September 2008

What makes living in the Pikes Peak region so great? What makes it less appealing? How are we doing at educating our youth, creating a vibrant economy, assisting those in need and enhancing our quality of life? Where could we be doing better? Where are we doing just fine?

Everyone has an opinion about such things. And most of those opinions are highly subjective in nature, making it hard for community leaders and concerned citizens to know where to focus their efforts and resources. But no longer do we have to depend on guesswork or hunches in order to find a focal point for collective action, thanks to the annual Quality of Life Indicators Report produced by Leadership Pikes Peak. This year's report is hot off the presses, and it's crammed full of charts and graphs that attempt to objectively measure where we are succeeding, and where we are falling short, as a community. You can link to it here.

You'll find it an invaluable resource, whether you're a wealthy philanthropist looking to give something back to the community, an aspiring candidate seeking an issue to run on, or just an active citizen, looking for an opportunity to get involved. We at LLO congratulate Susan Saksa and all the folks at Leadership Pikes Peak for a job well done.

Worried about pollution? Want your friends, neighbors and co-workers to make more environmentally-friendly lifestyle choices? The most common way to tackle these issues in contemporary America is to reach for the stick -- meaning the heavy hand of government action -- when the carrot might be better. This story in today's Idaho Statesman profiles a number of business owners who, instead of going the coercive route, and looking to government for answers, are putting their money where their values are by providing incentives to employees who do the right thing, from an environmental point of view.

That's an example of what we at LLO call the "do-it-ourselves sector" in action.

"The government can't do everything and don't wait for other people to come to the rescue," one of the leaders of the effort told the paper. And that's an attitude that could bring about real change, if it ever catches fire. It's also an approach that more comfortably conforms with a truly free society.

School choice opponents are quick to seize on stories like this one to argue that charters don’t work. But it argues just the opposite.

The threatened or actual closure of an underperforming school is rare when it comes to conventional public schools. Many of the worse schools in the state and the country carry on in virtual perpetuity, no matter what level of services they provide parents and students. There’s no accountability, no penalty for failure, no recourse for a school district that wants to close a school and start from scratch. With very few exceptions, most conventional public schools close not over performance or management problems, but due to changing district demographics.

But that’s not the case with charter schools. When these schools fail -- and some do -- they’re held accountable, unlike their conventional counterparts, because they can have their charter pulled, and see their customers abandon them, if they’re failing to make the grade. And that’s why, on balance, they often outperform and have higher levels of parental satisfaction than conventional schools do. They have to perform, or it's lights out.

The closure of a poor performing charter school isn’t an argument against these schools; it’s an argument for them.

Many school districts have begrudgingly made peace with charter schools, if only because their popularity with parents means that the concept is here to stay. I say “begrudgingly” because many school districts, resenting the competition, still will find ways to undermine and underfund charters, treating them like the proverbial ugly step-child, when they get the chance.

The Denver Rocky Mountain News today quite correctly takes Denver area school districts to task for putting $1.9 billion in bond measures before voters that, in the editorial’s words, offer “charter schools little more than crumbs from the table.” Explains The Rocky:

“According to Jim Griffin, president of the Colorado League of Charters Schools, only about $15 million of the bond proceeds have been allocated to the metro area's 56 charters. That's only about 0.8 percent of the total going to more than 5 percent of the students. (There are approximately 21,000 charter-school students among these school districts and roughly 386,000 students in all.)”

It’s long past time that school districts in Colorado and elsewhere got over the idea that charters school are somehow different from conventional public schools, and stopped treating the parents and students who attend these schools as second class citizens, even though they are every bit as worthy of full funding, of respect, and of equal treatment under the law, as any other public school patron. We don’t tolerate such discrimination in other public policy arenas; why do we tolerate it in regard to charter schools?

Not every Denver-area school district cops this attitude, thankfully. Jefferson County Public Schools, Jim Griffin tells the Rocky, treats its charters like partners, not competitors. “This is how the process was meant to work," concludes The Rocky. “If school districts continue to leave charter schools out in the cold, the legislature should revisit the issue and consider more forceful means of assuring that charters get their fair share."

J. Patrick Rooney, a great champion of school choice, passed away earlier this week at the age of 80. This is how he was eulogized in the Wall Steet Journal:

"The nation's political lexicon didn't always include the terms "school choice" and "health savings accounts." But it does today, and that's due in no small part to J. Patrick Rooney, who died this week at the age of 80.

Rooney was a successful Indianapolis insurance executive by day, but he moonlighted as a philanthropist and policy advocate. During the 1980s, while other businessmen were hoping to tweak a badly broken public education system, Rooney advocated more parental choice. In 1991, his company launched a voucher program that enabled low-income families to send their children to private or parochial schools.

"When all families, no matter how poor, have the freedom to walk away from bad schools," Rooney told us at the time, "competition will force the public schools to improve." Today, the voucher program serves some 1,700 children in Indianapolis and has spawned similar programs nationwide that provide educational alternatives for more than 50,000 students.

Pat Rooney's other passion was health-care reform. He pioneered the marketing of medical savings accounts (MSAs), which pair an inexpensive insurance policy that has a high deductible with a tax-free savings account to help pay predeductible expenses. The idea is to reduce health-care costs and shrink the ranks of the uninsured by introducing more individual choice into the marketplace. Rooney successfully lobbied Congress to create federal tax credits for MSAs, and today millions of Americans who might otherwise be priced out of the system can afford insurance.

Rooney once said he wanted his tombstone to read, "Here was a good problem solver . . ." He was indeed."

At a time when civic and economic literacy seem on the decline, especially among younger Americans, who frequently don't get an adequate grounding in those subjects in school, it was heartening to see that, in Pueblo at least, this week's 221st anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution didn't go uncelebrated.

And kudos, too, to The Pueblo Chieftain for covering it. Here's how The Chieftain wrote it up:

"Students at Pueblo Community College and Colorado State University-Pueblo celebrated the 221st anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution Wednesday with historic readings, singing, quizzes, speeches and even birthday cakes.

"I think it's important to have a day like today to celebrate the Constitution because many students don't take the time to learn about the Constitution or the Bill of Rights," said CSU-Pueblo student Amanda Wintersieck, who dressed as Betsy Ross in honor of Constitution Day.

Constitution Day was founded in 1997, and in 2006 President Bush signed into law the national designation of Sept. 17 as U.S. Constitution Day.

Federal law designates that institutions receiving federal funding have to host some type of celebration in recognition of the U.S. Constitution.

Wintersieck, a senior political science major, joined with fellow members of the political science club to sponsor an afternoon of activities including historic readings of the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address and a quiz. They also provided a soapbox for CSU-Pueblo students to climb up on to voice their opinions (on any topic), honoring the First Amendment right of free speech.

At PCC, the lounge of the Mike Davis Academic building was turned into a "Constitution Convention" as the Alternative High School Diploma Program, student activities and the history department hosted a daylong series of speakers.

"This is not a day about Democrats or Republicans, it's a day to celebrate the incredible document, the Constitution," said Mike Engle, who teaches history at PCC.

"It's important every year, but I think it's even more important this year because it's an election year," he said. "In less than 50 days we'll have an election and, from all indications, it appears that the younger voters may carry the swing votes. It's important that they know about the process and the history."

CSU-Pueblo's political science students chose to dress as Uncle Sam, Benjamin Franklin, Abe Lincoln and Abigail Adams to bring to life the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address and other historical documents through oral readings.

"It's pretty exciting. It's not every day that you get to dress in nickers," said Nathan Pesch, who portrayed Benjamin Franklin. "It's a great attention-getter, too."

David Gutierrez, a sophomore liberal studies major, was among the students who stopped to test his knowledge of the Constitution.

"I'm in a political science class so a lot of this stuff looks familiar," he said as he tried to match the amendments with their correct number.

Gutierrez said he liked the idea of celebrating the Constitution because it provides students with valuable information.

"It helps students to better understand what the Constitution means and what their rights are," he said. "I think this is a pretty good show."

In addition to the activities held at each campus, students were provided with free copies of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The League of Women Voters had representatives at both institutions conducting voter registration drives."

Perhaps similar celebrations took place at schools in Colorado Springs. Perhaps they just didn't get the media coverage. But they should be happening if they aren't -- since public understanding of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights is critically important to the proper functioning of a free republic.

It's troubling enough when a city or town declares an entire neighborhood "historic," over the objections of property owners who (quite understandably) fear that their freedom to renovate or demolish a home or business will be usurped by some historic preservation committee. But even more alarming is the possibility that such designations could be made piecemeal, targeting individual properties that the city, or busy-body neighbors, don't want changed.

Simply by declaring a property "historic," the city acquires veto power over what that property owner can do with it. The individual's rights are thereby trampled in order to satisfy the aesthetic whims of the collective.

That's exactly what occurred Tuesday evening in the collectivist commune called Boulder, where the owners of an old cottage found themselves separated from their property rights on a 5-3 vote by City Council. Just like that, Boulder's Planning Board "will gain veto power over any plans they submit, and the proposed expansion will fall under more stringent standards" according to the Boulder Daily Camera. (Read the entire story here.) Even the city's historic preservation planner recommended against the action, arguing that designating the house a landmark didn't balance public and private interests. But the city went ahead anyway, depriving Michael and Michelle Clements of the ability to renovate the cottage as they see fit.

"The couple says they’ve already spent more than $100,000 fighting to build their dream home on the property, while maintaining all but a wooden addition to the cottage that was built in 1952," The Daily Camera reports.

Michelle Clements said at the meeting that the process she and her husband have had to endure so far has been “468 days of emotional and financial devastation.”

She told the council she’s had enough of the city’s process.

“We should have the comfort of knowing we can build without the heavy hand of government hanging over our heads,” she said."

But Americans can no longer enjoy that comfort -- which serves as the foundation for all the other rights and freedoms they hold dear -- when elected officials and appointed planning boards can use coercive historic preservation in this way. If such abuses of power can't be overturned in the courts, they should at least be condemned in the court of public opinion.

But where are the pickets? Where are the protests? Where are Boulder's indignant human rights activists now, when the most fundamental of civil rights -- the right to be secure in your person and possessions -- is being trampled by their elected officials, in their backyard? The silence is deafening -- and reveals a dark and disturbing blind spot in the collectivist mindset.

Given the way this city rolls over residents, and crushes their rights, they don't call it Boulder for nothing.

Now that Congress is back in session, and working on yet another energy package, Big Wind, Big Sun, and Big Bio are lining up at the trough for more federal handouts, to be paid with higher taxes on Big Oil, according to this Associated Press report. This really means that the "renewable" subsidies come courtesy of gasoline users like you and me, since oil and gas companies don't eat these costs, but pass them on to consumers in the form of higher pump prices.

Some folks argue that because Big Oil benefits from subsidies of one form or another (depending how one defines the term), it's only fair that these "cleaner" alternatives get government handouts as well. But instead of compounding our energy policy errors, I would argue that we should eliminate all energy subsidies, across the board, to "old" and "new" energy companies alike, and let the best energy options prevail, responding to market forces and consumer choice.

There's no more virtue in giving corporate welfare to Big Wind or Big Sun than in giving it to Big Oil. In either case, the "Bigs" make out like bandits and the consumers and taxpayers get hurt.

When I hear the word “stimulus,” especially when it’s used by Congress, my automatic response is to reach protectively for my wallet. And that’s my impulse, once again, when reading the following in today’s edition of Greenwire:

“Senate Democrats today said they hope to pass a second economic stimulus package in the next several weeks that includes the extension of tax credits for renewable energy, invests in the nation's infrastructure and doles out billions in loans to the auto industry.

Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Sherrod Brown of Ohio said that given the recent turmoil on Wall Street, such a stimulus package is necessary to give Americans peace of mind about an economy shaken by a series of financial crises.

"So much of this is about building confidence," Brown said. "And this would help to restore confidence ... that this economy is ready to turn around."

No specific size of the package was given, but the senators said it would likely be "in the ballpark" of $50 billion. The most likely vehicle for the package would be the continuing resolution Democrats hope to pass in the coming weeks, a spokesperson for Levin said.

Congress passed a roughly $140 billion stimulus package in February. Democrats attempted, but ultimately failed, to include in that bill an energy tax package that would have provided one-year extensions of credits for wind, solar, geothermal and other projects.

Brown said many companies have been hesitant to invest in renewable energy without assurances that those tax credits would be available to them. "I think that's as important as anything we can do," he said.

Levin said the package should also provide aid to an ailing auto industry that has struggled amid high fuel prices and changes in consumer habits. He wants the stimulus package to fund a provision in last year's energy law that would provide $25 billion in loans to carmakers to help spur technological advances to push fleets toward new fuel economy standards.

The two senators said the package could generate both immediate and long-term economic stimulus by investing in the nation's infrastructure. "We need to pay more attention to our infrastructure," said Brown. "Putting money directly into those type of good paying jobs ... leads to other forms of economic development."

Given the current unrest on Wall Street and the increased attention on the economy leading up to November's elections, Brown said he expected such a package could garner significant support from the other side of the aisle.

"I think Republicans are looking for an opportunity, particularly those up for re-election ... to do something different from George Bush's economic policies," Brown said.”

At least once a day, while selecting the news stories I post on this site, I shake my head and ask, "Is this really America?" But giving wider exposure to the tyranny that lurks in America’s backyard, and finding ways to combat it, is what LLO is all about.

Today's believe-it-or-not story comes from The East Hampton Star, out on Long Island, where a man, after being caught by authorities clearing a playing area for his kids, is attempting to atone for his environmental crimes by buying another piece of property and donating it to the city. Because this is the Hamptons, that lot will cost the man nearly $500,000 -- money obviously is no object for the swells living there. But putting that issue aside, the whole situation, as written up by The Star, seems surreal, if not Kafkaesque.

So please join me on a journey to Planet Hamptons, which seems like an alien world from the United States of America we all think we know so well. And don't forget to read the second item, about the new paddleboarding regulations imposed on East Hamptonites.

"Greg Weinstein, a resident of Old Orchard Lane in East Hampton who was cited for clearing too much of his two-acre house lot, has offered the East Hampton Town Board a deal so that he can keep the land as is.

Mr. Weinstein bought the property largely the way it is and likes it that way, his attorney, Jeff Bragman, told the board on Tuesday. The lot is in a water recharge zone where the amount of clearing is restricted to protect groundwater. The property now has about a half acre more cleared than allowed. Mr. Bragman said the open area was ideal for Mr. Weinstein’s children. He added that Mr. Weinstein had had a small, additional area cleared for a practice soccer goal for them.

Normally, cases of this kind are resolved in zoning court, and property owners wind up rectifying violations, which in this case would mean replanting. The deal Mr. Weinstein has proposed in order to keep his land the way he prefers is that he would buy a piece of property that the town has been hoping to preserve and make a gift of it.

The proposal, Mr. Bragman said, has already passed muster with the zoning court judge, Lisa Rana, who sees it as a viable settlement to the overclearing court case, the lawyer said, as long as the town board agrees.

Mr. Weinstein has already signed a $490,000 conditional contract to buy the lot that he would give to the town — a 33,000-square-foot parcel off Old Stone Highway in Springs. Mr. Bragman said the land contains wetlands and “has been a thorn in the side of the town and the [zoning board of appeals] for a couple of years” because its owner is pursuing a plan to build a house there.

Mr. Bragman said he had told his client that he could resolve the matter by revegetating the property at a cost of between $10,000 and $20,000 instead of spending hundreds of thousands more.

But, he said, Mr. Weinstein had given him a budget of $500,000 and he had been “cold-calling” owners of properties the town has eyed, particularly those in water recharge zones. The Old Stone Highway property was suggested to him by Larry Penny, the town natural resources director, who had tagged it as an environmentally sensitive site.

Opinions on the town board were mixed, though all agreed to hold a public hearing on the idea.

“What is the special circumstance here?” Councilman Pete Hammerle asked. “Are we saying that the clearing restrictions we have in our town code don’t really matter as much on this lot? A lot of people aren’t going to be able to propose this kind of solution.”

“This is not just a rich guy buying his way out of the problem,” Mr. Bragman told the board. Essentially, he said, “anybody going before the court is going to be buying their way out of the problem,” by spending money to rectify violations, and pay a fine.

It is “legitimate,” Mr. Bragman said, to ask the board to decide, “on balance, over all, does this make environmental sense?”

“I’m suggesting it is worth it to trade about 20,000 square feet of clearing here — that’s probably been cleared for 15 years or so — in exchange for picking up 33,000 square feet of non-clearing on a wetlands property. But also no house, and no septic system, so you’re eliminating a unit of density. On balance, it makes sense,” he said.

Board members expressed some concern about setting a precedent. Such a proposal would not arise often, Mr. Bragman said, “but it is a way of engaging private people who can do this to come in and save the town some preservation dollars.”

“It’s like fees in lieu of the clearing ordinance,” Councilwoman Pat Mansir said, referring to a mechanism by which developers of some commercial property may pay into a fund ostensibly used to buy land for parking instead of providing the parking normally required.

“Had he done the clearing himself, I would say absolutely not,” Town Supervisor Bill McGintee said, citing a situation where “someone who over-cleared then wants to buy their way out of it. But under the circumstances I could be supportive of this,” he said.

John Jilnicki, the acting town attorney, advised against any change to the town code that would officially allow those not in compliance with zoning laws to resolve their cases in ways that would permit them to avoid following the rules. However, he said, exceptions could be made in the context of a settlement of the zoning court case.

Councilman Hammerle remained opposed, but agreed to listen to public opinion about the idea at the hearing. In addition, he pressed the board, “If we could spell out the ‘special circumstances’ parameters as clearly as possible. . . . So that this doesn’t set a precedent and open a can of worms.”

To Regulate Paddleboards

Stand-up paddleboarders will soon be required to wear life jackets (or other personal flotation devices) while crossing a body of water in East Hampton Town. Near-shore paddlers, or those paddling the boards in the ocean, may continue to do so without them.

Ed Michels, the town’s chief harbormaster, said on Monday that an incident during a paddle last month from Fresh Pond, Amagansett, to Fort Pond Bay, Montauk, led to his department’s decision to define paddleboards as vessels for the purpose of regulating them under the town code. During the cross-bay paddle, the participants spread out, and one paddler fell off his board, was unable to retrieve it, and required help. At another point, a boat came dangerously close to a paddler, Mr. Michels said

The town code says a vessel is any “watercraft (including wind surfboards) or other contrivance used or capable of being used as a means of transportation in water. . . .” The code requires vessel operators to abide by Coast Guard regulations on safety equipment. The stand-up paddleboard is an updated variation of an old, Hawaiian board. They are longer, wider, and thicker than the average longboard used for surfing. Most are made of epoxy-covered foam. Paddles are made of wood or lightweight carbon fiber.

“If you’re on a surfboard and go 100 yards offshore, okay. But if you put a sail on it and head for Connecticut, it’s a vessel,” Mr. Michels said. Mr. Michels said he had discussed the issue with the state boating administrator and Coast Guard officials who agreed with the policy. “If they’re close to the beach, okay. But if they’re out in the open, we’re going to make them come back if they’re not wearing a p.f.d.,” the chief harbormaster said.

Mr. Michels said the p.f.d. did not have to be of the type the Coast Guard calls type one — the most buoyant, usually with a foam composition. The type two, near-shore safety belt or vest used by water skiers would be sufficient, he said."

Barbara Carpenter was Teacher of the Year in West Hartford, Connecticut, in 1995. But when she carried over that putting-students-first attitude to another job, as head of the local teachers’ union, the accolades ended, and she was unceremoniously ousted for collaborating with the enemy – by which I mean the local school district -- on reform issues.

Carpenter’s is a relatively obscure story, which nonetheless says a lot about why teachers’ unions are now seen, even by erstwhile allies, as a major obstacle to education innovation and excellence. It’s the sort of story, regrettably, that I run across routinely when selecting news stories for posting on this site.

Carpenter resigned (though she had little choice), according to The Hartford Courant, “amid apparent infighting over the direction she was taking the (union).” Her fatal mistake was trying to get union members to engage in a "proactive" way with district administrators on policies meant to improve local schools. “In Carpenter's view, teachers are the agents of change and should be involved in decision-making at every level ‘to resolve some of the inherent problems in the educational system,” reports the Courant. “That means a union focus beyond salaries and benefits.”

"It can't be about what we can take," said Carpenter. "It has to be about what we can give."

How much better off would public school in American be if that became the guiding principle of teachers’ unions? But this attitude apparently – and all-too-predictably -- didn’t sit well with the rank and file, who first froze Carpenter out and then literally locked her out of her office. And now the former Teacher of the Year has made to feel like a pariah, telling the newspaper that she would like to return to teaching, “if there is a place for me in this town again."

Such is the fate of those inside the public education establishment, and the teachers’ unions especially, who dare to buck the relentlessly reactionary, anti-reform tack these organizations take. And that’s why they are quite rightly perceived as the biggest single obstacle to education reform in America.

That said, I still think it’s noteworthy that the current GOP platform has a plank calling for the repeal of federal ethanol mandates – which repudiates a pro-ethanol plank in the platform 4 years ago and directly contradicts President Bush’s support for dramatically boosting ethanol production quotas in years to come.

Most sensible people by now recognize that these mandates do little to improve the environment, while fueling inflation at home and a food crisis abroad. Yet the bandwagon, now that it has Bush and so many other political heavyweights aboard, seems to be unstoppable. Candidate McCain has long opposed such mandates, bucking Bush and many farm state colleagues (and showing that you don’t need to genuflect before "Big Corn" to win a party’s nomination. This, along with the fact that the anti-ethanol plank now exists, at least offers a glimmer of hope that the mandate might be repealed or phased out, should McCain be elected.

The plank was not added at McCain’s behest, one of his top economic advisers last week told Bloomberg Radio. It was added because the Republican Party – at least the new Republican Party -- recognizes “that markets work,'' Douglas Holtz-Eakin said. "Biofuels have a place in our future, but we don't need the heavy hand of our government to have them enter into the marketplace."

Of course, this doesn’t sit well with farm belt politicos of both parties, whose constituents are living high on the hog thanks to the mandates. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D) called the party plank “a big mistake," arguing that backing away from ethanol makes the goal of energy self-sufficiency further out of reach. "I disagree with that part of our platform,'' said Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, who credits the mandates with “the vibrant energy business we have right now.''

It may be “vibrant” for corn farmers and ethanol producers, but that comes at a high cost to others, in the form of taxpayer subsidies, higher food prices and the return of inflation.

McCain can’t reverse the mandates unilaterally, of course, and some observers say that Big Corn still has strong support in Congress. But when even environmentalists are backing away from corn-based ethanol and some other biofuels, in recognition that they cause more problems than they solve, you know the tide must be turning.

“Ethanol's wild ride has brought it quickly from political golden child to scapegoat for everything from soaring food prices and world hunger to pork-barrel spending,” the Associated Press reported last week. It seems that even the media recognizes that America's love affair with ethanol may be on the rocks.