New Town Dock

Much vigorous discussion this morning at The Bean concerning Chris Fulcher's proposal to exchange some public rights of way for a nearly-completed pier.

I have a lot of thoughts, mostly having to do with the historical background of how we got where we are. My thoughts relate to esoteric considerations of right of way law, dedication and acceptance procedures, what happens when a right of way is abandoned and how long is "in perpetuity." The latter period is very long, indeed.

Therefore, negotiators on behalf of the town's public assets need to be careful and take a long view.

I have posted some initial thoughts here and will elaborate as time goes by.

Bonaparte's Retreat

OK, it wasn't Bonaparte. It was really the Board's retreat, but that doesn't have quite the same ring.

Liz and I spent the past two days as members of the public attending the Oriental Town Board's retreat at River Dunes. The big news was disclosed early on the first day, when we learned the details of Mr. Chris Fulcher's proposal to exchange the end of South Avenue with a nearby site already dredged, with pilings for a pier already installed, and the site bulkheaded. It is a very interesting proposal, which merits careful study.

More importantly, it soon became clear that the town manager, Mr. Bob Maxbauer,  has initiated an ambitious program of identifying, prioritizing and planning projects for improving the Town. The purpose of the retreat was principally for the manager to brief the town board and seek policy guidance before proceeding further. It appears likely that the Town will schedule more detailed workshops to flesh out specific plans.

We have a manager! Details to follow.

Our New National Strategy

I have just read through the Secretary of Defense Report: "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense." I wish it were more inspiring.

It has been a long time since I have read through any of the documents generated in the Pentagon and purporting to be a "strategy." The problem I always have with such documents is that it is almost always impossible to ascertain the overall design. It reminds me of Winston Churchill's remark at a dinner party: "madame, this pudding has no theme."

If this were a management challenge (and it is), it should follow W. Edwards Deming's advice and first address the aim. "A system must have an aim," he wrote in The New Economics. "Without an aim," he emphasized, "there is no system." He goes on in his writings to explain that the system must have a method for achieving the aim.

I keep hoping for a new American strategy that truly identifies the aim of our policy and the method by which it can be attained. The best example of what I keep hoping for can be found in George F. Kennan's famous "X" article, published in Foreign Affairs  in 1947. The article addressed the problem of Soviet attempts to expand their power and influence. After a detailed rundown of Soviet history, Kennan observed, "In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. It is important to note, however, that such a policy has nothing to do with outward histrionics: with threats or blustering or superfluous gestures of outward 'toughness.'"

Here it is in one eloquent sentence. The aim: prevent Soviet expansive tendencies. The method: patient, firm and vigilant containment.

I see nothing that clear in today's document. Can't blame me for wishing.

Time

It's time for my annual rant observations about time. We have returned to Eastern "standard" time.  If it's standard, why not keep it all the time?

Have you noticed that "daylight savings time" doesn't actually save any daylight? In fact, the actual length of a day varies with the declension of the sun (don't ask) and the position of the earth in its annual orbit around the sun.

In an earlier (simpler?) time in the history of man, human activity was governed by the position of the sun relative to the particular place people lived. Before clocks, that position was measured by sundials. Before sundials, prehistoric man built vast public works (e.g. Stonehenge) to keep track of the seasons by solar and sometimes by lunar observations. Our time scale was slower, but no less inexorable.

Peasants went out to till the fields based on sunrise and sunset and when the sun was overhead. Before the sun crossed the local meridian was ante meridian (a.m.) and after it crossed was post meridian (p.m.). It bothered no one if the local time by sundial in Prague was different from that in Vienna.

Even at sea, where ships have no fixed location, time was reset every day at local apparent noon (when the sun crossed the meridian) and the officer of the deck received permission from the captain to "strike eight bells on time."

This perfectly satisfactory arrangement was destroyed by the railroad. Railroads wanted to run according to a fixed, printed schedule. They couldn't handle differences in local time between Prague and Vienna and every little train stop in between. Time must be made to conform to the mechanical age and become standardized.

But now we have computers. Computers can't actually think, but they can keep track of vast amounts of data, including the longitude of every town, city and metropolis on earth. It is longitude that determines local time. We could all set our timepieces to global standard time (that is, Greenwich Mean Time) and refer every time-based activity to that standard. That would satisfy the need for a time standard for any scheduled operation. It would make trains and airplanes happy. For local activities, just subtract or add a longitude-based time correction to derive local standard time. It would no longer matter to the railroads that Prague, Budweis and Vienna are on slightly different local times. Or Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington.

Oriental could have its own standard time.

Now synchronize your sundials.

Oriental Town Meeting October 4, 2011: Rainy Day?

Bizarre town meeting tonight. Only four commissioners present (Commissioner Styron was absent).

After an interminable discussion of minutes, the board considered a request by the town manager to amend the budget. Purpose: to appropriate funds to pay bills incurred and projected for hurricane clean up and remediation, including mosquito control. When two commissioners pointed out that there are still unexpended funds in the budget, the manager explained that he has no authority to expend those funds for any purpose other than the authorized line items. Except for hurricane expenditures, the approved budget is being implemented with no problems. He further explained that hurricane expenditures will be reimbursed 75% by FEMA and 25% by the State of North Carolina. The purpose of the amendment is to allow the town to pay its bills before FEMA and state reimbursements are received.

"Well what if they don't reimburse us?" Commissioner Johnson asked. "I'm worried that the Oriental taxpayers will be stuck with the bill."

After reiterating that he has negotiated the details both with FEMA and the state and explaining that he is carefully establishing a project number for each job, following FEMA guidelines, the manager posed a key question. Suppose there were no FEMA and no funds from the state. Is there anything the town is doing (debris pickup, mosquito control, etc.) that the board wouldn't want the town to do anyway. He received no answer.

The board rejected the motion to approve the budget amendment.

Commissioner Johnson then introduced a new motion to approve a smaller amount than requested for hurricane debris pickup and for mosquito control.

A similar series of actions first rejected a requested amendment to the water fund, and then approved a lower amount than requested.

"Oh, we don't want to dip into the reserve fund," Commissioners Johnson, Roe and Bohmert explained.

In many states, the reserve fund is known as the "rainy day fund."

We just had a very rainy day (Irene) and the health and welfare of the residents of Oriental are seriously threatened. And our commissioners want to dither about whether to pay for contracted services for which we will be reimbursed.

Looks like tonight was another rainy day at the meeting.

Breaking News: Guru Remains Deceased

Chicago: Aug. 12, 2011 This just in - John Maynard Keynes remains dead, fulfilling his own prophecy. "In the long run, we are all dead," Keynes predicted in 1923. His complete forecast was: "The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again."

Chicago economists, however, have decided to undertake that very easy, useless task and reveal the plan: "leave the economy alone and it will come home. It's in the book."

Many observers hasten to add: "pay no attention to the apparent accuracy of predictions and mathematical models concocted by Keynes' disciples. Facts can only confuse things. What matters is dogma!"

August Oriental Town Board Meeting

There were some positive developments in the way last night's town board meeting was conducted.

Mayor Bill Sage reported that he has been reading Robert's Rules of Order and learning a lot from it. That is good.

Town Manager Bob Maxbauer reported on the status of planning for a new town dock at the end of South Avenue. He will submit a proposal for a grant under the federal Boating Infrastructure Grant (BIG) program, thus leveraging the money the town has set aside for the project. The area will be dredged to a depth of eight feet before installing a pier planned to be six feet wide and 120 to 130 feet long. It will be designed to BIG standards, expected to last for at least twenty years. The BIG program targets non-trailerable transient vessels at least 26 feet long and requires a depth of at least six feet alongside.

Maxbauer also explained the recent purchase, using funds from last year's budget, of a John Deer Alligator vehicle, which will provide new capabilities to public works with more economy than the existing pickup trucks.

The meetings still take too long. I will have some suggestions about that.

Should the Town of Oriental Disincorporate?

The recent retirement of Oriental's police chief, who was also the only paid member of the police department, has caused some to ask whether we need a police department. Can't we just let the county do it?

Good question.

If our taxpayers want to save money, there is an even more effective way to do it. Just cease to be an incorporated town.

What distinguishes an incorporated town from any other part of the county is the services it provides. Here is the list of services, some or all of which NCGS 136-41.2 requires municipalities to provide, along with the status in Oriental. The state's criteria is whether the town's budget appropriates funds for the service:

(i) police protection - not currently provided - some have proposed we just let the county do it;
(ii) fire protection - not currently funded by town - provided by Southwest Pamlico Volunteer Fire Department (no town appropriation);
(iii) solid waste collection or disposal - provided - town pays contractor. Some advocate changing to contracts by individuals instead of the town;
(iv) water distribution - provided - some have proposed selling our water plant to the county and letting the county distribute the water;
(v) sewage collection or disposal - not provided by town - the town sold its sewage treatment plant to Bay River Metropolitan Sewer District many years ago and no longer offers that service to its citizens;
(vi) street maintenance - some by town some by DOT - NCDOT already maintains some of the streets (e.g. White Farm Road, North St. and Broad Street) that would otherwise be our responsibility. Why not just let them do it all;
(vii) street construction or right-of-way acquisition - not provided - I have found no record in town minutes that the town ever purchased a street right of way or constructed a street (developers do that);
(viii) street lighting - provided - (many of the lights don't work);
(ix) zoning - provided, but controversial - the town's GMO is the source of great controversy. If we unincorporated, we would come under the county's land use regulations.

So, as it turns out, we do not completely provide or have abandoned a number of services normally provided by municipalities (six out of the nine listed services).

State law requires that municipalities levy an ad valorum tax of at least 5% per $100 of valuation in order to receive certain funds.

We could just lower everyone's taxes by 5% by unincorporating.

Not that there wouldn't be grumbling. Some would say we need a quicker police response than the county would provide. Some developers would chafe at the county's rules for waterfront property. Roads might deteriorate. Local ordinances would no longer apply. The town would no longer exist, so there would be no authority to sell liquor by the drink.

Operators of lodging would no longer have to collect and remit the occupancy tax. But something would have to be done with accumulated funds.

There would be no need for town hall and its staff. No public works department to fund.

So there would be complications and grumbling.

But look at the money we'd save.

Municipal Elections

I still hear grumbling about Oriental town government.

Just a reminder: candidate filing for municipal office opens at the Pamlico County Board of Elections office in Bayboro at noon, Friday, July 1, 2011. Candidate filing ends at noon, July 15, 2011.

Now is the time to start organizing for your campaign.

Can Americans Make Anything Besides Deals?

Interesting column by Harold Meyerson in last week's Washington Post.

The question Meyerson addresses is whether the United States can learn from the example of others - in this case, Germany. The first part of the question is whether there is anything to be learned from other countries. Clearly there is.

The second part of the question is whether we are capable of learning from the successes of other countries. That's an open question.

Meyerson comments on the German model: "German manufacturers, particularly the midsize and small-scale ones that often dominate global markets in specialized products, don’t seek funding from capital markets (there’s a local banking sector that handles their needs) and don’t answer to shareholders. They make things, while we make deals, or trades, or swaps."

David Leonhardt, the New York Times economics columnist, wrote last week that Germany owed its edge in global competitiveness to a range of policies that could not be more different than ours: limiting home ownership, improving education (including vocational and technical education) and keeping unions strong — which is why “middle-class pay,” he noted, “has risen at roughly the same rate as top incomes.”

The German model differs from the laissez-faire approach to globalization that has dominated U.S. policy and discourse for decades, dooming many American workers to penury. Meyerson's article emphasizes the crucial distinctions between Germany’s stakeholder capitalism, which benefits the many, and our shareholder capitalism, which increasingly benefits only the few.

Can we learn from others? Let's give it a try.

Wisdom

Wisdom is a deep understanding and realizing of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to choose or act or inspire to consistently produce the optimum results with a minimum of time, energy or thought. It is the ability to optimally (effectively and efficiently) apply perceptions and knowledge and so produce the desired results. Wisdom is also the comprehension of what is true or right coupled with optimum judgment as to action. Synonyms include: sagacity, discernment, or insight. Wisdom often requires control of one's emotional reactions (the "passions") so that one's principles, reason and knowledge prevail to determine one's actions.

Wikipedia

The opposite of wisdom is folly. The opposite of a wise man is a fool.

Religious Exception to Zoning

I was pleased to learn this evening that the Oriental Town Board had decided to postpone the public hearing on the five amendments to the Growth Management Ordinance proposed by the town's planning board. There was a recognition that maybe the public notice hadn't been as clear as it might have been.

The board decided this evening to schedule public hearings on all five proposed amendments at the July meeting. I would have been happier if they had decided to act first on the proposed amendment on how to amend the ordinance, but that's ok.

In the meantime, we should all be thinking about the proposal to exempt "religious institutions," including buildings owned by such institutions, even if they otherwise resemble ordinary houses, from some of the dimensional regulations affecting other structures in the zone.
A point to remember is that, just because a religious institution owns a building today doesn't mean it will own that building tomorrow, next year or ten years from now. In the meantime, an allowed deviation from dimensional restrictions could have significantly changed the look of the neighborhood and affected the housing value of neighbors.

Debt Problem?

Suppose you could borrow money for ten years at a real interest rate of less than one percent? Even better, suppose you could borrow money for five years at an interest rate of less than zero? In other words, someone will pay you for you to borrow their money?

You'd probably think about borrowing that money and investing it in measures to improve your future wealth.

Strange as it seems, the US Treasury's real interest rate paid on inflation-protected securities is less than one percent for ten years and less than zero percent for five years. So why not borrow more at those rates and use the funds to stimulate jobs and reinvigorate the economy?

Ask the Republicans.

Is this what they mean by running the government like a business?

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Today's employment news isn't good.

Unemployment is up to 9.1%.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I'm not surprised. The stimulus plan (ARRA) wasn't big enough, and included too many tax reductions in lieu of direct government expenditures.

To understand why, you need to be familiar with three concepts:
A. Liquidity trap. That is when our national monetary authority reduced short term interest to zero, but banks aren't lending and companies aren't borrowing. We are in a liquidity trap. There are many reasons for this - companies, for example, aren't investing because they have no expectation that new customers will suddenly appear. Another reason is:
B. Liquidity preference. In uncertain economic times, companies prefer to hold liquid assets (that can be readily converted to money, like bonds) rather than illiquid assets, like real estate and other commodities;
C. Aggregate Demand. Classical economists have believed for nearly two centuries that there will never be an overall shortage of aggregate demand. Time and again they are proven wrong, but the belief persists. Our aggregate demand is way down because we have the lowest percentage of the population employed since the great depression.

The reason our recovery is stalled is that, in a liquidity trap only government expenditures have a realistic chance of overcoming liquidity preference, improving aggregate demand for goods and services, and therefore stimulating businesses to hire workers and invest in increasing productive capacity.

Businesses aren't refusing to invest because Democrats have hurt their feelings, as some seem to suggest.

Modern Anarchism

Government isn't the solution - government is the problem!

Did you ever hear that? If you really believe it, you are an anarchist.

Tea Party adherents say they believe it.

Until the pot holes on the way to work don't get fixed. Or they lose their job. Or their house catches fire.

Reflections on Zoning: I

Oriental's Town Board has scheduled public hearings on Tuesday, June 7 for proposed amendments to five articles of the town's Growth Management Ordinance (GMO). The GMO is our zoning ordinance, and any amendment thereto must be adopted in accordance with procedures spelled out in North Carolina General Statutes. The procedures require a public hearing that is adequately noticed in a newspaper of general circulation.

According to the planning board report explaining the amendments, "in recent years, there have been suggestions that changes have been initiated too often, costing the town too much money in advertisement. The Planning Board decided last summer that it would review parts of the GMO and submit a group of recommendations only once or twice a year in an effort to defray [sic] advertisement costs."

My first comment: beware of the passive voice. "There have been suggestions." By whom? Under what circumstances? Has the Town Board adopted such a policy?

Perhaps there was a groundswell of support for this idea, but I never heard it. I only know of one person who suggested such a procedure. I opposed the idea when she first raised it, and I still think it is a bad policy. In my view, it is better to act when the need for action becomes apparent.

The town should be careful to make sure that lumping a number of amendments together doesn't become a means of discouraging full examination and discussion of the proposals or even worse a means of railroading them through the process.

There is a problem with this particular grouping:
Article IV: Permissible uses by District;
Article VI: Development Standards for Specific Uses;
Article VIII: Signs;
Article XV: Amendments;
Article XVI: Word Interpretations and Basic Definitions.

The problem is, that the only reason to amend what we have is to correct deficiencies and problems with the existing text. Indeed, the Planning Board Report, in its discussion of Article XV says: "Several defects in the current ordinance need to be corrected. The language is inconsistent. The process is confusing and, in some instances, unworkable. Differing perspectives of the appropriate end result of this process need to be balanced and melded into something that will satisfy town authority, petitioner and public.

So we are going to use the existing, admittedly defective, procedure, to amend all five sections of the GMO?

This makes no sense.

Let's first amend Article XV and then, at some future time amend the rest.

Doesn't that seem logical?

Where Do All These Bills Come From?

The newly elected North Carolina legislature has pursued a frantic pace of new legislation.

Some observers have charged that the new legislators have no idea what the effect of their proposed legislation will be. That may be true.

Normally, anyone taking a new job spends a little time getting to know the ropes. Not these legislators.

So where are all the bills coming from? Did you ever hear of ALEC? That is, the American Legislative Exchange Council. You thought you elected your local candidate to the state House of Representatives and the state Senate? Actually, you elected ALEC.

How do I know? I have been following the bills introduced in the legislature, and I have looked at the ALEC web site. Here is a link to ALEC's model legislation. Just read ALEC's models and compare them to the bills introduced by the new legislators. Most of them are ALEC bills.

So who is ALEC? The nationwide voice of corporate interests seeking to get their way through uniform acts by all of the state legislatures. Their aims have nothing to do with North Carolina. Do they have the public interest at heart? Not Likely.

Here is a good backgrounder.

Freedom Riders

Fifty years ago, May 4, 1961, seven blacks and six whites left Washington, DC in two commercial buses enroute to the deep south. Their aim: to challenge segregation of facilities used in interstate transportation.

Monday night, May 16, 2011 at 9:00 pm, Public Television will broadcast a documentary about the event.

These young people showed remarkable courage and their peaceful, non-violent challenge transformed America.

We should all be grateful.

I strongly recommend everyone view the film.

Economists

"An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's. "

Will Rogers

I think Will was too kind to the economists of his day. As of his death in 1936, none of the neoclassical economists had figured out how it came about that the economy had stabilized at a low utilization of economic resources. It took John Maynard Keynes to figure that out, and his General Theory wasn't published until after Rogers' fatal airplane crash at Point Barrow.

Here is what Keynes had to say about economists:

"But apart from this contemporary mood, the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. Not, indeed, immediately, but after a certain interval; for in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil."

I'm not convinced that even Keynes got this right. The power of vested interests, when coupled with the writings of defunct economists, amplified by "voices in the air" heard only by madmen in authority, can be very powerful, indeed. Present concerns about the nonexistent "debt crisis" and the imagined specter of "inflation" and "bond ratings" are examples. It's like relying on Elwood P. Dowd's conversations with Harvey for economic advice.

Even in Keynes' day, the intellectual influence of defunct neoclassical economists on policy led the Roosevelt administration to prematurely attempt to balance the budget in 1937, setting off a second dip of the Great Depression.

I was there.

It took five more years and immense war spending to dig out of that hole. Let's not go there again.

On Cooperation

"Competition leads to loss. People pulling in opposite directions on a rope only exhaust themselves: they go nowhere. What we need is cooperation. Every example of cooperation is one of benefit and gains to them that cooperate. Cooperation is especially productive in a system well managed. It is easy to make a list of examples of cooperation, some of which are so natural that we may not have recognized them as cooperation. Everybody wins."

W. Edwards Deming