If you are unfamiliar with the word 'charette' you are not alone.  In my first fifty years I had never seen this word that means an intense period of design or planning activity.  I am a bit more familiar with local war hero William Charette who received a Congressional Medal of Honor for his naval actions in the Korean War.  A charette was called to order in Mason County to address issues concerning the improvement of the US 10 corridor between Ludington and Scottville by an outside group in coordination with many of our local planning commissions. 

 

I've been attending almost all Land Information Access Association (LIAA) meetings since they got into master plan consultation agreements with the County of Mason, City of Ludington, and the Townships of Hamlin and Pere Marquette.   LIAA funded by several groups associated with Agenda 21 promotion have offered a lot of material consistent with that objective, which relies on the governments of countries and their subdivisions to exert control over land use and restrict private uses to what they feel is 'sustainable' or 'resilient'. 

LIAA and their corporate and government 'partnerships' have little regard for personal property rights (other than their own, one would assume; they drive nice vehicles and freely talk of their suburban life).  LIAA's guru Dr. Richard Norton would argue that your property rights are very limited and modifiable by government agencies; this is contrary to the limits from our Constitution.  LIAA's climatologist Dr. Jeffrey Andresen would say that our society must resort to extreme measures to be resilient against global warming; he bases this on faulty statistics, debatable premises, and erring models, not science.

 

The charette was talked up by our local media as a very public event, and it was a mostly open process that took place last week between Tuesday and Thursday.  On each morning and afternoon local officials and 'stakeholders' (businesses/people that may be affected) got together to discuss issues.  On each night, the public was invited to look at the progress and offer suggestions.  Thursday evening involved finalizing the findings.

 

The way it is set up, the public looks to have some input into the process.  Business owners look to have more input into the process.  But from what I have seen in the past meetings, the input they would have is more illusory than anything, since the organizers of the events and the government entities that have invested around $30,000 of our local tax money into the exercises are interested more in validating their own future intrusions into the rights of the property owners of the county. 

 

The public is welcome to visit and participate in the exercises of this endeavor, but LIAA conducts these meetings in a very directed matter, so even if you have a very different opinion than Dr. Norton, have different conclusions than Dr. Andresen, have a suggestion that is based on empowering private property owners, and actually are allowed to express them, they will be suppressed by the structured format of the meeting.  The conclusions reached will be consistent with LIAA's directives and accepted by our local officials (Planning Commissioners) because it plays right into their lap, giving them more power and purpose for their actions to further restrict private property rights.

 

After making a decision not to participate in this charette, I made a prediction that the findings would advocate the need for more government action to improve walkability and bikability while proffering no specific action on the large expanse of government property along the corridor (the fairgrounds and airport).  Due to what I saw at the leadership conference, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to make the area more uniform in signage and landscaping.  I almost fancied they would suggest a people-mover rail line between downtown Ludington and the Meijer's area, but discounted this, for now. 

 

The results as reported in the City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) verified my forecasts in the headline Charrette conclusions: Improve walkability, uniformity of U.S. 10-31 (highlights added by this writer):

 

"Local governments should combine their efforts to improve pedestrian access, reduce the number of curb cuts and require uniformity in building and sign design along the U.S. 10 corridor between Ludington and Scottville."

 

"The way to improve the walking and biking access, reduce curb cuts and make buildings and signs uniform is to rule them by zoning."

 

"The county and township could also control the design of buildings and signs along the corridor through zoning."

 

"Burkholder said even companies that have uniform designs for their buildings could be forced to match the local zoning “if it’s in the master plan and enforced.”

 

 

"The rules could change over time and due to changes in planning commission membership and design tastes."

 

Notice that every solution is due to the actions of government, not by people or businesses, and the way they enact their change is compulsory, using the terms 'rule', 'forced', 'enforced', and 'control' in order to accomplish objectives.  

 

Here's an FYI to LIAA, PM Township and the County of Mason:  the corridor's problems that exist are problems that the township and county governments (along with MDOT)  helped create with their shortsightedness and their own past neglect.  That stretch of highway in front of the fairgrounds and airport served as the template for the businesses that moved into that area afterwards to ignore any consideration for bike and pedestrian traffic.  Even this far into the process they agreed to, they still drag their feet, neglecting any improvements they have agreed to for improving the corridor while millions of dollars are being spent improving the fairgrounds and airport in other ways. 

 

However, one solution we are given is to create a new authority that would be funded by robbing other local agencies of their revenue by tax increment financing.   Of course, those governments would have to up their own revenues to offset the drain:  

 

"One suggestion Burkholder had was the formation of a corridor improvement authority, which would function much like Ludington’s Downtown Development Authority.

The authority could collect money through tax increment financing, which involves freezing the amount of tax money paid to local governments for properties on the corridor. The authority would then collect future tax increases that result from higher property values and spend the money on maintenance and improvements to the corridor."

 

                                                   General Burkholder (with Colonel Hogan)

 

More taxes, more government control, more government agencies-- that's the solution to the problem when you are forced to believe in the nonsense created in this controlled charette where the solutions are already preconceived.  Even by the critics.

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Another layer of Government oversight is not going to solve problems. It only creates another barrier of resistance that taxpayers must sift through in order to get to the real solutions. This is the problem with Government. The slow implementation of rules and laws that are piled on us year after year and which will eventually bury us and will make it almost impossible to dig our way out. Then comes the control of every aspect of our lives. We, unfortunately, are getting very near the point of no return and we may actually be there now.

Very insightful, and one needs only look at our own Downtown Development Authority to perceive this.  The TIF takes in about $100,000 from other taxing authorities each year, the 2 mills for the DDA brings in about $50,000.  Where's the money go?  A quarter of it goes towards "administration costs" which goes back to the city coffers for general fund purpose, most of the rest pays for FNL's, NYE Ball Drop, Oktoberfest, etc. purchases of live bands, inflatables,fireworks, t-shirts, alcoholic drinks, fences, etc., some goes to marketing, signage and advertising, and then the rest of that goes towards the yearly practice of changing the sidewalks/plaza area from bricks to concrete to green space and back again. 

The millage takes money directly from the taxpayers, the TIF takes money directly from taxing authorities (and you know where they get their money).   City and County taxpayers are subsidizing downtown Ludington businesses and now they want us to subsidize Wal-Mart and Meijer and McDonald's and Taco Bell?  Get out of town you crackpots is what I say.

Also a very good reason to vote no on Proposal 1 in the August ballot.  The legislators could get rid of the Personal Property Tax (PPT) that drains small and large businesses of revenue each year, and not need a ballot initiative. 

What they are doing with the proposal is creating a new authority that would have the power to levy new taxes (read the bill) and be immune to oversight by the people because they would be appointed.  Think about that.  It is very dangerous, and if the people vote for the proposal, it effectively endorses this unaccountable authority.  Vote no on proposal 1, or open up your wallets to pay for all the money the state will lose from the PPT plus even more.

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