Used car salesmen are preferable to developers. Imagine how much more just, pleasant, democratic, and affordable life in the cities would be without them! Without them manipulating and diverting council and park board members, misusing TIF and eminent domain and taxes. Without their glossy songs and dances, taking huge chunks of public meeting time to the exclusion of citizens, the better to fleece them. Prefabricated dog and pony shows to bamboozle the hicks. An invading army of pillagers, slashing and burning for undeserved big piles of cash, then running back to their pleasant safe homes far from their destructions. Leaving us exploited colonized natives to live with the lousy result.
Give me a used car salesman any day. --David Shove Roseville I have seen them active in Roseville on the Twin Lakes "development" - you don't want them anywhere near YOUR city council! (Hide your silver and your daughters!) On Sat, 4 Dec 2004, WizardMarks wrote: > Dorothy J. TItus wrote: > > > A huge issue here are the low income folks who have finally managed to > > buy a house and are being driven out because their property taxes are > > so high. > > > Minneapolis is driving residents out of the city. Who can afford > > this? Certainly not those on the low end of the scale. > > WM: Only the poor are being driven out of the city. The middle class > have "rediscovered" us. We've been sitting in these big, old, high > maintenance houses for long over 30 years because they were all we could > afford. We got little or nothing in the way of respectful services (snow > plowing, street sweeping, inspections, police services). > The city used the same tax-and-assess-them-out strategy behind hidden > beach on Cedar Lake. There were four or five little houses, probably > build in the late 30s to late 40s as cabins, later insulated for year > round, with a railroad line cutting them off from the rest of the area. > Those folks lived back there on that tiny spit of land happily for dog > years. Then the city started taxing them to squeeze every nickel they > could out of every last square inch of lake front. Suddenly folks could > no longer live in the houses they'd owned for a very long time. > It would appear, from the city's point of view, that when land gets > "hot" (means developers have their eyes on it) they help them out by > initiating a citizen exchange project designed to be affordable to tons > of people, particularly by raising the bar on what the definition of > affordable is, but set high enough so that the current owners are forced > out. > That's how cities work, unfortunately. > Those of us with the last, I'd say, fewer than a dozen houses on Lake > St. between the river and the city line are experiencing the same kind > of tax-'em-out. We're trying to hold out, on my block, to maintain it's > mostly residential character. We have only one business on our block. > My taxes, as the house on Lake St., went up 31% this year alone, and a > house I paid less than $50,000 for seven years ago is now worth > (according to the city) $179,000. Don't I wish! Of course, my wages have > not kept up with that kind of inflation. I'm told by the county that I > will be assessed $15,600 for repaving Lake St. The Library Referendum > has yet to kick in full throttle, but that will add yet more to the tax > bill. I will be forced out. > I'll probably wind up gittin' me a double-wide and movin' up a holler. > > > WizardMarks, Central > > ________________________________ > > > > Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn > > E-Democracy > > Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls > > > > > REMINDERS: > 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL > PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. > 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. > > For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html > For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract > ________________________________ > > Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy > Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls > REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
