Saturday, January 23, 2016
I confess.
Those with unchecked power will use it.
Above post was removed from Nextdoor by the "Merry Censors of Marinwood", Bruce Anderson, Geoff Mack and Liz McCarthy
For more on abuse of power see the Stanford Prison Experiment and Abu Ghraib
.
Friday, January 22, 2016
Affordable-housing problem lies, in part, with government
Affordable-housing problem lies, in part, with government
Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles City Council members announce a homelessness emergency plan on Sept. 22. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)
Matt Welch
It was a depressingly familiar sight: Rattled government officials — enlightened progressives all — in a desirable coastal city declaring an emergency over runaway homelessness and chronically expensive housing.
Yes, that city was Los Angeles, where last week Mayor Eric Garcetti pledged to spend at least $100 million over the next year on housing and related services. But it was also Portland, Ore., where an exasperated Mayor Charlie Hales said, “We've tried slow-and-steady. We've tried by-the-book. It's time to add the tools we currently lack.”
In New York, those tools include a rent freeze on qualifying leases and a near-doubling of the legal aid available for tenants trying to stave off eviction. In L.A., whatever plan emerges for spending that $100 million will surely emphasize city construction of affordable units and homeless shelters.
The preferred two-pronged housing approach in progressive America is government-owned real estate plus restrictions on private-sector developers. This strategy will probably make a bad problem worse, from San Francisco and Seattle to Washington and Boston.
But let's just focus on California. Government exertions — and there have been plenty — have barely amounted to a rounding error in the total supply of housing stock. Since the mid-1980s, California's various programs to subsidize, incentivize and mandate affordable housing have produced all of 7,000 units a year, “or about 5 percent of total public and private housing construction,” according to a May 2015 report by the California Legislative Analyst's Office.
If policymakers and activists are serious about getting housing prices down, they need to acknowledge their own role in bidding the market up.-
The LAO study, which should be required reading for anyone who seeks to make or influence housing policy in the Golden State, includes a recommendation that government recognize its own limitations when intervening in the lower-end residential real
estate market.
“The scale of these programs — even if greatly increased — could not meet the magnitude of new housing required,” it states. What's needed are “broader changes that facilitate more private housing construction,” it says.
This latter bit is where progressives start whistling loudly and changing the subject to greedy developers and the dastardly 1%. After all, demonizing Donald Sterling and Geoffrey Palmer makes for punchier news conferences than easing up on zoning restrictions and speeding up approval processes.
L.A. declares a homelessness emergency; now what?
But if policymakers and activists are serious about getting housing prices down, they need to acknowledge their own role in bidding the market up. Prices — even in housing — are a function of supply and demand, and politicians along California's coast have been systematically pinching supply for decades.
For example: “Development fees — charges levied on builders as a condition of development — are higher in California than the rest of the country,” the LAO report notes (and the difference is substantial: $22,000 versus $6,000, on average). It takes seven months to get a building permit in coastal areas (compared with 4 1/2 months nationally), 12 months to get a rezoning variance (compared with 9 months), and projects subject to the state's intensive Environmental Impact Review process take an average of 21/2 years to approve.
When you make a good more expensive to produce, you're going to get less of it. Housing stock in the L.A. metro area grew by just 20% between 1980 and 2010, according to the LAO report, compared with 54% on average in other American metropolitan areas. When you add statutory limits to housing growth, a California coastal favorite, the fog behind the state's persistently high housing prices lifts still further.
This government squeeze is not limited to the creation of housing in the first place, but also to what owners can do with their property. The L.A. City Council has in recent years placed restrictions on landlords wishing to change their rental units into condominiums, homeowners wanting to tear down their own houses and replace them with mansions, and renovators whose add-on plans create an
extra-large footprint.
The mother of all supply-crimping landlord restrictions, of course, is rent stabilization. More than four decades after Richard Nixon's disastrous wage and price controls, government-imposed price-fixing is almost universally understood to be a terrible idea. Yet somehow policymakers keep telling themselves that the economic laws don't apply to the roof over your head. As one Nobel Prize-winning economist wrote in 2000, “The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and — among economists, anyway — one of the least controversial. In 1992, a poll of the American Economic Assn. found 93% of its members agreeing that ‘a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'”
That economist was no free-market extremist. It was Paul Krugman.
So by all means, let's declare a state of emergency on affordable housing. But before throwing more good taxpayer money after bad construction projects, let's examine existing policy and practices that the government's own analysts conclude are not working. Then maybe we won't have to live through another round of emergency measures five years from now.
Matt Welch is editor in chief of Reason.
Mayor Eric Garcetti and Los Angeles City Council members announce a homelessness emergency plan on Sept. 22. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)
Matt Welch
It was a depressingly familiar sight: Rattled government officials — enlightened progressives all — in a desirable coastal city declaring an emergency over runaway homelessness and chronically expensive housing.
Yes, that city was Los Angeles, where last week Mayor Eric Garcetti pledged to spend at least $100 million over the next year on housing and related services. But it was also Portland, Ore., where an exasperated Mayor Charlie Hales said, “We've tried slow-and-steady. We've tried by-the-book. It's time to add the tools we currently lack.”
In New York, those tools include a rent freeze on qualifying leases and a near-doubling of the legal aid available for tenants trying to stave off eviction. In L.A., whatever plan emerges for spending that $100 million will surely emphasize city construction of affordable units and homeless shelters.
The preferred two-pronged housing approach in progressive America is government-owned real estate plus restrictions on private-sector developers. This strategy will probably make a bad problem worse, from San Francisco and Seattle to Washington and Boston.
But let's just focus on California. Government exertions — and there have been plenty — have barely amounted to a rounding error in the total supply of housing stock. Since the mid-1980s, California's various programs to subsidize, incentivize and mandate affordable housing have produced all of 7,000 units a year, “or about 5 percent of total public and private housing construction,” according to a May 2015 report by the California Legislative Analyst's Office.
If policymakers and activists are serious about getting housing prices down, they need to acknowledge their own role in bidding the market up.-
The LAO study, which should be required reading for anyone who seeks to make or influence housing policy in the Golden State, includes a recommendation that government recognize its own limitations when intervening in the lower-end residential real
estate market.
“The scale of these programs — even if greatly increased — could not meet the magnitude of new housing required,” it states. What's needed are “broader changes that facilitate more private housing construction,” it says.
This latter bit is where progressives start whistling loudly and changing the subject to greedy developers and the dastardly 1%. After all, demonizing Donald Sterling and Geoffrey Palmer makes for punchier news conferences than easing up on zoning restrictions and speeding up approval processes.
L.A. declares a homelessness emergency; now what?
But if policymakers and activists are serious about getting housing prices down, they need to acknowledge their own role in bidding the market up. Prices — even in housing — are a function of supply and demand, and politicians along California's coast have been systematically pinching supply for decades.
For example: “Development fees — charges levied on builders as a condition of development — are higher in California than the rest of the country,” the LAO report notes (and the difference is substantial: $22,000 versus $6,000, on average). It takes seven months to get a building permit in coastal areas (compared with 4 1/2 months nationally), 12 months to get a rezoning variance (compared with 9 months), and projects subject to the state's intensive Environmental Impact Review process take an average of 21/2 years to approve.
When you make a good more expensive to produce, you're going to get less of it. Housing stock in the L.A. metro area grew by just 20% between 1980 and 2010, according to the LAO report, compared with 54% on average in other American metropolitan areas. When you add statutory limits to housing growth, a California coastal favorite, the fog behind the state's persistently high housing prices lifts still further.
This government squeeze is not limited to the creation of housing in the first place, but also to what owners can do with their property. The L.A. City Council has in recent years placed restrictions on landlords wishing to change their rental units into condominiums, homeowners wanting to tear down their own houses and replace them with mansions, and renovators whose add-on plans create an
extra-large footprint.
The mother of all supply-crimping landlord restrictions, of course, is rent stabilization. More than four decades after Richard Nixon's disastrous wage and price controls, government-imposed price-fixing is almost universally understood to be a terrible idea. Yet somehow policymakers keep telling themselves that the economic laws don't apply to the roof over your head. As one Nobel Prize-winning economist wrote in 2000, “The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and — among economists, anyway — one of the least controversial. In 1992, a poll of the American Economic Assn. found 93% of its members agreeing that ‘a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'”
That economist was no free-market extremist. It was Paul Krugman.
So by all means, let's declare a state of emergency on affordable housing. But before throwing more good taxpayer money after bad construction projects, let's examine existing policy and practices that the government's own analysts conclude are not working. Then maybe we won't have to live through another round of emergency measures five years from now.
Matt Welch is editor in chief of Reason.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Tips for Promoting Civility in Public Meetings
Tips for Promoting Civility in Public Meetings
What is Civility? In the context of democratic debate, civility is about how people treat each other. Civility involves the display of respect for those who have positions with which one disagrees.
Even though disagreement plays a necessary role in governance and politics, the issue is how one expresses that disagreement. The key is to focus on the strengths and weakness of proposed solutions to community problems—not to engage in personal attacks against those who favor different solutions.
An even more powerful leadership strategy is to listen for the concerns and values that underlie people’s diverse perspectives to try to identify points of agreement and common ground.
Specific Strategies
• Embrace Diverse Points of View. Local officials are grappling with difficult policy challenges. Bringing as many perspectives on what might be the best solution to a given problem increases the likelihood that the solution will indeed be successful and enduring. A goal is to create a culture of tolerance for differing points of view that credits everyone with having the best interests of the community in mind.
• Everyone Gets a Chance to Share Their Views. Voltaire said "I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it." Everyone’s right to have their view heard is a central democratic value. Conversely, a strategy that relies on drowning other perspectives out usually results in a turning up of the volume and corresponding decreases in civility in discussions
• With Rights Come Responsibilities. For there to be time for everyone to weigh in on an issue, there may need to be reasonable time limits on how long individuals speak. The goal is to create a culture in which as many people as possible (including decisionmakers) are respectful of other people’s time in attending and participating in the meeting.
• Avoid Debates and Interruptions. Interruptions should be discouraged so that individuals have the opportunity to complete their thoughts. A good practice for everyone participating in the conversation is to make a note of a question or different point of view that occurs to you when someone is speaking and then address that issue when it is one’s turn to speak. This is an especially important approach for decision-makers to model.
• Reduce Uncertainty. Assuring people they will be allowed to share their views and how can reduce concerns that they will not be allowed to be heard. Explaining the process to be used to allow all views to be heard at the outset of a meeting or discussion item can reduce tension levels.
• The Importance of Listening. Listening is an important sign of respect, as is giving others the opportunity to listen. Decisionmakers’ active interest in what people are saying is vital. Repeating back core points that a speaker makes reassures the speaker that their message has indeed been heard— even if one does not necessarily agree with it. The mood turns ugly if the public thinks the matter has already been decided, decision-makers don’t care about public input, or decision-makers are being impolite or disrespectful of the public they serve. Everyone attending a meeting should respect other attendees’ right to both listen and be heard. One person should talk at a time, any private conversations should be taken outside or deferred, and smart phones should be turned off (texting and emailing should not occur during the meeting).
• Be Compassionate About the Fear Factor/ Heckling and Applause Not Allowed. Polls suggest many people fear public speaking. This fear can come from concerns aboutbeing judged negatively or having ideas that people will ridicule or reject. Allowing cheering and booing or other forms of heckling discourages people from sharing their views (even silence or no applause can be perceived as rejection). It also runs the risk that those that do speak will focus more on getting applause than moving the conversation towards addressing difficult issues. (Eye-rolling and grimacing can be non-verbal forms of heckling and also have no place in communities that value mutual respect.)
• Separate People from The Problem. Personal attacks or questioning people’s motives or character rarely moves the conversation forward to a solution of a problem. In the book about effective negotiating called Getting to Yes, the authors encourage negotiators to attack the problem, not the people involved in the problem. Anything that approaches name calling should be off limits.
• Consider Using Titles. Referring to each other by title and last name (Supervisor Hassan, Council Member Lee, Board Member Aviña) can serve as a way of showing respect that an individual has been elected and is participating in the conversation in that capacity. Using similar forms of respect for members of the public (Mr., Ms, Sir, Madam) when speaking can also reinforce the notion that everyone is engaged in a special kind of discussion. Community norms vary, however, and in some communities this may be perceived as an affectation.
• Take a Break. If conversations get heated, consider taking a break. As one veteran observer of public meetings noted “time can be an anti-inflammatory agent” that can give people a chance to calm down and restore order.
See the full article HERE and more tips for better local government HERE
What is Civility? In the context of democratic debate, civility is about how people treat each other. Civility involves the display of respect for those who have positions with which one disagrees.
Even though disagreement plays a necessary role in governance and politics, the issue is how one expresses that disagreement. The key is to focus on the strengths and weakness of proposed solutions to community problems—not to engage in personal attacks against those who favor different solutions.
An even more powerful leadership strategy is to listen for the concerns and values that underlie people’s diverse perspectives to try to identify points of agreement and common ground.
Specific Strategies
• Embrace Diverse Points of View. Local officials are grappling with difficult policy challenges. Bringing as many perspectives on what might be the best solution to a given problem increases the likelihood that the solution will indeed be successful and enduring. A goal is to create a culture of tolerance for differing points of view that credits everyone with having the best interests of the community in mind.
• Everyone Gets a Chance to Share Their Views. Voltaire said "I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it." Everyone’s right to have their view heard is a central democratic value. Conversely, a strategy that relies on drowning other perspectives out usually results in a turning up of the volume and corresponding decreases in civility in discussions
• With Rights Come Responsibilities. For there to be time for everyone to weigh in on an issue, there may need to be reasonable time limits on how long individuals speak. The goal is to create a culture in which as many people as possible (including decisionmakers) are respectful of other people’s time in attending and participating in the meeting.
• Avoid Debates and Interruptions. Interruptions should be discouraged so that individuals have the opportunity to complete their thoughts. A good practice for everyone participating in the conversation is to make a note of a question or different point of view that occurs to you when someone is speaking and then address that issue when it is one’s turn to speak. This is an especially important approach for decision-makers to model.
• Reduce Uncertainty. Assuring people they will be allowed to share their views and how can reduce concerns that they will not be allowed to be heard. Explaining the process to be used to allow all views to be heard at the outset of a meeting or discussion item can reduce tension levels.
• The Importance of Listening. Listening is an important sign of respect, as is giving others the opportunity to listen. Decisionmakers’ active interest in what people are saying is vital. Repeating back core points that a speaker makes reassures the speaker that their message has indeed been heard— even if one does not necessarily agree with it. The mood turns ugly if the public thinks the matter has already been decided, decision-makers don’t care about public input, or decision-makers are being impolite or disrespectful of the public they serve. Everyone attending a meeting should respect other attendees’ right to both listen and be heard. One person should talk at a time, any private conversations should be taken outside or deferred, and smart phones should be turned off (texting and emailing should not occur during the meeting).
• Be Compassionate About the Fear Factor/ Heckling and Applause Not Allowed. Polls suggest many people fear public speaking. This fear can come from concerns aboutbeing judged negatively or having ideas that people will ridicule or reject. Allowing cheering and booing or other forms of heckling discourages people from sharing their views (even silence or no applause can be perceived as rejection). It also runs the risk that those that do speak will focus more on getting applause than moving the conversation towards addressing difficult issues. (Eye-rolling and grimacing can be non-verbal forms of heckling and also have no place in communities that value mutual respect.)
• Separate People from The Problem. Personal attacks or questioning people’s motives or character rarely moves the conversation forward to a solution of a problem. In the book about effective negotiating called Getting to Yes, the authors encourage negotiators to attack the problem, not the people involved in the problem. Anything that approaches name calling should be off limits.
• Consider Using Titles. Referring to each other by title and last name (Supervisor Hassan, Council Member Lee, Board Member Aviña) can serve as a way of showing respect that an individual has been elected and is participating in the conversation in that capacity. Using similar forms of respect for members of the public (Mr., Ms, Sir, Madam) when speaking can also reinforce the notion that everyone is engaged in a special kind of discussion. Community norms vary, however, and in some communities this may be perceived as an affectation.
• Take a Break. If conversations get heated, consider taking a break. As one veteran observer of public meetings noted “time can be an anti-inflammatory agent” that can give people a chance to calm down and restore order.
See the full article HERE and more tips for better local government HERE
VIDE0: Will the SMART train be any more efficient than the VTA?
25 years later, VTA light
rail among the nation's worst
Posted:
|
MercuryNews.com
|
A quarter of a century ago, Santa Clara County's first light-rail train left
the station as excited supporters heralded a new wave of state-of-the-art
transportation to match the region's burgeoning high-tech industry.
But there was no grand celebration this month as Silicon Valley marked 25 years of light rail.
Even light rail's supporters concede the train has not lived up to expectations thus far, but they are optimistic that slow and steady increases in rider counts will continue.
"I believe we are ultimately going to realize the (original) vision," said Kevin Connolly, VTA's transportation planning manager. "But I think what's happened is that it wasn't quite as easy or quick as originally conceived of 30 years ago."
So what exactly has gone wrong, and what needs to change to make the next 25 years a smoother ride for Silicon Valley's trolley line?
"It is an unmitigated disaster and a waste of taxpayer money," said VTA critic Tom Rubin, a transportation consultant based in Oakland. "I think the original concept was very seriously flawed."
Still, light-rail supporters argue the trains have put a dent in Silicon Valley's notoriously nasty freeway traffic, providing more than 32,000 one-way trips each day. For perspective, if all those riders drove on Highway 101 in the South Bay, traffic would increase more than 6 percent.
"If we didn't have the current system, we would have terminal gridlock," said the train's godfather, Rod Diridon, a transit advocate who pushed for the network as a county supervisor decades ago.
Connolly noted that the South Bay's first light-rail line was built along onion fields, where planners had expected homes and businesses to pop up along the route. That contrasted with the strategy in most other cities, which is to put light rail along existing, dense corridors.
For the most part, the density never materialized in Silicon Valley. As Connolly spoke at VTA headquarters along its main light-rail line on First Street, he noted the orange groves across the street.
"In our case we tried to graft a big-city transit type of mode onto a suburban environment, and it's still kind of a work in progress," Connolly said.
San Francisco's Muni light-rail system, which carries five times as many passengers as VTA, features dense housing and jobs near stations that riders can walk to, avoiding traffic jams and the huge parking costs.
More commuters in the South Bay, on the other hand, stomach awful traffic and record gas prices because the region offers plenty of free parking, and its businesses and homes are spread out. And that's not changing any time soon.
But their main complaint is speed, which is often less than 10 mph in downtown San Jose.
"It just takes a while to get through downtown," said Sabrina Baca, 17, as she sat on the train with 18-year-old Fernando Fernandez and their 7-month-old daughter. Asked why they and most people ride the train, the couple said, in unison: "Because they have to."
Light rail is generally less economically efficient than long-haul heavy train service such as BART or Caltrain, though San Jose's system is especially feeble.
Light-rail agencies in Minneapolis, Houston, Newark, N.J., and Phoenix each run less service than VTA yet carry more passengers than the South Bay's network. Several cities that are much smaller than San Jose -- from St. Louis to Salt Lake City to Portland, Ore. -- also feature light-rail systems with more riders than VTA.
Sacramento -- which also opened its light-rail network in 1987, operates with approximately the same level of service and runs through a similarly sprawled-out region -- carries nearly 40 percent more passengers per day than VTA.
Connolly pointed out that the Sacramento line has a built-in customer base of state workers who take the line, at a 75 percent discount, to their jobs. The closest VTA has to that: San Jose State students, who make up a large chunk of VTA's riders largely because the line carries students to the university for no additional charge, a cost built into their tuition.
Another issue is that San Jose's downtown -- while denser than most parts of Silicon Valley -- is still not the jobs destination seen in the urban cores of other cities. For many riders, it's a place to get through, not to.
Expansions to Los Gatos and East San Jose are also proposed, but those, too, are forecast to attract very few riders and carry large, unfunded capital costs.
But there was no grand celebration this month as Silicon Valley marked 25 years of light rail.
Even light rail's supporters concede the train has not lived up to expectations thus far, but they are optimistic that slow and steady increases in rider counts will continue.
"I believe we are ultimately going to realize the (original) vision," said Kevin Connolly, VTA's transportation planning manager. "But I think what's happened is that it wasn't quite as easy or quick as originally conceived of 30 years ago."
So what exactly has gone wrong, and what needs to change to make the next 25 years a smoother ride for Silicon Valley's trolley line?
Bumpy start
The VTA system, which cost $2 billion to build and $66 million per year to operate, is one of the most inefficient light-rail lines in the nation:- Compared with the U.S. average, each VTA light-rail vehicle costs 30 percent more to operate and carries 30 percent fewer passengers.
- The cost to carry one passenger round trip, $11.74, is 83 percent more than the U.S. average and the third worst in the nation, ahead of only trains in Pittsburgh and Dallas.
- Taxpayers subsidize 85 percent of the service, the second worst rate in the nation.
"It is an unmitigated disaster and a waste of taxpayer money," said VTA critic Tom Rubin, a transportation consultant based in Oakland. "I think the original concept was very seriously flawed."
Still, light-rail supporters argue the trains have put a dent in Silicon Valley's notoriously nasty freeway traffic, providing more than 32,000 one-way trips each day. For perspective, if all those riders drove on Highway 101 in the South Bay, traffic would increase more than 6 percent.
"If we didn't have the current system, we would have terminal gridlock," said the train's godfather, Rod Diridon, a transit advocate who pushed for the network as a county supervisor decades ago.
Reasons are clear
Still, VTA light rail has struggled -- and it's mostly because of the valley's sprawl, transportation experts and agency officials say.Connolly noted that the South Bay's first light-rail line was built along onion fields, where planners had expected homes and businesses to pop up along the route. That contrasted with the strategy in most other cities, which is to put light rail along existing, dense corridors.
For the most part, the density never materialized in Silicon Valley. As Connolly spoke at VTA headquarters along its main light-rail line on First Street, he noted the orange groves across the street.
"In our case we tried to graft a big-city transit type of mode onto a suburban environment, and it's still kind of a work in progress," Connolly said.
San Francisco's Muni light-rail system, which carries five times as many passengers as VTA, features dense housing and jobs near stations that riders can walk to, avoiding traffic jams and the huge parking costs.
More commuters in the South Bay, on the other hand, stomach awful traffic and record gas prices because the region offers plenty of free parking, and its businesses and homes are spread out. And that's not changing any time soon.
Riding the rails
Many riders say they use light rail because they don't have any other way to get around -- and they like that it's clean, affordable and consistent.But their main complaint is speed, which is often less than 10 mph in downtown San Jose.
"It just takes a while to get through downtown," said Sabrina Baca, 17, as she sat on the train with 18-year-old Fernando Fernandez and their 7-month-old daughter. Asked why they and most people ride the train, the couple said, in unison: "Because they have to."
Light rail is generally less economically efficient than long-haul heavy train service such as BART or Caltrain, though San Jose's system is especially feeble.
Light-rail agencies in Minneapolis, Houston, Newark, N.J., and Phoenix each run less service than VTA yet carry more passengers than the South Bay's network. Several cities that are much smaller than San Jose -- from St. Louis to Salt Lake City to Portland, Ore. -- also feature light-rail systems with more riders than VTA.
Sacramento -- which also opened its light-rail network in 1987, operates with approximately the same level of service and runs through a similarly sprawled-out region -- carries nearly 40 percent more passengers per day than VTA.
Connolly pointed out that the Sacramento line has a built-in customer base of state workers who take the line, at a 75 percent discount, to their jobs. The closest VTA has to that: San Jose State students, who make up a large chunk of VTA's riders largely because the line carries students to the university for no additional charge, a cost built into their tuition.
Another issue is that San Jose's downtown -- while denser than most parts of Silicon Valley -- is still not the jobs destination seen in the urban cores of other cities. For many riders, it's a place to get through, not to.
Future changes coming?
Acknowledging the need to improve, the VTA is undergoing a $27 million project to make the service more attractive, largely by adding tracks to launch express trains. VTA is also kicking off an efficiency effort to cut service costs 5 percent, which could help land new grants from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area's transportation agency.Expansions to Los Gatos and East San Jose are also proposed, but those, too, are forecast to attract very few riders and carry large, unfunded capital costs.
"In general, we can't lose sight of the fact
that we have to do the basics better," Connolly said. "We have to be faster, we
have to connect with better destinations."
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Rosenbergs Rules and the Brown Act, Marinwood CSD (and the Ukrainian Parliament).
Rosenberg's Rules of Order from Institute for Local Government on Vimeo.
Karma is a good value as is courtesy and the golden rule but cannot be used as an enforcement tool in government.
Rosenbergs (and Roberts Rules) are a formalized set of rules meant to assist groups in conducting business to "play nice".
Politics by its very nature can be contentious. Rivals often serve on the same boards. Personalities and political objectives can clash. It is therefore necessary to have a set of "ground rules" to ensure everyone will play fair. It doesnt always work but it is the best way to keep things civilized. (The alternative being, the third world parliaments where brawls and violence are a regular occurrence. See video below).
You can find the rules here:
https://www.cacities.org/Resources/Open-...
The Brown Act is a LAW also known as the "sunshine act" to force government to be accountable to the citizens. It is LAW and not optional. It was created because governments WILL act in secret to avoid public scrutiny if possible. Democracy gets in its way.
http://www.thefirstamendment.org/Brown-A...
Restoring civility with Rosenberg's Rules and getting the Marinwood CSD to abide by the Brown Act Law is an imperative. We have many challenges ahead.
I agree that it is good Karma and common courtesy to "play nice". We need the tools of Rosenbergs and the Brown Act to "play fair" and within the bounds of the law.
Much worse than the Marinwood CSD!
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Google Invests In Homes For Poor People, Gets Massive Tax Cuts In Return
Google Invests In Homes For Poor People, Gets Massive Tax Cuts In Return
Google's investment in the low-income housing market is worth at least $86 million. The company also invested $25 million in a separate deal earlier this year, according to Bloomberg.
This isn't a short term investment for Google, as the tax credits make take some 10 years to sort out. But it may be worth it for yields that could be around 10%.
Editor's Note: Marinwood Village and the huge amount of the low income housing in Marin will be driven by the LIHTC scheme to provide corporate investors and Wall Street financial firms to make huge returns on investment backed by the government. The COST of these investments is shouldered by the host community like Marinwood-Lucas Valley who must pay for all of the infrastructure improvements, government services, schools, police and fire while receiving almost NO TAXES. It is a scheme worthy of late night "No Money Down" real estate gurus. Investors get guaranteed profits while we pay the bill.
Civility on Trial at the Marinwood CSD
Marinwood residents, elected officials and staff spar at the January 12, 2016 Marinwood CSD meeting.
Here is an even more outrageous local government meeting. Watch the end where they trade childish insults.
Here is a good example of a proper local government meeting. This is the typical decorum followed at most local government meetings in Marin. Notice that no one is interrupting, trading insults, and all observe standards of civility. (SolEd is the same solar contractor that Marinwood CSD voted to approve 4-1)
Monday, January 18, 2016
Marin City residents challenge that "Not one person displaced in Hunters Point"
Marin City residents challenge the "Housing Consultant" RDJ Enterprises who says no San Francisco residents were displaced in Hunters Point. He maintains that people left on their own free will and some residents were excluded when they made up new rules. Marin City residents are not fooled. The clever word games do not change the reality that San Francisco has seen a huge drop of African Americans in the last few years due largely because of redevelopment. Marin City will not yield so easy. Their residents are determined to hold onto their community.
Marinwood CSD meeting January 12, 2016
Financial Report, Pensions,Rosenbergs Rules, Ad Hoc committee, Park fees,and dog leash law.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Perspectives on Resistance: Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
A series of clips of the two leaders commenting on their beliefs, methods, and each other.
GREEN POPE GOES MEDIEVAL ON PLANET
GREEN POPE GOES MEDIEVAL ON PLANET
by Joel Kotkin 07/05/2015
Some future historian, searching for the origins of a second Middle Ages, might fix on the summer of 2015 as its starting point. Here occurred the marriage of seemingly irreconcilable world views—that of the Catholic Church and official science—into one new green faith.
As Pope Francis has embraced the direst notions of climate change, one Canadian commentator compared Francis’s bleak take on the environment, technology, and the market system to that of the Unabomber. “Doomsday predictions,” the Pope wrote in his recent encyclical “Laudato Si,” “can no longer be met with irony or disdain.”
With Francis’s pontifical blessing , the greens have now found a spiritual hook that goes beyond the familiar bastions of the academy, bureaucracy, and the media and reaches right into the homes and hearts of more than a billion practicing Catholics. No potential coalition of interests threatened by a seeming tsunami of regulation—from suburban homeowners and energy firms to Main Street businesses—can hope to easily resist this alliance of the unlikely.
Historical U-Turn?
There are of course historical parallels to this kind of game-changing alliance. In the late Roman Empire and then throughout the first Middle Ages, church ideology melded with aristocratic and kingly power to assure the rise of a feudal system. Issuing indulgences for the well-heeled, the Church fought against the culture of hedonism and unrestrained individualism that Francis has so roundly denounced. The Church also concerned itself with the poor, but seemed not willing to challenge the very economic and social order that often served to keep them that way.
Historically Medievalism represented a “steady state” approach to human development, seeking stability over change. Coming after the achievements of the classical age—with its magnificent engineering feats as well as an often cruel, highly competitive culture—the Middle Ages ushered in centuries of slow growth, with cities in decline and poverty universal for all but a few.
To be sure, the Church played an important, if difficult role, in preserving classical culture and, in the Renaissance, often nurtured a resurgence in some classical values of human self-improvement, science and inquiry, and individual enterprise. But ultimately, as Max Weber noted, it could not compete with a Protestantism that fit more easily with the emerging capitalist spirit. Protestant countries—the Netherlands, northern German, Britain, and America—took the lead in the development of the modern world.
Capitalism, particularly during the early industrial revolution, often abused human dignity and engendered huge poverty. This still happens today, as the Pope suggests, but this system has also been responsible for lifting hundreds of millions of people—most recently in China and East Asia—out of poverty. Without the resources derived from capitalist enterprise, there would have been insufficient funds to drive the great improvements in sanitation, housing, and education that have created huge pockets of relative affluence across the planet.
The Coalition for Anti-Growth
What makes the Pope’s position so important—after all, the world is rejecting his views on such things as gay marriage and abortion—is how it jibes with the world view of some of the secular world’s best-funded, influential, and powerful forces. In contrast to both Socialist and capitalist thought, both the Pope and the greens are suspicious about economic growth itself, and seem to regard material progress as aggression against the health of the planet.
The origins of this world view back to the ’40s. An influential group of scientists, planners, and top executives voiced concern about the impact of an exploding population on food stocks, raw materials, and the global political order. In 1948, environmental theorist William Vogt argued that population was outstripping resources and would lead to the mass starvation predicted in the early 19th century by Thomas Malthus.
The legacy of Malthus, himself a Protestant clergymen, dominates environmental thinking. As historian Edward Barbier notes, Malthusianism presumes that a culture or society lacks all “access to new sources of land and resources or is unable to innovate,” thus is “vulnerable to collapse.” In his seminal 1968 book,The Population Bomb, Paul Ehrlich predicted imminent mass starvation in much of the world and espoused draconian steps to limit fertility, which he saw being imposed by a “relatively small group” of enlightened individuals. He even raised the possibility of placing “sterilants” in the water supply and advocated tax policies that discouraged child-bearing.
Ehrlich’s dire predictions proved widely off the mark—food production soared, and starvation declined—but this appears not to have dissuaded the Church from embracing Ehrlich’s contemporary acolytes. This is not to say that environmentalism has not achieved much in terms of cleaning the air and water, restoring wildlife and expanding open space. Yet these triumphs are not seen as sources of inspiration by a movement that seems to live off pointing to a doomsday clock.
Given their lack of faith in markets or people, the green movement has become ever less adept at adjusting to the demographic, economic, and technological changes that have occurred since the ’70s. Huge increases in agricultural productivity and the recent explosion in fossil fuel energy resources have been largely ignored or downplayed; the writ remains that humanity has entered an irreversible “era of ecological scarcity” that requires strong steps to promote “sustainability.”
The green movement’s views on population represent the most difficult contradiction in the new alliance. Many environmental organizations and pundits favor strong steps to discourage people from having children. The Church and Francis are now allied to the likes of Peter Kareiva, chief scientist for the U.S.-based Nature Conservancy, who has concluded that not having children is the most effective way for an individual in the developed world to reduce emissions, although he adds that he himself is a father. In the United Kingdom, Jonathan Porritt, an environmental advisor to Prince Charles, has claimed that having even two children is “irresponsible,” and has advocated for the island nation to reduce its population by half in order, in large part, to reduce emissions. |
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