Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Hair-raising

Both today’s headlines at The Principality’s community newspaper, School Board Proposes $62.1 Million Budget For the 2004-05 Year and Disputed Tulane Street Project Moves Forward, continue to drive home the hair-raising possibilities of further expenses.

The school budget, they wail, “is continually forced to tack on unfunded mandates, which leaves little or no money for local spending”, and “This year’s budget will only contain Level I spending, which includes expenditures needed to maintain programs. No Level II spending, which would pay to expand programs or add new ones will be part of the budget”.

Forgive me while I play the world’s smallest violin, but my husband and I have lived for years making sure we have an emergency fund for “maintaining programs” — avoiding getting into debt, making sure the house is well maintained, not spending money frivolously, and, when doing any project on the house itself, keeping in mind that any construction can (and often does) end up being 25% more expensive than projected. All the while, the taxpayers are, thanks to local overspending, “continually forced to tack on unfunded mandates”, which are endless.

The schools now need more money: $500,000 will be used to furnish the schools, even when that cost was supposed to be covered by the $100 million bond issue for the construction project but unforeseen costs ate up that money, and $103,000 on top of that will be eaten up by construction delays. “Neither of these costs will affect taxes” in The Principality, said the Board Secretary. Why am I doubtful?

The second article reminds us that, on top of the $18-19 million spent on the Library, there’s the $1.3 million library plaza. The library plaza, BTW, is more or less the size of a basketball court (no, you won’t be able to play basketball there), and yes, it is public space in the middle of prime real estate.

But the article is not about that.

The article’s about Phase II of the Downtown Development Project. Phase I is the 5-story parking-garage-built-on-the-stream, (Building A). Phase II is a 5-story mixed use building with 53 apartments (Building C). No mention of Building B in the article. All of this abecedary construction is, again, subsidized by the taxpayer, in prime real estate, developed by a former Borough Council member without the benefit of public bidding, and won’t pay taxes (instead there’s “in lieu of taxes” stuff in the works). It all comes down to some $13-14million for now, at least that’s the amount of the bond issue (not to be confused with the $100 school bond).

At least the opposition making noises. On a letter to the editor, “Redevelopment Project” Led Inexorably to Huge Tax Increase, the attorney for Concerned Citizens of The Principality points out that the parking-garage-built-on-the-stream was completed before there was a final judicial ruling on the legality of the bond issue. He raises the question “the Borough may find itself wondering what to do with illegally-issued bonds that financed the 5-story” parking-garage-built-on-the-stream.

Hair raising, indeed.

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https://faustasblog.com/2004/03/17/

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Slow Reading

Today’s headline: Library moving date could face revision. Opening may be pushed back a week.

One of the public works projects that The Principality has saddled its taxpayers with is the new resplendent Public Library. Appropriately, the new library was scheduled to open on April Fool’s Day; March 21 was the scheduled moving date, but it has been changed to March 28, since, according to the article, “the library is awaiting its temporary Certificate of Occupancy”. The opening date would then be April 8.

(Temporary CO?). No explanation is given as to why the CO is on hold (or why it is temporary).

The library is presently at The Principality Shopping Center, where you can find any materials you may need if your needs are modest (what you would expect from a local public library), in a perfectly adequate space that was formerly occupied by two bookstores. It is small, conveniently located next to the gym and the supermarket, and, most importantly, there’s plenty of free parking space. Conveniently enough that the number of visitors increased by 25% in the new location.

The new library was expected to cost $12million when it was first proposed, but by now the number is $18-19million.

The library originally anticipated a December 2003 opening but a survey error resulted in the installation of footing 6 inches lower than called for in design plans and the opening date was set back to February of this year. Construction then suffered from harsh winter weather that forced the library to push back the opening date again.

The new building is big, located downtown in the middle of prime commercial real estate, where parking is either not available or to be found in the soon-to-be-completed parking-building-built-on-the-stream.

I called the Shopping Center management office and was told that the amount of the current monthly rent “is not public information”. A quick Google search showed that the rent is estimated at $20,000/month, and, may I point out, in a commercial space for which the landlord takes care of the maintenance and pays taxes to the community. Compare that to the $75,000/month (my estimate: 5% interest divided by 12 months x $18,000,000) debt service, which doesn’t include maintenance costs, for a building that will never pay taxes, on a prime location. Another question also arises, since the parking building’s grand opening was scheduled to take place in tandem with the Library’s, does this mean the parking building’s opening will be delayed further, so there’s no parking revenue that week?

Still, the article assures us “if the extra time is required, it is not likely to exceed the library’s project budget”.

“Not likely”. Let’s hope.

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https://faustasblog.com/2004/03/16/

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Recommended obscure book: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Since The University sits in the middle of The Principality and doesn’t pay taxes, its public relations department is keen to promote good will among the locals, hence, we are allowed to audit classes at The University. It was my distinct pleasure to audit Prof. Vance’s excellent Middle English class last year.

Life is full of surprises, however, and early in the class I noticed that several of the students, who are paying nearly $40,000/yr on tuition, habitually didn’t read their assignments on time for the class. Being of the prior generation, I truly couldn’t figure out how they were able to show their faces, much less admit that they hadn’t done the reading. I simply don’t have any sense on humor about this. Back in the olden days we weren’t doing that sort of thing (it didn’t even occur to me, fool that I was), especially for $40,000. On the other hand, as The Husband put it, “it’s not their (the student’s) $40,000, it’s their parents”. That aside, the professor was very patient, erudite, and passionate about the topic, and the class was interesting and challenging.

The first challenge, aside from not tearing my hair out when hearing people hadn’t read their homework, was getting used to the language. Middle English is like Yoda reading Shakespeare on steroids, only difficult. I mean, this:

Thenne watz Gryngolet graythe, that gert watz and huge

means this:

Then Gringolet was ready, that great horse and huge. You get the idea.

Still, I did well enough to mostly understand what was going on with Sir Orfeo and a dozen other Sirs and Ladies, and by the time we got the The Canterbury Tales it all made sense. All the effort was definitely worth it. The Canterbury Tales was great fun, and take my word for it, the Canterbury pilgrims were up to no good, and loving it. A side benefit of taking a Middle English class is that you can impress your really-well-read friends at cocktail parties.

Of all the books we read my favorite’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It has everything an action/adventure story could need, plus romance, told in poetry of great lyricism:


But then the weather on earth battles with winter,

The Cold shrinks downwards, clouds rise higher,

And shed sparkling rain in warming showers,

Falling on smiling plains where flowers unfold.

Both open fields and woodlands put on green dress;

Birds hasten to build, and rapturously sing

For joy of gentle summer that follows next on the slopes.

And flowers bud and blossom

In hedgerows rich with growth,

And many splendid songs

From woodlands echo forth

The Broadview Literary Texts edition is in Middle English with facing translation by James Winny (and it’s beautifully translated), so you don’t have to sweat it. Go read it.

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https://faustasblog.com/2004/03/11/