Just Like the Good (?) Ole Days

Monday night’s city council meeting was a replay of the good ole days: My kinsman Ken McDermott, a well-known mover and shaker, was there wanting to buy a vacated section of Washington Street for 50 cents a sq. ft. (The open lot kitty corner from Bent Rim adjacent with three old elegant oaks on it.) 

I was there having recently bought the vacated section of 2^nd Ave. NE. Beyond the obvious: 2 vacated city streets, there is virtually no comparison. Councilman Andy Kelchen inquired what I’d paid. Ans: $500 in legal and recording fees and $1,200 i.e. 15 cents a sq. ft.

Councilman Mick Delany did the math reflecting the differences between them and came up with $1.78 a sq. ft. Those differences include:

1)      It is on the high value end of town

2)      Not in or adjacent to the flood plain (or put there by city development)

3)      Little or no fill will be required to make buildable lots

4)      Sewer & water hook ups are readily available and no sump pump will be required to have flush toilets on the main level or lower levels.

My kinsman McDermott is interested in buying the property to subdivide it and use the street to make more spacious lots. He and his Mom & Dad have not mowed the property for 75 years! In fact, two other people currently own it. By contrast, I am not a developer and “my” is buyer having reservations about installing a sump pump.

My kinsman Ken is right about one thing however—he complained “the city was always-helping developers”— I couldn’t agree more. From the days of Dan, the Con Man, Conrad (late 1980s), to Callahan Construction (90s) to Beck (2000s) to the last $50,000 the city gave Jesse Loewen, too much tax money has gone to developers.

This is indirectly connected to the other major item on the agenda—the tennis courts in the community park, which council has been struggling with since last summer. Understandably, council does not want to spend $70,000 (the high estimate) to resurface the courts and nobody will guarantee any cheaper fix. Worse, the whole issue is complicated by drainage problems.

A critical eye cannot help but observe that when developers go off with a large share of the city budget and the state forces us to build a sewer plant to accommodate their businesses, there is not enough money to resurface tennis courts or rebuild the swimming pool. There isn’t even enough to provide all citizens decent water as my (See my 25^th Aug. post). If a developer wants to pay 50 cents a sq. ft., you can bet it is worth 3 or 4 times that.

Trump Tariffs: Right for the Wrong Reason?

Thought I would share with Critical Eye readers a letter I wrote Menard's this week, which I suspect is the experience of many of us. The economists and Mr. Trump never consider it, but the American people must: cheap, "disposable" products are filling our landfills, endangering our water.

Dear Menard's:

Let me tell you, I was perfectly flabbergasted to look up your headquarters and find you are a Midwestern company, in view of this complaint—a series of fabulously shabby products:

1)      Taped to the top of this letter is the paint coating of a “universal kitchen basket strainer,” which peeled off 6 weeks after I bought it. I took it back; they replaced it, and in six weeks the same thing happened again. The steel(?) seems to be holding up but the white paint coating does not adhere.

2)      A far more expensive item was a fire pit I bought spring 2017 for a reunion that fall, but which I installed in the yard in July, when the bottom fell out of the one I had. Though the new pit retailed for over $100, the grill that holds the wood cracked in 2 months. I went back to Menards (DBQ) and asked for a new grill, so I didn’t have to throw the whole fire pit in the landfill. No help from them—my brother fabricated one out of old rebar and it is still in use.

3)      That summer I also bought an Ames yard cart. It was so new and got such light use that the notification attached to the inside saying you could transport 250 lbs was still affixed to it. Early June, I went to the neighbors to get some free dirt and roll it back down the hill. One of the wheels got stuck, became flat and the cart would no longer roll. My fix-it brother said there was nothing he could do. Menard’s replaced it.

4)      Early this year, my old garden hose bit the dust. I bought a new one 5/8 in diameter, asking the clerk if it would be problem to attach it to a regular size hose. She didn’t think so.  I exchanged it for longer one because my yard is very large.  The first night I used it, I forgot to turn the water off and when I got up in the morning there was a “fountain” in my yard where the brand new hose split and was spewing water in the air. When I brought it back, returns would only give me half the $ back—something that had to do with the computer and the previous exchange.

I thought enough is enough. I went to Lowe’s down the street and bought a hose Made in America. I paid $10 more for it, but look at the waste of time, gas and contributions to the landfill these cheap products generate. While I am no fan of his, I support Trump’s tariff on Chinese products, because they are cheap junk. In the end, I conclude they cost us more. This letter is to encourage the Menard’s Corporate leadership to draw the same conclusion.

Critical Eye has served one company notice that the way we are doing business is not acceptable. Feel free to copy the letter, insert your own product tales/descriptions and send it to the corp headquarters: 5101 Menard's Dr., Eau Claire, WI 54703.

Opening Eddie Jones to Celebrate the Great Recession!?

There will undoubtedly be a ribbon cutting and a pic on the front of The Pioneer for the new brick Edward Jones east of town. I don’t know about you, but haven’t recovered from the Great Recession, and it’s given me permanent qualms about the financial industry.

This past week, we celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the fall of Lehman Bros. Much of America will never recover, & none (not one) of the perpetrators is in jail.

Curious about previous recession and depressions I went on line, found this, and recommend it highly: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/were-bankers-jailed-in-past-financial-crises/

It essentially says no bankers or financiers went to jail after The Great Recession or the Great Depression, but we did better after the Savings & Loan crisis. Several of the people did time: Charles Keating, David Paul and other biggies. A slew of ordinary people were chewed up, stood in bread lines, lost their homes, etc.

A critical eye with subtraction skills observes that 1) greed, 2) lack of regulation and 3) American Dream excess brought us these horror shows in 1929, 1980, and 2008. They are becoming more frequent, and student debt may bring the next one on in 10 years, according to some reports.

Eyeball Rolling & Head Shaking at City Council

 Cascade City Council is drowning in discussions of the tennis court and drainage problems at the Community Park!

Though an hour long, the late August meeting discussion left me exasperated and not a lot wiser. It featured much head shaking by Mr. Rausch and eyeball rolling by the city administrator.

 A citizen, Dick Atchison, repeatedly suggested moving the excess water to the west, which nobody bothered to point out won’t work—if that’s what they did think! You can’t run water uphill, unless you install a sump pump, which is v. costly.

Somebody should have said, “Look, that won’t work or it costs too much, or we don’t care to do anything till the rest of the issues are solved." Or whatever.

Wonder of wonders: Terry Gravel appeared at the early Sept. meeting and told them there isn’t enough fall there to put in drainage tile. So they will try to move part of a berm and make some other slight adjustments, but there you have the wages of the sin of building anything where Mother Nature decides she wants to drain water.