The Recorder serves as a daily reminder on why economic progress rolls on by and through the city but never stops here.
First, it is more than clear that the economic development players seek development outside the city. Which begs the question of: what about development inside the city? Of course, no one thinks about development inside the city especially the business and political class as they are convinced that development is the province of the towns and farms, not the city. Plus, if you’re a city leader, it’s difficult and complex to chart a course for the city– so much easier to push it off to the towns since marketing the city for development is challenging, but perpetuating the meme that development in the towns will turn the city around is easy — you don’t have to craft any policy or initiative: you wait, wait, wait for things to happen here, not by your own design or intention, but through the passing of time as one day things will turn around, even if it is decades from today. Why bother with challenging problems when you can focus on simpler, easier stuff in terms of city issues– let’s say … tulips.
Why struggle with complexities and challenges like: how does the city position itself with the larger regional and economic development initiatives? How do we best repurpose the old CHalmers site and other industrial sites? How do we maintain city services in light of rising expenses? How do we revive a moribund residential development market? And on and on– you know, difficult, complex, thought wrenching challenges.
Instead, we can debate for all eternity 3 figure purchases under the guise of a functioning body of governance and political discourse. And of course, the self-elected representatives of ‘the people’ and ‘taxpayers’ claim the high ground of discourse regardless of the muck on which their positions rest. I always find it amusing , in the same way that self-disembowelment is amusing, that some taxpayers — let’s say me– don’t care whatsoever how much we spend on tulips or holiday lights. In fact, some of us taxpayers actually support taking a modicum of pride in the aesthetic of our city. Indeed, the recent election should show that the aesthetics may slightly outnumber the utilitarians if we look at the outcome of the tulip and ilkish memes. But then, as Stephen Colbert quips, facts do have a liberal bias so I expect numbers will be treated with similar disdain , as always.
And when I look at the numbers — in terms of dollars, in terms of hours spent debating, in terms of precious mindspace– I am simply struck that the order of magnitude difference in resources spent on the relevant, the complex, the challenging versus the irrelevant, the nonsensical and the vacuous is astronomical. I can crunch the numbers to show that misplaced priorities, misplaced strategies and failed governance could literally fund a tulip for every inch of ground in our city.
In a fitting satire of these events, Dan Weaver posits that December 31st may mark the end of such foolishness. I have to respectfully disagree.
Whether it’s 2012, 2022, 2032 or several millenia from today, I am most convinced that nothing will change the desire to tear down, to destroy, to dismiss, to bemoan, to undercut, and ultimately undermine initiatives which dare to reclaim the city. Nothing.
That is why we city folk must sit idly by while we cede development to everywhere and everyone but the city; that is why we city folk must be chided by our local chamber of commerce on our 3% tax cap while the chamber utters hardly a peep when the county and school impose tax increases well above 3% — oh sorry, that helps the towns and their development so that is totally cool, mum’s the word, sorry again; that is why we city folk must wait for ‘consolidation and shared services’ from our county so we can fund services and development elsewhere than the city.
As that leaves us with nothing in terms of economic development and certainly nothing as an economic development engine, we can then fret over tulips as a proxy for debate on economic development and tax policy.
Ask yourself a simple question: what will yield a greater financial return to the city and hence a lower tax rate– a sustainable city-driven economic development engine to drive growth and revenue or a 3-figure reduction in city expenses?
Let’s see who is the brighter bulb.
So far, it looks like the towns.
Ask yourself a simple question: what will yield a greater financial return to the city and hence a lower tax rate– a sustainable city-driven economic development engine to drive growth and revenue or a 3-figure reduction in city expenses?
I think you have to step back and figure out what the fuel for the “economic development engine” is? Then you decide what engine to order in the vehicle. It seems that today the fuel people are trying to use is anger. Anger is not a enviromentally safe fuel, to volitile.
If you want to be succesful in anything you have to be agressive, and think out of the box. If we want to be passive,retire and not change, than we should admit that and accept what ever anyone else does. Otherwise we are the problem and not the solution.
What are we going to do for the next generation? or better yet, what are we going to leave for the next generation? low taxes?
We probably need evenone more step back– admitting that the car needs an engine.
and not a backseat