Archive for September, 2008

District 428 Survey

Did you take the strategic planning survey? What did you think of it?

I took it as kind of a push poll, myself. At the very least it presupposes a good relationship between school district and community–”I am delighted now”–which, from where I am sitting, is somewhat delusional. Real strategic planning confronts weaknesses head-on and if you don’t even see them, you will fail.

If budget deficits persist even with responsible fiscal management, than [sic] the Board of Education should secure community support for an Education Fund Tax Increase

Really.

Match-O-Matic

Select the candidates’ statements that come closer to your own views. If you’re like me, you’ll hit a couple where you’ll be looking for “none of the above” but do press on.

Bailout Thread

I must not keep Hale “bonddad” Stewart to myself any longer. He’s not much of a speller but on $$$ has been right way more often than not during the two years I’ve been reading him. In a post entitled, “Why Paulson’s Plan Could Lead to More Trouble”:

The Treasury’s potential use of all $700 billion to purchase impaired assets would raise the country’s debt to more than 70 percent of GDP. The last time American taxpayers owed as much was in 1954, when the nation was still paying down costs incurred during World War II.

“It’s an alarming level of debt given that we’re not fighting something like World War II,” said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a non-partisan budget watchdog group.

The government reaching the requested debt limit would entail every man, woman and child in the U.S. owing more than $37,000 each. The median U.S. income last year was $50,233.

[Related addition: If your home is in foreclosure, should you lose your vote?]

Council Agenda 9/22/08

The “ice” skating rink comes up on Monday. Council will be asked to authorize the purchase of the skating rink–this includes waiving the usual bidding process–and in a separate action to authorize Acting Mayor Povlsen to enter into an agreement with The Skate School, LLC.

Cost Summary Estimate
Ice Rink @ 114 Panels + shipping & handling = $52,000
Vinyl Fencing with Gates $ 9,000
Rubber Matting $ 4,500
Lighting $ 2,500
Contingency Fund of 5% $ 3,300
TOTAL $71,300

That’s not all. There are costs involved in prepping the site, installation, seasonal removal for storage, and probably insurance. Plus, IMO it is altogether fair to somehow account for the costs of land acquisition and lost property taxes since we are in essence paying to pull downtown commercial property off the market. That’s just off the top of my head. Read the rest of this entry

DAWC Update

This is a bit late but I was just reading the latest DeKalb Area Women’s Center newsletter and suddenly couldn’t stand not letting you know what happened with DAWC. I’m late because some of the group involved in helping clear the fallen chimney bricks off the roof and out of the garden are quite reluctant to have any sort of deal made of them. OK, so I just won’t name names of the neighbors who dedicated several hours of a beautiful Saturday to the job of making DAWC safer and more attractive. Hats off to these modest folks in whom the spirit of community resides.

[UPDATE 9/20: I am so glad now to have received permission from Ivan Krpan to mention his involvement in the project, because 1) without his amazing machine the roof could not have been cleared, and 2) we should recognize people's following through on their promises wherever we can. Woot! Woot!]

Council Agenda 9/15/08

The special meeting between DeKalb City Council and the Liquor Commission is tomorrow. They will be discussing proposed changes to the Liquor Code.

The Liquor Commission has obviously worked very hard on this document and it’s good that Council is finally taking it up. That’s not to say there aren’t a few qualms, however. Firstly, I doubt that DeKalb should be requiring bar managers to live in the city–heck, we don’t even require all of our first responders to do so. Secondly and thirdly, I am aghast at the systematic and utterly naked geographical discrimination represented by the “C” codes and by staff suggestions to charge $20,000, $30,000, even $60,000 for a liquor license. They couldn’t possibly have thought out all the consequences, but Gene Amondson would be proud.

Kite Fest Rescheduled

New date: October 5.

You know, it’s like my dad always said, “Rose,” he’d say, “it’s always something.” But I ask, why do we care if the city raises waxes? I mean it isn’t like the floors aren’t getting cleaned. Shouldn’t the wax actually be lowered, it’s a protection against the grime of the city footwear isn’t it? Without the waxes wouldn’t the council, and city employees just scuff up the floor more – heel marks, deep seated grooves from the heavily cushioned chairs they sit in. It’s really hard to get the grooves and gouges cleaned out if the same people just keep doing the same things. After a while the gouges are so deep that no amount of buffing is gonna clean them, so we’d just have to pull all that flooring up and throw it out, and wouldn’t that cost a lot of money? Of course we couldn’t ask those city employees to quit taking raises to pay for the new flooring, that should be the property owners’ job. While we’re at it, shouldn’t the cheapo taxpayers also fork over some bucks to update the city TV channel to get more than just that new comedy show – you know the one, it comes on every few Mondays. I think it’s called “The DeKalb Cow”. Why would we need a show about a bunch of cows? Maybe horses like Mr. Ed – now that was a show, a horse moving its lips and having someone unseen actually filling in the dialogue – course, “The DeKalb Cow” is sort of like that too……what’s that? The topic is “People are worried about raising Taxes”. Oops, nevermind.

Water, Water Thread

We, and our neighbors behind us are sharing lakefront property again. It used to be something that happened about every 5 years, but now seems to have become an annual event. Some on our street are having flooding troubles that require generators even though the electricity (thank goodness) hasn’t gone out, because they need extra pumping action. We’re OK but can’t get through to the relatives in Houston who got hit by Ike, so some anxiety on that count.

Last Council meeting, a swamped-out DeKalbite from Colby Court asked about home buyouts of river-vulnerable homes hit last year. What should be DeKalb’s policy with homeowners whose properties end up in the ever-changing floodplain?

Obama Stinks

Not.

Actually, I like him very much. But that did not keep me from posting a video recently that exaggerated and poked fun at his sunny-hopeful-Bambi message and image. There should be no sacred cows. There should be much less partisanship. Read the rest of this entry