Prediction for Proposed 30th Street Urban Renewal District

Last night the City Council served notice that they intend to hold a series of public hearings as they seek to create an urban renewal district around the 30th and Main corridor. I AM ALL FOR IT! I give big props to City Council person Elaine Clegg who spearheaded the design charrette for this area. Nearly 200 residents from the area participated. In the end input from participants in the charrette informed the creation of a 200 page master plan for this neighborhood that is nothing short of totally run-down. I hope the City and CCDC are successful in creating a new district. It is one of the few tools that government has to actually help spur development. And at least SOMEONE is trying to do that. Our Governor is on trail rides and firing staff members and talking ‘cowboy code.’ Thank Heaven the Mayor and Council are taking their charge seriously.

Anyway - on the prediction. If you saw the usually hysterical Dave Frazer’s blog the other day, he actually wants a constitutional limitation on the activities of redevelopment agencies. That completely defies any sense of the historical development of the United States where most cities predate the existence of the territories and ultimately states in which they reside. As states came to bear, municipal power waned - that is until states realized that cities were their economic engines, and constitutional changes gave municipalities more power to control their own destiny. As it stands today, Idaho’s municipalities have less authority than any state west of the Mississippi. The Governor says - get the government off your back and out of the way - but that presupposes that entities other than the state government have some ability to control their own destinies. In Idaho that isn’t the case.

But as for predictions as I keep promising - Having several years ago worked at City Hall as staff to the Council, I can tell you how many people showed up to the more than one-dozen public meetings on the 2006 budget. Zero. My prediction is that Dave Frazier will piss and moan at the Guardian Blog, and never once show up at a public hearing to give us a rational reason, on the record, why this city should not act to control the blight within its borders. Messr. Frazier wants a pure democracy where citizens get to vote on everything their electeds propose but he wants to do it in cyberspace.

If there is statewide opposition to urban renewal, Mr. Frazier, then bring that tribe down to City Hall. I’d like to see it. 200 neighbors from a neighborhood YOU DON’T LIVE IN asked for a solution to the slum that has become their neighborhood, and the city is granting their wishes. It is time for you to stand down, sir.

Airport to Get Bonding Power? Some Urban Legislators Balk

Any day now my good friend Dave Frazier will be going ballistic over on the Guardian Blog about HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION 5, which passed the House 57-12-1, and the Senate 34-1. This resolution which will go to a vote of the people this fall would amend Idaho’s Constitution so that Airports can issue bonds without having to get a vote of the people. This is an idea whose time has come as evidenced by the vote. Good on you Senator Stegner for finally designating some authority to jurisdictions other than the state. With luck, this is the start of a new trend.

But there are those who still don’t see the need to devolve power to local governments and other jursdictions. Idaho’s cities and counties (and airports and public hospitals, etc.) have less authority than do the cities and counties in any state west of the Mississippi (see: D, Krane, Rigos N, and Hill M. Home Rule in America : A Fifty-State Handbook. CQ Press, 2000.). Of the 12 Representatives that voted against this measure, half are from urban areas, the other half rural. Thus, the urban rural divide is still in full effect.

I think it is somewhat amazing that anyone from an urban district would vote against this, thus some of these legislators’ votes deserve special attention. Clifford Bayer (R), Boise casts a vote that puzzles me. His district is part of the economic engine of the Valley. The Boise-Nampa MSA is responsible for 50% of state’s GDP. Voting to hamper the airport is no help to this economy or the citizens in his district.

Representative Hartgen (R), Twin Falls is the other mystery here. His vote is interesting first because his own district struggles with urban problems such as providing public transit - so he should be well aware of the need to start devolving authority to the governmental units that can actually solve his people’s problems. Secondly he is a professional economic development consultant. Voting against the public’s ability to provide infrastructure isn’t in any of the textbooks I had on economic development.

Several of the delegation from the CDA area voted against this measure as well, showing that they too do not yet grasp that their region is an urbanized area and also very much needs to have some flexibility to solve regional issues such as the traffic between CDA and Spokane, and also the border crossing to the north. No longer are CDA and Hayden sleepy little mountain towns on the way to nowhere.

Full details on the bill are available over at the Statesman.

Of Gadflys and Guardians: A Tribute to Dave Frazier

People who read this blog regularly know that I like to use Dave Frazier from the Guardian as a foil, and he’s an awfully good sport about it - and that’s just plain and simply because he’s a good dude.

Dave and I strongly disagree on the level of fiscal authority that should be accorded to Idaho’s municipalities. He likes the current set up where cities have to ask the state and the voters permission to do what is routine in the rest of the United States. I’d like to see cities in Idaho have broader authority. I think his arguments over the airport bond issues, and fire station financing were malarky (the Judges however agreed with him, not me). And, I think his no-growth vision for Boise and the Valley is wrong headed.

But I like Dave Frazier. He’s a nice guy. He’s a fun guy to have coffee with and can talk about a lot of subjects. If you spend any time at the Vista Moxie you know this. Dave is also a damn fine citizen. He cares about this place, devotes a lot of time to watchdogging local government, and has a hell of a following on his Guardian Blog, which I read regularly.

Dave sent me a note asking why I called him a “gadfly” in a previous post - he took it as an offense, and for that I apologize. But I meant it to mean a person who upsets the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions. Dave is every bit of that. He’s a thorn in the side of city government, and that is ok. In fact it’s important. Boise would be a better place if we had a hundred more people that were engaged as Dave (I just hope they’d all agree with me, though!).

You keep being a gadfly, Frazier, and next time I see you coffee is on me.