FYI - everyone:
The correspondent above was responding to this comment / question from me:
I heard from someone that if
Village does not do the TIF now, and they miss the next assessment, they will walk away from 'millions and millions of dollars in increment'.
let me repeat the lesson from the emailer
IT IS ALL OF OUR MONEY ALREADY!
Did he really say 'lunatic fringe'?
I consider myself a reform Olmstedian. I do not believe in the transubstantiation of divine space, but I DO believe dinosaurs were once in swan pond.
Oh - and I DO floss, for the record.
Lunatic fringe, eh? They'll feel differently when they are standing on the train platform looking at piles of cr*p while they wait. That is, if they have the sense to know it when they see it, which I am beginning to doubt.
Like Candi Grace, our trustee President Jack Wiaduck was elected with 803 votes.
Yes votes for the $4 Million tunnel were over 1200.
Interesting.
Hmmm. The tunnel keep it or forget it referendum was in the November 2006 state wide general election, remember? Voting for Govenor, State treasurer etc. So naturally you'll get a bigger turn out for that than a uncontested local only election. Interesting ,No. Obvious, Yes.
The referenda are at the end of the ballot where only the most interested people bother to go. So, it remains interesting. Also interesting is how we get contested elections in the state and county, but not in the village. Finally, more people might turn out for the village elections if any effort were made to put them on the radar screen of all but the very few.
What if there are more NO TIF votes than there are for the trustees?
Is that not then a mandate according to your low standards in an uncontested local election?
I was pointing out that you could not compare the votes for the tunnel referenda to the last village election because the turn out of voters was different between the two. I think multiple candidates for the village election would be good. However no one seems to wants to try. Might be because the trustee position ,due to the need to absorb reems of data, the requirement to attend endless meetings and functions, all at no pay tends to make most think twice about running. I know I could not afford the time away from my young family and business to do it.The last second party that ran in a village election was a group that had a one idea platform. Stop the B2 ordinace initiative. It made for an interesting election but they lost in my mind primarily due to focusing on one thing only, instead of what is really needed in a trustee. The desire to serve and donate extensive time to serve the multiple needs of Riverside, free of charge. Just my opinion.
just curious--
How do the other local towns (berwyn, brookfield, lagrange pk, lagr, hinsdale, clarendon hills, for example) govern themselves? Do they also have volunteer trustees who have lots of research to do as well as attend meetings?
In those towns, are there multiple parties from which to choose? Is Riverside unique in its one party and occasional independent coyote who comes wandering in?
A thought, an observation--
The current situation that we are in with not a lot of good choices shows the need for an alternative party, or group, to provide a contrast, a choice. Candidates are helped by the support of a bigger party organization, it seems to me. In such an organization, there might be some who are good at one thing and others who are good at another thing, some who have a little more time and others who have less time. Some can fold fliers, some can speak before a group of people, some can coordinate and organize, some can make phone calls, some can walk the town. some can plan and some can execute. some can raise money, some can attend board meetings as a watcher, some can be a reporter, some can talk to the press, etc.
I am guessing that a Barack Obama, for example, is almost just a tip of an iceberg of a bigger organization underneath him. No way can this one dude make this much of an impact so quickly across the nation from just being an Illinois state senator so recently without a bigger organization that supports and cultivates him. The asset that he brings to the group is his demographic, his look, and his ability to speak. He mainly has to make sure he has clean coiffed clothes and a good haircut -- hey, that stuff is also probably done for him. I know this stuff applies to W, also.
"Many hands make the work light."
A big, if not the biggest, impetus or goal of this organization would be to make sure we move away from the centralization and focusing of POWER and move towards consensus and constituency building of the Riverside citizenry, making the locus power in the citizens.
To start w/:
We sometimes might not all agree on a particular policy, but I think everyone agrees that we should have open, transparent, responsive government that serves and is a reflection of the citizens of Riverside AND whose acts are consistant with the vision/charter of the town of Riverside, including the content of the vision statements that we have seen on this site.
I have seen this tried before here, and I know there are people in town who also support this concept. It is just a matter of getting some traction and some escape velocity....yes, and some time.
What might that party or group be called?
Citizens for a Better Riverside ?
--that was one name that someone else had coined once upon a time.
.
any other thoughts?
.
one other: a contrast, a dialogue of differing points of view, can be salutory for a better RIverside. You can get the 'greatest hits' of each point of view and go forward with an amalgam, and so self correcting progress can be eked out bit by bit.
Socrates knew the value of differing, oppositional points of view.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method
While I voted in every single election since I was legal, I did not know about the ins and the outs of this stuff until my house was on the list to be demolished by the State.
Someone else said: All politics is local. I say, as a result of this experience: In the particular one can discover the general.
Sundstrom, why don't you ask Smith what a walk in the park it was to go up against the Caucus, which has been running this town for nearly a century. I realize it requires a lot less time to step in to polish their apples every once in a while.
You must log in to post.