Now water quality is a very important goal. Water quality is why I get all bent out of shape over pipelines, refineries, giant feedlots, and other industrial abuses of our natural resources. I joined the Lake Herman Sanitary District board two summers ago because I wanted to help keep Lake Herman clean. I was disappointed to learn that sanitary districts don't have statutory authority to do much of anything but install and maintain sewer systems, which don't address the major pollution issues of erosion and nutrient-rich (read fertilizer and cow poop) runoff promoting algae growth. A water project district will be able to tackle those issues.
However, democracy is an important goal, too. I expressed concerns last year that the IWQC's plan to tie Lakes Herman and Brant into a discontiguous water project district created the possibility that our more numerous (and yes, richer) neighbors at Lake Madison could essentially annex us into their jurisdiction against our will.
I took some comfort in SDCL 46A-18-20, which appears to require a public vote on the creation of a new district. Even if we're outnumbered, we can at least have our say at the ballot box. But the minutes of last Thursday's IWQC meeting suggest that the organizers can avoid even that messy bit of democracy:
Water Project District update: Rolly Samp reported that he has worked out an understanding with the attorney general’s office in Pierre regarding conflicts in the laws pertaining to formation of water project districts. To move forward, the committee will need to finish drafting the petition, select an initial 5 persons to serve as directors (2 from Lake Madison, 1 each from Brandt and Herman and 1 at-large), and prepare a legal description of the proposed district. Once this is done we can hold one or more public meetings to explain the project and begin circulating petitions. We will need the signatures of 25% of the registered voters in the proposed district. If and when the signatures are obtained, the petition will be submitted to the County Auditor and the state Board of Water and Natural Resources for approval. Since our proposed district will have less than 1,000 voters we will not need to have a special election but can approve the district at a meeting called by the County Auditor’s office. A sub-committee of Robert Todd, Linda Hilde, Jan Nicolay, Charlie Stoneback and Stephen Snyder agreed to meet July 15 to consider these next steps. Jay Gilbertson will try to get a legal description for the proposed district. The committee also set a tentative date of August 5 for the first public meeting on the district. [IQWC unofficial minutes, 2008.07.10].
Whoa whoa whoa—no special election? I've never heard of that exception. I'm perusing the chapter on water project districts, and I'm not seeing anything that excepts small populations from conducting an election to establish a new district. (Help me out readers—perhaps the exception is in another chapter on organization of governmental entities?)
I recognize that getting signatures from 25% of the registered voters around the lakes is no small expression of popular will. Heck, we may not even get 25% of the voters to show up for a special lakes election. Then again, telling people their taxes will go up can motivate higher-than-normal civic engagement.
A water project district would use tax dollars for good purpose. I'd much rather see the $2000 or so a year that the Lake Herman Sanitary District receives and mostly sits on go toward practical projects like building retention dams and restoring grassy waterways that would actually improve our water quality.
But creating a new political entity and a new line on our property tax statements really should go to a public vote. If we can't get a vote, let's at least have a full, free-wheeling public discussion and make sure no one is caught by surprise. Lake neighbors, keep an eye out for the notice of that first public meeting on forming water project district, scheduled for August 5.
Today I'm going to take you to task, Cory. You're an intelligent guy, but people are getting sick and tired of your "poor me" attitude in your writings. It taints everything you comment on and this latest blast of jealous rant is no different. Your blog criticizing Lake Madison because you perceive that lake to have numerous rich homeowners is ridiculous. Your exact comments are "our more numerous (and yes, richer) neighbors at Lake Madison". If you want to make the "numerous" correlation, you are correct, but "(and yes, richer)" is without merit and hurts your credibility as a writer. Does richer mean larger mortgages, greater assessed valuation or do you know the income of each and every resident on Lake Madison? I can name ten millionaires living at Lake Herman including one who lives next door. You make yourself stay artificially poor by choice. You've had numerous opportunities to make much more income, but you enjoy making yourself out to be an economic victim. Sorry, Cory, but that dog don't fetch. Getting rid of the fictitious "poor me" attitude in your blog will advance the authority of your writings.
ReplyDeleteCory struck a nerve I think, but he's right on. I am certain, and in fact I know that the Lake Madison community wants to be a step apart and be more like the big money people from Sioux Falls. Always trying to prove they are more successful than we are with all those big houses and boats. They drive expensive SUVs and are using all our gas. Madison climbers. Showoffs! Mostly Republicans. I hate each and every one of them (but try to do so equally). Kidding you. Lighten up! Better explain too since this ain't the New Yorker. It's the Madville Times!
ReplyDeleteHere are a few thoughts from an old Libertarian-leaning fiscal conservative. If you want to accuse me of navel-gazing or ranting like a degenerate middle-aged coot (or both), I plead guilty in advance.
ReplyDeleteMy parents own a cabin on a lake in northwestern Wisconsin. They are skittish about the possibility that developers will conspire to raise assessments and taxes to drive the average folks out. There's a township organization that has, so far, kept that force at bay. But there are some pretty powerful people in Minneapolis and Chicago who would love to surround that little corner of Lac Court O'Reilles with condominia. Unless the ordinary folks keep up their guard at all times, they'll lose ground, figuratively and literally. And the water quality will doubtless go south with the land ...
As for being artificially poor by choice, one might make the same accusation in my direction. I quit the vice-presidency of an electronics importer in Miami in 1982 when I was only 29 years old, with the crazy idea that I could make a living writing books! It turned out that I could, but only after an effort of such ferocity that I became a bit warped. (I do not mean to imply that you're warped, too, Cory.) By choice, I went down a path that promised a lot less money than the one I was on. I got pretty grouchy about it, too, at times. Those money-sex-power 1980s yuppies, dad-burn them, they got all the fun, it seemed, and they had a palpable attitude. (A friend said they acted like "spiritual retards.") If there had been a blogosphere back then, I'd have been rough on them.
Those darn rich folks, they built big mansions, drove fast cars, and went to hot parties, while I pulled in meager royalties, ate tuna from cans, saw the underbellies of some of the most violent cities in America, drowned my sorrows in funky bars, and nearly became a street person. But I got to see some things that these yuppies can only dream about come retirement time, assuming they don't keel over of a heart attack or succumb to cancer of the gizzard first. I had adventures, by Jove! I lived in South Beach Miami when it was hip but still affordable, swam in the ocean at sunrise almost every day, stumbled into the bull's-eye center of one of the most intense hurricanes ever to make landfall anywhere (with no possessions to lose but my life) and moved to the Pacific Coast when I got tired of the Atlantic Coast. Just got in the old jalopy and took off: Miami, Gainesville, Gulfport, Houston, Ft. Stockton, Tucson, Palm Springs, Los Angeles. No boss could tell me which fire hydrant to pee on! I didn't worry about losing everything, because I had almost nothing to begin with.
Today, my work is like play, but it still doesn't pay much. Do I stay poor on purpose? That might seem true to the casual observer, but in reality, quite the opposite has been the case. Dollars are only one dimension of wealth. I think it's simplistic to say that Cory has made himself stay artificially poor by choice.
Cory and I may be quite a ways apart in some political dimensions, but I think we've both chosen our paths and are happy with the choices we have made. As I've aged, my rage toward those yuppies has fizzled into indifference. They haven't done anything to harm me. So where are they now? What are they doing? Are they happier than I am? Are they in bankruptcy? Frankly, I don't give a darn.
There you go again, Anon, missing the point and trying to turn everything personal.
ReplyDeleteFunny: every morning I get up, look at my wife, my daughter, the lake, and the last words that ever come to mind are "Poor me." (Erin pipes up: "I wouldn't have married someone who thinks poor me.")
Oh well, life goes on... and so does the blog! Tallyho!
(Oh, and ten millionaires on Lake Herman? O.K., Anon, I call: name 'em... and yourself. ;-) )