On Sat, Mar 15, 2003 at 01:44:46PM +0000, Ken Brown wrote:
> Harmon Seaver wrote:
>
> > Ah yes, forgot about that -- the fancy condo right smack in the downtown
> > historic district used to be a while city block of historic buildings people
> > wanted to save, and, in fact, there were developers with money who wanted to
> > restore them, but the city, for some reason no one could figure out, condemned
> > them, took the whole block with eminent domain, then razed the whole thing --
> > with no plan whatsoever in mind for what would replace it. Or so it seemed. Then
> > they sold the whole block to this other developer for one dollar, and gave him a
> > ton of TIF to build a big, very modern, condo which doesn't even remotely jive
> > with the rest of the area.
> > This same city council approved a zone change from church/residential to
> > business with no knowledge, supposedly, of what or who the purchaser of the
> > property would be -- the church said it had to be kept secret. Turns out it's a
> > new Super Wallmart.
> > Isn't it great the way fascism works?
>
> That's not fascism - that's old-fashioned public officials acting in
> their own interests.
No, that's fascism -- fascism is the corporate welfare state, the
military/industrial complex, prison/industrial complex, etc. And this is how it
works on a smaller, more local scale.
>
> The first answer to it is democracy. Vote the buggers out.
Impossible to do here, they're got a crooked little system set up with no
accountability. They changed it decades ago from a ward system to a common
council -- meaning that all the council is elected at large, everyone in the
city votes for all 6 council members, there's no ward representation at
all. This then means that the candidates with the most money win. A lot of
people have spent a whole lot of time and effort to get decent people elected,
but all that happens is that we end up with one or two good people on the
council who are not only outvoted on every issue, but are also constantly
browbeaten and humiliated to the point that they don't run again.
It's pretty much hopeless. Probably the only way to change it at this point
would be a court action on the grounds that it's an unconstitutional form of
government -- which it clearly is, think how it would play out if the state
legislature or US congress was elected at large. At any rate, unless some civic
minded attorney decides to do it out of the goodness of his heart, it won't
change, people here are too discouraged to bother trying anymore.
>
> The second is resistance.
>
see above
> The third (not yet tried) is open government. Government should not be
> allowed to keep secrets from citizens, and the words "commercial in
> confidence" on a contract signed by government should invalidate it.
> Local governments are people we employ to fix the drains and clean the
> streets and make sure he schools stay open. No reason we should tolerate
> them doing deals behind our backs.
Where is this happening?
--
Harmon Seaver
CyberShamanix
http://www.cybershamanix.com
