Building Code Kerfuffle.

Note: This is an example of the kind of journalistic thing I would simply love to do much more of if time afforded. I've done my best to get the facts correct. Quotes are direct from my transcribed notes of conversations with the person's involved. Please feel free to add anything useful or to point out corrections in the comments.

For many years in Clinton the lack of a municipal building code has been a Gordian Knot that has resisted all efforts to untie it by voters, developers, and local government officials. On March 12, a bill intended to cut the knot unanimously passed the Iowa House and was sent to the Senate. The bill, House File 590, was sponsored by State Representatives, Polly Bukta (D-Clinton) and Geri Huser (D-Altoona). It would require all municipalities under the population of 15,000 that do not have their own building code to adopt the state building code. The number of communities affected by this bill? One. Clinton.

The result was predictable and brought out the best in Clinton politics and public discourse. Elected City officials immediately disclaimed any knowledge or encouragement of Rep. Bukta’s bill. Those local constituencies that have long fought a building code cried “foul!” and many surmised in public that the whole thing is a conspiracy cooked up by organized labor, building contractors from the Quad Cities, and the Democratic Party to cram unwanted regulations down the throats of the good citizens of Clinton. City employees advocated for a building code were compared by a City Council member to Communist Party apparatchiks.

This being 2007, this discussion inevitably spilled over to Internet bulletin boards, chiefly the “Hey Martha!” board run by the Clinton Herald’s parent company, Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. On March 23, David Jindrich, an Iowa Department of Corrections Employee, posted a message that stated in part,

It’s no secret that the City Council feels that they have egg on their frowning faces. First, two City employees [i.e.: Fire Chief & Fire Marshall] with the blessing of the Mayor, take the issue to the State Fire Chiefs (sic.) Association [A professional organization] to lobby the legislature for a change in state law. Then Polly joins ranks and runs the HF through the House with little debate. The Mayor denies any knowledge on behalf of the Council that the Fire Department employees had taken the issue to Des Moines.

Jindrich had also apparently posted the text of an e-mail text of an email sent by Second Ward City Councilman, Mike Kearny to three members of the Senate Local Government Subcommittee that are considering the bill. CNHI moderators deleted this post and then revoked Jindrich’s posting privileges on the Clinton Herald bulletin boards.

Jindrich then posted on the privately run, “Hey Mabel!” boards informing the readers there (many of whom frequent both communities) of his booting from Hey Martha! and reposting the email from Councilman Kearny. The text of this email reads:

>----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Kearney
To: bill.heckroth@legis.state.ia.us ; brian.schoenjahn@legis.state.ia.us
brad.zaun@legis.state.ia.us
Cc: Roger Stewart ; Polly Bukta
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 4:02 PM
Subject: House File 590


Senator Heckroth, Senator Schoenjahn and Senator Zaun,

I am a City Councilman representing the 2nd Ward of the City of Clinton. I am deeply disturbed by House File 590 because it is my understanding that the legislature was lobbied by employees of the City of Clinton without the prior knowledge or consent of the City Council. I might have expected such behavior in the former Soviet Union or modern day North Korea, but not in the United States where policy matters should be advocated openly by
elected bodies and not employees of the elected body in secret.

You should know that there are many of us both on the Council and other
community leaders who are very concerned about life and safety issues and who have been discussing approaches to deal with them who now feel that the rug has been pulled out from under them by the action which is now before the legislature.

Please call me with any questions. (Phone number redacted, ed.)

Sincerely,

Michael J. Kearney
200 5th Avenue South #304
Clinton, Iowa 52732

Mr. Jindrich stated that he was informed via e-mail that his membership in the CHNI, Hey Martha! boards had been revoked. According to Jindrich the stated reason was simply “violation of terms of service,” and that he received no warning.

Jindrich was contacted on March 23 and agreed to provide the author with a copy of the correspondence from CNHI but as of this writing had not done so.

It should be noted that Mayor Wynn did participate in a press conference on March 20, that generally supported the bill.

When asked if the e-mail message was genuine, Councilman Kearny asserted that it was. He clarified his position by stating, “The City Attorney has made it pretty clear over the last year, that in matters relating to the City the City Council is the decision making body. It is very disturbing that we have city employees who are taking it upon themselves to lobby. I’ve got a problem with that.”

Kearny also felt that Representative Bukta was wrong to introduce the bill without discussing it with City officials. “I am not happy about the fact that what has taken place has taken place without the knowledge of the council. You’d think she’d have the courtesy to inform the City Council,” Kearny explained.

The City of Clinton has steadfastly refused to adopt a building code. Starting in the 1940’s (time line here) the City Council has taken up the matter no less than five times. Voters defeated the previous two attempts by the City Council to adopt a building code in 1995 and in 2003. The 1995 referendum lead to the adoption of a fire code.

A recent example of the confusion that can be caused by a fire code that is dependent upon the subjective rulings of individual enforcement officers is the case of the restoration of the Armstrong Building on South 2nd Street. In 2005 plans were submitted for the adaptive reuse of the building using historical preservation tax credits. The Chamber of Commerce and Regional Development Corporation would occupy the ground floor while affordable housing apartments would be constructed by Spirit Lake-based, Community Housing Initiatives.

The Armstrong Building had an existing sprinkler system and the plans called for maintaining and upgrading that system. For both aesthetic, cost, and historical preservation reasons the plan was to keep the old wooden floor joists exposed.

The building permit was issued before construction began. However in April, 2005 while construction was nearly halfway completed, the Clinton Fire Marshall, Mike Brown told the joint developers that the fire code required that the ceilings be enclosed in drywall.

Community Housing Initiatives wished to appeal the decision. The City found it difficult to assemble the Appeals Board. It turns out this body had never been convened. The City had difficulty locating one member at all and several members were out of town for extended periods. It took seven weeks to bring the board together. The appeal was rejected and total cost to CHI was $38,000.

This was CHI’s third project in Clinton. The company also was the lead developer for the adaptive reuse of the Howes and the Van Allen Buildings. CHI Manager of Development, Sam Erickson said they would work with the city again, but, “If you want to continue to develop and forward your community, you are going to have to make things easier for developers and. You are going to turn people away.”

Ms. Erickson cited Dubuque as a stellar example of a medium-sized city that has balanced the need for historic preservation and redevelopment of a decaying downtown with modern building practices and codes. Without a code and enforcement personnel, “You are threatening all the good work that is being done to revitalize the downtown. You are doing everything else right. The rest of the country is able to find ways to do this,” Erickson concluded.

HF 590, if passed would give Clinton a one-year window in which to develop its own building code, suited to its own needs. Surely, after all these long years, with the examples of thousands of successful towns and cities to emulate – one of the best examples a mere hour’s drive north – Clinton can finally do what it has failed to do since 1941, adopt a modern building code.

Reps Bukta and Huser have done Clinton a favor by forcing the City to do the right thing. Few will thank them for it. That is what makes what they have done all the more courageous. That is what real leaders do.

Biodiesel Economics and Clinton Plant

This week the City of Camanche and Clinton County met with officials from Hawkeye Bio Energy to consider a tax increment financing plan to assist in the building of a soybean biodiesel plant. The Hawkeye Bio Diesel plant has been in the works for more than two years now and construction is underway on the plant business and administrative offices on the plant site. Estimated cost of construction is $90m. According the an article in the Clinton Herald,, Hawkeye Bio Energy is requesting $5m in TIF financing for the project.

I have written extensively on this blog about the macroeconomics of ethanol production. But we have paid little attention to soy (and vegetable oil-based)
diesel. A September, 2006 article by the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank outlines some of the economic factors. One of the most attractive things about biodiesel is that it can be made from post-consumer waste. A major input in smaller biodiesel plants is recycled grease and frying oil.

Most important for producers of biodiesel, the 2005 Energy Act provides a $1.00 per gallon subsidy for biodiesel produced from virgin oilseed. The Act only provides a 50-cent subsidy for diesel made from recycled product, an effective $ .50 subsidy for oilseed farmers. Although the tax-credit portion for seed producers is scheduled to sunset in 2008 there will certainly be efforts to extend it by farm state members of Congress. In addition to the direct subsidies to biodiesel producers and indirect subsidies to seed stock farmers, one needs to also factor in the additional multimillion dollar annual direct federal subsidies to soy and canola farmers.

Biodiesel or blended diesel (regular petroleum diesel with biodiesel added) is technically and chemically an attractive substitute for petroleum-based diesel. One factor is because of recent regulations that require diesel fuel to include substantially less sulfur, a major ingredient in smog and acid rain. Sulfur is however a key ingredient in diesel fuel that allows it to lubricate engines. So reducing the sulfur content in petroleum-based fuel requires additives. However, adding just 1 or 2 percent biodiesel will restore the lubricity of the fuel.

According to the Minneapolis Fed, biodiesel from seed stock will remain price competitive (with or without the Energy Act subsidies) as long as crude oil prices remain in the $50/barrel range. Regardless of subsidies however, the Fed goes on to state:

The National Biodiesel Board estimates that if all the current and proposed projects in the country get built, they would be capable of producing 1 billion gallons of the fuel a year. A federal biodiesel mandate (some members of Congress have proposed requiring U.S. vehicles to burn 2 billion gallons annually by 2015) would certainly stimulate demand for that much biodiesel.

But Tiffany, at the University of Minnesota, believes that a lower production ceiling is more realistic. “If we just had a low-blend strategy for the whole country, maybe we could use about 500 million gallons of biodiesel [annually],” he said. Pushing production beyond that level risks driving up prices for soy and canola, thereby raising production costs and making biodiesel derived from fresh oil less competitive, even if the federal tax credit is renewed two years from now.

It is worth noting here that the increased demand for corn for ethanol production is the driving factor behind the recent run up in corn prices and also in farm land.

If demand for biodiesel takes off, producers are likely to turn to yellow grease [post-consumer and industrial waste] as their preferred feedstock. Most recycled grease goes unused, and prices are lower and more stable. So grease renderers, not farmers, are in a better position to capitalize on any long-term growth in biodiesel usage.

The same economic constraints will likely prevent biodiesel from weaning the country of its dependence on imported oil. Even if nationwide biodiesel production rises to 1 billion gallons annually, that represents only 2 percent of diesel consumption in 2005.

Biodiesel's limited horizons raise the question of whether the fuel is worth subsidizing. Compared with other energy and agricultural subsidies, the cost of the federal biodiesel tax credit is a drop in the bucket, but because it's indexed to consumption, the subsidy will grow with biodiesel output.

All of this is not to say that biodiesel doesn't have a bright future in the district. Fundamentally, biodiesel is an effective, environmentally beneficial motor fuel that many consumers want to use. It provides farmers buffeted by low commodity prices with an additional market for their crops. Equally important, it gives those with an entrepreneurial bent the opportunity to add value to their produce, as in the case of the Minnesota Soybean Processors cooperative in Brewster.

Even if biodiesel won't eventually provide a market for all the soy and canola farmers can grow, or displace regular diesel from the nation's gas tanks, it's likely to continue to grow, with or without subsidies.

Bottom line here is that biodiesel, like ethanol, is no panacea to petroleum dependency. It's role should be understood, like ethanol's, to be a regional one and also one of many alternative fuels that will in combination help lower but not eliminate dependence on petroleum. Only drastically reduced demand for petroleum fuel can truly help accomplish that.

Biodiesel shows a slightly more sustainable market case than ethanol with or without subisied It is attractive for the following reasons; it can be made from post-consumer waste, diesel fuel can give a mileage/performance ratio that is better than gasoline powered vehicles making it attractive as an auto fuel substitute.

Being a bit lower-risk than an ethanol plant the Hawkeye Bio Diesel facility should be in a better position to raise the capital for construction. This then begs the question of whether TIF financing to the tune of 18% of construction costs, in order to produce 50 jobs is a good deal for the taxpayers of the City of Camanche and Clinton County. This in light of the already overextended TIF financing in this region that I have documented here. I’ll take that up in a subsequent post.

Beer Run

First, gotta give a big hat-tip to a new (to me at least) Iowa blog, Essential Estrogen. 'Tis from her that I rip this off -- and yes, I am linking to a Bob and Tom bit.

bob and tom - Beer...

So this Keg Bill... The high-tech, market-state, panopticon guy in me says that this is probably inevitable. On the other hand, this is just stupid. Underage kids don't buy kegs. No one with a fake ID throws down a $100 deposit and $60 in cash for a keg of Miller Lite when he could go out and buy 20 or so cases.

And even if one acknowledges that it might be a good idea to know who bought the keg, that got the kids drunk, that led to the tragic auto accident. What is the compelling social need for the government to hold on to this data in perpetuity? What is the greater public good in compiling a database of my beer drinking habits?

Ah, Spring is in the air. Everyone in Des Moines has cabin fever. Amidst the horse trading to get stuff done and get the heck out of town, people seem to check their common sense at the door.

DeLong on Income Inequality

Brad DeLong graphs out the share of the nation's wealth in the hands of the top 1% income bracket. Short version, we are now at the same level as we were in the Gilded Age just prior to the Great Depression. Is this a good trend for an egalitarian, republican society? I think not.



The original is blurry too. Must be Brad's video codec.

Cory Doctrow: Internet Killed the Novel

Cory Doctrow, is one of the leading young SF authors, former Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Freedom Foundation, and is currently a lecturer on electronic media at U.C. Berkeley. He is also a contributing editor to BoingBoing the greatest blog on Earth.

In a new article in Locus magazine he predicts the death of the novel as a popular art form -- not its death altogether mind you. Yes, You Do Like Reading Off A Computer Screen. You just don't like reading novels when there is other, more interesting fare to be had--just as you don't spend much time sitting around the campfire listening to a blind poet chant all XXIV books of the Iliad any more:

"I don't like reading off a computer screen" — it's a cliché of the e-book world. It means "I don't read novels off of computer screens" (or phones, or PDAs, or dedicated e-book readers), and often as not the person who says it is someone who, in fact, spends every hour that Cthulhu sends reading off a computer screen. It's like watching someone shovel Mars Bars into his gob while telling you how much he hates chocolate.

But I know what you mean. You don't like reading long-form works off of a computer screen. This is not an ideal environment in which to concentrate on long-form narrative (sorry, one sec, gotta blog this guy who's made cardboard furniture) (wait, the Colbert clip's done, gotta start the music up) (19 more RSS items). But that's not to say that it's not an entertainment medium — indeed, practically everything I do on the computer entertains the hell out of me. It's nearly all text-based, too. Basically, what I do on the computer is pleasure-reading. But it's a fundamentally more scattered, splintered kind of pleasure. Computers have their own cognitive style, and it's not much like the cognitive style invented with the first modern novel (one sec, let me google that and confirm it), Don Quixote, some 400 years ago.

The novel is an invention, one that was engendered by technological changes in information display, reproduction, and distribution. The cognitive style of the novel is different from the cognitive style of the legend. The cognitive style of the computer is different from the cognitive style of the novel.

There's a persistent fantasy/nightmare in the publishing world of the advent of very sharp, very portable computer screens. In the fantasy version, this creates an infinite new market for electronic books, and we all get to sell the rights to our work all over again. In the nightmare version, this leads to runaway piracy, and no one ever gets to sell a novel again.

I think they're both wrong. The infinitely divisible copyright ignores the "decision cost" borne by users who have to decide, over and over again, whether they want to spend a millionth of a cent on a millionth of a word — no one buys newspapers by the paragraph, even though most of us only read a slim fraction of any given paper. A super-sharp, super-portable screen would be used to read all day long, but most of us won't spend most of our time reading anything recognizable as a book on them.

Take the record album. Everything about it is technologically pre-determined. The technology of the LP demanded artwork to differentiate one package from the next. The length was set by the groove density of the pressing plants and playback apparatus. The dynamic range likewise. These factors gave us the idea of the 40-to-60-minute package, split into two acts, with accompanying artwork. Musicians were encouraged to create works that would be enjoyed as a unitary whole for a protracted period — think of Dark Side of the Moon, or Sgt. Pepper's.

No one thinks about albums today. Music is now divisible to the single, as represented by an individual MP3, and then subdivisible into snippets like ringtones and samples. When recording artists demand that their works be considered as a whole — like when Radiohead insisted that the iTunes Music Store sell their whole album as a single, indivisible file that you would have to listen to all the way through — they sound like cranky throwbacks.

The idea of a 60-minute album is as weird in the Internet era as the idea of sitting through 15 hours of Der Ring des Nibelungen was 20 years ago. There are some anachronisms who love their long-form opera, but the real action is in the more fluid stuff that can slither around on hot wax — and now the superfluid droplets of MP3s and samples. Opera survives, but it is a tiny sliver of a much bigger, looser music market. The future composts the past: old operas get mounted for living anachronisms; Andrew Lloyd Webber picks up the rest of the business.

And attention spans don't increase when you move from the PC to a handheld device. These things have less capacity for multitasking than real PCs, and the network connections are slower and more expensive. But they are fundamentally multitasking devices — you can always stop reading an e-book to play a hand of solitaire that is interrupted by a phone call — and their social context is that they are used in public places, with a million distractions. It is socially acceptable to interrupt someone who is looking at a PDA screen. By contrast, the TV room — a whole room for TV! — is a shrine where none may speak until the commercial airs.

The problem, then, isn't that screens aren't sharp enough to read novels off of. The problem is that novels aren't screeny enough to warrant protracted, regular reading on screens.

The future composts the past. Remember that phrase. You are going to hear it a lot during the rest of your life.

Walter Reed Blog

My initial reaction to hearing about this blog was, "Ah, the inevitable, exploitative follow-up to the tragedy-of-the moment. Some soldier trying to buy himself an easy ticket out or a good job afterwards."

But that changes as soon as one reads along a bit. This is the real, compelling and heart-wrenching, self-help of a soldier caught in bureaucratic purgatory.

If you oppose the war, if you support the war, you must read Walter Reed.

The media never came to us, the Soldier.

The problems were quickly and correctly addressed at the highest of levels. Heads did roll. But was it all that necessary to fire or force to resign people who were so separated from the real issues? Most media outlets would say yes. But what has it changed? The real problem is this... the media really didn't care about the issue.

The testimony from two Wounded Warrior and one faithful military spouse were tucked neatly between Anna Nicole Smith and Scooter Libby. And once the government decided to place heads on the chopping block the focus shifted even further from Walter Reed. No longer were Soldiers problems in the spotlight. It became a finger pointing game. Who dropped the ball? Who is to blame? The public cried for closure. And unfortunately they got just that. An end.

The camera trucks stopped watching BLDG 18 and the reconstruction efforts there. They stopped watching the drugs dealers on Georgia Avenue. They stopped watching the war protesters that picket outside the gate of Walter Reed. Please listen to me carefully...the media is gone, but we are still here. The cast may have changed, but its still the same show.

199 Posts on the Wall...

Real life has been keeping me busy. This is the 199th post on this blog. This thing started as a sideline of a half-baked (and half-executed) effort to cash in on the frustrations of the election of 2004. But now it is just about stuff that interests me. Somehow or other though it seems to interest about 150 other people a day, which is pretty darn good by Iowa blogger standards, but is absolutely nothing by the larger Internet blog standards.

By comparison, BoingBoing, the most popular blog according to Technorati receives more than 300,000 hits per day. That is more than the daily paid circulation of the New York Times print edition.

Anyway, welcome to those of you who have started coming here recently. To my loyal readers in Brazil and Germany, who are you? Everyone feel free to leave posts in the comments.

So, while real-life keeps me busy, why not check out a couple of these posts from the good-old-days.

• Other Than That Mrs. Lincoln -- The No. 1, linked-to post on this blog. About my ill-fated trip to the Chicago Fire's Stadium Opener. Contains some gory photos.


• Can't Leave You Kids Along For A Minute -- Arriving home from vacation last summer to find a new war going on. 4th Generation War Primer


• If George Ryan Doesn't Rot in Jail, He Will Surely Burn in Hell -- The very personal reasons for my fixation with ex-Illinois Governor George Ryan.


• New Orleans Is Uninsurable, Part 2 -- Post on global warming and implications for the insurance industry. I got a lot of heat about this post from people in the Democratic Party. I still stand by it 100%.


• Designing The Future -- The first 'real' post on the blog, about the Viridian Design movment and what it will take to build a sustainable future that is actually worth living in.

I have to go be billable and take care of family health issues. Back soon.

Whither the Nation State?

I'm beginning what no doubt will be a long but fruitful slog through The Shield of Achilles; War, Peace and the Course of History., by Phillip Bobbit. One of Bobbit's key theses is, the Nation-State -- which he defines as the democratic, capitalist, parliamentary states that arose after Napoleonic and U.S. Civil Wars -- are failing in to deliver those things on which their core grasp on legitimacy hinges, that the state will better the welfare of the nation. Around the corner, and arising to take the place of the Nation State, is the Market State which will secure legitimacy by ensuring maximization of opportunity for its citizens.

But all that comes later. First I must wade through 700 pages or so of Bobbit's detailed and fascinating history of nations, states and their phases from about the Hundred Years' War to the present.

A perspective that he brings forth is that essentially the entire 20th Century from August, 1914 to December, 1990 consisted of one-long war, which he calls...

The Long War.

The Long War consisted of the struggle between three ideologies; liberal parliamentarianism, fascism, and communism. Although the victory of liberal parliamentarianism is generally to be lauded as a step forward for civilization, these states have failed to change along with the vast changes in the geopolitical landscape post-Long War. The weakness of the victor nation states in the present, Bobbit describes:

The reason the traditional strategic calculus no longer functions is that it depends on certain assumptions about the relationship between the State and its objectives that the end of this long conflict has cast in doubt. That calculus was never intended to enable a state to choose between competing objectives; rather, that calculus depends upon the axiomatic requirement of the Sate to survive by putting its security objectives first. We are now entering a period, however, in which the survival of the State is paradoxically imperiled by such threat-based assumptions because the most powerful states don not face identifiable state-centered threats that in fact imperil their security. Having vanquished its ideological competitors the democratic, capitalist, parliamentary state no longer faces great-power threats, threats that would enable it to configure its forces by providing a template inferred from the capabilities of the adversary state. Instead, the parliamentary state manifests vulnerabilities that arise from a weakening of its own legitimacy. This constitutional doubt is only exacerbated by the strategic confusion abroad for which it is chiefly responsible. So the alliance of parliamentary great powers, having won their historic triumph, find themselves weaker than ever, constantly undermining their own authority at home by their inability to use their influence effectively abroad.

This weakening of authority and legitimacy is can be seen externally in the sorts of 4th Generation War effects being used by anti-coalition forces in Iraq, as well as the big-picture issues that the great-powers seem unable to contain, from Iran to a rising and newly feisty proto-oligarchy (or Market-State?) in Russia.

The consensus of the reviews of the book is that Bobbit is somewhat less than clear on what a Market State might look like -- understandable as one does not yet exist -- and this provides an unsatisfactory payoff for the long slog through... well like the title says, the Course of History.

More anon.

Green Business 101

Very busy this week, with a couple of 12 hour days thrown in. Did discover a neat Special Business Section in the NYT though.

The Business of Green.

The Parade Begins: Obama in Clinton

Senator Barack Obama will be at the Clinton Community College Auditorium, 1000 Lincoln Boulevard, Clinton, Iowa. [ map ]

Saturday, March 10 -- 4:00 - 5:30 P.M.Doors will open at 3:00 P.M.

As a matter of disclosure, at this time I am supporting Barack Obama although I have yet to make any donations and I am certainly not on staff.

All local candidate appearances for all parties that I am informed of will appear in this space.

Viridian Pope-Emperor Basks In Glow of Victory

Bruce Sterling, founder of of the Viridian Design Movement gets some ink space in the Washington Post to gloat and bask in the glory of people coming around to our side. My Dot-Green Future Is Finally Arriving:

Back in 1998, the Mexican state of Chiapas caught fire and the smoke from its rainless "rain forests" stretched all the way to Chicago. In Austin, my home town, the sky was the color of a dead television channel. Living under that hideous gout of smoke, I realized that the much-anticipated greenhouse effect was as real as dirt. Most people didn't grasp that at the time. That's okay by me: If everybody got it about issues of that sort, I wouldn't get paid for being a futurist. As it happened, though, five years earlier I'd written a science-fiction novel about climate change. So I was fully briefed.

Wall Street investment tycoon Henry Kravis, the original "Barbarian at the Gate," is buying into Texas coal plants so they won't exist. The great and the good at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, were corporate green all the way. Austin has proclaimed itself the world capital of the war on climate change. Britain's Stern Report on the economics of climate change proves that it's cheaper to run a world than to wreck it. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has figured out that a climate crisis is as scary as a nuclear exchange. And there is an absolute explosion of trendy green design Web logs, of which mine, Viridiandesign.org, was one of the first.

They're all about creating irresistible consumer demand for cool objects that will yield a global atmosphere upgrade. It's the Net vs. the 20th-century fossil order in a fight that the cybergreens are winning. Why? Because they're not about spiritual potential, human decency, small is beautiful, peace, justice or anything else unattainable. The cybergreens are about stuff people want, such as health, sex, glamour, hot products, awesome bandwidth, tech innovation and tons of money.

We're gonna glam, spend and consume our way into planetary survival. My own favorite sci-fi planetary-saving scheme for naming, numbering and linking to the Internet every piece of junk we create so that it can be corralled and briskly recycled, creating a cradle-to-cradle postindustrial order and averting planetary doom, may sound pretty shocking and alien. But I wrote that book while in residency at a famous design school. I received an honorary doctorate there and the book was published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It gets great reviews, designers love it. It's not even science fiction -- it's a cybergreen manifesto.

Could I return to my first paragraph for a second? That part about me and the crowd of Serbian radicals? Serbia may be the world's single-greatest locale for a professional futurist. Awful things happen there faster than awful things happen anywhere else. The Balkans is a tragic region that denied stark reality, broke its economy, started multiple unnecessary wars, and basically finger-pointed and squabbled its way into a comprehensive train wreck. It suffered all kinds of pig-headed mayhem, all unnecessary.

That's just how the world behaved with the climate crisis, too. The time for action isn't now. The time for action was 40 years ago. Today we live in a stricken world that bypassed its time for action. We have wreaked science-fiction levels of havoc on the unresisting carcass of Mother Nature. The real trouble is ahead of us.

So what's the good part? They never gave up around here. On the contrary: There's a certain vivid liveliness in the way they're scrambling and clawing their way out of yawning abyss. The food is great, the women dress to kill, and sometimes they even laugh and dance.

Taking Kids To Chicago. Why Is That So Special?

So, Laura had to go see her parents in Homewood on Saturday to take care of elder-care business. I said that the kids and I would tag along. I've been threatening to take them to the Art Institute for months. Also, each kid gets a weekend in Chicago with daddy for their birthday, and everyone was sick during Jo and Liam's recent anniversaries, so they were owed a trip.

I know people here in Clinton who think nothing of a four hour trip to Adventureland or to some other small town in Iowa to see friends or family but would no more contemplate a weekend in Chicago than a weekend on the moon. Which is quite sad really. As so many people are sick of hearing me say, Clinton is the closest city in Iowa to Chicago. It is a bit less than three hours from my front door to the Grant Park parking garage.

Now, being from Iowa I well remember the first time I had to drive in Chicago and I sympathize with anyone who feels like they couldn't handle it. Four lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic going 80 miles-an-hour, people dodging in an out and not really knowing where you are going... NASCAR ain't in it. It is scary.

But still, that shouldn't be a barrier to all the benefits that Chicago can offer to children. The look on your kid's face when you walk out of the train station and she is staring straight up at the side of the Sears Tower is priceless. There are tons and tons of free or dead cheap children's programs at all the museums and cultural institutions. Even the most modest budget can take advantage of the things Chicago has to offer.

But try this on for size. Drive a mere two hours into the suburbs, say Naperville or somewhere along I-88, and take the train. METRA trains run on the hour. A round trip ticket downtown for a single adult is $7.50 (from Homewood) and kids under 12 are free. Or a weekend pass is $5.00.

You get to see this look on your kids' face as they get to ride in the upper deck or a "real train," and no traffic to deal with and you get dropped off in the heart of the loop. If one comes in from the South Side one gets dropped off right at Grant Park.

At the Art Institute weekend admission is $12 for an adult and kids under 12 are free. The Art Institute has something for everyone. Rowdy Young Boys? Check out the Arms and Armor room. Young girls will dig the historically accurate dollhouse Minature Rooms.

And of course everyone loves to go see the Impressionist exhibits on the second floor. But it isn't just wandering around looking at art. Heck, even the most precocious kids aren't going to stand for more than an hour of that. We hadn't been in more than two of the Impressionist galleries (we were still looking for the Seurat) when Jo was begging to "go ride the elevators."

Down in the basement is the Children's section. Touchable sculptures and a crafts room staffed by current and former School of the Art Institute students. Plus, if you do a little looking ahead of time they have guided tours and lectures just for kids. All free.

We happened to drop by on Youngest Chicago Designs afternoon. But there are always things going on and it is easy to plan a trip by going to the Art Institute web site.

Although the museum was very busy the Kraft Center was not crowded at all. There were no more than eight or so children participating in the activities at any one time. Molly and Jo both spent almost an hour designing their "dream homes," with lots of help and attention from the staff. The young staff were great, asking lots of questions about why the kids were putting this or that there and questioning their design decisions. Great stuff. Did I say it was free?

Afterwards, there are the pleasures of the new Millennium Park just across the street from the Art Institute and Randolph Street train station. A new skating rink, an insanely great new auditorium by Frank Gehry, the "jellybean" and the Crown Fountain shown above. There are also bicycle rentals for the summertime.

Our total expenses:

• $40.00 in gas for the van Clinton - Homewood - Clinton (plus some errands for the Grandparents).


• $7.50 round trip train ticket for one adult and three kids Homewood to Randlolph St.


• $12.00 one adult and three kids admission to the Art Institute


• $20.00 on Art Institute swag for the kids (optional)


• Total: $79.00.

Of course we ate at Grandma and Grandpa's and left the wife behind. But a family of four could still do the day for under $100.00.

And of course, it isn't just the Art Institute. This kid of stuff is available everywhere:
The Field Museum
The Shedd Aquarium (check out Tots on Tuesdays)
All the way to the Old Town School of Folk Music

And really, the first time you take them you will all remember it forever. Of course they may go on school trips but nothing compares to going with mom and dad. Clintonites really should take more advantage of the proximity to Chicago than they do. Take advantage of the fact that a world-class city is closer to your doorstep than Waterloo. Just one or two trips a year can have a lasting effect on the children. My kids certainly haven't stopped talking about it. They bugged us all the way home to set a date for our next "vacation" in Chicago.

Saturday Global Warming Linkfest

Off to Chicago this morning at the crack of dawn. Taking the kids to the Art Institute. While I'm gone, depress yourself with a litany of bad global warming news.

Audio from NPR's Science Friday endition of Talk of The Nation on the International Polar year. Scientists talk about how the polar climate is warming far more rapidly than anyone expected.

Warm Winters Upset Rythms of Maple Sugar, NYT.

Bush Administration estimates Emmissions Will Continue To Grow Through 2011.

But there is good news. The Viridian Pope-Emperor wraps it up in the latest Viridian Note.

The Washington Post looks at a big utility buyout through a green business lens, When Being Green Puts You In The Black.

TIF-ed Off?

In a once-in-a-millenium alignment of the stars, I find myself in agreement with my bête noir on the Clinton Herald bulletin board in the overuse of TIF districts in Iowa in general but in Clinton in particular.

TIF stands for tax increment financing. TIF is a tool created by the state for local governments. When a public improvement, either a road, school or private development project is carried out it (generally) raises the value of the land. The difference in the taxable value of the land before the development and for a certain period after the development, is the "increment." In a TIF district, all the taxable value of the increment for a certain period of time, usually 10, 15 or 20 years, is diverted from general revenues and used to finance all or part of the project. This can be either to actually build a city-financed project such as roads or schools. Or, it can be a pure tax set aside or rebate to a developer to use such a piece of land, such as has been done in Clinton for large employers with new projects.

In general, TIF's can be good things. They can allow certain projects that could not be financed out of general funds or out of bond issues to come to fruition. They can be a useful incentive to lure that special employer to your town.

But all things should be used in moderation and like any tool its overuse can transform it into a crutch without which the entity cannot perform the original duties. That I fear is what is happening with TIF financing in Clinton, and throughout the state.

Dave put me onto a report from the ISU Economics department, Swenson, Dave, et. al. Tax Increment Financing Growth in Iowa. It contains a lot of useful statistics heretofore not gathered on TIF use in the State. The authors state in their introduction,

During the 2003 Iowa General Assembly, legislators held several meetings on the
topic of economic development tools, and specifically addressed questions of TIF
use and potential abuse. Revealed during these proceedings was a dearth of
information about much of TIF use in Iowa, in particular, the amount of debt
associated with TIF districts in the state, the kind of debt, the duration of the
debt, and overall, the kinds of projects that benefited from this authority. State
secondary data compilations do not allow for an inquiry into the kinds of firms
that benefit from TIF authority – those assessments must be done at the local
government level and involve research of both city and county government
finances.

Apologies for the odd line breaks. Cutting and pasting from Adobe PDF requires an middle step that it is too late for me to bother with.

Swenson, et. al. do not come to any conclusions as to whether TIFs are successfull, good or bad. In fact the authors state in their conclusion that the data is all over the place,

It is very hard to demonstrate that TIF usage has, on the whole, benefited the
state of Iowa in any uniform manner. Our data show that three-quarters of all of
the valuation gains in TIF districts in Iowa are concentrated in just 31 cities (and
half of the growth in a mere 11 cities). Among those top 31 cities, some are
enjoying booming job and population growth, but some are not. Some of are
expanding their total tax bases, and some of them are contracting despite their
aggressive use of TIFs. For some it is enhancing fortunes, and in others it is not
reversing long and pervasive patterns of business and population decline. None
of our data can sort out what growth would have occurred in growing areas
regardless of the use of TIF incentives, nor can it tell us what growth would have
left had TIF resources not been utilized.

But they do say this about the small small and medium-sized communities:

Here is a common scenario about TIF usage in Iowa’s smaller cities: Usually, TIF
authority is applied to areas of communities that are near the edge of town or
aligned with other growth areas of the community, say along a major state
highway – their economic development zones or districts. Frequently, much if
not all of the incremental growth in these communities is a relocation of growth
from deteriorating main-street areas out to the benefited zones. As a
consequence, the TIF district gains, the general tax base shrinks, and the relocating
firm gets a tax break. The cities claim they retained the businesses and
count this as an economic development success, but city, school, and county
general fund tax rates go up to cover costs no longer borne by the re-located firm.
Regionally there has been no job or income growth as a result.

From conversations with county auditors and others privy to city and county
government activities regarding TIF usage, there are also increasing reports that
TIF revenues in Iowa are a lucrative revenue stream for cities that they are loathe
to cede back to other local governments. There are also reports that TIF
revenues, according to the Iowa Code, supposed to be collected and used
specifically for economic development or urban renewal debt payments and
infrastructure enhancements are being used to pay for fire stations, libraries,
parks and recreation facilities, general road repair and maintenance, and hosts of
other general or traditional government uses.

As for Clinton itself, the study had the following data about Clinton County's use of TIF financing. The per capita TIF valuation in Clinton County in 1997: $527. 2006: $1497. That is an increase of 284% in nine years. This strikes me as um, shall we call it irrational exuberance?

I have three children ages 5,7 and 9. Most of the new projects in Clinton: Ashford, ADM's expansion, the new riverboat development at Hwy 30 and Mill Creek Parkway are 15 year TIF's. Not one of my children will be the beneficiary of a single dollar of the increased property taxes generated by those projects during their school years.

I think the onus should be very squarely on the shoulders of City and County officials to make a very careful, coherent and concrete justification for any further use of TIF's in Clinton County for the near future. It seems to me that too many business plans now incorporate TIF as part of the profitability calculation. Without it the business plan is no good. But our economic development planners want so much for new development and business that any plan, even if it is fundamentally weak, is looked upon as a gift. That's not right. The burden of proof should on the project owner to show a concrete payoff to the City or County in excess of the avoided or invested incremental taxes independent of his business plan.

I urge everyone in Clinton that the next time a major civic improvement that is proposed to be financed with TIF dollars that some hard questions be asked and that the elected officials know that, finally we are keeping score.

China Markets and Economics Linkfest.

An interesting week in the financial markets. It appears we have avoided a major meltdown, although some historical analysis does suggest that major corrections often take the form of a large down day(s), followed by modest recovery or range trading and then further down.

Some notes on the China effect. Barry Rithohltz notes that the "blame China" crowd is ignoring one thing, the comparatively tiny size of China's equity markets:

Consider this factoid: The combined value of China's Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets -- the total market capitalization -- was $400 billion at the end of 2005; Over the next 18 months, it nearly tripled, with especially strong gains over the last six months. After this week's 8.8% plunge, it is a mere $1.4 trillion dollars.

To put that into some context, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has a global capitalization of ~$22 trillion. The Nasdaq is worth another $2 trillion dollars.

Bottom line? By my back of the envelope calculations, our correction of 3.5% wiped out an estimated trillion dollars in combined NYSE/Nasdaq 100 value -- two thirds of the entire capitalization of both of China's exchanged combined.

Brad Delong on Brad Sester on China's trading economy and us domestic policy:

Both the US and Europe... have done their part to support China’s development over the past few years. US imports from China have increased from $100 b in 2001 to $280b in 2006.... Eurozone imports from China have gone from 62b euros in 2002 to something like 130b euros, maybe a bit more, in 2006.... Both the US and Europe have supplied a lot of demand for Chinese goods over the past few years. The risk of a protectionist backlash is no doubt rising. But so far, the US hasn’t taken any policy actions that have really crimped the expansion of China’s exports – which is what I think worries DeLong.

Nor for that matter has the US government done much – if anything -- to help in the US whose living standards have been adversely affected by China’s export success. DeLong and Jeff Faux would both agree that tax cuts for the have-mores whose assets are worth even-more thanks to large financial inflows from China doesn’t count...

But China’s policy of buying dollars (and to a smaller degree euros) also means that China is sinking a growing share of its national wealth into a set of assets that are almost certain to depreciate over time.... The sums involved are not trivial. China is now running a current account surplus of around 10% of its GDP. That implies that about 20% of China’s annual savings... is being invested in assets that are likely to depreciate.... China’s government effectively now has a policy of both holding China’s current living standards down and sinking a fairly large share of China’s savings into assets that are sure to lose value.... The capital losses could destroy the PBoC’s formal capital: borrowing in RMB, even at an artificially low rate, to buy depreciating dollars isn’t a winning financial strategy....

I suspect China’s leaders will be somewhat less magnanimous. They will argue that the losses... [stem] from the failure of the US to adopt the policies needed to maintain the value of Chinese investment in the US....

I worry that at some point, China will conclude that investing so much of its savings in the non-tradable part of the US economy isn’t the best way of building Chinese wealth, and the flow of funds will stop. If that process is gradual, it will be for the best--but it if it is sudden, well ... a lot of US workers now employed in the non-tradables sector will need to shift into tradables production, pronto.

The tough issues of globalization, equity for those affected by same, tariff control need to be addressed. Sadly, the U.S. government is busy shouldering the White Man's Burden to the exclusion of all else that matters. Our standing in the international arena is approaching zero.

Bush isn't just planning on handing the unfinished business of Iraq off to his successors. Hes planning on handing everything off as unfinished busienss. He is a lame duck in every sense of the word.