My friend Suzanne Sunshower, who now lives in Michigan (she used to live in SD for a short stint) started this blog by reprinting her father’s editorials from the 60’s thru the 80’s, it is fascinating;
PUSH is a new writing partnership between myself and my long-deceased dad. For almost twenty years, from deep within the 1960’s to the early-1980’s, my dad wrote weekly editorials for a popular Black newspaper called The Michigan Chronicle.
UPDATE: A city official told me this proposal was purely administrative and the council had little to do with this idea. How can the mayor authorize funds that are Federal housing grants at 0% interest? Good question. The council controls the purse and they need to put their foot down on this one and base the interest rate on income.
So the city has decided to create a whole new set of grifters, historic home owners;
The City’s Historic Preservation Loan Program offers a zero-interest loan to homeowners who live in residential historic districts or have an individually listed property on the National Register of Historic Places. The goal of the loan program is to help homeowners restore historic properties.
Don’t get me wrong, as you know I am a gigantic proponent of Community Development loans as I was once a recipient, and I have suggested to city council over the past decade to ramp up the program and have city employees engage homeowners in lower income neighborhoods. Former councilor Janet Brekke actually tried to get some legislation passed that would offer a pilot program doing just this and she was told to pound sand by not only City Hall but her fellow councilors.
Just drive around Whittier and Pettigrew and you will find that a large percentage of these properties need repair and this is where our community development could step in AND SHOULD.
I have a feeling a certain grifter who has received thousands of dollars from city coffers for his ‘historic projects’ pushed for this. One grift just isn’t enough for this guy.
I don’t have a problem with giving these people actual loans, I believe historic homes need to be preserved, but a 0% interest rate? Really? While most people who own these homes are wealthy and own multiple properties we literally have homes falling apart in these other neighborhoods, why not a 0% interest rate for these folks? Why does the mayor dislike poor people so much?
Welcome to ‘Grift Falls’ where the wealthy get to play with our money and pay no returns. I encourage the council to get involved and change the interest rate based on income, like MOST community development loans work (I think I paid a 2% rate, but could have avoided paying any of it back until the home sells). In other words, many of these folks won’t even make one payment back to the coffers and wait until they croak or sell before we get our money back.
Maybe they will come to the conclusion we need to send thousands of more dollars to Poops former(?) ad agency to tell people how to ignore the homeless problem. Maybe more 0% interest rates for wealthy historical homeowners is the answer? I think some of those Queen Anne and Victorians could hold quite a few transients.
Local all around artist, Mackenzie Foster just made this short 30 minute film, she stars as the zombie.
The most frustrating part is that I warned previous planning chair Janet Kittams that they need to say why they are recusing themselves, what item, who they work for, etc. She blew me off, but no surprise, they all eat from the same government trough. In fact, it is in city ordinance and state law that they MUST disclose why they are recusing themselves. I noticed a couple of years ago that the Planning (rubber stamp) Commission started pushing stuff in the consent agenda. And for good reason, the members have so many conflicts they started pushing those conflicts into a consent agenda so they would seem ethical. But when you recuse yourself you MUST tell us WHY and what ITEM. The new chair, Bradyn Neises, who works for Bender Realtors, has a clear conflict, but he can’t tell us what it is. Our city government is so corrupt it is almost laughable. The planning commission should consist of RETIRED developers who don’t have a skin in the game, or just regular folks who work in development or construction. The planning commission is made up of grifters. Every single one of them has grifted from the city, and they sit on this board to make sure the grifting continues. That’s it, there is NOT one single person on that board that is not benefitting from taxpayer revenue, and it is disgusting.
It also got better at the end of the meeting where the chair decided he had some muscle after eating cookies in the anti-room while they were approving his projects and he cut off a public comment inputer before they were adjourned. It was a serious DICK move, and totally militant anti-open government. Why do they even record these meetings? Why not just do it in an opium den in the basement of Carnegie? You obviously don’t want to be honest and forthright with the public, so why keep putting on the act? The Planning Commission is a ‘Basket of Grifters’ and little else. It’s time to ween these sucklings.
l3wis