A DDA Presentation I'd Like to Hear

I have a friend in the commercial finance business that has an interesting business goal. His goal is for his clients to become financially stable enough to no longer need his services. His list of successes are his former clients, not his current ones.

I wish Ferndale's DDA had a similar goal.

Monday night, the DDA made a presentation to city council I'm sure anyone who's seen a couple of their presvious dog-and-ponies before could have narrated--without notes. The DDA helps stores with facade improvements, the DDA decorates downtown, the DDA hangs flowers, and this spring the DDA pimped pots.

According to their presentations, they're a $300,000/year arts and crafts committee.

To liven up their next visit to council and throw the city for a loop, here's a message I'd love to hear at a future DDA presentation:

Good evening mayor and council members.

After nearly 20 years of attacking blight in our downtown we're proud to announce our mission is accomplished. Our downtown sparkles. Its largest and most successful events are produced and promoted by downtown business owners, and surveys show residents and visitors alike feel both welcomed and safe on our streets, day or night.

Therefor we are resigning our commission, disbanding the DDA, and returning our TIF monies to the county where it may be used for parks, public safety, or even Treasurer Andy Meisner's Land Bank.

Or perhaps the money may be used for our next adventure, securing a Central Business District designation for Hilton between Eight and Ten Mile roads to stimulate another of Ferndale's assets which has, for too long, been ignored.

It's time the DDA decides whether it's accomplished its mission or not. I think it has, and the DDA and our downtown businesses should be congratulated. They've crossed the goal line, they've moon-walked in the end-zone, and now its time to give the ball to another team.

I think the next game should be kicked-off on Hilton.

I want to be the first to say it: Newspapers are killing themselves

I just read The Ann Arbor News is closing its doors in July. They will join the Rocky Mountain News, The Seattle Inteligencier, and numerous other daily newspapers that will close their doors and blame it, in part, on the Internet.

I want to be the first to say Newspapers, especially journalists and editorial page editors, have done this to themselves. Under their watch the federal government has grown progressively bigger without their objection. In fact, the federal government's growth has been applauded and encouraged by many journalists whose liberal bias supports the notion that government can and should do more, and the more the government provides the better.

We're quickly arriving at a point where our federal government does so much and our state and local government relatively little, that most of the news fit to print comes out of a single location: Washington DC. Exactly how many newspapers and TV news shows does it take to cover a single city in America?

In the Detroit area there's only one locally-produced news program in the morning on Fox affiliate, WJBK. NBC, ABC, and CBS all produce their morning shows out of NY (one city) covering their favorite two topics, Hollywood and Washington DC. On those local channels the only local content is weather and traffic, and a brief three minute news interruption.

The blogosphere is hardly to blame. Most bloggers are covering the same national stories everyone else covers coming from the same locations--Hollywood and DC. Journalists like to follow the money trail, and since most the money is in those two locations it makes sense there's less interesting news everywhere else.

In a subsequent article I'll see if I can substantiate my hypothesis by looking at the growth in federal budgets, the growth in programs, and the decline in newspaper readership.

This quick article is just so I can go on record as having thought of this first. Actually, I thought of it a few days ago, but posted some comments on other blogs today and was finally inspired by the news story above to post here.

Stay tuned.

ZIP responds: Seven Facts about zoning

Patti Ashmore, the leader of the group opposing First Baptist Church's leasing space to SOS, has published an editoral on FerndaleOnline. As neither the Daily Tribune or Woodward Talk has seen fit to print it, I'm glad she was able to publish it.

After reading the article, please join the discussion.

Is God a socialist?

Today's Detroit News contained an interesting op-ed from Doug Bandow, author of the book, Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics. I haven't read the book so can not comment on it, but his op-end, Is God a Socialst?, contains an interesting perspective on people, religion, and politics--specifically Christians.

The version appearing in the Detroit News is an edited-down version of a longer piece published in The American Spectator on January 9, 2009.

Rather than dilute his commentary with mine, I'll simply quote my favorite sections below and encourage you to read either the short version or the long version for yourself. I've only written two related articles to his points below. They are; Thou shalt not covet or graduate your neighbors' taxes and Christ among the partisans.

To understand the context of his comments and why I like them it is important to know the sections below were preceded with examples of churches, church leaders, and religious people praying and demonstrating to influence public policy. The implication being that some people's faith creates a desire to model public policy after their interpretation of scripture. But more importantly that compassion must be connected to consequence. Good intention are not enough and we should remember where the path paved with good intentions leads.

"However, applying Christian principles requires more than a little humility. The Bible tells much about man's relationship to God and man, but very little about the role of government. That is, Christian principles yield no specific legislative agenda.

"For instance, one cannot read Scripture without a profound appreciation of our duty to help our neighbors. However, we are commanded to give, not to make others give.

"The welfare state is a matter of political prudence, not religious principle. That is one reason why the Apostle James encouraged us to ask God for wisdom. Christians are expected to be compassionate, but God does not detail how we are to give compassion practical effect. The point is, compassion is not enough. Consequences matter.

"Should the government further bail out the auto industry? Channeling scarce resources into failing industries will divert needed money from existing companies and potential new enterprises, destroying even more jobs.

"Attempting to freeze the housing market would merely prolong the agony of many people who borrowed too much. Artificially propping up housing prices also will penalize potential buyers -- especially low-income and new purchasers.

"A Christian's walk in the political world will never be easy. But Christians should never forget that their principal duties have nothing to do with politics."

Ferndale First Baptist should break agreement with SOS

Ferndale's First Baptist Church should break its agreement with The South Oakland Shelter (SOS) to lease an unused building for SOS to use as administrative offices.

The best argument citizens have in favor of SOS's relocation to First Baptist from its current Royal Oak address on Main Street, is that SOS does good work. Personally, I think the Murphy brothers did a great job on my kitchen but its unlikely the church would have offered a lease to them for that reason and I don't think that's what was meant by "good work."

Instead, what was meant by good work is that SOS has a charitable mission. As charitable as the Murphy brothers may be charity isn't the brothers' mission so the church is still unlikely to lease space to them.

But ultimately, niether SOS' or the Murphies' missions are the issue that should be debated. The real argument is that by becoming a landlord to SOS, First Baptist's mission suddenly changed from leases on the after-life to leases in general.

I have nothing against landlords or churches and am on good terms with several of both. But if I purchased a property near a church I expect the church to do church-like things. I do not expect them to turn the temple into a den of landlords and not expect me to toss a fit or two.

It seems the neighbors supporting SOS at the church feel the church is simply extending its charitable and religious mission to include SOS' mission to the newly homeless. SOS' is indeed a noble and virtuous mission, but the church can support that mission by donating money or volunteering time to the SOS. It doesn't have to lease space or upset its neighbors to do that.

The church could also donate the space to the SOS. That would be charitable, too, and it would successfully silence my argument about their becoming a landlord (I think). As long as the charity isn't bartering with the church or paying a share of the utility bills I might change my mind.

But I'm pretty confident that won't happen. A Christmas-day article in the Detroit News detailed how the bad economy and worries of job security have driven-down donations to all charitable organizations. GM recently cut-off funding to arts and cultural institutions (I don't think anyone wonders why). Those facts combined with the area's other demographics suggest Ferndale may not be able to support as many churches as it used to with either members or donations, just as it can't support as many schools or tool & die shops.

So if churches, like automakers, are reluctant to close or combine with other churches; what are they to do with all that empty, unused space? Why not supplement Sunday collections by going into the property management business?

The residents protesting the 25-year lease agreement aren't evil or uncharitable. Councilman T. Scott Galloway's recent city-council sermonizing stated his certainty that the Christian thing to do was to support SOS. So, before Christ did his big "den-of-thieves" thing in Jerusalem's temple he should have checked with Scott first.

The much over-quoted Ecclesiastes 3's "To every thing there is a season.." is worth paraphrasing as, "To every thing there is a place." And that's why Ceasar created zoning commissions and zoning plans, so the interests and quality of Ferndale's neighborhoods would be balanced against the interests and quality of Ferndale's commercial districts. For a building surrounded on three sides by homes to switch from friendly neighborhood church to a competitor for tax-paying landlords violates zoning rules.

If the church doesn't see fit to break its agreement for biblical reasons the zoning commission or city council should break it for secular reasons.

John McCulloch interviews Tom Gagne on WJR

On Friday, February 13, I was invited to discuss BAMN's protests at Western Market and other downtown Ferndale stores on WJR's The Frank Beckman Show. John McCulloch was sitting-in for Frank Beckman.

Today, WJR posted the audio for that nearly 30-minute segment. Also on the program were Western Market's Steve Selvaggio and Ferndale School District spokesperson, Stephanie Hall.

Click on the links below to hear a recording of the broadcast.

Part One
Part Two

BAMN's Ferndale protests featured on WDET

Today, Detroit Today host, Craig Fahle, interviewed Western Market's Steve Selvaggio, BAMN's Shanta Driver, and Ferndale School District's Stephanie Hall. The audio may be available on the Detroit Today's podcasts, but a lively discussion continues on WDET's forums.