Month: August 2018

Our federal political system has gone into the cesspool. You deserved much better. You’ve served your country well!

Thank you Senator.

James Bakke donated land to the city of Whitefish for use as a park. Bakke the artist can be seen around Whitefish and may be best viewed in the book by Whitefish resident Donna Hopkins.  I recommend you visit the park on West Seventh and review his work.

Maybe I’ve seemed too accommodating to the the interests of developers. I can wax eloquently regarding the cities growth plan, infield development for residential/ resort usage and conditional use permitting.  I’ve knocked on a lot of doors in a lot of neighborhoods. Many people believe that the city is annoyingly overcrowded and the volume of resort orientated development has reached a level that places the interests of many citizens below the interests of project applicants. The growth plan might be looked as the bible for predicting the type of growth we will experience. The zoning attempts to meet the Plan’s goals by providing orderly, objective outcomes.  A planned unit development or PUD is an overlay to zoned parcel allowing flexibility and the trading of outcomes and density (mixing commercial applications and affordable housing units as examples within a PUD). The aforementioned does not necessarily result in  harmonious projects in the eyes of the public, nor in public safety (the capacity of Wisconsin Ave?). Property owners choose uniquely different paths in their aspirations for a project. I’ve been told by a very good source that the developer of the mixed use housing project on Monegan Road is working on a low profit margin to deliver deed restricted, higher end of the affordability equation housing for Whitefish workers. If so, your willingness to address affordability is appreciated.

In my opinion, The Quarry, across from Alpine Market fails to serve the greater public interest when scrutinized for permanent housing, affordability, and public safety. Possibly the zoning was an improper application of the growth plan. Possibly the powers to be failed to adequately up date the growth plan to consider capacities of our community…capacities of our roads, capacity of our waste water treatment plant, and possibly most importantly, the opinions of our residents.

Back to Bakke. I think Mr. Bakke was one of those old timers, lacking the ostentatious ways of contemporary society. You read about unassuming people who die and leave millions of dollars to charitable organizations. They quietly saved and wisely invested their modest incomes.  Bakke chose not to “commoditize” his assets, specifically the land on Seventh Street West.

Visit the park Mr. Bakke left for we the people. We politicians will try to convince MDT and the County that Wisconsin is over capacity. Vote wisely and continue to question authority.

 

“A landmark study published in 2014 by psychologist Maureen Craig and Jennifer Richesen found that White peoples anxiety about a changing America is politically determinative:  making the changing national racial demographics salient let White Americans  (regardless of political affiliation), to endorse conservative positions more strongly.” Heather McGhee, Senior Fellow, Demos

“The ideology of Silicon Valley reflects a shallow, inarticulate libertarianism that rests on the assumption that government functions and all the democratic accountability that supports them are archaic and inefficient.  Siva Vaidhyanstham, Media Studies, UVA

From: What Charlottesville Changed, Politico, 8/13/18

 

 

“I believe our nation is in the midst of a collective coming-of-age crisis without parallel in our history. We are living in an America of perpetual adolescence.  Our kids simply don’t know what an adult is anymore–or how to become one. Perhaps more problematic, the older generations have forgotten that we need to teach them. It’s our fault more than it is theirs ”  The Vanishing American Adult, Ben Sasse (US Senate),  2017, St. Martins Press.

“I offered my employee more money, benefits and he didn’t want to work more than necessary” or “So and so just didn’t show up for the shift, said she had better things to do.”  I hear this story in various iterations over and over as I knock on doors.

Our capacity to govern and provide essential services to those in need is dependent on our ability to work, innovate, educate/train and reward productive work. The taxes collected contribute to an alarming high number of MT. citizens lacking health care, needing nursing home assistance, a citizen with a disability requiring a case worker to navigate a complex system.

I’ll read Sasse’s book with interest especially as one interested in improving outcomes and public policy.

Michael Powell, who pens the  Sports of the Times column in the NY Times starts off his commentary on August 5,2018, “Donald Trump and the Black Athlete” by saying, “So we have more evidence that a master of the dog whistle occupies the White House and black athletes are a favorite target.

I like sports. I always have. My early days go back to marvelous Boston Celtics teams of the 1960’s.  The Celtics were the first in the NBA to have five black starters along with player-coach Bill Russell.  These were  tense times for minority athletes especially in Boston. A hero one night might lead to racial taunts or exclusionary practices on a night  basketball wasn’t being played in the Boston Garden. My beloved Red Sox were the last American League team to have a black player on their roster (Pumpsie Green, 1962), and controversy now broils as to the name Yawkee LN. (Tom Yawkee was the former owner of the Sox, generous to charities but a racist.), as to the renaming of the street abutting Fenway park.

Lebron James has done pretty well. He’s reinvented the game for the big man. He was a one man wrecking crew for the modestly talented Cavaliers and previous to the latest championship he brought NBA championships to Miami. Like my hero from the 60’s Bill Russell, Lebron is a man with a conscience, unable to simply behave and play basketball.

Trumps’ belittling racist tweets at the same time of the opening in Akron of James’s  I Promise School for children at risk is beyond un-presidential and inappropriate. Trump is dividing this nation and spitting out the parts with jagged edges and cracks that will cause generational disruption on our status and leadership among peers.

The president has gone too far. Pull back, stop the tweets and get to work.

 

 

 

Today, Governing reports that the Massachusetts legislature just passed a bill to divert some tax collections from short term vacation rental to assist with affordable housing initiatives.

I had the issue researched a week back and learned from our tax policy legislative expert, from the confines of  her first floor state capitol office the following: “You can’t tax these businesses more than other, similar business which take in visitors. You could allocate exiting collections to such a purpose.”

There could be a special account or an existing Housing
Trust Fund within the MT. Board of housing appropriate to deposit such funds. Maybe the funds could assist the application process for our local housing boards…maybe funds collected provide bonus funds to allow for a project to stay above water…

Project 1% take from this segment of the hospitality industry and create a yearly allotment to help the cause.

I’ll continue the research.