Hickory , North Carolina – Conservative, Old Fashioned Values, Anti-Big Government, Independent.
OH REALLY!
If you look at how Hickory City Government really works there isn’t much difference between the actions and philosophy of City Council versus Barack Obama. For example, this Tuesday the Council will consider and no doubt approve a “partnership” with local businesses and local government (insert “taxpayer”) to remove graffiti from businesses astute enough to suck up to the public teat. The argument is that graffiti is unsightly, looks blighted and bad and, of course, detracts from the public good as well as the private business. What is the difference between this and Obama’s desire to take over the health care industry? In both cases the taxpayers will foot the bill for private business activities with “the public good” as the rationale for government involvement. Or how about the take over of GM? Well, a vibrant auto industry is in the public interest isn’t it? We need the jobs here. (Too bad the blacksmiths didn’t have Obama around in the horse and buggy days)
Why not pay for their garbage pick up? After all, garbage laying around is unsightly and could lead to disease. Why not paint their walls and re-carpet their floors? After all, poorly maintained businesses detract from the image of a prosperous, progressive Hickory . Why not have the taxpayers pay a bonus to all business owners? After all, we don’t want our wealthier folks too far down the ladder of prosperity. We want our Country Clubbers to be able to proudly hob nob with the best, don’t we.
The bottom line is that you can justify almost any kind of expenditure with this kind of fuzzy thinking and there is far too much of it in Hickory City Government. We yell ‘ fascist’ and ‘socialist’ when Obama does it but when Rudy-Mick and company do it the few literate people in Hickory who do notice it apparently give it a collective: duh huh. Apparently, passing out the public’s goodies to the politically connected will continue apace even though the City’s finances aren’t in the best shape.
We have no cause to yell at the current Federal government when we do the same here in Hickory . But with the apathy in this City I’m sure it won’t even be noticed, much less create a stir. Welcome to the first great legislative action of Hickory 2010. The Obama/Wright leadership team rolls on.
3 comments:
This was dealt with at the City Council meeting of February 17, 2009. You can read the summary under the Consent Agenda. We felt the Mayor did the right thing at that point in time, so why are we going right back down the same road one year later?
This seems to be where the definition of insanity is getting stirred in with politics. Just a month after being sworn in and here comes the City Council filling up the slush funds.
You know, I think that the Hound's role as an agency of advocacy for the average person in this city is about to be fulfilled. My partners here at the Hound have discussed this issue this evening and we need to turn this into a positive agenda of action for our city.
On this issue, we need to find every graffiti item in Hickory Proper and take it to the city since they feel the need to bankroll this so badly. So if you know of any graffiti in the city please feel free to e-mail me at hickoryhound@gmail.com.
Also, as an agency of advocacy, I feel that it has become our responsibility and obligation to investigate where monies are available and promote them throughout the city, especially to people in need. Please feel free to send me an e-mail letting me know of any worthy causes that you feel are being neglected.
Also, please feel free to comment here on this thread. We are going to do our dead level best to help the City of Hickory fulfill their need to spend money on the "Common Good."
What we ought to do is make the graffiti artist the target of a bit of rude entertainment. We could set a bounty on them and let the local paint ball militia go after them. Once "identified" with paint the police could take them into custody for processing and release. The cost of paying the bounty would be a fraction of the cost of removing graffiti. In that model the artist could be doing the cleanup during the day and painting the graffiti at night. In my model the bounty could be paid until the activity was suppressed.
Or what about the Community Advisory Committee getting some some volunteers to go volunteer to help businesses clean this stuff up. The business pays for the chemicals and paint and the volunteers help clean it up.
What blows my mind is that the city's answer to everything is "Hey, lets go pay ACME painting some inflated sum to clean up XYZ business."
I can guarantee you that if volunteers from around the city are cleaning this stuff up, then all the sudden you will see raised awareness from the public and volunteers and you will see these delinquents caught.
It's called "skin in the game" and for some reason the city is clueless about the concept. Everything in this city revolves around no pain and getting others to solve my problem or sweeping it under the rug.
Shoot, if the city is going to create makework off of such trivial matters, then why shouldn't painting/cleaning companies just pay some kids to go paint up the town and then they will create business for themselves that will pay many times over that investment. $10 worth of spray paint can create thousands of dollars of business opportunities.
I can tell you that law enforcement can't stop this. It will take people paying attention and caring to stop it. I guarantee that there are people that know who is doing the graffiti and tagging, but they aren't going to turn their buddy in.
The most important variable in this equation is to change the mindset of the people around here. If they don't mind living in a rundown ghetto, then that is exactly what they will live in.
City money will not solve this (these)problem(s). Property owners have to have enough pride in their property/investment to find personal solutions to these problems!!!
Post a Comment