Today’s column is about Chesterfield, roads, and whatnot. Mostly whatnot.

I apologize in advance for usurping this space that was reserved for the problems of Chesterfield. I read all the posts carefully and respectfully and they are for the most part knowledgable. However I have developed a very inconvenient knee jerk reaction whenever I see the words “carbon cap” and feel compelled to comment on any reference on the subject. I have been connected to the environmental field since the early 60s and have seen many “crisis” come and go. But this is the biggest scam on record. I am not a conspiracy theorist but I have amassed reams of information on this subject and the money trail keeps coming back to the champion anti-American George Soros. His “philantrophy” which is monumental serves to fund any and all movements that will serve to undermine the United States and or Israel. From his Open Society Institute and Oxfam to the Publish What You Pay Program, one and all favor global dominance at the EXPENSE of America. It is welfare on a global scale funded by the USA. It is geared to reduce America to a World Bank with only withdrawals and no deposits. I do not profess to know why Mr. Soros exhibits this obsession with reducing his adopted country to size. Reading many books by and about him I could make a fairly educated guess but that is best left to any individual that would care to reaearch on their own. If one does research one will find him in the background supporting and financing Al Gore and this latest cap and trade scheme. They actually call it that. It proposes to shuffle carbon credits globally on a sliding scale. This will not actually decrease the emissions it will merely distribute them more evenly. The larger polluters will “trade” and the smaller ones will go out of business and the US will pay the bill for this colossal shell game. And to wax a bit political it was interesting to find that the “king maker” David Axelrod persuaded Mr. Soros to help fund Mr. Obama’s 1994 Senate bid. I hope that water does not seek its own level in this case. No I am an Independent/Pragmatist.....

High water and sewer is not good, but I’m betting it reflects decaying urban infrastructure more than the cost of water because water is not “yet” scarce. Not entirely. It is getting that way.

Your pipes are corroded, to put it simply.

As water becomes more scarce the need to tax it properly may increase accordingly.

In other words, maybe not today.

http://www.vagreenparty.org/richblog/?p=18

Pssst…Want Better Schools, Parks, and Streets? End Downtown Corporate Welfare
05.25.08
editorial by Scott Burger

Today’s Times Dispatch Business section had an article on Richmond tourism. It quoted the same ol’ city leadership (notably, Richmond Renaissance/Venture Richmond) with the same ol’ underlying message: we need to keep investing in downtown projects to bring in tourists. The problem is that they mean ‘investing’ with public taxpayer dollars in pet projects of ‘the business community’, and that even after more than $1 billion, downtown still has long way to go. Corporate welfare projects include the Sixth Street Marketplace (built with public money, then used public money to demolish), the super-sized Convention Center, the downtown arts center/Center Stage project, the Broad Street CDA…the list goes on. The Times Dispatch, which espouses a supposedly ultra-conservative anti-tax philosophy, is hypocritical when it comes to this corporate welfare. It regularly turns a blind eye to the corruption involved in these projects and continues to cheerlead them. For years now, the Richmond Greens and sites like SaveRichmond.com have been calling them out on their hypocrisy, but the corporate welfare still goes on, hiding behind things like ‘regional effort‘ (even though City residents have paid the most by far), and lingering in various forms. Recently, the Mayor and City Council have tried to slow down efforts to reform water and utility rates because large corporate entities became concerned that they would have to actually pay for what they use (while citizens pay among, if not the, highest minimum use rates in the country. Yet another Richmond Greens press release is forthcoming on this issue.)

So what, counter-critics say, Broad Street is ‘turning a corner’. ‘We will eventually build a larger tax base’, they say. Tourism can be ‘eco-friendly’. The problem is that, even if these comments are remotely true, there are opportunity costs and judging from years of failed promises, there is no return of taxpayer money from downtown. The City of Richmond is more than downtown, more than Broad Street. While public money get diverted into these corporate welfare schemes, the City government fails to deliver needed maintenance on neighborhood streets, parks, and schools. In fact, the City is acting illegally by not properly funding ADA access to City public schools. Even with the Patrick Henry charter school initiative, parents are expected to fund-raise to pay for basic ADA improvements, never mind that there is no ETA on ADA for the rest of the 5th District schools. Think about that for a second. Oliver Hill’s legacy is an equal access to a public education, and yet Richmond leadership is deciding corporate welfare projects are more important. Tax base? The City’s population has fluctuated a bit, but overall residents’ taxes continue to skyrocket.

The fact is that Richmond’s leadership’s priorities are way out of line, and this is leading to legal and moral crises, at a time when the City should be preparing for future challenges and concentrating on raising its next generation of leaders. Unfortunately, the corporate welfare scheming just does not stop. Recently, 2nd District Councilperson and President of City Council, Bill Pantele suggested that a plan to renovate and reopen the historical Hippodrone theater in Jackson Ward should receive a $600,000 ‘boost’ from the City coffers. No one is against seeing this theater coming back, and no one is against downtown renovation, especially with private money. But the corporate welfare and opportunity costs involved should give all Richmond citizens pause. The Richmond Greens call for an end to downtown corporate welfare, and demand attention for Richmond’s schools and neighborhoods on behalf of its citizens.

http://www.vagreenparty.org/richblog/?p=19

Half-hearted reform measures advocated by the Richmond City Council will ensure that Richmond retains the dubious distinction of having the highest minimum water and sewer rates of any city in the United States.  While the council deserves praise for phasing out the high volume discount for those who use the most water in the city, the council is neglecting to pass on these savings to those using the least water.  Because of the abnormally high billing for the minimum water and sewer service, the citizens using the least water continue to subsidize those who waste water.

It’s finally dawned on me. If the globots get their way and start charging people for their “carbon footprint”, then we will have actually reached that low point in human subserviance where we allow our gov’t, in a ‘round about way, to tax the air we breath.

That used to be the punchline of a joke. Now we’re the punchline of the joke. What silly people we’ve become. We deserve whats coming.

“Property owners should pay their fair share for their use of water and other utilities.”

???

Uh.  Yeah.  And they’re not currently?  What with property taxes and bills for said utilities?  And various other taxes imposed on businesses and purchasers of goods, services and food?

Property owners should pay their fair share for their use of water and other utilities.

Too many words there, Ed. Can you crop your posts down just a little please?

Funny how political ideology can get mixed into analysis.

If the goal is to zone business closer to development, one person sees that as a relaxation of zoning rules to allow more business. Another sees it as a tightening of zoning rules instead in order to implement that same desired city planning effect. - i.e. make existing zoning work for a change, instead of rezoning at the request of every Tom Dick and Harry in need of profit.

Taxes are bad because they subsidize development. Only if they are proffers they will not be taxes, but they will, since they are a tax, but only tax developers, only they won’t, because developers think they will just pass that along to homeowners, only it won’t be existing homeowners, just those gol’danged migrants wanting to move into the county. Whew.

That works. Proffers work.

One of the persons reacting to the article noted we need more affordable housing and less $300K behemoths. Well, if I am a county resident (and I am) I would vastly prefer to have a behemoth standing next to my house, not a low rent housing project. (imagine that)

It’s a no-brainer. Big houses mean a bigger tax base for the county, fewer social problems, less strain on schools and county services, more improvements, more upscale establishments to serve them, which makes for an even bigger tax base, and better longterm appreciation of housing stock. No-brainer.

Suburbanites understand housing is an investment. That’s why we mow our grass. Sometimes the only reason we mow our grass. 

So the root problem is NOT how to get rid of all those hulking behemoth $500K houses but how to attract more of them. They raise all our boats. We need them.

The idea that developers only build them for profit is charmingly naive. Builders make profit off of stick built bomb shelters and crack joints too.

Which brings us back to the issue of affordability. You can build big houses but if folk can not afford to buy them, it just won’t work out.

Either way, more people mean more drain on county services which means more cost to the county. Someone has to pay for it. Only makes sense the “right” people pay.

The city has a different scenario but same problem. While the city has been busy putting up monuments to lost puppy dogs and Civil War soldiers and the occasional road and sewer, those roads and sewers are over a hundred years old in some cases, aging and overdue for overhaul.

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