Build it and they won't come

On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 12:49:56 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

So when society builds a street, isn't it generally intended for the
movement of people and goods? So how is it that someone gets to store
their personal property on it for free?

Ah, you'd love St. Paul MN. The City Council and mayor absolutely hate
the taxpaying citizens parking their cars on the streets. Especially in
neighborhoods where employers and apartment buildings don't have off
street parking sufficient for every vehicle owned by employees or
tenants. They looooove ticketing those folks for various reasons, like
their car isn't pretty enough. Of course, they have no intention of
telling landlords and employers that they have to provide sufficient
off-street parking. That would eat into the revenue stream. One of our
city councilmen even publicly stated that people have no right to expect
to park in front of or near their homes, nor ostensibly even on the same
block, or even in the same city. Of course, if you park in your
driveway and your car is visible from off your property, that's against
an ordinance as well.

BTW, St. Paul's city council and mayor also pride themselves for the
city being allegedly named "the most livable city in America" or some
such bull****. In the mean time, hate crimes and violence have ticked
up dramatically this year- but local governments are rightfully more
concerned on what color people paint their houses... after all, that's
what really counts. Not crumbling public infrastructure, rising
property and violent crimes, the complete failure of the city to enforce
even basic sanitation practices in restaurants, students acting out with
no consequences to the point of assault, etc.

I really need to get a cabin built on my property up north and get the
hell out of town the moment I retire.

On Sunday, September 24, 2017 at 10:54:43 PM UTC-4, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 12:49:56 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

So when society builds a street, isn't it generally intended for the
movement of people and goods? So how is it that someone gets to store
their personal property on it for free?

Ah, you'd love St. Paul MN. The City Council and mayor absolutely hate
the taxpaying citizens parking their cars on the streets. Especially in
neighborhoods where employers and apartment buildings don't have off
street parking sufficient for every vehicle owned by employees or
tenants. They looooove ticketing those folks for various reasons, like
their car isn't pretty enough. Of course, they have no intention of
telling landlords and employers that they have to provide sufficient
off-street parking. That would eat into the revenue stream. One of our
city councilmen even publicly stated that people have no right to expect
to park in front of or near their homes, nor ostensibly even on the same
block, or even in the same city. Of course, if you park in your
driveway and your car is visible from off your property, that's against
an ordinance as well.

BTW, St. Paul's city council and mayor also pride themselves for the
city being allegedly named "the most livable city in America" or some
such bull****. In the mean time, hate crimes and violence have ticked
up dramatically this year- but local governments are rightfully more
concerned on what color people paint their houses... after all, that's
what really counts. Not crumbling public infrastructure, rising
property and violent crimes, the complete failure of the city to enforce
even basic sanitation practices in restaurants, students acting out with
no consequences to the point of assault, etc.

I really need to get a cabin built on my property up north and get the
hell out of town the moment I retire.

Crumbling public infrastructure is a problem. Basic sanitation is important.
Some students' behavior is out of control.

But I still think it's weird that people are allowed to store their vehicles
in public rights-of-way for free. I doubt I'd be able to do that with either
of the two trailers I own.

The redneck family on our street has three drivers and four vehicles, last time
I counted. But the police have apparently told them they couldn't park on the
street, so the extra pickup truck lives on their front lawn. (I may be out
of date on the vehicle count; I try hard to pretend those guys don't live
there.)

- Frank Krygowski

On 9/24/2017 7:54 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Sun, 24 Sep 2017 12:49:56 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

So when society builds a street, isn't it generally intended for the
movement of people and goods? So how is it that someone gets to store
their personal property on it for free?

Ah, you'd love St. Paul MN. The City Council and mayor absolutely hate
the taxpaying citizens parking their cars on the streets. Especially in
neighborhoods where employers and apartment buildings don't have off
street parking sufficient for every vehicle owned by employees or
tenants. They looooove ticketing those folks for various reasons, like
their car isn't pretty enough. Of course, they have no intention of
telling landlords and employers that they have to provide sufficient
off-street parking.

Well it depends on the City. In my area, San Jose is famous for
approving developments with insufficient parking, while my city is more
responsible.

What residents don't like is when their streets are filled with vehicles
from underparked businesses, hotels, and high-density housing projects.
The theory of some cities is that if they allow insufficient parking
then people will walk, bicycle, or take non-existent mass transit. The
even more clueless theory is that "mixed-use" will result in people
living, working, and shopping in the same place, and this NEVER works,
but city planners love to promote this idea.

In Cupertino, we recently added permit parking to another neighborhood
that was plagued with Apple employees parking there
http://oi64.tinypic.com/ae5jdi.jpg, and it was not like Apple did not
have enough parking, it was that the traffic to get in and out of the
Apple campus was so bad that it was easier to park in the adjacent
residential neighborhood. Apple had told employees not to park in the
neighborhood, to no avail, since it was not illegal--now it is. Apple
agreed that the city should do permit parking. Of course the problem
with this is that it just pushes the parking problem a couple of streets
further out, and soon those residents will ask for permit parking.
Permit parking with no exceptions for limited time parking, i.e. two
hours with no permit, is easier to enforce. But this is not a
money-maker for cities because few motorists are dumb enough to risk a
ticket.

It's a different situation in Palo Alto, which has been illegally
allowing retail buildings (where there is a lot of parking turnover) to
be used as commercial office (where there is no turnover during the
day). Businesses that adjoin residential areas complain that their
employees have no place to park when permit parking is instituted.

In San Francisco, there are a few places that still have free parking
with no permit or time-limit. I use one of those often, and take the
streetcar downtown. These are generally not in front of residences. But
increasingly, the high cost of public transit makes it cheaper and
faster to drive and pay for parking.

On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 10:51:44 -0700, sms
wrote:

What residents don't like is when their streets are filled with
vehicles from underparked businesses, hotels, and high-density housing
projects. The theory of some cities is that if they allow insufficient
parking then people will walk, bicycle, or take non-existent mass
transit. The even more clueless theory is that "mixed-use" will result
in people living, working, and shopping in the same place, and this
NEVER works, but city planners love to promote this idea.

We're in the midst of that here. We had a Ford plant (built the Ranger
mini pickup truck) that shut down and Ford has cleaned up the site.
It's 122 acres (IIRC) and the city of St. Paul is just rabid to put
7,000-10,000 housing units in there... smack into a neighborhood with a
couple of bus lines and no access to public highways for anywhere from a
mile to three miles.

They are touting that very same mixed-use "hey, millenials will move in
and they ride fixies everywhere" BS. And, being that our city council
knows better than everyone else, they will ignore every piece of
evidence and testimony to the contrary. And we'll be stuck with another
tax increment financed boondoggle that makes a developer a billionaire
and saddles the rest of the city with the bill.

Problem is, whether we vote in Republicans or Democrats they still do
the same bull****.

On 9/25/2017 9:22 PM, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 10:51:44 -0700, sms
wrote:

-snip end of civilization-

Problem is, whether we vote in Republicans or Democrats they still do
the same bull****.


Pal, you are singing my song.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Monday, September 25, 2017 at 7:22:29 PM UTC-7, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 10:51:44 -0700, sms
wrote:

What residents don't like is when their streets are filled with
vehicles from underparked businesses, hotels, and high-density housing
projects. The theory of some cities is that if they allow insufficient
parking then people will walk, bicycle, or take non-existent mass
transit. The even more clueless theory is that "mixed-use" will result
in people living, working, and shopping in the same place, and this
NEVER works, but city planners love to promote this idea.

We're in the midst of that here. We had a Ford plant (built the Ranger
mini pickup truck) that shut down and Ford has cleaned up the site.
It's 122 acres (IIRC) and the city of St. Paul is just rabid to put
7,000-10,000 housing units in there... smack into a neighborhood with a
couple of bus lines and no access to public highways for anywhere from a
mile to three miles.

They are touting that very same mixed-use "hey, millenials will move in
and they ride fixies everywhere" BS. And, being that our city council
knows better than everyone else, they will ignore every piece of
evidence and testimony to the contrary. And we'll be stuck with another
tax increment financed boondoggle that makes a developer a billionaire
and saddles the rest of the city with the bill.

Problem is, whether we vote in Republicans or Democrats they still do
the same bull****.

Millenials are now being used like veterans have been used, as a way to promote bad public policy.

Read: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/real-estate/sd-fi-millennial-study-20170302-story.html

Not sure about where you are, but in my area the revenue from property taxes on residential property does not cover the cost of providing services.

Developers give a lot of money to politicians. I was amazed recently when my city (and me since I'm on the City Council) was able to stop an extremely bad development from going forward (for now). It was a 4-1 vote against, and the only vote in favor was from someone who took more than $25,000 in campaign contributions from the developer. The last time the developer tried, before I was elected, it was also 4-1 against, and I replaced an extremely pro-developer council person who had even voted against it.

Mixed use almost never works. Read: http://cumbelich.com/blog/the-inconvenient-truth-about-mixed-use. My group of trouble-makers met with him a month ago to talk about how to convince our city to stop this insanity.

What my group of trouble-makers have learned is that to be effective you can't sit on the sidelines and complain. You have to get people elected that aren't owned by developers. I didn't want to run, I agreed to because we had been complaining for 15 years about the developer-owned city council and had done nothing other than temporarily stop two bad developments through referendums.

Amusingly, the developers helped fund my campaign, unintentionally, by spending $30,000 sending out clumsily designed hit pieces against me--that's six times what I spent on my campaign! When one of them congratulated me I responded graciously: "thank you, I couldn't have won without your help," and they at least said "touche."

On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 7:26:05 AM UTC-7, SMS wrote:
On Monday, September 25, 2017 at 7:22:29 PM UTC-7, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2017 10:51:44 -0700, sms
wrote:

What residents don't like is when their streets are filled with
vehicles from underparked businesses, hotels, and high-density housing
projects. The theory of some cities is that if they allow insufficient
parking then people will walk, bicycle, or take non-existent mass
transit. The even more clueless theory is that "mixed-use" will result
in people living, working, and shopping in the same place, and this
NEVER works, but city planners love to promote this idea.

We're in the midst of that here. We had a Ford plant (built the Ranger
mini pickup truck) that shut down and Ford has cleaned up the site.
It's 122 acres (IIRC) and the city of St. Paul is just rabid to put
7,000-10,000 housing units in there... smack into a neighborhood with a
couple of bus lines and no access to public highways for anywhere from a
mile to three miles.

They are touting that very same mixed-use "hey, millenials will move in
and they ride fixies everywhere" BS. And, being that our city council
knows better than everyone else, they will ignore every piece of
evidence and testimony to the contrary. And we'll be stuck with another
tax increment financed boondoggle that makes a developer a billionaire
and saddles the rest of the city with the bill.

Problem is, whether we vote in Republicans or Democrats they still do
the same bull****.

Millenials are now being used like veterans have been used, as a way to promote bad public policy.

Read: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/real-estate/sd-fi-millennial-study-20170302-story.html

Not sure about where you are, but in my area the revenue from property taxes on residential property does not cover the cost of providing services.

Developers give a lot of money to politicians. I was amazed recently when my city (and me since I'm on the City Council) was able to stop an extremely bad development from going forward (for now). It was a 4-1 vote against, and the only vote in favor was from someone who took more than $25,000 in campaign contributions from the developer. The last time the developer tried, before I was elected, it was also 4-1 against, and I replaced an extremely pro-developer council person who had even voted against it.

Mixed use almost never works. Read: http://cumbelich.com/blog/the-inconvenient-truth-about-mixed-use. My group of trouble-makers met with him a month ago to talk about how to convince our city to stop this insanity.

What my group of trouble-makers have learned is that to be effective you can't sit on the sidelines and complain. You have to get people elected that aren't owned by developers. I didn't want to run, I agreed to because we had been complaining for 15 years about the developer-owned city council and had done nothing other than temporarily stop two bad developments through referendums.

Amusingly, the developers helped fund my campaign, unintentionally, by spending $30,000 sending out clumsily designed hit pieces against me--that's six times what I spent on my campaign! When one of them congratulated me I responded graciously: "thank you, I couldn't have won without your help," and they at least said "touche."

The government was never suppose to provide for you what you should be capable of providing for yourself. This constant taxing away people's income for government services is a large part of why inflation is so high.

On 9/26/2017 1:35 PM, wrote:


The government was never suppose to provide for you what you should be capable of providing for yourself. This constant taxing away people's income for government services is a large part of why inflation is so high.


https://www.statbureau.org/en/united-states/inflation


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sunday, September 24, 2017 at 9:54:43 PM UTC-5, Tim McNamara wrote:

BTW, St. Paul's city council and mayor also pride themselves for the
city being allegedly named "the most livable city in America" or some
such bull****. In the mean time, hate crimes and violence have ticked
up dramatically this year-

Trump.

On Tuesday, September 26, 2017 at 11:20:06 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 9/26/2017 1:35 PM, wrote:


The government was never suppose to provide for you what you should be capable of providing for yourself. This constant taxing away people's income for government services is a large part of why inflation is so high.


https://www.statbureau.org/en/united-states/inflation

Here we go again with your idiotic ideas of how to hide inflation. Yesterday I bought one lb of skirt steak. This is not an especially expensive piece of meat since it is the part that is cut off when they are butchering steaks.

One lb of beef - almost $34. Two market steaks that were about 3/4 lb. $13. I was afraid to ask them how much New York cuts would cost.

Yeah, there isn't any inflation. Four zucchini squash - SMALL - $5 ($2.99/lb) A can of diced tomatoes that you have to buy because it is the season when tomato flies will invade your home if you leave ripe tomatoes out.