Before we document the 3rd district uncouncilman’s revealingly ill-tempered sex-act-and-defecation outburst at the library on Saturday -- that's right, within whispering distance of the kiddie section -- let’s look back at a bit of pertinent information posted here last week.---
Or maybe it's a religious ritual?
Owning a rental property is more than an investment — it's a business. You have to be willing and able to commit the time and resources necessary to run your business successfully.
--GMAC Mortgage website
Did you know that to search the Internet for “rental property” +business is to generate more than 3,000,000 hits?
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Yesterday, my colleague Bluegill documented the scene following Saturday’s first rental registration and code enforcement committee meeting. In the comments section, Gina had asked if Price really lost it, and Jeff replied:
Yes, G, (Price) said it, apparently right after he told Lloyd that he'd do whatever he could to fight it (rental registrations).
He played most of his in-meeting comments to the landlords in the crowd, bemoaning what a tough business rental property is, which I'm sure you saw.
It's paraphrased but here's the gist:
After the meeting, an already angry Steve interrupted my conversation with another committee member.
"You're wrong. Rental property ain't a business", he said.
I told him that it is and asked what he did for a living.
He then went into a semi-intelligible tirade about how it wasn't. I asked him what he did for a living.
He told me my house (which serves as a family residence only) was a business. I asked him what he did for a living.
He hollered that he didn't want to pay any more taxes. I asked what taxes he was talking about since there hadn't been any additional taxes discussed. And then I asked him what he did for a living.
When he started to say something else unrelated, I told him to answer the question about what he did for a living.
"I'm barely breaking even", he said. "I'm living off my council salary."
"Just because your business is struggling," I said, "it doesn't mean it's not a business."
With that he turned for the door, repeated some of the stuff he'd said earlier about people wanting guys with clipboards running around, and then finally pronounced "This is all a bunch of fucking bullshit" as he headed out.
The funniest part to me is Price's unintentionally candid (and ever elastic) definition of "business": It's a business if you're making money, but not if times are hard. Price isn't making any money off my rental properties, therefore, they no longer constitute a business. Right. It hasn't stopped him from incorporating a business entity, has it?
I'm guessing Price's state of affairs has more to do with business expertise and the normal cycle of business than the nature of business itself, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding him. That's an easy thing to do. Listening to Price speak publicly is rather like trying to read a goat path map of Tibet -- upside down.
But those priceless expletives … well, the meaning is clear. Ironically, taken together, they also aptly describe the quality of the “work” Price has done during his tenure as councilman.
The same general attitude also helps encapsulate our eternal gratitude that council president Gahan has appointed the transparently biased Price to the rental committee. Before this, Gahan gifted the Urban Enterprise Association board with precisely the same befuddled personage (attendance record: 3 "present"and 5 "absent" so far this year).
Thanks, Jeff.
Actually, "fucking bullshit" describes Gahan's recent attitude toward the community in general just as pithily as it does Price's historically cavalier disregard for his 3rd district neighbors.
Perhaps, then, we should file this under "be careful what you wish for," because having asked for consistency, Gahan's now giving it to us.
Good and hard.
