The Jive Shuts Down - A Rant Against Parking Meters

I was kind of saddened to read this. I was only in there once, last week, and the soup and coffee were awsome, and it seemed like a great atmosphere. It looks like they had some great Saturday sessions there as well. I made a note to hang out there more, although with a family, finding time to hang out at the artsy coffee house can be a bit difficult. But, they did have a good wireless network...that all said, when it came time to work remotely yesterday, I went up to the soulless Starbucks near the Mall. Why? Parking meters.

I was thinking of this as I pulled out of the Jive last week. I had spent 75 cents to park for an hour, and if I had got caught on a call and missed my expiration time, I'd be paying a few more dollars at City Hall. I got to thinking, how much business were these stupid parking meters costing downtown merchants? It's really time these relics were removed. I'm not sure how much money they generate for the city but they can't be worth it.

The parking meters were installed I'm assuming in the 50s, or sometime when people were going downtown no matter what, because that's all there was. If we want to revive downtown now, however, we've got to remove the parking meters. There are just too many other options with parking that is less of a pain in the butt. I would think we might be able to get merchants to agree to some extra tax or something to help cover the lost revenue for the city. The plan would be that the removal of the meters would increase the merchants' revenue more than the tax would cost them. Does anyone see the value of such a plan? Let's quit being so bass akwards in this city and move into the 21st century. Parking meters are a relic of a previous time!

I guess I could have caught the bus down to the Jive.

Ralph

More on political winds of change

In a piece that appeared in today's Erie Times News, one of my favorite conservative columnists, Jonah Goldberg, echoed some of the sentiments I expressed regarding the change in the political landscape that has taken place over the past year. He agrees that despite the optimistic face national Democrats put on last week regarding the results, the Blues have reasons to be worried. I said I felt Grossman's narrow win in Erie County was evidence of this.

Just to address Mayor's Sinnott's easy win over Republican Jack Anderson: In my memory, a Republican has never seriously challenged for the Erie mayor's office and Anderson had already lost like 4 times before, so he has proven pretty well that he doesn't have much support. Plus, Sinnott is a fairly conservative Democrat, especially when it comes to spending, and I think people in Erie like that. Congrats Joe!

A second look at Grossman's win and what it says

I don't know how many of you followed the local County Executive race. Last week, Democrat Barry Grossman defeated Republican Mike Kerner. Grossman's winning was no surprise to most people-as he had much better name recognition going in and raised something like $100,000 in campaign funding compared to $3,000 for Kerner. The big surprise was the winning margin, which was less than 400 votes out of more than 50,000 cast.

To his credit, Grossman seemed less surprised than anybody over this narrow margin. He pretty much attributed it to people voting across party lines. And, from a quick Google, it appears that the 2005 County Executive race was decided by even a smaller margin.

However, you would think outspending your opponent 33-to-one (and I don't know if Barry used all his campaign money) would buy you some breathing room, but I think the whole Obama backlash thing really came back to hurt Grossman. Kerner cited voters' lack of support for County funding of a proposed community college (something which Barry is in favor of and Kerner is against) as a big factor in helping him get votes. He was probably right on this.

Also, I think people in general are sick of government spending following last year's multi-trillion dollar stimulus packages, that really don't seem to have helped the Erie County economy at all. I thought Kerner actually came off as a bit of teabagger/kook during the debate I watched, but apparently, more people are embracing that type of old-thyme Republican thinking. Heck, one guy got elected to County Council who reportedly owes $2 million in back taxes because he refuses to pay the government. He also wants to sell of the County library system.

Yeah, the political landscape is changing again. The Democrats were given their chance to turn things around with liberal policies and apparently the public has decided they've failed. Now, I think we really better start paying attention to the Libertarian crowd, because they seem to be gaining some steam.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, and I do support some of the fresh ideas and enthusiasm that Libertarians bring to the table. I'm really just saying that we can all learn a lesson from Barry and be careful not to dismiss these teabaggers as kooks. Their views seem to hold some sway with the populace, especially in small town America.

From a personal standpoint, I promise not to make the same mistakes I made with G.W. Bush and Phil English, as dismiss them as unelectable.

Is Kathy D a millionaire?

Yesterday, I posted a comment on Erie Blogs, in which I probably, unjustifiably, took at least one crack at Phat Phil's weight. And Heavy D (presumably not realted to Kathy) rightfully called me out for it, but still, for a guy his size to be preaching against walking and riding bikes, seems a bit, I don't know, ironic.

Anyhow, Heavy D did bring up the point about Dahlkemper not revealing her tax returns, which I've let pass by because I think her husband owns a business and lettng people pour through the returns may be a competitive disadvantage. Heavy D also says she has 12 acres with a lake view? Is this true? Not that it should matter, but for some reason, perhaps her work with Frontier Park, I was under the impression she lived in the Frontier area. Anyhow, if all this money was earned through valid landscaping work, god bless big Chuck and Dan and whoever made this thing roll. But, if there are some questionable contracts and potential political favors going on... let's hear about it.

Ralph

Dunlavey Bitch Slaps Erie County

This really doesn't seem good for Erie County. We're talking $5 million per year that the County has already committed to projects like the already controversial runway extension. I guess the County has other sources of revenue, but I'm assuming taxpayers will end up making up the difference at some point.

Here's two quotes from the article that explain Dunlavey's ruling:

1. "In his ruling, Dunlavey criticized the county for ignoring the costs that Summit and the contiguous townships must bear for traffic; sewers; fire, rescue and other emergency services; and infrastructure costs related to the racetrack and casino.

"He wrote that the county, if it is not careful, might 'kill the golden goose' (the casino)' by refusing to award the required restricted funds."

2. " 'The specific use of the word 'shall' indicates that the Legislature did not intend the broad discretion the county is actively seeking, but instead intended to have grants awarded to the municipalities affected by the establishment of a licensed gaming facility,' Dunlavey wrote.

"Dunlavey said the county's 'novel interpretation' suggested that County Council 'deliberately chose certain parts of the Gaming Act to benefit the county's plans,' such as the use of restricted money for the runway extension project."

Dynamics of the Ruling
To tell you the truth, this ruling by Dunlavey caught me off guard. Most of the info. I've gotten on this matter has come from the Erie Times-News, and the Times seems to have been squarely backing the County. Shows you what the liberal media knows.

Dunlavey is a former Gitmo torture guru, and from what I can tell from his interviews in the Times, is a cowboy. I think the boys in Summit share this disposition. So, I retrospect, I guess it's really not the surprising that Dunlavey sided with them.

I guess the biggest surprise should be that I did not see this coming - kind of like the whole George Bush presidency. No matter how educated a semi-city folk like me tries to make himself, them damn rednecks will creep up on you and get you when you let your guard down.

Cheers.

Ralph

Erie Regional Gov. - When is an expense an asset?

Pat Howard ran an interesting column today, in which he makes a lot of points that have come up both on our blog and in "real-world" discussions over the past couple months. He addresses this whole city vs. county mentality, which is a bad thing for progress. One of the main points he makes is one DrD has been making for at least a year - the City is part of the County!

Interestingly, Mayor Joe Sinnott, who I think is often seen at odds with Howard, published a newsletter last week that really asks for a lot of the same things that Howard is asking for. Contrary to the way I've seen him portrayed in the paper, Sinnott really comes out as a proponent for regional government.

This is great, as it appears more leaders seem to be getting on the same boat, to steal Howard's analogy. The major discrepency between Howard's and Sinnott's views seems to have to do with the value of the some of the city assets, such as the zoo and EMTA - and even the airport to some extent. Sinnott seems reluctant to give up City-control of these "assets" even though, in Howard's view, they don't make money - in fact, they cost money, and there is no way the city could sell them. (Well, maybe it could sell the airport, so that might be an exception. And, maybe the airport could make money too, if it wasn't run by the government, ala the State Liquor stores.) Sinnott basically seems to be asking for County funding for these City assets, as a gesture by the County toward regionalization. He's got a point, because so far, it seems the City seems to be doing all the pushing toward regionalizaiton, while County people want to distance themselves from the city's balance sheet as much as possible.

Anyways, it;'s good to see that this white elephant of regionalization is now being discussed at least in more than a pipe dream form. Here's to hoping we can continue to move forward with this agenda. It's the 21st Century now. The Age of Globalization. Having turf rivalries and squabbles among 25 entities (some of which are overlapping) in a space of 800 square miles in northwestern PA is no way to go about encouraging progress.

Cheers.

Ralph

Some rumors about Phil

And just in case you all were wondering what I meant when I made those comments about Phil's potential downfall coming in an airport bathroom, here's some stuff that showed up on a left-wing blog during the Porter campaign last year. I'm not saying any of this stuff is true... but I'm not saying it isn't. Does anyone have further info on this?

English in for a race?

Dr Dee, I feel bad that I dismissed your endorsement of Kathy Dahlkemper so off-handedly (is that a word?) It appears that for once the Democrats are interested in putting up a serious challenge against Phat Phil. I'm shocked, but I guess they see this whole Bush-driven negative-Repulican backlash thing as making Phil vulnerable.

Personally, I couldn't believe it when Phil got elected back in 1992, after Ridge vacated the seat. From what I recall, the Erie County Democrats, with Ian Murray acting as the party director at the time, badly mismanaged the race and ended up sending three or four fairly strong candidates against each other, which split the vote up here and allowed a badly underqualified guy from Mercer or Butler - Bill Leavens I think was his name, to walk away with the Democratic nomination. Phil, who I always thought came off as a clown (of course, I felt the same way about George W., so that shows what I know), ended up crushing Leavans in November and hasn't looked back since. Sure, Ronnie DiNicola gave it another go in 1996, but he was a bit too California for people around here, not to mention the Mercer County area where I was living at the time.

I will say Phil has managed to fix up his image, at least in my eyes, during his years in office, and I'm interested to see how the Dems will attack him. I guess I could say I'm also disappointed that it has taken the Dems so long to mount a serious campaign against him. I mean has it really taken everyone this long to figure out that Bush and his cronies have been mucking things up? Phil's been in office for like 15 years and the best you could come up with was Stephen Porter? Come on. Now that the guy is finally gaining some serious seniority, experience, and allies, you want to throw him out. Oh well, maybe some fresh air would be good.

Cheers.

Ralph