Saturday, December 31, 2022

Happy New Year's Blues--Reflections on a Blue Planet

     At the risk of wishing my life away, I am eagerly awaiting the demise of 2022. I knew better than to expect much from it—my Mom died when she was 77, my age this moment. That I am still alive and sinnin' isn't any consolation! Consolation itself seems, well, taking your eye off the ball. 

    The ball being our Blue Planet.

   The weather seems intent on reminding us what a drag humans are, but we seem equally intent on ignoring it. Though the reminders are pretty spectacular. Hurricane Ian did not constitute a wake-up call for Floridians. The Arctic cold snap that we dealt with over Christmas was more or less business as usual for winter in Iowa, but  the following record-breaking Wednesday? 57 degrees broke the previous record of 54.

    According to all the population counters, on or about November 15, 2022, the human race topped 8 billion. We know human activity from building bonfires (poor folks cooking food) to driving Mercedes' and flying private jets (fat cats) is at fault. Mother Nature's best efforts to curtail human proliferation quietly--Covid--seems not to be working either. Or even violently: hurricanes, cyclones and derechoes.

  We've waited  years for the U.N. to address the issue. I quit donating to environmental organizations trying to get them to speak out on human overpopulation. Perhaps promote a provision that all countries keep their populations relative to their land/ability to accommodate people. Of course, islands such as Ireland, Haiti, will object, but it's in their own best interest. The social disorganization--kidnapping, gangs of desperate young men terrorizing the Haitian countryside, etc. is exactly what results. Duh. A medical-professional-friend went there once to help, and never went again.

    The liberal set here and on the other side of the Atlantic has themselves convinced that we can continue biz-as-usual human proliferation if we keep the temp below 1.5 C degrees of increase. Lying to ourselves may be the human race's best act. They have to know it's a long shot and even achieved, it will not work as long as population growth continues unabated. So happy New Year's Blues!




           

Tuesday, December 13, 2022

City Council: Kids' Essays, Ag Gag, Garbage, Nuisances & $9,000 Floor Mat

The Cascade City Council meeting began Monday evening more charmingly than usual: the winners of the 7th Grade Essay Contest--Cody Lynch 1st Place, Colie Leytem 2nd, and Mollie Orr 3rd reading their essays on the topic "If I Were Mayor." Predictably, they were entertaining, sweet and featured preteen perceptions of the office without much comprehension of the thorny issues of governing. 

Such as--neither Mayor Steve Knepper, nor councilmember nor city administrator seems the slightest concerned that my drainage proposal has been kept off the agenda. I had submitted it before the previous Mayor Greg Staner left office. He refused to hear it. I thought it had been enacted as part of the Storm Water Ordinance. I discovered it had not when the Administrator issued a building permit to a neighbor who has already covered 90% of his lot with hard surface. Though I was promised it would be on this agenda, it was not. I guess I will have to contact the Attorney General's Office on that one.

There was a long discussion of the two food pantries in town, one of which is about to lose it's home because the city

Council spent $8,987  on a floor mat for below the slide at the pool, which the kind of soft core issue this council loves. Along the same lines ignoring the undemocratic possibilities of a Nuisance Ordinance, council passed that on 2nd reading. Penalizing small/senior citizen households and those who compost, order less online and are generally less wasteful, Council raised the garbage rates without a 3rd reading. Rewarding wastrels and penalizing people who only put garbage out once every couple months, is apparently this Council's fairness and good governance.

The one bright spot in the whole proceeding, I did succeed in getting Councilwoman Oliphant to admit she was not aware that Chief Justice Stephanie M. Rose of the Southern District of Iowa had found the "Ag Gag" law a violation of journalists' right, therefore unconstitutional and informing her that the DNR had fined local manure pumping company $2,000 for two violations.





Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Council Passes Potentially Dangerous Nuisance Ordinance 5-0

 Despite dangerously undemocratic provisions in it, Monday Evening the Cascade City Council voted 5-0 for an amendment to the Nuisance Ordinance. There were several building owners in chamber, one of whom, Jake McAllister, asked how long it would take to enact. (After the 1st of the year.) It doesn't require a genius IQ to understand that the ordinance, which allows the city to act against a property owner for "General dilapidation or improper maintenance," could very easily be abused. After the 1st and 2nd provisions, most of the rest of the ordinance is an enumeration of the specific conditions under which the city can order a property owner to make the changes, but there seems to be nothing to protect the property owner. Clear and present nuisances like flooding and toxic chemicals being sprayed on people are not classified as nuisances, but when the business community wants to condemn some building, well folks, that's a nuisance. 

Council has also voted to go forward the an agreement with ECIA for Building Inspection Services, the cost of which will be borne by the homeowner. Council voted to increase Garbage collection rates across the board, not bothering to set up changing scheme that penalizes heavy garbage producers or rewards composters, recyclers, reusers and gardeners. 

Watching those poor sad people in Ukraine fight for democracy and going to Cascade City Council meetings is about the most dispiriting activity anyone could imagine. Some democracy.


Friday, November 25, 2022

"Ag-gag" Law Violates the 1st; Creates Dilemma

Query to Megan Oliphant and the others who commented on my mini set-to with the honeywagon haulers: Do you  know that the "Ag-gag" law the Iowa legislature passed, was found to be illegal, a violation of the First Amendment? A succinct report by Rachael Oatman published in Meat + Poultry at https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/27330-iowa-ag-gag-law-found-unconstitutional outlines the issue. Chief Justice Stephanie M. Rose of the U.S. Southern Iowa District wrote that the law violates the First Amendment. “It is true that the act does not prohibit the editing, publication, or distribution of recordings or photographs on trespassed property...,”


Rose wrote, and she goes on to point out that trespassing is against the law, but that it is a "...necessary predicate to produce this protected speech..." In short, you must trespass to get the shot, though that wasn't necessary for this one: 

All I am trying to do is illustrate my contention that neither industry nor agriculture pays the real cost of producing products. Consider 1,889 Superfund sites on the EPA website proof. As far as I could see only 37 have been cleaned up, but the company owners and stockholders have (in many cases, they are already out of business) been paid handsomely, and now the rest of us have to clean up their messes. Hardly fair, huh? The same applies to the dead zone in the Gulf.



Thursday, November 24, 2022

In Praise of Advent

 One of my favorite things about the Catholicism I recall from my childhood was psychological accuracy and discipline of concepts like Advent and Lent. It was probably not till I got into college and started "studying" Theology that I even realized what they were. Rest assured, as a kid I thought they were about giving up candy. I did not understand what was actually occurring was the individual discipling him/herself, earning the right to celebrate, in a sense making oneself worthy. In retrospect, I like it even more because it was a very democratic notion--that everybody, rich, poor and otherwise was supposed to mind the season. 


The concept of Advent as mindful restraint with a rationale, was violated big time by the business community this year when they started stocking Christmas before Halloween. The idea of restraint in any form is an anethema because it inhibits buying. I understand why small businesses must go along with it, but not why wealthy corporations like Walmart and Amazon chart this course. They certainly don't need the money, but inflation means some people aren't buying anything.

I understand even less why people go along with it. What seems revealing is who is going along. Most of the older folks (sometimes wiser in spite of ourselves!) don't. We understand why business does what it does, but we know we are entitled to protect our customs, concepts like Advent and what is psychologically valuable even though it runs counter to the business goal of making as much money as possible.  No matter what is sacrificed in doing so. We can protect our own culture and what is good about it by keeping our own council, preserving what is good, despite the commercialization urging us to do otherwise. But everybody has to do it.


Sunday, November 20, 2022

Honeywagons and Nitro Tankers are Rolling

 

This fall I wrote a review of a very intriguing book published by the Cato Institute called Super-abundance.  Authors Marian L. Tupy and Gale L. Pooley set out to prove that more people leads to having more stuff. You don’t need Plato or Aristotle to refute this. Any three-year-old on any playground anywhere will assure you they are wrong. But us grown-ups have to use words like counterintuitive and prove it. With illustrations. 

So Thursday I stopped at the hog confinement building just west of town as they were pumping it out. I took a couple pictures and a young man came running over, started calling me demeaning names, demanded my phone, and told me I was in violation of the law taking pictures of an agriculture installation. If I am not mistaken a judge found that law an illegal violation of the people’s right to know.  


I called him demeaning names in return, refused to give him my phone and left. Still, sticking his hand in front of my camera takes a lot of gall—especially in view of the fact that agriculture one of the most heavily tax-subsidized industries in this country. Thanks especially to the Grassley dynasty.

As the crops are mostly out of the fields, the honey wagons and nitro tankers are rolling and so is the offal down the Mississippi to the hypoxic, dead zone in the Gulf. But of course, I can sit on my front porch and watch them fly by there and take pix whenever I have a little spare time. 

Happy Thanksgiving. I will post a link to the review when it is published.

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Should You Let the Assessor In?

Why you might think twice about NOT letting the county assessor into your house is they are looking for improvements in your home, so they can jack up the assessment. Which is fine; I support people who can afford cathedral ceilings and Jacuzzis paying more. However, the assessor needs to acknowledge the real devaluators of property—noise, traffic, flooding, chemical and light pollution, access to water and sewer.

            When the nice assessor lady showed up, I wrote the Dubuque County Assessor Billie Selby, and told him I would make an appointment with her, if I could be assured that they would adjust the value of my property on the basis of the real devaluators:  I formerly lived across from a park—i.e. grass and trees, what is there now is a chain link fence, concrete and an ugly brown pool tech building. Having given Callahan construction its own sewer that my neighbor and I can’t tap into, the city has increased traffic past here (to River Bend) perhaps tenfold.

Most neighborhoods have a discreet light on the corner every couple blocks, the light pollution from the pool and the large flood light on the corner makes it all but impossible to see any but the brightest stars at night. There are others, flooding and chemical pollution but they don’t acknowledge them either—what they really look at is the sales. I am sure they pay far more attention to what the Takes’ sold their house. So…  

You are within your legal right to refuse (this is stated on the postcard they sent to alert us of the visit) and if you have any other devaluators, (yours may be different than mine,) I would not let them in. I will not until they come up with a formula that is fairer and more realistic. Is that too much to ask?

 

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Cascade City Council: Doing Biz's Bidding

All but a couple items on the 26-item agenda at Monday night’s Cascade Council meeting were city services the business community.  Most had to do with enlarging TIF (Tax Increment Financing) district, thereby providing tax rebates to: 1) Iowa Main Street Investments LLC,  2) R & D Vaske LLC, 3) Eastern Iowa Excavating & Concrete, 4) Maryville/Cascade Lumber, 5) 3-B Properties, and then shamelessly dispensing with the democratic charade of reconsidering these decisions at subsequent meetings by waiving 2nd and 3rd readings. Most votes were 4-0, with Kelchen absent.

The very glib “Interim” City Administrator Lisa Kotter thinks we don’t know what TIF is, but we do—everybody pays taxes but companies in the TIF area get a portion of theirs back. The rest of us don’t. That’s TIF in a nutshell.  In a couple years you will see payments of 4, 5, perhaps even 6 figures out of the city budget going to these companies. It was legally signed, sealed and delivered at last night’s meeting. Set in stone for the next 5 to 10 years. Too late then.

Meanwhile, the city street sweeper is about to bite the dust, and Council is not sure how it will afford a new or used (?) one. Duh! Me either.

The proceedings came to a screeching halt when Mike Beck showed up to say he wants to cram 6 condos or apartments into a spot where 4 had been platted. There are only 4 sewer hook-ups there, so four of the units will have to share 2 Y couplings to the sewer main. A fire hydrant might have to be moved to accommodate the cramming. No decisions were taken.

To complete its business service evening, council held a public hearing to amend the building code to allow “fitness and exercise type” businesses in commercial and manufacturing zones, which it seems, is where they belong. 

Council finished the evening off by OK-ing 4 x 4/all terrain vehicles on Hwy 136. This is what I mean by unintended consequences—it was originally thought these vehicles would lessen the pollution, noise and traffic on city streets.  Be good for the environment. That appears to have been wrong. Now what?

Monday, September 5, 2022

2 Essential Books on Addiction & the Destruction of Democracy

Until I read Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe and American Cartel by ­Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz, most of what I knew about the pharmaceutical industry I learned teaching in Turkey: the only drug I take (Levothyroxine), prescribed for folks with underperforming thyroids, cost then between $15 and $30 a month in the U.S., but there, it was $3.50 for a 3 months’ supply! The U.S. is Big Pharma’s cash cow and it has no compunctions about bleeding us dry. Reading these two books, depressing as it is, gives you chapter and verse of who’s responsible for the opioid crisis.

Keefe’s book, a slower read, outlines the history of the Sackler Family from 1920s, who toward the end of the last century plastered their name on wings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, buildings at Harvard, Cambridge, even the Louvre and the British museums. While portraying themselves as great philanthropists, the Sackers, employing some of the best legal minds in the country, quietly undermined the Drug Enforcement Agency, Food & Drug Administration, and any other enforcement arm of the government that might try to hold them to account.

Yes, and the U.S. Congress, whom they leveraged to pass laws that were in the best interest of their industry creating an opioid addiction crisis especially the Appalachian coal country states, while they destroyed our democracy.These people have a lot to answer for, but so far, none has. A few dedicated DEA people, sweat blood to hold them to account but either lost or watched a paltry settlement that would not undo the harm done result.

The bottom line is:  none of the wealthy men and women, companies or their lawyers who brought us the opioid crisis is in jail. None of the poor and powerless addicts, who left orphaned children, overwhelmed grandparents, sundered communities and bereft families has been compensated. The few court victories that have been handed down have come from juries because they understand misery and don’t need a law to do what is right. Judges can’t seem to sort that one.

These two books tell us far more than we want to know, but most of what we should know about the immorality of the drug industry, our political leaders and our courts.  If you have to pick one, American Cartel is a shorter, faster paced, more comprehensive read.

One would also do well to take one giant step back, and ask how our own local democracy—city and county government--has been compromised by business for whom the bottom line is the primary value. What is the impact of 5 business people on the Cascade City Council?

Friday, September 2, 2022

Loving Labor Day after a Bummer Summer


What with derechos, downed trees, Covid, and an ongoing battle with the pool over loudspeaker even my houseguests complained about, it’s been a Bummer Summer.

Though playing radio noise (929 KAT FM) at someone from 8:30 in the morning till 8:30 in the evening could fairly be described as torture, the city administrator didn’t think so.  Neither did another adult, but consider the source: one was born with a silver spoon in her big mouth, and feels entitled. She is there watching her grandkid get a swim lesson for a half hour and doesn’t think 12 hours of KATFM is a problem! Duh!

Actually some of the kids working over there were far kinder than city officials and their good sense turned out to my best defense. (Thanks, kids.)

The constabulary was the reverse of help: they showed up the only night the pool was closed all summer (for the fair), a week after the houseguests were gone and told me I couldn’t have a fire in my yard unless I sitting by it. (My woodpile is back of the garage.)

Is gaslighting a legitimate police tactic?  We’ll see when we talk to the Park Board.

Sunday, August 14, 2022

Shawn Carr's Fine "Lost Memories"

Shawn Carr’s play Lost Memories at Starlighter’s Theater is well-worth the trip to Anamosa. The characters of the family members are well-drawn and very down-home plausible. Robert Kurt, the actor who plays Jack Hanley is right on the money, especially in the transition phases of the illness. Shawn’s plot twist there is not only believable but keeps the audience engaged. I really loved how well Kurt captured and mirrored the mental disintegration physically. Once I knew it was happening, I looked to see if it would be visible. I might even say he could go for more of that leaden physical inflexibility that mirrors the mental disintegration of Alzheimers. 1st rate, Kurt!

One might even conjecture that the characters are too down-home and there is too much unanimity in the Hanley-Delaney household. The only real contention is late in the play when a sister arrives after a divorce-induced absence and someone calls her on it.

What Lost Memories needs is more contention, more spats and more alternative explanations for Alzheimers, in which the play is totally lacking. The heavy hand of the Alzheimer’s Association is all too visible. I am sure they were a great deal of help in outlining the issues, but they have caused excessive focus on theme.  Plays are about the interactions between people.

There are no alternative explanations for Alz beyond genetics, but in my own extended family I heard one recently—concussions. We live in a chemically tainted world. Last week they sprayed the field behind me with an airplane. We have barely a gallon of untainted surface water in Iowa. Who knows what these chemicals are causing—what if a genetic predisposition to the ill effects of these chemicals is what causes it? Damn!

I sat through the whole play dying for the daughter—or somebody—to challenge the genetic explanation, give us something to chew on intellectually and the play to have more contention, texture and contrast. More’s the pity—this is a really good play, it might be great.

 

Saturday, July 30, 2022

 


The Cascade City Council is moving forward with increasing the cost of a building permit tenfold. I objected and asked Mr. Kelchen for an apology because he insisted I should support this because it would stop the flooding have been complaining about. Not true because companies like his own have covered their property with cement, roofs and other hard surfaces.  Which is what I told him, but got no apology.  Green space where your mouth is, Man!

            The commercial provisions may curtail it in the future, but it will cost ordinary citizens 10 times what a building permit currently costs.  What really irks me is paying $90 to bring a guy out from ECIA in Dubuque to inspect. Costly and delay-causing. However, someone told me the guys with the skills to do these inspections don’t want the responsibility.  I won’t believe it till the job is posted and nobody takes it. That should happen first.

            Council is ready to spend $2,000 of city money to buy event barrier fencing for Rockin’ on the River, Hometown Days, etc. Fred Heim, supports it. Someone has complained to me about private groups using city facilities/funding for stuff. Perhaps the groups should buy it.

            I objected to the city giving $600,000 to the new brewery owner, saying all levels of government have become a transfer points for citizen’s tax money, citing the billions going to U.S. chip manufacturers. Ms. Oliphant objected strenuously and said, “We are NOT discussing that here.”

            Leaving me unsure whether she is too dim to see that money going to businesses is a source of the inequity across the U.S., or too corrupt to think it is a problem.

Friday, July 1, 2022

Agreeing with Beck & Bucky--Sort of

 In fact, it is darn rare that I find myself on the same page as Mike Beck and Bucky Manternach, but on the matter of a 10-fold increase in the Cascade building permits, I totally concur. Perhaps the $25 the city currently charges is not adequate but the increase, which could end up being more like $400, may not solve the problem but will definitely increase the costs.

A lot of ordinary people, who might be competent to put in a little patio, are not aware of the kind of drawing and information they need to submit for a building permit.  The city may be causing the problem by posting a building permit form on its website that misleads people into thinking a small 1/3 page drawing will do. Check it out: https://www.cityofcascade.org/vimages/shared/vnews/stories/5ecd6fde8b666/Building%20Permit%20Form_2022.pdf

The city has not posted an example of a couple desirable drawings and it should do that with the permit form and detailed instruction before it passes an ordinance and hires a building inspector from ECIA to drive out from Dubuque to inspect a fence or small patio. If you aren’t sure where your lot boundaries are, you probably need to have a survey done.

People need to show up to city council Monday 11 to oppose this increased cost and bureaucracy, which Mr. Beck & Manternach assured everybody us will be passed on to us.

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

What Is Really Happening at City Council

Is the hullabaloo over the Supervisors giving us a $1 mill from ARPA for the new library really warranted?  Now we have to indebt ourselves and beg for another two million. There was a grand round of applause for Interim City Administrator Lisa Kotter for her presentation at the request session, which will probably insure that she will be a permanent city administrator.

            She is clearly glib and facile, but I fear seriously lacking in sense of democracy—the people’s best interest—which should be her first order of business, not promoted by increasing city bureaucracy and giving grants and rebates to businesses.

            Ordinary activities cost people more. A building permit to add a new deck or replace your crumbling steps will currently cost you $25. The city plans to increase it to $250 or more by passing an ordinance that a building inspector from ECIA must OK it before you receive a permit. They charge $50 to come out and do it, and $93 an hour for the inspection. Last week, the office government mileage number was released: 64 cents a mile $33.28. So we see what this is about—bucks for bureaucrats. 

            To my face, she insisted that was what I wanted. What I objected to was only 3 council people being asked to sign off them by the previous administrator. I walked out because meetings all spring that featured more TIF payments to well-off individuals, a decision that will compromise the integrity of a neighborhood, and more bureaucracy. I was overcome with the sense that this city council will do nothing for ordinary citizens. A few wealthy individuals will benefit massively, most of the rest of us, hardly at all.      


      Delaney said Tough Toenails! If you buy a house someone will build in front of you, someone will build behind you. Yeah, bonehead if you buy in a subdivision. If you have a 100-year-old house in a 100-year-old neighborhood, it shouldn’t be compromised. People should contemplate what this is doing to their property value.

             


Friday, June 10, 2022

Begging for Library Bucks

While we are out begging for bucks to build a new library, a look at Cascade public funding history is illuminating.  In 1965, the city built its first swimming pool. The Cascade Utility paid for it, lock, stock and barrel. Seven years later in 1972, the City built a library.  It received $30,000 from the Cascade Municipal Utility, and a grant from the federal government for the balance, a total of $58,000, which what the facility cost. No citizen was asked to donate a dime for either.

            Nowadays, there seem to be two ways to raise money for a city project—bonding and begging. Bonding is taking a loan from investors and begging is trying to get grants from the likes of the supervisors.  Both have drawbacks: if we take $ from the Supervisors can we say no to any request by them in the future?

            Right now the Cascade Municipal Utilities has over $3 million in the bank, $1.7 from electrical bills, and $1.4 gas bills. The Utility gave $27,000 and change to the pool built two years ago. However, Manager Chantelle Orr says those funds “are required for expanding the system. For example, when Centro came to town, new lines had to be run to their facility.”

     


   I have long objected to paying utility workers more than the city workers, who have to have a wider range of skills, but the rationale that council/the utility has accepted is utility work more valuable.  The differences in salaries, however, could not be the reason the CMU no longer can support city projects the way it did in the past.

        The reason is simply that the people of a community are expected to put businesses on a profitable basis before they even open. Investing in a library, pool or park is no longer deemed as important and it was in 1965 or ’72.  Even with business salaries and profits, especially corporations hundreds of times more than  ordinary citizens.

Monday, June 6, 2022

Shades of Jesse & the Old Farmer's Bank Bldg?

 If you read the recap of the last Cascade Council meeting in the 25 May Pioneer, you probably concluded that the most important action council took was to amend last year’s budget. Nope,  that’s water under the bridge because it is money already spent.

            Buried in the 3rd paragraph is the information that the city gave $70,000 of our tax money to Developer Brian Bock along with a$600,000-state grant from federal funds.  So here we go again, ladies and gents:  shades of Jesse Loewen and the Old Farmer’s Bank Building.

            Prompting me to ask the question I have posed before, “Should a city become a transfer point for money to businesses?” Loans are one thing and they have proven to work out very well, but grants (free money) are another.  Especially, when the city has to go begging for a library and has given up making the alleys in town strong enough for the garbage truck to drive on.

            According to City Admistrator Lisa Kotter, I was mistaken writing that Developers Jason Rogers and Tyler McQuillen got $70,000 for their project above the New City Park; they only got $4,000. However, considering that the neighborhood opposed the project, there is not room to provide adequate fire protection or snow removal and the addition of that much hard surface is sure to flood the park, 5 cents is too much. Hosch voted against it. 

            Bottom line: voters put people on council who are either in business or pro-business instead of pro-community, and this is what you get. Maybe you think this is a good idea?

           

           

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Council--This week's Irony

             Ironic? If you check my Ponzi scheme blog entry after the last city council meeting, you’ll see that Nos. 11 and 12 on the agenda were TIF payments in the amount of $26,395.13 to River Bend and McDermott LLC.

         


            Nos. 11 and 12 must be the magic, ironic numbers. This week the city paid (Nos. 11 & 12) on the agenda (!) $74,000 to two companies. The lion’s share ($70,000) for a community match to Brian Bock for an IEDA (Iowa Economic Development Authority) grant for a downtown housing grant that most of the people in the neighborhood were against. For good reason—lack of parking, fire and snow removal problems building a several homes above the New City Park.

  Not to mention the predictable, incremental effects on drainage in the park, parts of which become unusable in heavy rains. But the people weren’t listened to: the only person who voted against it was Bill Hosch.  Next time it could be your neighborhood.

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Pie in the Sky Ponzi Scheme--TIF (Tax Increment Financing)

         Numbers 11 and 12 on last night’s Cascade City Council agenda were to pay Callahan Construction $19,345.60 and McDermott Industrial LLC $7,049.60 in Tax Increment Financing money.

            When I got up and objected to paying very profitable businesses our taxes, the new City Administrator Lisa Kotter launched into a long-winded, inept analogy of pies in a freezer that she thought proved we all have more “pie” from TIF. It that respect, it is a bit of a Ponzi scheme, too—I hadn’t realized!



            TIF is simply identifying an area of the community—usually with businesses in it—and pulling a portion of the taxes away from the normal recipients of those tax $. On the bottom of your tax bill is the list: WD School District 41%, City of Cascade 32%, Dubuque County 21%, NICC, 3% and four others receiving less than a 1%.

            So the schools are the biggest loser here. Of course, the percentage of school funding has gone down every year. In spite of the reality that Iowa schools must provide services for an increasing number of foreign language and service-needy students, i.e. those with autism.

            TIF is simply taxes denied to the regular recipient and turned over to businesses with certain provisos—that they hire a given number of people at a given rate—things they would do anyway if they are running an honest business—a living wage, etc!

            Presumably, everybody in the community loves giving the most well-off people in the community and a couple outside it, $26,494. No wonder we can’t afford a library.

Sunday, May 1, 2022

Counting the Blessings of a Sunless Spring

Which, first and foremost, makes me think I am back in Ireland, because daffodils have been in bloom since Easter, and are still going strong.  The tulips will follow on their heels, who knows when, but if this weather persists will bloom all of May.

The one summer I spent in Dublin, a rose in the neighbor’s front yard bloomed all of six weeks. I believe, because the searing sun’s rays never hit its fragile petals. Until then, I never realized how destructive the sun can be.

The magnolia tree outside my library window has been trying to bloom for about as long as the daffodils have been. 

Usually, we have some awful frost, but it is my own fault: planting a magnolia tree in this climate is the purest form of wanting roses in winter, which Shakespeare himself warned against.

While it has been chilly, only the wind, admittedly brutal some days keeps one out of the garden. The peas are up, and in the break between showers yesterday I fenced them from the rabbits. The leeks, cabbage, kohlrabi and other cool season crops are in, so I am counting my blessings.

Also reveling in the pure yellow of the willow trees south and west of the house, which are sometimes, in sunny springs only that brilliant bright yellow for a week in sunny springs. 

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Q. Where Does the Rubber Meet the Road?

 Answer: At the library. In fact, last night at a Joint Library Board and City Council meeting. The meeting finally got quite specific about the sites—there seem to be only two under serious condition— behind Cheryl’s and across from the Riverview Park. The latter, most preferred by the community, is the  more expensive of the two because it entails acquiring three parcels of property and demolishing 2 houses. The city already owns the first, but it is also being eyed as a parking lot.

Toward the end of the meeting, exasperated Head Librarian Melissa Kane said, “We have been doing studies and talking about building a new library for 30 years.”

Long-time Library Board member CeAnn Brickley expressed similar sentiment, as did the newest board member Marie Thomas.

At the end of the meeting, both Councilmen Andy Kelchen and Riley Rausch expressed reservations. “What scares me,” said Kelchen “is the money.”  In so many words Rausch concurred.

          City Administrator Lisa Kotter gave a very informative thumbnail explanation of the difference between “general obligation” and “revenue” bonds.  For revenue bonds a city pays lower interest and can borrow a larger amount because it is offset by monthly payments—water, sewer, etc. Streets, pools and public libraries are financed by general obligation bonds.

Serious money going to have to be borrowed to build a library and the city, and I have the same reservations as Kelchen and Rausch, but I truly believe if we weren’t giving millionaires free streets, passing out so much TIF money, it wouldn’t be such an issue.

Thursday, April 14, 2022

Bwk! Bwk! Bwk! Backyard Chickens

 At Monday night’s council meeting Patrick Leitzen who lives down on 5th Ave. asked council to authorize chickens in Cascade backyards. Not a new request. Several years ago the same request was denied, and who knows why.


Mr. Leitzen made the pertinent point that especially in the wake of the bird flu, eggs and chicken have become very pricey. A grocery store I visited last week was cleaned out of frozen chicken and eggs—right before Easter!

       Police Chief Fred Heim, spoke vociferously against the chicken idea, saying it caused his department endless grief. Apparently, he was forever running over there because people were phoning that the chickens were out on 136.

            We know police work is endless, (You could sit on my road 24/7 and have plenty of business!), but that’s the job. We also know it takes a certain mindset, so I am terribly glad Heim expressed his opinion. I am even more pleased we live in a town where we can express an idea. I don’t want chickens, (I can barely manage a cat!) but I want a town where a guy has the right to have them if he wants to do the work.

            Of course, no right is without obligation, so the city ordinance will have to specify a sufficiently large back yard, no roosters and regular manure removal especially in summer when it can get smelly.

            If you want democracy, you have to provide it.

           

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Basic Questions of Democracy on Council


 Thank God Bill Hosch is back on council. Right off the bat, he caught a $3,000 expense that wasn’t authorized. Even if you have never watched a council meeting, I urge you in the strongest terms NOT to miss Monday night’s. There was much discussion of the problems that routinely confront the city, and you will get a good sense of councilmember’s stances on them.

Terri Wollenberg, who objected to the Storm Water Ordinance and the issuing of building permits, which are responsible for the flooding we experience in rain years, was told she was “grandstanding.” New City Administrator, Lisa Kotter, informed her she may be in violation of Robert’s Rules of Order.

Which brings up questions very basic to democracy—can elected officials take actions that disregard (even sabotage) some citizen’s rights and not expect blowback? Is Council’s function to protect all citizens’ rights or promote development? Level the playing field?

During last year’s Storm Water Ordinance discussion, I encouraged Council to take Cascade’s hilly topography into consideration, but the 80-20 (80% hard surface and 20% green space) was retained. I am certain that is not workable in some hilly spots.

To make matters worse, the builder may have reneged on his drainage responsibilities. We will find out next Monday night if that is the case. There will be a meeting to discuss future project priorities. That’s also why I introduced an ordinance to enable the city to claw back TIF, Façade Reimbursement or any other city money a company might be getting.

Since last year I have been urging council to install the technology to allow the audience to see back up documents—especially maps, because we never know what they are talking about. Mr. Delaney has finally gotten on board with doing it. Question is: should somebody so slow on the democratic uptake be representing us?

 

 

Saturday, April 2, 2022

Garden Talk: Vigorous Asparage Crowns & Leeks

 

Anybody interested in big, vigorous asparagus crowns, please drop by 209 Tyler St., Cascade. If you order from a catalog, you get a 5-to-8 root crown packed in peat moss that may have sat on the shelf for a week or 2,  then time in the mail, and cost $15, + tax. Only green (no purple) right now.

If you want me to dig them, will do. If you can get down two feet plus where the ends of the roots go, you can do the digging. Some of these are over 20 years old, and I have had decent 2nd spears in one year. Next spring?

They will only do well in sandy loam, not clay soil. Lots of fiber and fertilizer increase yield. Chicken or cow manure in  fall and horse in spring. 

Also available: horseradish root, Chinese cabbage,  (aka Napa)

horseradish root, black hollyhocks, a couple cauliflower, surpise lilies and a few leek starters. Also tons of old fashioned lilac/blue irises.

I have leek seeds and can part with this many. I find them superior to onions because you can leave them in the ground until the first hard frost. Onions should not see the August sun, they say, and if you leave them out there, they don't grow anyway, so you might as well pull them, dry them and use them.  Usually, I am out there after dark, before the first hard frost digging leeks





Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Sue Knepper Needs to Apologize

Frankly, I have yet to recover from the shameful way I was treated by Ms. Knepper at Monday night’s Council meeting. She accused me of bad-mouthing the former city administrator when she wasn’t here to defend herself.  As if I made it up! As if these incidents aren’t part of the public record here in Cascade.

·         As if it weren’t a part of the Variance Board record that she had mis-measured boundaries and forced the owners to appear before Adjustment for a waver.

·         As if Councilman Hosch hadn’t caught her red-handed approving pool cost overruns, beyond her $999.99 authorized limit.

·         As if every single building permit she issued last year weren’t signed off on by only 3 councilmen.

·         As if a fair percentage of them weren’t in violation of the drainage ordinances.

·         As if I weren’t simply repeating her public quotes in the city’s newspaper of record and what I had heard her state at a Park Board meeting!

·         As if she had not totally abrogated her responsibility as zoning administrator by not ordering a single bit of drainage mitigation at the new pool. 

Perhaps Ms. Knepper and I have a difference of about the definition of a “good job.” Though she works at Cascade High School and knows full well I was thrown off the sub list for demanding that kids edit their papers and correct 2nd grade errors—their/there/they’re, its/it’s, etc. 

Sue, Monday night was shameful; you behaved like a witch with a capital B and you owe me a public apology.

Monday, March 28, 2022

The High Cost of Democracy

 Democracy is expensive and I realize we are not paying a fraction of what the Ukrainians are, so I am hoping that everyone in town will vote tomorrow, and in so doing, send message to the Cascade City Council:  Democracy is not upsetting existing precedent to do what YOU want. Democracy is giving the people with the least money and power an equal voice and say.

We are supposed to have democracy, and when people are denied it, referenda like this result.

Mr. Delaney says we have one. He certainly knows that last November, I approached council with some language to be attached to the Storm Water Ordinance. Even though it had been under discussion for the whole year, I was told by the Mayor (Staner) he wouldn’t entertain discussion of any new ideas. Right out of the Mitch McConnell playbook.

I believe that when I vacated a council seat in the early 90’s to go to Korea to teach English, the next highest vote-getter from the previous election got my seat. That has been the precedent. No matter whom you may prefer—and I don’t like this—precedent is the issue and Mr. Hosch should get your vote.

 

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Good Job Cascade Lumber

     Kudos to Cascade Lumber/Manufacturing for their nice neat fix of the drainage problem at the back of the north end of their lot on Main Street, 1st Ave.  I took the first photo in 2020 sometime in April or May. (Well, you can't see when the horse weeds are above your head.) 




Thanks Tim, for being sensitive to this flooding concern. 


I took the one last Sunday cruising around the neighborhood in the lovely weather.



Yeah!


 









Sunday, March 20, 2022

Does a City Administrator Need Good Sense?

           Earlier this month I posted a list of actions by the former city administrator I believe to be in direct violation of city ordinances. I also sent a copy of them to council to underscore my belief that the position--whoever is in it--should be up for the vote of the people every two years. It would cost the city $0, and increase democracy incrementally.

This is the front cover of the storm water pollution prevention plan prepared in April 2020 for building the Cascade Muncipal Pool. It is 21 pages with illustrations, and if you look below, single spaced, double columns. Very boring, very technical.

However, it covers only the construction period--the 4 or 5 months the pool was under construction. So for that short period we need a 21-page report. Doesn't it stand to reason that the drainage from a pool with 5x the concrete in the ground, 10x the roof area (because the tech is all inside) with playground equipment, walkways and picnic shelter should get a few pages?

Seems like it should.

         Well, despite the spectacular amounts of cement that were installed--certainly known in advance, not one single page of drainage evaluation was created for final product--the pool itself. As if that much cement and roof area would not displace gallons of runoff.
        I was flabbergasted that the state even approved it. I will be providing council a copy of my emails with a man named John Kelly, at the Iowa Health Dept., who refused to take any responsibility--flooding is a health issue, isn't it?
      Well, one would think so, but the health department deals only with the specific health issues directly related to pool construction. The bottom line of our conversation was that the Cascade Zoning Officer, who was the city administrator is responsible. So if we don't have a city administrator with good sense, we are literally up the creek without a paddle, and it can be a wide, swollen one flooding us at that.
    

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

There's Democracy & There's Democracy

 Last Tuesday, the day before the agenda deadline, I sent the city council an ordinance I drafted:

The city administrator will be subject to voter approval in all biennial elections. Citizens will be able to assess his/her/their performance by answering yes or no to the following question to be placed on the ballot every two years: Shall City Administrator _________________(insert name  of current administrator) be retained for another two years?

Only when I got the agenda, I wasn’t on it. And everybody knows you cannot take action on a matter unless you are officially set for discussion and a vote. So I will try again next time.

Cascade has had some notoriously undemocratic administrators, and the fault may be council’s. Just checking the building permits, we see a variation of violation of city ordinance:
1)      A couple have been issued in violation of the 80-20 green space provision.
2)      Only 3 (Delaney, Kelchen & Rausch) signed off on them; there are 5 council people; all of them in rotation should sign building permits.

3)      With some, it is difficult to tell whether they violate code or not.



Council happily tolerated this undemocratic situation, so you might want contact Councilman Delaney and Councilwoman Oliphant and tell them you want your voice to be on this issue. Otherwise, these sorts of abuses will continue.

I will try to post some more of them in the coming days so you have plenty of evidence.  However, it really looks spring, and I got to get out there and start gardening, picking up sticks.

Yeah Spring!!!

Monday, March 7, 2022

A List of Questionable Actions of Previous City Administrator

 As Cascade is hiring a new city administrator I have been mulling over a new ordinance: namely that the city administrator come up for the approval of the people at every biennial election. Unlike the current recall, not part of a regular election, this would cost $0. Every two years we vote anyway. Same simple question every 2 years: Should the Cascade City Administrator _______ (insert name) be retained for another two years?   

            Consider t the 12-year reign of Randy Lansing. Easily six years into it, many people in town were aware of the problems still with us, especially the drainage problems on Industrial Dr. This is the biggest salary paid by the city and in a democracy people ought to have some control over it, and this simple ordinance would allow it.

            In order to provide the council with sufficient evidence from the most recent administrator’s tenure, I made the following list of violations of ordinances during her term:

    1)   In 2019 Cascade resident Nick Leytem had to apply for a variance for a new house because the city administrator authorized positioning the house too close to the lot line. (She may have figured it incorrectly.)

 2)      During the building of the City Pool the Administrator approved change order sums in access of $9,999 ($13,000) on the pool to upgrade the roof and other items, which should have had council approval.

 3)      An email that several of us have on our computers seems to indicate Ms. McCusker gave a building permit for an apartment complex on Tyler Street to a corporation which had agreed to build the curb and gutter in some arrangement. However, once the company got the permit, it erected 11th apartment (not authorized under the drainage plan originally filed) and subsequently refused to pay for or deal with the water problem. Ms. McCusker told me before she left that particular drainage issue has been placed back on the city’s construction list—people’s taxes will pay for it. Nonetheless, the company in question got a $20,000 TIF rebate for a new building.

 4)      On the 3 March 2021 edition of The Cascade Pioneer, the City Administrator was quoted on the front page talking about drainage saying, “… (runoff) it collects on the grass and soaks into the ground. It could be rock or a gravel parking lot, just something that’s not impervious like concrete because anything concrete or asphalt, it will just runoff.” A city administrator dealing with the serious drainage issues that confront a town like Cascade really has to understand how drainage works.

 5)       MACC Self-Storage may also have been permitted with inadequate green space between it and semi-repair business immediately to the south of it, though there is some.  The entire street is a problem. Like McAllister Electric and LLCC Repair, those buildings were permitted under a previous administrator. 

 6)      At the October 4th Park Board Meeting, Ms. McCusker stated that in a discussion about whether the Army Corps of Engineers had to be consulted about alterations or moving the old gazebo to a new spot. Someone asked about work, then underway, “Did they contact the Corps about work on the wall on the east side of the river?” She stated “The Army Corps doesn’t care what we do on the East Side of the river.”

 7)      A review of the building permits issued in 2021 indicates that a percentage of them were issued in violation of the 80-20 green space ordinance, also that only 3 councilmen were invited to sign off on them. Shouldn’t it have been a rotation of all five?

 No matter who is selected as administrator, we need this ordinance and to OK the performance of a $100,000-employee biennially.

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Council Wastes $ on a Special Election?

 You might think you missed something at the council meeting Monday night.  I was there, and I missed it too! Because it didn’t happen—nobody announced that a group of Cascade citizens got almost 200 signatures to force a special election for the seat Council put Sue Knepper in. The election will be Tues. 29 March.   Call the election commission now, and order an absentee ballot, if you want to vote at home.   

          Custom, tradition and logic has put the highest council vote-getter in an empty council seat, even if there has been some passage of time. If the mayor resigned or died, it might make some sense to put a mayoral candidate in there. For some reason council didn’t want the next highest vote-getter—Bill Hosch. 

    
       
Acting City Administrator Chris Hill did, however, announce that both Jones and Dubuque Counties will charge us upwards of $2,000 to schlep the machines out here, pay poll watchers and count votes. So, Cascade will waste almost $5,000 because the city council refuses to follow custom and tradition and logic

            If you missed the meeting, you probably missed my award to council: Booby Prize for Concern over Senior Health & Safety. City plows go by here 50 mph and fill my driveway with compacted ice and snow I can’t remove.  I fell down, broke my arm and have been fair to middling miserable for the past 5 weeks. (Yeah, it’s my cast with a black bow on it!)

           

 

Sunday, February 27, 2022

A Real People Proposal

    As I have been reporting on Cascade City Council since the first city administrator, Larry Farley, was hired in 1990, I will be making the following proposal at Monday night's council meeting: that city residents get to vote on who is hired and how long he/she remains on the job. Shame on me! Early on, I was idealistic and unaware of the damage a city administrator could do, but (Damn!) now I know.

    Eventually, the city hired Randy Lansing. His tenure coincided with Danny ("Dan the Conman") Conrad, Developer of Conrad Addition and lots in the Industrial Park east of town. Now, in wet years, the city must deal with the flooding that some of the code violations those two brought us.

Immediately to the north of McAllister Electric is CLH Repair with NO green space separating the two businesses whatsoever. The asphalt driveway and parking for trucks that are being worked on are simply contiguous. To make matters worse, perhaps during the tenure of the recent City Administrator, Deanna McCusker, a self-storage (MCCC) was allowed to cover the entire adjacent space with hard surface. Barely a yard of green space between them!

My dear Mr./Ms./Mrs. Cascade Citizen--you try that! Recently, I began thinking about it in light of the fact that we pay the administrator almost $80 thou year and the clerk, $50. The two biggest salaries in the city a whopping 80 hours a week. Only the street workers spend more time, but they take orders from these two which only increases their impact. There should at least be a provision in the ordinances to keep a corrupt administration from remaining in their position a dozen years.