Friday, April 22, 2016

Stadium Sales Tax Surplus Refund

I appreciate the intentions behind Mayor Schmitt and others who think some of the money should go to a new baseball stadium and outdoor events center downtown. That sort of thing can make a positive impact on the surrounding areas and I totally understand why the Broadway stakeholders are pushing for this!

I very much appreciate the straight forward and politically shrewd proposal from Alder Vander Leest where he proposes splitting the refund equally between each parcel bill equally. Slum lords aside, it is even a little bit progressive but it's a one time thing.

Aldler Moore has a very good idea that will definitely help people in a very meaningful way with his idea of assisting folks with lead service lines for water. Though, I wonder if block grant couldn't be used for that with a zero percent lean on the home or some other one time mechanism.

When I heard that this money was coming to the municipalities, I immediately thought it should go toward phasing out of special assessments for street resurfacing and reconstruction. The current system is absurdly stupid and arbitrarily unfair. The baseball stadium will have an ongoing impact but this-- this would be a serious improvement and a shift toward fairness for all landowners in the city that would never end.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Presidential Politics and Process

It's presidential campaign season and, as always, the commercials and the candidate talking points will drive everyone nuts. It's all about positioning for votes and very little about genuinely communicating with the voters. So where do I go when it comes to following national elections you may ask? This will be my third cycle skimming both electoral-vote.com and Election Projection. The former is run by a liberal, the latter by a conservative. Both have keen political minds, strong political views, and interesting insights.