Experts Question the Benefits of Business

Wealthy landowners, I've read, were the demise of the Roman Empire when they sucked all the resources out of the rest of society.  One wonders if the American business community isn't repeating the performance here. The normally pro-business American Prospect, seems to have discovered some reservations about business: (Wonder of Wonders!)

            In a piece on Joe Biden’s unholy relationship with the credit industry in his state, we read this: “The benefits of business-friendly policies are waning. Corporations aren’t staying loyal despite the state’s perks, and handouts are being doled out at residents’ expense.” Ah, no kidding!

            This from an economist named Adam Tooze, who has a new book the U.S. in the Covid Pandemic: “…they (Congress) gave out extraordinary handouts to businesses around the world. We have various ways of disguising that fact. We passed special allowances for small to medium-sized businesses, which is a cuddly way of describing a large part of the most affluent groups in society—the owners of small and medium-sized businesses.”

            And in a piece on why the insurance industries aren’t doing much of anything about climate change, we read this: “But in the under-regulated American market, companies are not required to disclose any information on underwriting projects, which makes it nearly impossible to figure out who’s behind new pipelines, fracking installations, and processing plants, even the case of the most controversial, headline-grabbing projects like the Line Three pipeline in Minnesota.

            It appears that we have gone in the past 20 years from seeing business as a savior of sorts, to realizing that business has no intrinsic morals or obligation to anything beyond the bottom line. Only when a few unique individuals bring that to companies—and they are few and far between—does it happen. Community welfare is simply not a natural object of business.

Public servants who will attempt to insure that the activities of the business benefit—or at least doesn’t harm—the most people.

 

The Big Diff betw McD & the Other Council Candidates

3rd from left, 1964, big hair, freshman year at Clarke College.

 It’s hardly surprising that I am braver, tougher and more tenacious than any man on the Cascade City Council: by the time I was 14, my father was dead, my sibs and I had done stints in St. Mary’s Orphanage and in foster homes. By the time I was 21, I had waitressed myself through Clarke College—a hat-trick then—impossible now.

            Though I did all the course work for a master’s journalism at the University of Colorado, when I was offered a job writing for a Denver magazine, I figured: Why pay them to teach me to do something somebody will pay me to do? By the time I was 35, I was jet-setting back and forth to Europe 2x a year a publishing my own a little medical ultrasound catalog.

            I sold it, turned down a lucrative job in California, and returned to Cascade after Mom died because I didn’t want to lose touch with my parents, their place, their spirits. By then, I realized how very rare they were. Just how rare their plain-spoken, self-effacing honesty was!

        

     So I figure the main difference between me, the men on Cascade Council and the people running for it, is values. I know it is dishonest to pass an ordinance to force the less-well off portions of town to install new sidewalks. (In spite of what the Nat’l League of Cities says.) I know it is evil to give the tax money of struggling ordinary citizens to millionaires. (TIF, etc) I know it is corrupt to charge one citizen $17,000 for a vacated street, another $1,700 for a street the city has put in the flood plain and give a millionaire one free of charge. In private conversations with a couple of them, I think they may value fairness and justice on city council, but the votes don't always confirm it. A couple of them running are financial types, and they really scare me.

Recap of Candidate Forum

 

Well, it was a good thing I didn’t eat before I went to the candidate forum sponsored by ECIA Tuesday night. I might have barfed! The three mayoral candidates and six council ones about choked themselves with glowing and crowing..

            You would never have known the lovely little berg of Cascade, Iowa has in the past given free sewer line to a millionaire, a free street to a developer, god only knows what to Developer Danny Conrad (because it ended in sealed court case), $257,000 of citizen tax money to mop up the mistakes of a tech millionaire, who has left town, etc. ad nauseam.

            No mention was made either of the $20,000 a year the city is giving to Economic Development, a private corporation with closed books and meetings. Or any of the other transfers of goods and services that businesses get.

            The only question with teeth was asked by me: Is the Sidewalk ordinance passed in 2017 a) legal or b) fair? Every one of the current council people said this was model ordinance given to them by the National League of Cities. At least they didn’t say it was fair—I appear to be the only candidate concerned with that nonsense. ECIA refused to allow me to participate, which tells you how much that organization really cares about democracy.

            Late in the meeting there was a reference to TIF. As it so happens I had a list of all the current payments in my backpack. I whipped it out and handed it to the woman behind me (Marge Gehl). She refused to look at it—the perfect metaphor for the whole evening, I’d say.

            So if you stayed home and watched TV and even if the show was really lousy, you had a better time. Five glasses of wine didn’t put a dent in my disgust.

             

How Cutting-edge is Cascade?

 At Monday night’s city council meeting, I was called on the carpet by one of the early members of the Cascade Economic Development Corp. for saying it has received $20,000 of city money every year. Which it has every year since 2016, a total of $120,000 of ordinary Joe’s tax money.

            He apologized, when the City Administrator confirmed I was correct. Small consolation that hard-working folks’ money is being turned over to a private corporation, which doesn’t have open meetings and exists solely to benefit businesses—some of the wealthiest people in town.

            These days, I am not the only person objecting business on the take. I was shocked to get my copy of The American Prospect this month and see: 1) an article on the damage our business relationship with China has done us, 2) one on Joe Biden’s unholy relationship with business in Delaware, and 3) one by economic analyst (Adam Tooze) containing the following quote:

            “…special allowances for small to medium-sized businesses, which is a cuddly way of describing a large part of the most affluent groups in society: the owners of small and medium-sized businesses.”

            He stopped short of identifying TIF and such gifts as one of the main sources of the huge transfer of wealth in American society responsible the polarization and diminishing middle class.

            One of my serious objections to Mr. Henry’s candidacy is recalling his positive glee in discussing TIF at council when he was mayor—like a leprechaun who’d found his pot o’ gold! Likewise, I don’t trust Rausch and Delaney when it comes to gifties, ah free streets to Mike Beck, and reduced rate ones to Chad Demmer.

            Next Tuesday, we’ll see how cutting edge Cascade is.  

Another Businessman on Council?

            One of the things I inherited from my Mother is a categorical suspicion of business. However, when I returned here, I got to know Carl Cigrand, who was, along with my parents, was one of the most honest people I ever met and revised my opinion: an honest businessperson can be a real asset, and for the most part Councilman Bill Hosch falls in that category.

            Not that I am not furious over the Sidewalk and a couple other votes he has taken. But what truly amazes me about Hosch is his understanding of city ordinances and ability to apply them. It was Hosch who caught the City Administrator Deanna McCusker spending over her allowed limit, (the administrator must submit expenses over a given sum for council approval). She authorized upgrades at the pool (the blue roofs, etc.) in 2021 in excess of that limit.

            Recently, he requested that a provision council was about to vote on be sent back to the city attorney for clarification and I thought to myself, “OMG, how does a carpet monger have such a sophisticated understanding of ordinances?” On the basis of that, I am voting for him.

Give City $ to a Company not in Compliance?

 

City of Cascade

320 1^st Avenue W

PO Box 400

Cascade IA 52033

563.852.3114

 

                                                                            AGENDA REQUEST

 

Here’s an ordinance I will introduce at Monday night’s Cascade City Council meeting and why:

No business, group or organization may apply for Tax Increment Financing, Façade Reimbursement, any present or future remunerative program or action offered by the City of Cascade as long as applicant company/business or any of it divisions, sections, departments or subsidiaries is disputing another matter with the city, regardless of the nature of the matter. If said dispute is not resolved, the city is entitled to recoup the funds until the firm is in compliance. Once the dispute is resolved, the request may then go forward.

I offer this amendment because at a council meeting late last winter there was a discussion of various councilmen’s (unsuccessful) efforts to get a Cascade company to do drainage mitigation required by law at a project here in town. The company refused.

Shockingly, this summer that company was granted a TIF money.

And what happened to the unresolved drainage problem? Still unresolved: the city administrator tells me it is back on the list of street projects that must to be done—you and I get to pay for it, folks!

Am working on one to try to achieve greater transparency and control of the Economic Development. the city has paid over a million $ on infrastructure on Industrial Dr. Each year, Economic Development comes to council looking for a $20,000 and usually gets it. However, Ec Dev is a private corporation which makes it harder to “follow the money” and see who benefits.

            And if you don’t like this nonsense write in somebody who will squawk about it: Shirley McDermott

Ethical ?s on City Council

 

The moment I committed to doing a profile of councilmen on the basis of their votes and public discussion, I had to confront the question of how to distinguish Councilman Mike Delaney and Riley Rausch. Each brings a distinct talent to the table—Delaney computer expertise; Rausch often asks perceptive questions, but over time, it seems not to have affected his vote.

            For starters, there are far too many 5-0 votes on council, even on horrific issues like dissolving the Sidewalk Committee and passing an ordinance that is likely illegal. But if there is a split it’s typically 3-(Kelchen, Delaney and Rausch)-2 (Knepper and Hosch), which gives rise to some a serious ethical questions, especially with the kinds of issues it ends up resolving: Mike Beck wouldn’t get a free street if Delaney, Rausch and Kelchen hadn’t voted to give him one! YOU vote accordingly!

Mr. Delaney’s PC firm is not the first ethical question about businessmen on council—my mother spent the ‘50s & ‘60s scoffing at “that charade.” Recently, a citizen complained to me about Delaney providing council computers. He may have even got us a better deal--it just looks bad.

Speaking of ethics, Ms. Oliphant and others on the ballot have not bothered to come to council meetings and see what gives. No less offer an idea or objection in the 2-minute public comment period. Or show us they can write an ordinance by submitting one!

With the exception of Sue Knepper, who seems to care a great deal: she has been at every meeting for the last couple months.

I can't insist that business people on city council is categorically a bad deal. Check my next post which will take a look at the voting record and discussion of Bill Hosch. 

Mike Beck's FREE Street--Cascade Pays his Legal Fees

 

In the good old days before greedy councilmen, Cascade citizens could petition to have a street vacated and conveyed to them: appear before council and make the request, pay the legal/filing fees and the street was conveyed to the person.

            In 2018 Ida Trumm was assessed $1 a sq. ft. for an unopened street through her property considered prime building lot, over $17,000.       

   In 2016, I was assessed 15 cents a sq. ft. because the unopened street required so much fill it was not considered buildable. Council refused to acknowledge that it had been put into the flood plain by city development decisions, the sewer was never accessible, and that I had requested it, when Richie Knepper was mayor and it would have been free. $1,690.

            In June 2021, while I was at an out-of-town wedding, Mike Beck was given a street FREE. Zilch. Zip. Nada. He didn’t even pay legal fees, we paid them. I complained the following meeting and Councilman Andy Kelchen hollered, “It was HIS street; he gave it to the city.”

            “He’s the developer; that’s his obligation!” I replied.  At the last meeting Oct. 11^th, Kelchen tried to give Eastern Iowa Excavating Owner Chad Demmer, a valuable piece of industrial property free. Demmer was eventually charged 15 cents a sq. ft.—same as me for valuable property council in the industrial area. Not in the flood plain.  Bill Hosch brought it up at the last meeting called it “a very bad precedent,” exactly what I called it when they were doing it. But it was a 5-0 vote!?

            Still have any doubts about how you will be treated when you get down there?

Compare & Contrast, Cascade

In the 2-minute public comment period at Monday’s Council meeting, I pointed out that the city is spending $36,000 to repair the east river wall, directly across from Riverview Park where in the early days of Cascade, the mill sat on the falls. Now, there are three buildings on that narrow spit of land, so close together you can stretch your arms touch both walls. 

            So, you have to wonder where the water they shed goes. From the photo, it appears there is enough green space below Cascade Communications warehouse and Dr. Bisenius old office, but the lack of it around the middle building is worrisome.

The river—which can’t defend itself—gets the blame for buckling and cracking in the wall, but I can’t believe that rainwater isn’t at least partially responsible—that runoff froze, expanded and BOOM!  But it is presented as an infrastructure problem, so we all pay.

Contrast that with how a private citizen on Main Street in my neighborhood, who has water pooling on the sidewalk in front of his house, which may have been caused by the city resurfacing Main Street. I’d bet he didn’t even know it, when he bought the house!

My neighbor, John Q. Private Citizen, was invited to council to split the cost of fixing the problem, probably $2,500 in 2016 Council passed an ordinance that makes citizens with sidewalks financially responsible for them. I told him, “You go down there and tell them that ordinance is illegal because you can’t treat half the people one way and absolve other half…”

So the puddle is still there. It freezes in the winter and I will probably be the one who falls and busts her butt there! My question remains: is this not a cautionary tale about the way citizens are treated by city council? It bears mulling over before you vote next month.

 

Short History of the Cascade Sidewalk Committee

Sometime circa 2014 when Mike Henry was Mayor and Pat Kearney was on Council, a Sidewalk Committee was established. Jim Conlin and I served on it. Off and on for several years there had been complaints about an inequitable sidewalk policy: some people being allowed to remove theirs, others not, the costs, etc.

In 2016, the last year of the Committee’s existence, $50,000 was allocated in the budget for sidewalks. The committee prioritized places with lots of foot traffic—churches, parks, businesses--and set about repairing them.

After Mayor Staner was elected, I went to council several times and asked when the next Sidewalk Committee was scheduled, but got no answer. At the first council meeting in November 2016 an ordinance passed that forces the expense of sidewalks back on homeowners.  Most of it in less highly-valued properties in the older, center of the city.

I believe this ordinance is illegal (but you’d have to go to court to find out) because you can’t treat one group of citizens one way, and another group another way. If the city can’t give senior citizens a preferential garbage rate, then it can’t force the expense of sidewalks on group either.

I complained loudly but the ordinance and this another reason why I am saying there is a moral dimension to this vote.

Rah, Yeah Bike Days!

     This may be the last for 2021, as they are calling for 80 today. You can both get outdoors exercise and see a lot of the infrastructure of this village. Ride along Riverview Park,cross Main Street over the parking lot next to J Salon and Enstyro, and enter the Coohey Trail. The vantage point will give you a great view of the river and the levees and berms constructed  to protect the west side of the city.

    If you are interested in a look at drainage done right, ride out the Davidshofer Bike Path to Dollar General and have a gander behind their building, which is an empty depression to hold the runoff shed by their parking lot and building roof--a textbook example of doing drainage right. You may want to compare it with some of its neighbor businesses, which have run their parking lots right up to the cornfield and provided for no drainage.

When the the bike path ends, continue on until you come to the first right turn, Industrial Drive, ride to the top of it, and look back down. You'll see the three businesses there have none of the required green space to offset the parking lots and building roofs they have created. This probably isn't their fault, the developer of the area built them without it. However, as the puddling in the picture indicates, it needs to be addressed. 

From the top of Industrial Dr., it is a short shot to the Bent Rim--you'll probably need a beer by then. 

Fun & Games at the Park Board

 

They were discussing the placement of the Gazebo in Riverview Park last evening at the Park Board, when someone inquired if changes had to be okayed by The Army Corps of Engineers.

“Yes,” thought City Administrator Deanna McCusker.

Next, someone asked about the east side, where the city is currently reinforcing the wall behind the Farm Bureau. They are fortifying the rock wall on the East Side of the river because the buildings there are now shedding so much water from their roofs it is undermining the wall.

 Then City Administrator McCusker said, “Oh, the Army Corps doesn’t care what we do on the East side (of the river)."

            I hollered, disgusted but not surprised: “NO Kidding!” I had gone there to apprise the Park Board of the problems they may be creating by putting so much cement the parks--especially the pool, which was installed without any drainage mitigation. The rest of the meeting they discussed where to put the cement by the renovated/built gazebo.

Fun & Games at the Park Board. 

Are We Really Considering This?

       Yesterday, I saw a real estate sign in this neighborhood that said "SOLD in 20 Days."  Hardly a surprise when everybody knows how short of affordable housing we are. That is why I am flabbergasted by rumors that many people prefer the library plan that tears two very affordable homes--one with an impressive new steel roof--down for the new library. 

       On the very next block stands a derelict two story house that no one has lived in for years, next to the most recoverable, historical building in Cascade--the Old Brewing in former times the Dahlem Feed Co. I once had a friend from Europe come here and pitch a fit of outrage when I told her it wasn't used for anything, but there were lots of mice in residence! 

       The big objection is we don't have the money.  Duh, of course we don't have the money.  Every time we turn around down at city hall, we are TIF-ing a new part of town, and giving tax rebate to another business, usually one that is already quite profitable, thank you. 

       If we had done the City Market that I researched instead of giving almost $300,000 to owners of Brothers (a retired football millionaire), and $10,000 for Facade grants, $20,000 to an up-and-running profitable company, like we did last month we'd have the thing half paid for.

        Heartsick and pathetic are the only words I can think of.