I'm sitting here and wondering if someone is trying to make a joke. "Personal property tax" is usually distinguished from "real property tax" by the fact that the latter is on houses and land you own and the other is on classes of personal property that are taxed. "Personal Property Tax Statement" is NOT a statement of tax on personal property,it is a statement on real property owned for personal use, not for earning income. I always considered that kinda easy till I started reading arguments here. Now, I'm wondering. Maybe we're really just struggling with the inevitable problems that out-of-city trollers cause when they try to stir us up over favors given to insiders downtown. I was a bitter foe of the Target Center giveaway, but I don't drag that grudge into every discussion here. Maybe we should focus a little bit more on current issues and stop spreading clouds of confusion. ---------------------- The GM-Hawthorne story is upbeat and impressive. But it puts me back in mind of the analogy between fighting weeds and fighting crime. When people see weeds in their lawn, they seldom see it as an indication that the growing environment encourages weeds. They see weeds as an "outside influence" and are programmed to buy some corporate product as a way to fight the interloper. Same with crime. Crime goes up, they don't look at the condition of the environment as attractive for crme. They see the crime as the factor that made the environment bad. So they buy some sort of law enforcement program offered as a way to cleanse the environment of the crime without actually changing it fundamentally. Just as weeds return to the lawn when it is attractive, crime returns to an environment it finds attractive. And that is true no matter how much effort police put into vigilance and crackdowns.
Now, I'll say that GM's help in providing liveable housing is an attack on a crime-engendering condition. But it may not be enough. I think the real question is why is Hawthorne supporting crime (or Philips or Central) while, lets say, Morris Park, Kenwood, or Waite Park aren't? What conditions exist in high crime neighborhoods that don't exist in the low crime neighborhoods? And don't answer the question with the question. Perhaps the answer is that population is more stable in the low crime neighborhoods. Perhaps the answer is that home ownership is higher in the low crime neighborhoods. Perhaps the answer is that family income is higher in the low crime neighborhoods. Perhaps the Answer is all these things and more. But to say "we cracked down on drug dealers" begs the question why you had to. Why don't we see these crackdowns in the high rent neighborhoods? Because the police are more oblivious of middle class crime? Because low-income neighborhoods feature more visible types of crime? Because criminals assume that the low-income population is pretty much abandoned by society to whatever affliction it may suffer? Honest answers, not cliches, are what the city needs to improve things. ----------------------- Jim Graham:"I never said or alleged that no one sells their body except to buy crack, but almost all prostitutes on Franklin do." Now there's a difference you couldn't drive a midge thru. The question remains the same: Who told you? How many such prostitutes are there, Jim. Can you name them? Because if you troubled yourself to gather facts, rather than make assumptions, you must have talked to them. ------------------------ ===== Jim Mork Cooper-Longfellow-Minneapolis (L'Etoile du Nord) --------------- "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." � Benito Mussolini ... __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.) ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
