Friday, July 07, 2006
What Would Agitator 3 Say?
I'm recommending you all proceed to Agitator 3's post from last week detailing his picks for the Barry County Board. He's got the races down pretty good. For those wondering, I should be posting on what happened at the County Board forum when I get a chance- hopefully sometime this weekend. If you attended and have an opinion please feel free to use the comments for this post as a discussion board for what was or wasn't said at the debate.
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9 comments:
learning about blogging
O.K., so far.
There was a small flurry about "economic development" and some blather about a "master plan" but I would like to remind you that a "land use plan" which is all about farming is hardly a "Master Plan" even if you spend a fortune getting it done. A true Master Plan would include some mention of Economic Development or I will assume that the plan is to not develop.
Even the most narrow of minds would recognize the importance of tourism to economic development of Barry County, and even the narrowest approach would include some form of rail trail, since we have two old routes. It might be reasonable to question the process used to sell parts of the route to private individuals. Do you want me to name names and dates?
Hola, senor el grillo! Si to the names and dates! Can you also explain how this subject came up in the debate and which candidate(s) didn't seem to grasp the issue? Fill in the readers...
You guys are killing me with anticipation!
DID CLARE SHOW UP?
Ms.Tripp was the lone candidate casting her vote for both millage requests (one of which claims to be needed for trail maintenance and a steam railroad, etc.) She saw no difficulty committing the taxpaying public to providing two blank checks a year to the "County-Wide" Parks and Recreation Director for the next ten years. Mark, on the other hand, would require the Park Board to write a "business plan" that showed some intention of operating without welfare.
Those of us who live in areas where we provide money for our own efficient park systems as well as blank checks for the Park Board may side with more transparency.
If Ms.Tripp was serious about providing maintenance work on the rail trail system, she would have demonstrated this intent by starting behind the Thornapple Manor construction site. This County-owned segment has been in denial since 1986.
An additional demonstration of leadership failure followed the purchase in July 1986 of the railbed from Apple Street to Airport Road by the City of Hastings, for $202,500. Random parcel sales of trail segments began in 1992 with a sale to Sandy James for $163.40 and, as far as the Register of Deeds and the Abstract Office know, ended with a sale in 1995 to Feldpausch and Lawrence Realty. F&LR have recently erected a gate and mucho barbed wire to prevent Pennock Villagers from cohabitating behind the Chrysler dealership on their nightly walks to Wal-Mart. That parcel brought in over $5000 to the City coffers, the highest amount paid by any of the ten new owners of the trail.
Perhaps these people are preserving this property for future economic tourist development.
Considering the amount of ink purchased by the Feldpausch enterprises, I would suspect that this connection to economic and downtown development will continue to be limited to polite whispers out on M-43.
Want more names and dates?
Thanks El! Perhaps "the rest of the story" is starting to come out! James got out while the gittin was good it seems. $163.40? I would have given "them" a few hundred more, but I wasn't serving on the County Board! Leaves me and the rest of the taxpaying public out. I could have paid that paltry sum out of the health benefit savings I would get serving on the Board!
Guys/gals, there's much more out there, keep it coming!
They think we are idiots! All these blogs should someday be published, "One Day I woke up and thought I was in Hell, but the sign said "Barry County"!
At my level, Barry County doesn't have any "Welcome" signs for tourist guidance. The City sign, on the other hand, might be altered to "Hawg-Friendly". Non-motorized trails are contrary to our mission. Much too quiet, and not at all intimidating.
Sometimes what we consider "secret" and conspiritorial is merely the failure of the Liberal Media to direct us to the correct sources of public information. This may be because they don't seem to use these sources either.
You can do the same research that I am doing by merely going to the "Land Information Services/Mapping" link, after "Departments" on the Barry County website. This will provide volumes of data on your neighbors, such as the fact that the Cornelliers own the new gate across the trail from Hastings to Wal-Mart. You then take this new information to the basement of the Courthouse and ask in the Abstract Office for the Liber and Page of that property. You then go up to the first floor and ask the Register of Deeds for a copy ($1) of the deed, etc. If you hurry, you can go back down to the basement and get to the Equalization Office before me and ask how much the Cornelliers have been contributing to the County coffers. It would seem to be reasonable to me that they would have been paying at the same rate as their next door neighbor to the west, Wal-Mart. If not, why not? Shouldn't we be able to buy back the trail for the same amount that the Cornelliers feel the property is worth? Perhaps this could be the beginning of a business plan for the trail system that would justify a millage. Perhaps this is the unwritten Plan that Ken Neil referred to in his Banner letter for "completing the Paul Henry Trail". It certainly seems to me that more people would benefit from a trail than would ride the Charlton Railroad. Of course, the Park Board would rather return in November for the millage without any plan, but that is another issue for another time.
While I have the words "leadership", "non-motorized trails", "County" and "911" all in the same place, I may as well repeat the admonition to any Commissioners reading this that the trail has been owned behind Thornapple Manor / 911 / Hastings Schools Annex for many long years. Had the property been in the City of Hastings, and privately-owned, they would have been fined for neglect, or worse. Perhaps the Commissioners would consider teaching "soft-skills" to Alternative Ed kids and/or incarcerated adults by allowing them to hack down some brush, cut some grass, remove some trash or other tasks long overdue.
I suppose that the property behind Dee Lowell's grandmother's house could also be cleaned up as a gesture of good will after the treatment Dee received by the Park Board. Did I hear "Kah-Ching" regading the price of that decision?
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