most generous self. There is too much to do -- you can’t afford to needlessly alienate anyone.

Seize the Moment. In such volatile times, small steps taken now will ripple through time and dramatically change the course of future events. You can’t wait around for others to show the way. The cities that will emerge strongest are those that take decisive action now ...

So far, here's how we've dealt with the pandemic in New Albany.

In our town, reality and satire are inseparable.

From The Aggregate, "City Officials Need Term Limits."

The Aggregate is up and running.

The Aggregate is a new start-up that focuses on putting all of the news that matters to you in one place, for free. In the flood of information enabled by today's technologies, finding the right news for you can be difficult. The Aggregate allows you to find local to global stories that interest you. In addition, we offer news overviews, incisive opinion pieces, a podcast for our paid insiders.

The Aggregate web site
The Aggregate Facebook

Of the four contributors listed, only Nick Vaughn is known to me. You'll recall his past contributions to NA Confidential (browse here).

Articles are beginning to appear. Here's one of them, by Vaughn.

City Officials Need Term Limits, by Nick Vaughn (The Aggregate)

With the political scene being dominated by national politics, I felt that it was best to try to shift gears, get local, and talk about an issue that is especially pressing at the local level. New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, San Antonio, Phoenix, and Dallas all have two things in common. First, they are among America’s largest cities and second, they term limit their city officials. You can even add Philadelphia in the mix as well, although they only limit the mayor. While the cities I listed all have varying restrictions on the amount of terms and the length of terms city officials can serve, the point is that some of the largest cities in America saw the need to limit the amount of career politicians that served on their city council and in the mayor’s office. I suggest New Albany follow suit and invoke term limits on city officials ...

Strong Towns Week: “This blog has changed my life in profound ways and, in the process, your reaction has given voice to a movement that is slowing seeping into those cogs of government.”

The Copperhead can be intimidating.

You know, this guy up in Minnesota getting involved, and finding it discomforts the governing cliques, the sycophants serving them, and the oligarchs being served by them.

Comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable? Marohn is an engineer, but it almost sounds like journalism.

STAYING STRONG, by Charles Marohn

... I wanted to share this because I know there are Strong Towns advocates out there who occasionally get similar responses in their communities: Why don’t you move? Let’s see you run for council. Why don’t you show up? These are really destructive and dysfunctional notions that are meant to intimidate and shame the receiver. We can’t let that change what we do.

We all need to understand, first and foremost, that you don’t need to attend a meeting to care. You don’t need to be involved in the system that has been set up for you in order to be involved in your place. A base assumption of the Strong Towns movement is that the city is ours. We are not relegated to secondary citizens simply because we are not following the process set forth by those in power.

One of the more deeply offensive moments of my professional life was at a meeting of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s citizen’s board where one of the outspoken board members stated that, “the world is run by those who show up.” This was said in the context of defending the actions of a wealthy, highly-connected group of prime property owners who not only could afford to take time off work and travel 150 miles to the meeting, but retain legal staff and professional experts to advocate on their behalf. Needless to say, their opposition didn’t “show up” in the way that they had — their concerns thereby invalidated with a pompous remark.

City council meetings are incredibly unfair environments for a member of the general public wanting to be heard. The layout of most council chambers is intimidating and isolating. A person asking to speak has to come up to a podium, stand there alone and face an assembled group of officials who are seated behind an intimidating table and, often, elevated above the crowd. In my city, they are on television to boot. I’ve seen grown men shake with fear when asked to address the council in this way.

This is the home field for the staff and the city council. They have the benefit of having spent a lot of time in this abnormal environment. They know how the protocols work, how to control the floor and how to direct the discussion. They have inside information that members of the public don’t have, adding to the asymmetric power structure. I will never fault someone for not subjecting themselves to that, no matter how important their cause.

The format of a council meeting creates feedback that is disjointed and unhelpful. There is little opportunity for back and forth dialogue. Complex issues must be discussed in limited timeframes. Members of the public are often given cursory slots at the beginning and the end of the agenda and frequently leave feeling as if they are being patronized or tolerated, not listened to. I don’t blame anyone for finding little value in spending their time this way.

And this:

Here is what are we called to do as Strong Towns advocates:

1. A Strong Citizen is a leader by example, sharing the values of a Strong Town in the way they live their own life.
2. A Strong Citizen is actively involved in their community, although not necessarily in local government.
3. A Strong Citizen knows their immediate neighbors and works with them to resolve conflict and build a strong neighborhood.
4. A Strong Citizen seeks connections with others outside their neighborhood as a way to gain knowledge, build understanding and strengthen the community.
5. A Strong Citizen honors the work of past generations, respects the needs of the current generation and protects the interests of future generations.

Don’t be intimidated by haters. Keep doing what you can to build a strong town.

Secrecy vs. transparency as "governments turn to bank loans rather than bonds."

You're right.

I need to stop giving his new ideas for borrowing and secrecy.

The Hidden Risks of a Growing Way to Pay for Infrastructure, by Lynnette Kelly (Governing)

More and more, governments are turning to bank loans rather than bonds. But too often the terms of the loans -- and who is first in line to collect -- are secret.

A perilous new financial risk may be hiding in the fine print of loan agreements in state capitals, county seats and city halls across the country. The cost could be high for millions of individuals whose investment dollars help finance the public schools, water systems, bridges and roads that we all rely on and which in many cases are in desperate need of repair.

Investment in the nation's infrastructure has long been a partnership between state and local governments and retail investors. State and local governments prioritize public projects, investment bankers provide products to help spread costs over the life of the project, investors buy in to earn reliable, often tax-free interest income, and then taxpayer dollars repay the bonds. Today, more and more communities are opting for alternatives to this traditional municipal-bond model in the form of direct loans from banks. Estimates are that the bank financing of public projects has ballooned to more than $155 billion with another $25-$30 billion being added each year.

Borrowing funds from a bank to build a bridge is not inherently problematic. The problems arise when the extent of the borrowing -- and the precise terms of the loans -- are a secret. For municipal-bond financings, states and communities have obligations under federal law to publicly disclose material information to investors at the outset. But no such disclosure requirements exist at the time they receive loans from banks. Investors who hold a city's outstanding bonds may have no idea that the city has taken on more debt or that the bank making the loan has made sure it will be first in line to collect if the city runs into financial troubles.

That's just what happened in Lawrence, Wis. The small town borrowed heavily from local banks, and it agreed to put the banks before the bondholders in the event it someday couldn't cover all of its financial obligations. When a major ratings agency learned of the unfavorable terms for bondholders, it quickly downgraded Lawrence's bonds to junk status. Bondholders who thought they were holding investment-grade paper are now left with a far riskier asset.

No one knows how many other Lawrences are out there ...

The Baylor for Mayor meme, October 17: Openness and transparency.

From April 27, 2015:

ON THE AVENUES MONDAY SPECIAL: Et tu, Greg Phipps? Or: Anger and the electoral variability of transparency.

City of New Albany's social media feeds AWOL as winter storm hits.

The tone deafness never ceases. Wednesday afternoon, amid the third (or 50th) day of dire and continual news warnings as to the approaching snowstorm, the City of New Albany Government's social media effort clanked into gear -- and produced this:

The stats don't lie. The posting was a hit on Facebook (it appeared simultaneously at Twitter).

However, this is government's social media site, not an entertainment channel, and not the Re-Elect Mayor Gahan site (which is located elsewhere), and about the time this view of a future aquatics panacea was posted, the bad weather started.

Subsequently there was a major winter storm, travel advisories, hundreds of closings, and even a boil water alert later in the evening -- and through it all, the city of New Albany's social media remained completely silent. Postings belatedly resumed at around 7:50 a.m.

It's worth noting that Jeffersonville and Clarksville seemed to be getting it right.

There'll be fingers pointed at Promedia, but make no mistake: The buck in this instance stops with Jeff Gahan, because when propaganda is substituted for information, and the effort is outsourced to a contractor, the result is likely to be failure.

Will Gahan finally accept responsibility for a "fail"?

ON THE AVENUES: The same tired "run government like a business" mantra.

ON THE AVENUES: The same tired "run government like a business" mantra.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

It would be refreshing to hear a candidate for public office concede that the anticipated pay package for serving as an elected official would far exceed rates of remuneration at his or her current job, with this prospective increase constituting a prime reason for seeking office in the first place.

Some of those few bothering to vote these days undoubtedly would reply that public service is supposed to be about noble ideals and selfless sacrifice. I’d counter by waiting to see if the aspiring candidate puts forth the proposition that a lifetime of business experience has provided a unique opportunity to “run” government in precisely the same fashion as a taco stand, foundry or jewelry store -- at a considerable pay cut to the chief executive officer whose capitalist expertise in making money is his or her main recommendation.

Something about this equation doesn’t add up, but then again, I’ve never been very adept at mathematics.

While we were away, merrily partying in European locales where folks really can have nice things, David White made a pilgrimage to the Scribner House, and amid the swooning of resident DAR stalwarts, announced his campaign for mayor … as a Democrat.

For those just tuning in, this means that an incumbent mayor (Jeff Gahan) who garnered 64% of the vote in the 2011 general election is viewed as vulnerable within his very own party. Not unexpectedly, White revealed very little about his platform in terms of detail, although the rudiments were summarized in Daniel Suddeath's newspaper account of White's debut:

The four cornerstones of (White’s) Advance New Albany 2016 plan are: Unifying city-county government, job creation, generating a budget surplus and “exceptionalism.”

Judging from the scant content of White’s web site, we are to believe he is capable of executing this plan by virtue of his successful business background – or, as Suddeath reports:

White said he views government as a small business, and that the residents of New Albany are the customers.

The last time we heard this “government as business” argument from a mayoral candidate, the speaker was Irv Stumler, former mayor Doug England’s hand-picked successor, and Jeff Gahan’s first victim in route to a desk somewhere near Hauss Square.

At least White is younger than his predecessor.

All of which reminded me of something I wrote in March of 2011 during my city council at-large campaign. Let’s see how well it has survived the intervening three years.

-------------------------

Last week, I was asked how it’s been possible for me to survive in business for 20 years with a lowly BA in philosophy, rather than a degree in business.

My response: Because serendipity rules our planet, and thinking trumps rote … and I doubt they teach any of this at business school.

In fact, I went into business because (a) I love beer, and (b), an opportunity was presented for me to love beer for pay while sharing my love with others. It was nothing more, it is nothing less, and it remains nothing to build a business school curriculum around. An autobiography is still possible, although if it ever comes to fruition, there’ll be precious little in it about spreadsheets.

Yesterday afternoon at Steinert’s, as I was listening for the second time this week to mayoral hopeful Irv Stumler read aloud his extensive and admittedly admirable Curriculum Vitae, it suddenly occurred to me how America’s weird indigenous cult of business achievement has almost never captured my fancy, but instead, over long decades, mostly repelled me.

Rather, my personal heroes have always been artists, baristas, musicians, chefs, writers, actors, dancers, sportsmen, brewers and other practitioners moving within the less easily quantifiable realm of creativity. How and why they’re paid is far less interesting to me than how they create, and what they produce in an aesthetic sense. How do their physical skills capture the output of their brains?

If the business of America truly is business, then it causes me to openly shudder, and if so, my personal “business” encompasses looking elsewhere – anywhere will do – for a higher order of inspiration, as opposed to worshipping techniques to amass and maintain wealth. While it’s true that Bruce Springsteen is handsomely rewarded for creating music, give me the Boss over Donald Trump, any day. I can whistle along with music, but only wince at avarice.

As a matter of convenience, I accept the term “businessman,” but prefer to think of myself as a beer entrepreneur.

The very word “entrepreneur” strikes me as more applicable. For one thing, it’s suitably French. There’s also an element of daring and risk contained in it, contrasting with “businessman”, which sounds far too numerically vocational and conservative for my blood. Entrepreneurs sweat to create; businessmen merely manage.

The prime reason for my violent, lifelong allergic reaction to the trappings of chambers of commerce and like-minded business idolatry societies is their vacuously obnoxious glorification of business for the sake of business, in the form of endless rounds of symbolic pom-pom waving, mysterious networking rites, totemic seminars and expense account driven re-education junkets, the sum total of which is the perpetuation of eager, grasping and typically greedy cadres of business “elites”, each dressed alike, refusing to travel in steerage, wholly ignorant of the universe beyond their sales strategies, but perfectly capable of exchanging indecipherable business lingo and colloquialisms that surely would have inspired Sinclair Lewis to update the saga ofBabbitt – or in the case of Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK), which uses the same sad tools in the context of God's inscrutable instructions – Elmer Gantry.

(How’s that for a paragraph, ma?)

That's why I generally refuse to wear a suit. I waited a long time to find a line of honest work that would permit me to dress like a normal human being on a daily basis. My uniform is different from yours, just as a football player’s is different from mine. Having found such a pursuit, and permitted to be both comfortable and unhesitant to dribble hot sauce down my chin, I’m hesitant to surrender the autonomy.

I’m a craft beer kind of guy, and there’s a saying in the craft beer business: We brew beer, we drink beer, and we sell what’s left. At the end of the day, if there still are a few farthings lying around, then we made a profit, and while I readily acknowledge the imperative of making a few bucks, it’s worth repeating that love of beer is what drew me to my business.

History, geography, lore and storytelling about beer are my fortes. The actual brewers can explain the enzymes. I’d rather let the finished liquid in the glass do the talking, and translate the testimony for our consumers.

---

The preceding digression is brought to you by my perpetual annoyance whenever I hear a businessman-turned-politician proclaim that government should be run like a business.

That’s fine with me, in the sense that if I’m elected to city council, and if wisdom like this is accepted at face value, there’ll be quite a lot of craft beer served at meetings – and other times, too.

In an effort to explain, and at the risk of oversimplifying, usually when we’re told to run government like a business, the speaker is referring to expense reduction alone, first by means of greater efficiencies, and if necessary, by making all the cuts required to balance the budget. These infamous days, the state of Indiana looks at it the same way, and will mold its ideologically-derived budget directives to cities in such a manner as to focus attention on one side of the ledger to the exclusion, and at times impossibility, of the other.

The casual, pants-down "businessman" in me responds to all this with a simple question: Okay, but what about revenues?

Generally a pudgy tea partier's finger is wagged. I'm told not to ask, and this juncture, the “government as business” fallacy loses it wheels. If government cannot address revenues as well as expenses, it’s nothing whatsoever “like” a business and should not pretend to be one.

During the hard times in 2010, my company tried mightily to increase efficiencies and reduce expenses, while at the same time improving customer count and increasing volume. One without the other makes no sense to a business, does it? We never stopped trying to make the pie bigger even as we reduced expenditures to make it through the lean period. There was no choice except to address both.

If government is to be run like a business, doesn't it have an imperative to bring in money even as less is spent? It might charge higher prices to its consumers (taxes and fees), or if unable to charge higher prices, it might increase the number of consumers paying lower prices.

Businesses balance these considerations every single day: Will the consumer pay the same price for the lowered quality of good and services? Can the quality be maintained when expenses are cut? Are there intangibles that might justify higher prices in their minds? How do we get more of them to come in and sample what we have to offer?

But beyond that, considering what government does, how are goods and services even to be measured?

In America, we have a mission statement and business plan of sorts, known as the Constitution, from which emanates numerous other mission statements and business plans for governance from the grassroots up. To be specific, how do we calculate the price of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the playing field for which it is government’s job to keep level?

Or do we abandon the mission statement because we’ve decided that human rights are too expensive for consumer/citizens who’d rather opt out of the compact, and can be out-sourced, half-assed and winked at? Need a cop? Just phone the call center in Bangalore ... and take a number.

I’ll not belabor the point. Government is not the same thing as business, and even if it might be in some obscure way, any Democratic candidate urging us to run government like a business needs to come equipped with ideas for making the pie bigger, or introducing a whole new kind of pie (sustainability and the grassroots localization of the economy spring to mind), not just coping in servile fashion with the dubious physiological “benefits” of devouring civil society’s remaining muscle in the interest of certifying the diktats of theocratic Republican ideology.

By any standard of attainment, Irv Stumler has enjoyed a solid career in business. Is he ready to discuss the other side of the ledger?

Let’s hear those ideas, too.

Update: Occupy the K & I.

I've said for years that the only sure way to make this happen is to pry the K & I from the cold, dead hands of Norfolk Southern, and the best leverage strategy is for local officials to work together. Think about it. Here's a project that seems to have both Todd Young and John Yarmuth sharing a goal. Such symbolism is too good to be wasted, and in terms of New Albany self-interest, a Greenway intersection with an accessible K & I virtually writes the Vincennes Street revitalization plan all by itself.

Officials still hope K&I Bridge can complete River Trail, by Marcus Green (C-J)

... the mayors of Louisville, New Albany and Jeffersonville, along with the Clarksville Town Council, have appointed a group to begin looking at options for the bridge. “We have agreed to start that ball rolling again,” said David Karem, president of Louisville’s Waterfront Development Corp.

That’s due in part to the opening of the Big Four Bridge, scheduled for this summer, Karem said. That bridge, a former railroad crossing, would be the eastern connection of the planned Kentuckiana River Trail.

A Candidate’s Progress (6): It might be some of your business.

Last week, I was asked how it’s been possible for me to survive in business for 20 years with a lowly BA in philosophy, rather than a degree in business.

My response: Because serendipity rules our planet, and thinking trumps rote … and I doubt they teach any of this at business school.

In fact, I went into business because (a) I love beer, and (b), an opportunity was presented for me to love beer for pay while sharing my love with others. It was nothing more, it is nothing less, and it remains nothing to build a business school curriculum around. An autobiography is still possible, although if it ever comes to fruition, there’ll be precious little in it about spreadsheets.

Yesterday afternoon at Steinert’s, as I was listening for the second time this week to mayoral hopeful Irv Stumler read aloud his extensive and admittedly admirable Curriculum Vitae, it suddenly occurred to me how America’s weird indigenous cult of business achievement has almost never captured my fancy, but instead, over long decades, mostly repelled me.

Rather, my personal heroes have always been artists, baristas, musicians, chefs, writers, actors, dancers, sportsmen, brewers and other practitioners moving within the less easily quantifiable realm of creativity. How and why they’re paid is far less interesting to me than how they create, and what they produce in an aesthetic sense. How do their physical skills capture the output of their brains?

If the business of America truly is business, then it causes me to openly shudder, and if so, my personal “business” encompasses looking elsewhere – anywhere will do – for a higher order of inspiration, as opposed to worshipping techniques to amass and maintain wealth. While it’s true that Bruce Springsteen is handsomely rewarded for creating music, give me the Boss over Donald Trump, any day. I can whistle along with music, but only wince at avarice.

As a matter of convenience, I accept the term “businessman,” but prefer to think of myself as a beer entrepreneur.

The very word “entrepreneur” strikes me as more applicable. For one thing, it’s suitably French. There’s also an element of daring and risk contained in it, contrasting with “businessman”, which sounds far too numerically vocational and conservative for my blood. Entrepreneurs sweat to create; businessmen merely manage.

The prime reason for my violent, lifelong allergic reaction to the trappings of chambers of commerce and like-minded business idolatry societies is their vacuously obnoxious glorification of business for the sake of business, in the form of endless rounds of symbolic pom-pom waving, mysterious networking rites, totemic seminars and expense account driven re-education junkets, the sum total of which is the perpetuation of eager, grasping and typically greedy cadres of business “elites”, each dressed alike, refusing to travel in steerage, wholly ignorant of the universe beyond their sales strategies, but perfectly capable of exchanging indecipherable business lingo and colloquialisms that surely would have inspired Sinclair Lewis to update the saga of Babbitt – or in the case of Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK), which uses the same sad tools in the context of God's inscrutable instructions – Elmer Gantry.

(How’s that for a paragraph, ma?)

That's why I generally refuse to wear a suit. I waited a long time to find a line of honest work that would permit me to dress like a normal human being on a daily basis. My uniform is different from yours, just as a football player’s is different from mine. Having found such a pursuit, and permitted to be both comfortable and unhesitant to dribble hot sauce down my chin, I’m hesitant to surrender the autonomy.

I’m a craft beer kind of guy, and there’s a saying in the craft beer business: We brew beer, we drink beer, and we sell what’s left. At the end of the day, if there still are a few farthings lying around, then we made a profit, and while I readily acknowledge the imperative of making a few bucks, it’s worth repeating that love of beer is what drew me to my business.

History, geography, lore and storytelling about beer are my fortes. The actual brewers can explain the enzymes. I’d rather let the finished liquid in the glass do the talking, and translate the testimony for our consumers.

---

The preceding digression is brought to you by my perpetual annoyance whenever I hear a businessman-turned-politician proclaim that government should be run like a business.

That’s fine with me, in the sense that if I’m elected to city council, and if wisdom like this is accepted at face value, there’ll be quite a lot of craft beer served at meetings – and other times, too.

In an effort to explain, and at the risk of oversimplifying, usually when we’re told to run government like a business, the speaker is referring to expense reduction alone, first by means of greater efficiencies, and if necessary, by making all the cuts required to balance the budget. These infamous days, the state of Indiana looks at it the same way, and will mold its ideologically-derived budget directives to cities in such a manner as to focus attention on one side of the ledger to the exclusion, and some times impossibility, of the other.

The casual, pants-down "businessman" in me responds to all this with a simple question: Okay, but what about revenues?

Generally a pudgy tea partier's finger is wagged. I'm told not to ask, and this juncture, the “government as business” fallacy loses it wheels. If government cannot address revenues as well as expenses, it’s nothing whatsoever “like” a business and should not pretend to be one.

During the hard times in 2010, my company tried mightily to increase efficiencies and reduce expenses, while at the same time improving customer count and increasing volume. One without the other makes no sense to a business, does it? We never stopped trying to make the pie bigger even as we reduced expenditures to make it through the lean period. There was no choice except to address both.

If government is to be run like a business, doesn't it have an imperative to bring in money even as less is spent? It might charge higher prices to its consumers (taxes and fees), or if unable to charge higher prices, it might increase the number of consumers paying lower prices.

Businesses balance these considerations every single day: Will the consumer pay the same price for the lowered quality of good and services? Can the quality be maintained when expenses are cut? Are there intangibles that might justify higher prices in their minds? How do we get more of them to come in and sample what we have to offer?

But beyond that, considering what government does, how are goods and services even to be measured?

In America, we have a mission statement and business plan of sorts, known as the Constitution, from which emanates numerous other mission statements and business plans for governance from the grassroots up. To be specific, how do we calculate the price of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the playing field for which it is government’s job to keep level?

Or do we abandon the mission statement because we’ve decided that human rights are too expensive for consumer/citizens who’d rather opt out of the compact, and can be out-sourced, half-assed and winked at? Need a cop? Just phone the call center in Bangalore ... and take a number.

I’ll not belabor the point. Government is not the same thing as business, and even if it might be in some obscure way, any Democratic candidate urging us to run government like a business needs to come equipped with ideas for making the pie bigger, or introducing a whole new kind of pie (sustainability and the grassroots localization of the economy spring to mind), not just coping in servile fashion with the dubious physiological “benefits” of devouring civil society’s remaining muscle in the interest of certifying the diktats of theocratic Republican ideology.

By any standard of attainment, Irv Stumler has enjoyed a solid career in business. Is he ready to discuss the other side of the ledger? Let’s hear those ideas, too.

Categorically brilliant.

David Harvey takes a holistic view of recent global economic activities that smell a lot like local goings on.

Dare WE loiter on LOIT? (Part 2).

Previously, and including a lengthy discussion: Dare WE loiter on LOIT? (Part 1).

To continue the discussion concerning the Local Option Income Tax (LOIT), I’d like to address the if’s, how’s & why’s of the benefits for the citizens of New Albany/Floyd County.

Having just completed the 2009 budget process for the city, which left us all spitting cotton and wondering whether or not there’ll be any point in calling 911 next year, the Safety Tax portion of the option seems to be a no-brainer.

But then one has to have ‘em in order to use ‘em.

For three years or longer both police & fire departments have been attempting to hold the line with less live bodies than recommended by any study I’ve seen to date. Yet the selfsame councilmen who readily pass along complaints from their constituents about the lack of protection & service are just as quick to target those departments as the prime culprits of wasted tax dollars.

“Park the cars!” “Take away their cell-phones!” “Cut out overtime!” “Put off maintenance!” All of these and more are the constant battle cry of those who at the same time demand and expect an immediate response to a need, be it real or perceived.

The local newspapers have run several articles during the last several days depicting views from various individuals on both sides of this issue.

FOP President and New Albany Police Detective Paul Haub presented what I thought was a good argument for passing the LOIT based on the ever increasing crime rate in our city.

Floyd County Republican Party Chairman Dave Matthews followed with an admonition that local government needs to trim even more from their budgets.

NAFC Chief, Matt Juliot expressed his concern about providing the quality of service that we’ve all come to expect from our fire department with no funds in his 2008 budget for overtime.

Then, to further confuse the argument, an article in Sunday’s Courier-Journal reports that the Indiana legislators are split on whether to make Their Man Mitch’s property tax cuts permanent, or take a “wait & see” position.

So, from the feedback I’ve gotten so far, the choice locally seems to be rolling the dice and taking our chances.

I’ll grant that’s the politically safe thing to do and I suppose that’s OK as long as it’s an acceptable risk that one's house doesn’t catch fire, one's family isn’t burglarized, or one's grandmother doesn’t need an ambulance or other services.

The question becomes: Now that the citizens have more money in their pockets, do our local leaders have the intestinal fortitude to pass the insurance policy (LOIT) that the state provided, or are they going to gamble our safety and security in hopes of a vote come next election?

Is it really a wise decision to "wait & see" how many homes get broken into or burned to the ground, or worse yet, how many helpless citizens die waiting or an ambulance to arrive?

The stuffed shirts in Indianapolis may be quite willing to take that risk.

I hope our local leaders have more concern for us than that.

Dare WE loiter on LOIT? (Part 1).

I’ve been striving for nearly a week to open a thread of discussion concerning the benefits as well as the costs of adopting a Local Option Income Tax.

The delay has been mostly due to confusion on my part as to what, how, and when of this option that Their Man Mitch so graciously left available to local government following his property tax reform initiative.

Never mind that such action has effectively hamstrung cities and counties around Indiana, while ensuring the state's budget is not only balanced but is able to show a surplus as well. But then that does look good on a resume if one’s political ambition is to descend on Washington, although I’m getting off point here.

So, to continue, not being satisfied neither with the explanations I’ve read in local newsprint nor heard from local politicos, I decided to go to online to the horse’s mouth, so to speak. What I quickly found was that as per most other research, one needs to know what to ask, how to ask, and whom to ask.

Having tried that approach there is still a modicum of confusion on my part, so I’m going to throw up what I’ve gleaned and open a discussion in the hope that clearer minds are out there to help clarify facts.

First of all my understanding is the LOIT option provides two primary benefits. The one being another 1% reduction in property tax that goes directly into the state's coiffures.

That fuels the first question: Does some portion of that one percent gain at the state level ever filter back down to the local level? If so, how & when?

The provision for a 0.25% Public Safety Tax looks to be self explanatory. These monies stay in the county to be used exclusively for funding additional police, fire & medical needs.

The third option is where I get confused. As I read the briefs this 1% option is billed as a Property Tax Replacement,” so now the question becomes: Does the word “replacement” mean that if a county adopts this option in conjunction with the above, they eliminate all property taxes and function on income tax revenue alone?

Or, does it indicate that adopting that option would merely result in yet another 1% reduction in one’s property taxes?

My position is if elimination of property taxes period is the goal and that is what the wording of the statute means we would be remiss in not taking advantage of the opportunity.

So now comes the argument that in doing so some will pay taxes and some won’t! To which I respond, “and your point is?”

Yet another source of confusion is the time frame in which a county must take action in order to reap the benefits of LOIT. I understand that there is a December 2008 deadline for adoption which brings forward these questions:

A) Must we adopt by this December or lose the option altogether?

OR

B) Must we adopt by this December in order to receive the funds for use in 2009?


OR


C) Does delaying until after the first of the year mean we won’t see them until 2010 or later?

There more questions to consider at the New Albany/Floyd County level, so Part 2 will be forthcoming.

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Note: I've perused many sources but my best understanding thus far has come from this site:

Indiana's Local Income Taxes

This space available ...

... to all the "belt tighteners" who spent a good portion of yesterday assailing Mayor England for pointing out that the loss of revenue created by the proposed property tax plan would lead to spending cuts.

For all the knee-jerk "get used to it" reactions, not a single one of the critics in different forums offered even an inkling as to what they would cut, how their cuts would be better for the city than those mentioned by the mayor, or how they would replace the revenue lost if they haven't developed their own cost cutting plan and accompanying justifications.

They may or may not have thought about it. They certainly didn't write about it.

The magic number is $377,000. Now's their chance to shine.

Three-for-one at NA Shadow Council.

Three postings from NA Shadow Council address issues pertaining to Monday's first of two February city council meetings, and are worthy of your attention. I'm providing a brief teaser for each:

Gettin' Down in the Muck
Less than a month after the council showed wisdom in bringing to an end two pieces of litigation it was sure to lose, it officially reversed itself on one of them and thumbed its nose to the court and the opposing parties on the other.

A Mac Attack
D4 Pat McLaughlin tabled or deferred consideration Monday night on a tax abatement measure intended to give incentives to L&D Mail Masters for investment in a new property.

The One-Member Veto
Do New Albany's ordinances and council procedures actually permit a single member to bottle up legislation because he or she is unprepared, confused, or opposed to a measure?

See also: President Gahan keeps his foot on the gas and an eye on the hourglass.