Comments on: Gas Tax Vote Could Return Local Control http://www.dksez.com/?p=156 Quips, queries, and querulous quibbles from the quirky mind of Don Kahle Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:08:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: dkSez : : : : : : Don Kahle’s blog » Blog Archive » Week 36, #2 (PLEASE VOTE) http://www.dksez.com/?p=156&cpage=1#comment-1785 dkSez : : : : : : Don Kahle’s blog » Blog Archive » Week 36, #2 (PLEASE VOTE) Tue, 04 Sep 2007 03:50:42 +0000 http://www.dksez.com/?p=156#comment-1785 [...] See an earlier iteration of this idea at here. [...] [...] See an earlier iteration of this idea at here. [...]

]]> By: Jennymoose http://www.dksez.com/?p=156&cpage=1#comment-1778 Jennymoose Mon, 30 Jul 2007 22:40:49 +0000 http://www.dksez.com/?p=156#comment-1778 The 800 pound gorilla that nobody talks about is the absurd cost of keeping our roads [and the rest of our government, for that matter] in "repair". Between the "Little Davis-Bacon Act" requiring "prevailing", i.e. "union" wages be paid to any government contractor's employees and the salaries and benefits paid to City work crews[don't even get me started on PERS], is it any wonder that no matter how much taxes are raised we keep falling behind? I'd venture that many of the "no" votes are an inchoate protest against the high-jacking of the public sector by the unions and the lack of "social justice" in the misapportionment of resources from the private to the public sectors as a result. Until salaries and benefits in the public and private sectors once again become comparable [or public employees get less in return for their sinecues and security], criminals will roam the ever more pot-holed streets while politicians wring their hands and blame the voters for just not "understanding". The 800 pound gorilla that nobody talks about is the absurd cost of keeping our roads [and the rest of our government, for that matter] in “repair”. Between the “Little Davis-Bacon Act” requiring “prevailing”, i.e. “union” wages be paid to any government contractor’s employees and the salaries and benefits paid to City work crews[don't even get me started on PERS], is it any wonder that no matter how much taxes are raised we keep falling behind? I’d venture that many of the “no” votes are an inchoate protest against the high-jacking of the public sector by the unions and the lack of “social justice” in the misapportionment of resources from the private to the public sectors as a result. Until salaries and benefits in the public and private sectors once again become comparable [or public employees get less in return for their sinecues and security], criminals will roam the ever more pot-holed streets while politicians wring their hands and blame the voters for just not “understanding”.

]]> By: sturdygirl http://www.dksez.com/?p=156&cpage=1#comment-1777 sturdygirl Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:45:59 +0000 http://www.dksez.com/?p=156#comment-1777 Is going hyperlocal the best way to contend with the superlocal, Don Kahle? I wonder whether potholes present the best first attempt. Roads provide the most obvious and mundane of connections. “Our people” in “our town” are geographically accessible to each other because of them. To be sure, within the precincts that, en masse, prefer to be “left alone,” there will be some who would vote to pay the tax. And those precincts that prefer to be taxed will have their dissenters. I won’t wonder why the majorities might decide against the tax (wealth, ideology, 4-wheel drives?). But I suspect the precinct results will become coded with assumptions about why, and I hope that those assumptions won’t make us less accessible to each other, roads notwithstanding. Tasking the Council with parsing the precincts in such a deliberate and consequential way is an important idea, but should we wait for a different test case? One that self-parses the “have-nots” from the “don’t wants”? Is going hyperlocal the best way to contend with the superlocal, Don Kahle? I wonder whether potholes present the best first attempt. Roads provide the most obvious and mundane of connections. “Our people” in “our town” are geographically accessible to each other because of them. To be sure, within the precincts that, en masse, prefer to be “left alone,” there will be some who would vote to pay the tax. And those precincts that prefer to be taxed will have their dissenters.

I won’t wonder why the majorities might decide against the tax (wealth, ideology, 4-wheel drives?). But I suspect the precinct results will become coded with assumptions about why, and I hope that those assumptions won’t make us less accessible to each other, roads notwithstanding.

Tasking the Council with parsing the precincts in such a deliberate and consequential way is an important idea, but should we wait for a different test case? One that self-parses the “have-nots” from the “don’t wants”?

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