Local Issues: After a While, the Fire Dies Out...

Over the past 20 years of lving and doing business in this small city, I have watched an endless parade of "hot button topics" in local politics drift on by.

The common thread — perhaps not surprisingly — seems to be that the level of civiv passion and outrage almost inevitably dies down to end up as little more than a few simmering embers.

Only the few situations where an issue threatens to run longer than the governing terms of city council members seem to actually get some attention.

To me, it reflects the sad reality that most issues in the world — however genuine and/or urgent they may be — ultimately end up in the trash bin simply because of inactivity and being ignored. In other words, the "model" seems to be to ignore the issues, rather than act on them.

Small wonder that the citizenry often end up feeling like they have "no say" in what goes on in their worlds!

For example, our towns eternal downtown parking issue (or "lack of parking" issue) seems to have been indefinitely shelved again, pending further "studies." In the meantime, city government is soliciting investors to build more (not needed) office/retail/hspitality on some of the vacant lots that were seen as potential spots for low-rise parking garages.

The underlying incentive there is undoubtedly that a building will generate more property taxes — aka "revenue" — than parking spaces... while everyone has blithely ignored the original issue that our town is a tourist destination with grossly insufficient parking.

From where I am sitting, that feels like an invitation to invite people to visit... and then they'll have a negative experience and never come back. How is that helpful to anyone? But I guess the "never come back" part is likely to occur on the next city council's time... so who cares?

Pretty much the exact same scenario has been playing out with the "affordable housing" issue... relevant because the very people who work in local hospitality, retail and entertainment to service all the visitors can not afford to live here, meaning that they have to either be willing to commute 25 miles (40km) from the nearest larger town with apartments or simply not work here at all.

This is already starting to show up in subtle ways, with businesses starting to have two or three closing days every week, or some even closing for a two hour lunch break because the business is staffed by a single person. Again, how is that helpful?

Of course, there's some corruption involved here, too... although it seems to be the "elephant in the room" nobody wants to look at, directly. For example, the City Manager is being paid more (by about 30%!) than the city manager of an adjacent city of some 400,000 people (our city has a little over 10,000) and there's a whole handshake-crony-capitalism situation happening, too.

But, of course, nobody wants to talk about that... and the fastest growing demographic of "wealthy retirees" see no reason to take issue with the current status quo, as long as their property values keep going up.

Of course, the irony here is that the "quaint alternative" atmosphere that attracted them in the first place is slowly being pushed out by "vanilla gentrification."

And the locals; those who have been here for a long time? As the years roll on by, the fire in their bellies slowly dies out as they discover that speaking up feels very much like trying to punch a cloud.

But I guess we should not be surprised.

Maybe this is why "we can't have nice things."

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