Smart Growth Plans
This seems sensible to me.
Many Wisconsin communities have spent considerable time and money to meet a 2010 state deadline requiring comprehensive land use plans, but Assembly Republicans want to exempt more than 1,500 small towns and villages from the mandate.
Of those communities, 708 already have received a total of $8 million in state grants to help pay for the cost of developing the land use plans.
Smart Growth requires every community in Wisconsin to enact and make development decisions based on sound plans for growth by 2010. The plans must consider factors such as long-range transportation and housing needs.
The exemption to the so-called Smart Growth Law, enacted originally to curb sprawl and piecemeal development, is contained in the Assembly version of the state budget bill.
It is the latest in an effort by some Assembly Republicans to gut that law, and it comes as many communities - including more than 27 in Waukesha County - are nearing the completion of that land use planning process.
These plans take an incredible amount of effort and money to produce and it doesn’t make a lot of sense for tiny towns and villages to produce one. Also, there’s a fine line between “smart growth” and “government sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong.”
On another note, did you spot the bias? Words like “gut” with all of its negative connotations are just one of the ways that a reporter inserts opinion into a news item.
“Gut” doesn’t have negative connotations for me. That was the name of the Outlaw whose trip to the Federal pen provided the job opening which began a 22 year career.
Posted by triticale on August 20, 2007 at 2300 hrs
You’re absolutely right, Owen. I see stuff like that all of the time that makes me shake my head.
But we get ripped for having blogs and voicing our opinions openly!
Posted by Cindy on August 21, 2007 at 0550 hrs
It’s sad to see that the education system has sunk so far.
gut
tr.v. gut·ted, gut·ting, guts
1. To remove the intestines or entrails of; eviscerate.
2. To extract essential or major parts of: gut a manuscript.
3. To destroy the interior of: Fire gutted the house.
4. To reduce or destroy the effectiveness of: A stipulation added at the last minute gutted the ordinance.Amazing that one of the examples is exactly what you are saying is a bias in the article…or is the dictionary biased too? I guess reality is just biased against you people, huh?
par·a·noi·a
n.
1. A psychotic disorder characterized by delusions of persecution with or without grandeur, often strenuously defended with apparent logic and reason.
2. Extreme, irrational distrust of others.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 0802 hrs
So what happens to the towns if they don’t make a plan by 2010? is there a penalty? Can the towns just simply not write one up?
not all synonyms are created equal, WilyWondr. ‘Dismantle’ has much less negative connotation than ‘gut,’ look at the other definitions for gut that you listed, eviscerate, I bet that word wouldn’t show up in the definition of ‘dismantle’
Posted by Matt on August 21, 2007 at 0808 hrs
Gut has a negative connotation. Just because the dictionary defines gut does not imply a positive connotation.
Do you like to be called an idiot? Come on, its in the dictionary.
Posted by Marcus Aurelius on August 21, 2007 at 0925 hrs
On the other hand, having a plan for growth and development makes it more possible for a town/village/city to forecast costs, which can help control taxes. Isn’t it possible that poorly planned growth leads to rapid tax increases due to non-linear needs for services? The demand for schools, roads, sewers, water supplies, police protection, etc. often bring tipping points where costs dramatically increase. It also helps develop better intergovernmental relationships, as towns and counties work together on their growth plans, which again makes it easier for cities to expand and control costs as well as stop suing each other every time that process goes wrong.
If “gut” had too many negative connotations, which word would you suggest they use instead - and what connotations does that word have?
Posted by John Foust on August 21, 2007 at 1009 hrs
These plans take an incredible amount of effort and money to produce and it doesn’t make a lot of sense for tiny towns and villages to produce one.
It strikes me that know one else has participated in the comprehensive plan process based on the tenor of the previous comments. Owen have you?
Developing a comprehensive plan, if done in good faith, is a model of the type of public involvement that government should apply to more issues and areas of public policy.
Anybody here have a problem with more public involvement in the decision making and planning process for public policy?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1052 hrs
Do little hamlets like Menchalville need to plan? How about Whitelaw? How about Nelma?
Big munis like Appleton, Grand Chute, Milwaukee etc should plan but the munis I note above? Come on.
I recall my Freshman Comp 101 prof at the UW-Platteville telling us to throw out our thesauruses, while words may have identical meanings the connotations or appropriateness of them are not identical in all situations.
Posted by Marcus Aurelius on August 21, 2007 at 1108 hrs
That’s essentially the question pjr. Is this a public policy issue or a private land use issue? To the extent it is a public policy issue is it an issue for local government or the state?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1109 hrs
Marcus, even the smallest hamlet might be the next subdivision, or maybe they’re adjacent to the village that’s ready to expand. The alternative is what? Seat of the pants responses to requests for growth? You like it when a new outlet mall or subdivision appears and your little village needs a new sewage treatment plant?
Posted by John Foust on August 21, 2007 at 1120 hrs
Is this a public policy issue or a private land use issue?
I believe it is both.
To the extent it is a public policy issue is it an issue for local government or the state?
Long term planning should be a function of both local and state governments. Yes?
So Marcus self determination is only for the big guys the little guys do what?Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1136 hrs
This has been a giant pain in the ass aroud the state. It was the brainchild of Tim Sheehy of the MMAC and others. In the small towns now there are constant arguements about where to put garages, buildings, houses. Who says that these groups regulating “smart growth” would produce a better state than the one we now have without these plans?
All of them point back to loss of property rights and Orwellian control of our lives.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1139 hrs
Again, anyone know the consequence for not having a plan by 2010?
Posted by Matt on August 21, 2007 at 1141 hrs
Dohnal, if you are opposed to all zoning and government interference on what you can do on your land, just say so.
Smart Growth isn’t a panacea. It was an effort to get municipalities to plan, to think about where their growth will happen, and how they plan to pay for the government services that might need. It a hamlet doens’t have much going on, then there isn’t much to plan.
There was and there will be plenty of hollering about Orwellian garage set-backs without it. Don’t forget those Nazi fence-height rules, too.
Posted by John Foust on August 21, 2007 at 1152 hrs
Planning has its purposes for potential homeowners and other buyers of properties who ought to know whether their area is slated for, as noted above, sewage treatment plants or industry or big-box shopping malls or even smaller lot sizes, etc.
Answers on effects of noncompliance may be at the links at this site of the agency archiving documents on the legislation from the start:
“Smart Growth Legislation
“On October 27, 1999, Governor Tommy Thompson signed 1999 Wisconsin Act 9 into law. This law, commonly recognized as Wisconsin’s Smart Growth legislation, made significant changes to planning-related statutes. . . .”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1157 hrs
All of them point back to loss of property rights and Orwellian control of our lives.
Since when is planning a loss of rights?
Let me ask again.
Anybody here have a problem with more public involvement in the decision making and planning process for public policy?Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1205 hrs
There are points where too much control tips over to the government and away from the people. We allow taxes but not so much that the people don’t have any money left.
We follow the Judaeo/Christian ethic where the ten commanments becomes law but do not allow the govnerment to regulate all of our speech and actions.
That is the debate, not whether we should have some controls on property but how much? Enough so that essentially your property becomes worthless unless the government allows you to use it?
Smart Growth forces you to make grandiose plans over a long period of time and then society changes again and the plans become worthless.
I have sat in on many of these committees and meetings that debated these things, passed them then threw the whole thing out a few years later.
Want to go back 40 years in Milwaukee and look at all of the great plans that SEWRPC, MMSD, Milwaukee county and others have made for the future and then see them ignored within a few years.
Houston does not have zoning laws at all and there is little difference bewtween what that city looks like and what other cities look like.
I will have more faith in all of these planners when I see some real action on places like North Ave.
Reminds me of what George Meany said once; ” these guys can become quite famous without every having been right on anything.”
A lot of people get some very good jobs just writing up plans that no one ever uses.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1257 hrs
The Long Range plan for Menchallville WI.
In 2010 - The fourth corner becomes a tavern again.
In 2017 - Fifth tavern on HWY K West of town
In 2021 - Develop Schmook farm on HWY K East of town into million dollar condos.
Right.
Self determination for who?
Posted by Marcus Aurelius on August 21, 2007 at 1308 hrs
Smart Growth forces you to make grandiose plans over a long period of time and then society changes again and the plans become worthless.
As usual you really have no clue about the actual topic, do you?
Marcus, how do I get in touch with the Schmooks?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1335 hrs
In the village of Jackson smart growth plans have enabled the village and town of Jackson to work together for a vision of the future. It may well change as time changes, but at least they have a plan.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1351 hrs
I’ve lived in many spots around southeastern Wisconsin for more than half a century now, including some of the fastest-growing areas, and I’ve seen a lot of dumb growth.
And I’ve seen a lot of people pay the price for it—sometimes right away, with reduced property value, but sometimes not for some time, when they realize that the less tangible values that were the reasons they moved there are gone because of dumb growth. And I was the next thing to go when what I had moved for there was gone.
So smart growth is good—and I doubt that anyone here is for dumb growth.
Of course, it’s not smart if it gets too complicated, onerous, etc.—but in the original story and in this thread, I don’t see specific evidence to support that. General discussions of why too much government is dumb government, sure, that’s here—as ever. . . .
And it’s always wise to be wary, but—does anyone actually have specific evidence as to why the smart growth bill has not been “sensible” here?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1415 hrs
These plans take an incredible amount of effort and money to produce and it doesn’t make a lot of sense for tiny towns and villages to produce one.
On another note, did you spot the bias?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1445 hrs
Simple principle: “Anytime someone else can decide what you can do with your property it affects your rights”.
The question always is how much can the government do with your property before all property rigths are negated?
Orv wants landowners to have complete rights. Most of us understand that there should be some regulations, the questions is how much?
If I own a piece of land on Greenfield Ave. and want to build an apartment house on it but the government comes along and decides that there should only be custard stands, how much value do I lose?
To the contrary If I have a piece that is zoned manufacturing but no one wants to buy it what can I do if it differs from the “Smart Growth Plan? Do I sit there for the next 20 years paying taxes or just default and let the govnerment have it? Or do I petition the governrmental body to change it so I can build an apartment or condo building as that is what the demand is for right now?
Everyone wants the govenrment to decide what to do with someone else’s land but if they change their zoning, and screw them, then they holler.
I sense that most of the people wanting “smart growth”, which is an oxymoron, like “military intelligence”, do not own land.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1459 hrs
This goes way back to #13, where Matt asked about the consequence of a municipality not having a plan in place by 2010 - but I may clarify a few things along the way.
For the record, I had to learn a lot about this topic in a prior life, so I’ll attempt to focus on explaining things and avoid editorializing. Besides, talking about land use is like talking about abortion. Everyone screams a lot and nobody changes their mind.
First, 66.1001 requires that any community that engages in official mapping, subdivision regulation, or zoning to have a comprehensive plan in place by 2010 to guide those actions and decisions.
Scores of townships in Wisconsin are ALREADY exempt from planning, because they don’t engage in any of the land use decisions listed in 66.1001. This is a point that is so often lost in this discussion. People become concerned that every little 500-person township out there is going to have to produce some onerous plan. If they don’t engage any of the listed activities, they don’t need to produce a plan. Period. Many of those 1,500 towns the article mentions are ALREADY exempt from 66.1001.
A comprehensive plan can’t take away any rights or land uses that a local government can’t already take away through powers granted to local governments ages ago. A plan is simply a guideline that local governments must produce and that local governments must follow. The point is that governments develop a plan to guide the decisions they already make, to encourage transparency, and to discourage arbitrary and capricious decision making.
I’ve heard countless tales of towns in which so-and-so couldn’t get a variance because the town board chair didn’t like him, but where the board chair’s brother/cousin/nephew never had any problems getting his requests approved. If there’s one level of government where oversight is completely lacking, it’s town boards in rural areas.
The state only dictates that certain elements must be included in the plan. It doesn’t dictate how the plan must be written. The design of the plan is left entirely up to the local government. A plan could be complex and thorough, as with urban areas, or in a smaller community, the plan might be 8 or 10 pages long and narrative in form.
There is no specified penalty for non-compliance with the comprehensive planning statutes. However, any government that engages in official mapping, subdivision regulation, or zoning better be prepared to get its ass sued by an unhappy party after 2010 if they’re trying to make these decisions without a plan. Any judge could easily rule that a local government’s decision is invalid because it was made in violation of 66.1001.
Fact is, you could get rid of comprehensive planning and it would do nothing to change the powers of local government. 66.1001 is merely an effort to make local governments create a framework in an open process, a process in which members of the public are guaranteed opportunities to have input, and to create a document that local governments must live by when making decisions regarding land use. The plan only organizes the powers and authority that local government ALREADY HAS.
For those who are all worked up about government taking away your “right” to use your land as you wish, your focus on planning is misdirected. Your actual concern should be local zoning laws and other land use restricitions (e.g. DNR administrative rules) that are implemented at the state level. That’s where you’re losing your “rights”.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on August 21, 2007 at 1510 hrs
Kay, yes proof is that all of the small towns and villages aroud the state are complaining why they have to spend all this time and money on a place with a hundred houses or about that amount.
Their Assemblymen have heard the complaints and put it into the budget.
The great geniuses label more planning as “Smart Growth” and if people want to have control over their land and lives then they are obvioulsy dumb and produce “dumb growth”.
Don’t any of you understand what personal freedoms and property rights are? Have you ever read history, the Federalist Papers, the importance that the founding fathers put on individual rights and freedoms. Many of them lived under Kings and Emporers who told them what to do with everything they had. They wanted to get away from that, run their own lives and own their own property.
The reason my forefathers came here along with most others in the 1800’s was to get land. If someone would have come along with “Smart Growth” at that time they would have tarred and feathered them and run them out of town.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1512 hrs
Sounds like your beef is with existing mechanisms of your local planning commission and zoning board, Dohnal.
Here’s a description of Smart Growth at the DNR site. Here’s the Journal’s overview. And from the Wisconsin Realtor’s Association, some facts and myths. Take a look at the list of supporters on that page.
Come on, anyone - who thinks comprehensive planning isn’t essential to keep taxes down? Who thinks eliminating it is “sensible”?
Posted by John Foust on August 21, 2007 at 1514 hrs
No, Dohnal, it’s clear from the story, and I know from personal experience, that “all” towns in the entire state are not complaining.
Y’know, when you start—as you so often do—with ridiculously sweeping generalizations, the reader seeking facts—aka reality—rather than your opinions-sans-evidence just moves on. . . . I asked for, as you put it but don’t provide, “proof.”
But a bit of your blather caught my eye, so allow me to point out that you really need to read Recess Supervisor’s well-founded visit to reality rather than just react to a poorly reported article.
And you really need to reread my previous post to see that, yes, I certainly value my personal freedoms and property rights, but I have had experience with what happens to property values in municipalities without planning. And my experience is basically what Recess describes. For example, in a town near here run for decades by a local despot, we were denied permits to build on our property . . . until we figured out that we were supposed to (a) dress down the way he did, so we stopped and changed into dungarees after work, and (b) buy our appliances for our new home from the committee vice chairman, who sold them at Sears. Amazing how fast the permits came after that.
As for the rest, yes, you and I had the same forefathers. And I’ve read the Federalist Papers, many times. And etc. Now, you reread what Recess says.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1605 hrs
I have been going before zoning boards and planning commissions for 40 years and know them well. At present I do not have a beef with any of them and have not had for years. I can tell ou lots of people that have had the problems talked about with autocratice SOB’s that demand all kinds of ridiculous things in small towns and other areas and engage in many of the things talked about here. Those things are for election time, recall time, petition time. Get out and fight.
Those of us that have done a lot of building have experienced all of those things. Most of you have done little or none of these things.
As for Recess supervisor, read what he has to say and how he minimizies the importance of “Smart Growth” and then I can say then “why bother” if it is so insignificant.
Kay and Recess supervisor are typical of the types that believe government is the way to solve all problems while people like Orv, myself and others believe that the solutions are beter found with the marketplace.
I can tell you that developers and money people do not like to invest in areas where there are so many rules, that is why we have had such little growth in Wisconsin the last decade. We are right at the bototm. People see all of these rules, boards and BS and take their money elsewhere.
Peoplewith money, ideas and plans really do not care to deal with people like Recess supervisor, Kay and others.
Money flows to where theere is the most likelihood to make a profit When you have to deal with a lot of little people on boards etc., it gets too irritating so they go somwhere else.
There were places in Milwaukee county that no one would go for years to build, so we changed the Mayor and the Common council in areas like West Allis, showed them the light and got on with it.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1643 hrs
Which of course, Bob, is why the Realtors and Builders and all the money people supported comprehensive planning.
Most developers love comprehensive planning because developers love to have a framework for all these local government decisions. For instance, they think it’s a good thing when municipalities make decisions in advance about where water/sewer is going to be run, since the people they end up selling land to and building homes for usually want toilets that flush. Not much good carving up 40 acres of farmland in an area that a local government has no intent of providing service to, right?
I never once suggested that planning was unimportant. What I said was that comprehensive planning doesn’t give local governments any new powers or any new authority over land use. And in that, I am absolutely, positively, 100% correct. Builders and realtors like planning because it requires local governments to think ahead. The livelihood of their members depends on the decisions that local government makes.
Frankly, Bob, when it comes to this, it’s not that I’m supportive of big government. It’s that I actually know what I’m talking about. You just want to speak in generalizations, talk anecdotally, and not bother to understand what the law is or what the law does. I think anyone who reads my stuff and yours cannot possibly miss that fact.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on August 21, 2007 at 1659 hrs
I’ve lived it, you talk about it. Big difference. I work with entrepreneurs, risk takers. You spend your time with bureaucrats and politcal types. None of you have much expertise in anything of value except government.
If all of these people want what you believe they want why are they going elsewhere and not building, expanding and developing in Wisconsin? If what you say is true we should be in the middle of a giant boom, instead we are bust, our state revenues are not declining, but not growing much, our job base is not expanding much and it doesn’t look like it will.
Your answer is more governmental rules, regulations, planning and mine is the opposite. We have tried your ideas for the last decade and they have sunk into quicksand. “Money talks and BS walks”, my dad used to say.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 1710 hrs
Seems to me that a open, comprehensive planning process might do a lot to shine light on local despots.
Thank you again, RS.
Posted by John Foust on August 21, 2007 at 1716 hrs
Where does one begin with yet another example of ADD posting, i.e., Dooooohnal again? Worse, when do they end?
It’s like putting tinfoil in a microwave, Dohnal. You arc away in so many different directions at once. To give you props, some of what you say is somewhat relevant to what has been said, and said and said, until you respond it, while the rest must be responding to some thread in your head. . . .
But more props for the good laffs. Of many I got from your latest, I’m especially fond of the—sweeping generalization alert, again, breathtakingly sweeping!—one that says, “peoplewith money, ideas and plans really do not care to deal with people like Recess supervisor, Kay and others.”
You really need to read closely. They loved our money when we spent it on appliances without even having a house permit yet. That told the local despot there was more to be extracted from us, youbetcha he did. And that was just the first of several such experiences I’ve had here (and in more years than you cite here) in small municipalities with small-minded officials, but with big eyes for big dollars.
I.e., it doesn’t occur to you that I might be one of those “people with money”? And definitely one of those people with “ideas and plans”—interesting from someone against planning, btw.
You really don’t know. But it’s more fun this way. C’mon, post again, it kept me smiling on such a gray day!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 21, 2007 at 2038 hrs
In life you have many opinions, some are knowledgeable, some are intelligent, some are worthless. You have a lot of big talkers, especially around the Capitol, that never have done much of anyhing of merit, but they always have lots of opinions. They see the government as the panacea and answer to all problems.
Let us take Recess Supervisor, he knows what he is talking about, Right. He says that builders and realtors love planning and things like “Smart Growth”. We don’t know who he is but I’ll bet he’s bounced around the Capiol for years working for a variety of jobs with legislators and agencies. Could be a Republican or a Democrat, but who cares, most of the Capitol regulars all exhibit the same disease and that is Madisonitiis, they believe that all wisdom and intleiignece emanates from that building.
He minimizes the effect of the Smart Growth plan but what is it’s real impact?
Let’s look at the case to come before the Suprmem Court: WRA v Town of West Point. The case was brought by the Wisconsin Realtors and the Wisconsin builders, you know the ones that Recess Supervisor says love “Smart Growth”.
The law of unintended consequnces comes in to effect here. Seems the Town of West Point suspended all building permits for the next 18 months while they sorted out the idiotic “Smart Growth” rules and developed a plan. Great way to grow jobs and the economy, close everything down for 18 months, right, Recess Supervisor? Seems that this is happening round the state with many towns, villages etc.
The fact is that the great planned economies of history have mostly been abject failures. We had 5 years plans, 10 year plans, big plans, little plans and they all faded into the dust bin of hisotry. Most of them have adopted the rules of the market, which in the perfect case would have little or any rules except for what the market does.
Smart Growth is an oxymoreon, capitalism is very messy adn most of the weenies in the state capitol have little knowledge of it. If you asked them who Adam smith ws they would say he made cough drops. They work for the government. When you listen to Kay and Recess supervisor you know why we get these idiotic laws.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2007 at 0853 hrs
That’s “oxymoron”, among others.
Posted by John Foust on August 22, 2007 at 0858 hrs
Seems that this is happening round the state with many towns, villages etc.
How “many” pray tell Dohnal?
When you listen to Kay and Recess supervisor you know why we get these idiotic laws.
I believe that Smart Growth emanated from a Republican Administration led by our favorite son from Elroy.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2007 at 0942 hrs
Dohnal> umm Houston has no zoning laws and you can tell. What a poor excuse for a “city”.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2007 at 1123 hrs
PJR, also note that in reply to repeated requests for evidence to support his statements, the one you quoted also contained about the sixth “seems” . . . from the retired pharmacist who is such an expert on land use planning, Bob (“Defamatory? I Don’t Have to Provide Evidence to the DA, Either”) Dohnal.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2007 at 1741 hrs
To Kay. There have been presented 40 pages of evidence in regards to the double voting of Sen. Jim Sullivan and all of the lies propagated by him and the city. They have been presented to the proper authorities in Madison and the Feds. Are they investigating? Ask them?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2007 at 1834 hrs
Dohnal, the coverage is online of the closing of the investigations that disclosed that your evidence was about his father, who had the same name.
Well, except that one name ended in “Jr.,” but details, details. . . .
We voters read the coverage closely and did not re-elect Reynolds. We opted for “Jr.”—because we could tell him apart from his father, even if you could not do so. Do not, do not think that you and Reynolds and Blonien have any credibility left after that ridiculous incident.
And do not try such nonsense again. It really is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind by freedom of speech.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2007 at 2233 hrs
The democrat DA did not investigate further but their are other avenues to follow after the democrat DA whao never investigates other democrats failed to take action. There are 40 pages of evidence to show that Sullivan and the city clerk are lying. We shall see.
All of the hard evidence shows that Sullivan is a liar as we have publicly called him on numerous occasions. Why doesn’t he sue?
As for credibility who has less , those who hide behind an anonymous names or fight out in the open?Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2007 at 1026 hrs
All of the hard evidence shows that Sullivan is a liar as we have publicly called him on numerous occasions. Why doesn’t he sue?
I guess he is considering the source.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2007 at 1036 hrs
Ah, it was only a matter of time before this turned into a “how Tom Reynolds got screwed” rant by Bob. This seems to be the common thread that runs among all his conversations.
Bob, there’s absolutely nothing in 66.1001 that says that municipalities have to declare moratoria on development prior to developing their comprehensive plan. Nothing. If a local government wants to do that, so far it’s been ruled that it’s the prerogative of the local government. But again, it’s a local government making decisions under a previously-established authority unrelated to 66.1001.
I agree with you that freezing development is stupid. Difference is, I remember where that power comes from. It doesn’t come from 66.1001. It comes from zoning and permitting powers that are granted to local governments in other parts of state law.
But if a local government wants to freeze development, isn’t that its prerogative as the body elected by the people to represent them in such matters? If the people are unhappy with the decisions their elected officials are making, those people have a myriad of ways in which to remedy that situation.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on August 23, 2007 at 1409 hrs
Typical bureaucratic BS from the Capitol. No wonder politicians are ranked below labor leaders and drug dealers for credibiltiy and trustworthiness.
Read the Supreme Court case, it is only becuase of Smart Growth. And by the people that you said love “Smart Growth”>Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2007 at 2232 hrs
Ugh, again Bob, I’ve read the case. Probably before you did. While it was still in the lower courts. The question of local governments and development moratoria has nothing to do with 66.1001, and everything to do with 236.45(2)(a). West Point might argue it has enacted a moratorium under 236.45(2)(a) to make its planning under 66.1001 easier, but West Point could’ve enacted a moratorium prior to the enactment of 66.1001, too.
You only have to get to the top of page 2 of the certification to understand that. Please, for the sake of an informed debate, flip the cover page. I know that’s tough because you’re busy moving and shaking with whoever the heck you’re moving and shaking with. Only a lowly government employee would have time to read all five pages, what with those three-hour lunches and all.
I know you get off on believing that anyone who has worked for the state is unilaterally discredited because of their employer, and considering that the Wisconsin State Senate authorized J.J. Blonien’s hiring, I can appreciate where that impression might come from. But just like there are many bright and intelligent people in the private sector, there are many bright and intelligent people in the public sector too.
All you’ve ever got are one-liners, out-of-hand dismissals, and arguments that run sideways or are completely tangential. Read your last comment, for instance. You throw out a couple of blanket statements that have no factual basis and aren’t even relevant to the discussion. Then you make a false assertion (“it is only because of Smart Growth”) and state it with no justification or support (probably because it’s not true). You close with a little sarcasm and there you go. You failed to address a single point I raised or answer the one and only question I posed to you.
It’s abundantly clear that you can’t topically and directly address any argument posed to you. No wonder Reynolds got his effing ass kicked. With you as a debate coach, it’s no surprise people thought he was a goofy, incoherent loon. Anyone who needs proof need only go to YouTube and enter “Tom Reynolds fingers butts spankings.” Yeah, guess what? You get a hit when you enter that. Birds of a feather flock together, I guess.
Say what you want now, Dohnal. I’m finished here. I’ll give you the last word. Having an educated conversation with someone who can only speak in quips, sound bites, and slogans is a completely worthless exercise.
You say what you want and then we’ll send this dialogue to the judges. Rereading this thread, I like my chances.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on August 24, 2007 at 0410 hrs
Last word is simple, you made several large statements, including the fact that developers, big money people, risk takers just love regulation. Court case by the Wisconsin Realtors and Wisconsin Builders just blew you awya and made your statements look like those of a fool.
The only reason that the Assembly put that section in pertaining to Smart Growth in their budget package cause the people were demanding it.
Love it when liberals like you and Kay get off.
The only fools that we have in this state are the ones that constnatly turn out more regulation and welfare programs. Those are flushing our growth down the sewer.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 24, 2007 at 0738 hrs
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