Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

The mortgage lending crisis explained

Want to REALLY understand the mortgage/credit crisis and the myriad human failings that created the mess we're in? Click HERE to listen to the "Giant Pool of Money" episode of NPR's THIS AMERICAN LIFE.

It's astounding. From the story:

People would close on a house, sign all the papers - - and then default on their very first payment. No loss of a job; no medical emergency. They were underwater before they even started.

There's the story of one particular person - now in deep financial trouble -  who, upon looking at the mortgage loan application his original broker filled out for him, learned that it claimed he made $16,250 a month. He was able to get a half-million dollar loan while making $37,000 a year. What's in it for the broker? An $18,500 commission.

Foreclosure is becoming a booming industry.

Franklin's Plan Commission now useless by design

ABOVE: It's ok, we planned it that way....

Allow me to begin by quoting a blog post from last September:

On the Plan Commission, Kevin Haley has been an ongoing beacon of wisdom. Never afraid to express the truth, no matter how unpopular, his was the sole dissenting vote against approving Target's building. After praising Target's efforts and execution, Haley said he would nonetheless have to oppose the motion:

My concerns are with the big picture, the quality. The Civic Center District guidelines tell us that this is supposed to set a higher standard. This is the standard by which all of Franklin will be evaluated in terms of architecture, site planning, many amenities. You did a great job on spiffing up the building, but as I tried to make apparent in our previous meetings, I have issues with the site plan, with the massing of the buildings, the fact that many of the third and fourth sides are very plain.

Haley is not soothed by a pretty facade; he's aware of the root of the site plan problem: Everything is built around the self-sufficient Target. This will ultimately be the undoing of the entire development as a true public space and commercial success beyond the Target parking lot border.

Mayor Taylor noted after Haley's comments:

Commissioner Haley, I’ve said it before -- I very much respect that you are sticking to your guns and principles. And I understand that you’ve made it no secret for some time that perhaps this could be done or that could be done. I do appreciate your position, and I also very much appreciate you being a plan commissioner.

As should we all.

Well, forget all that.

News comes to me that Mayor Tom Taylor has removed Kevin Haley from the Franklin Plan Commission. His three-year term has been given to present one-year appointment Shari Corrigan Hanneman. No replacement for the vacant chair has been announced as of now.
 

Kevin Haley was, without question, the single member of the Plan Commission who could be counted on to advocate for the COMMUNITY, understand the site plans, and vote with his conscience.

It was Haley who recognized the bald cynicism of Mark Carstensen's  11th hour addition of a single-family residence behind the Target loading dock of Shoppes at Wyndham Village - - after Carstensen had asked for and gotten re-zoning that would not permit such a dwelling in that location. (Incredibly, even as Carstensen's lucrative development endangered this family's property, he was able to make them think it was the Plan Commission they needed to fear!)

Kevin Haley was often a burr in developers' saddle, and - - barring an announcement that he's being named to a consequential planning post I've not yet heard of - - he has been removed so the rubber stamp can fall more efficiently.

I will in the days ahead I will be posting the backgrounds of each remaining Plan Commissioner. Prepare to be underwhelmed.

In the meantime, realize that one sitting plan commissioner, George Torres, was comfortable writing a letter dated 1/2/07 to WISDOT in support of Carstensen's Shoppes at Wyndham Village before seeing any definitive plans and before Carstensen's development had appeared before him in his role as plan commissioner - - a role in which Torres would and should be expected to show no positive predisposition toward a project that has not yet demonstrated compliance to the city's requirements.

Download TorresLetter.pdf

An especially cuddly passage from Torres' letter:

Mr. Carstensen has also proven to be committed to ensuring his developments meet all State and local requirements. He remains open and receptive to ideas and suggestions that must be met in order to allow his projects to move ahead.

Really?

Dateline 6/4/07: At the eleventh hour, Carstensen foists a single-family residence on the land he had re-zoned to City Civic Center District by making it seem as though the city would be the bad guy if the family had to leave. Meanwhile, the city of Franklin has on file a letter of permission from the homeowners dated 2/13/07 for Carstensen to apply for a Site Plan And Certified Map approval on their behalf. The letter states plainly: "Mr. Carstensen is currently under contract with us for the purchase of the property." (My emphasis). The city was clearly fooled.

Dateline 6/7/07: I report the Common Council's rubber-stamping of an odd boundary re-draw - "odd geometry," I call it - on the Shoppes at Wyndham Village site plan. I make a prediction borne out below.

Dateline 11/23/07: Carstensen  agrees to pay $46,000 to avoid a federal lawsuit over the destruction of wetlands at the site Shoppes at Wyndham Village.

Dateline 1/12/08: This blog unearths the agreement between Target and Carstensen that basically laughs off the City Civic Center District ambitions Carstensen touted when attempting to get rezoned so his project could go forward. Even the mayor was unaware of the document's existence.

How can a Plan Commissioner hold a developer to his/her promises and responsibilities when he's already on record as ready to rubber stamp whatever strip mall the developer spits out?

Kevin Haley asked the hard questions and raised issues that served the interests of this community and its future rather than that of the developers and their next Big Deal. He was the Plan Commissions' greatest asset.

And now Mayor Taylor has removed Mr. Haley from the Franklin Plan Commission.

More on this later.

Man on the street Boomgaard video: SURPRISE! Nobody like the name ...

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Jim Stingl asked some folks around town what the think of "Boomgaard District" as a name for the 27th Street area (click HERE for video feed).

The Zizzo Group and 27th Street honcho Ted Grintjes must be bursting with pride.

Wait until we talk about the money we spent for that silly name ....

Sad news at the Franklin Post Office

Do you see that space above? It's inside the "conveniently located" Franklin Post Office. That defiled space is where the single greatest innovation in Franklin Post Office history used to reside - - until recently.

It was the home of the self-service package and parcel machine. Instead of racing to get to the P.O. during business hours and then waiting in line  you could walk in 24-7 and push a few buttons, slide that credit card, and out came a postage decal ready to affix to your box or oversized envelope. It made you feel like George Jetson. No lines, no hassle.

So we don't have jet-packs, vacations on the Moon, or mechanical smart-aleck maids; who cared as long as we had the wonderful self-serve package machine?

But now it's gone - - some P.O. honcho decided it wasn't getting used enough here. The lady at the counter said she gets about 20 complaints a day about its disappearance.

Boomgaard, and now this. The downward spiral ...

"The aspirational spending race brought to the lawn"

[Illustration: Slate.com]

When I was a youngster, the ball park and playground were close enough that we in the neighborhood felt those amenities were extensions of our back yards. Sure, there were the every-two-summers-or-so trips to the riverbank to get fresh sand (fresh sand!) for the sandbox, and most people had a little swingset with which to create minor injuries, but the real action - - and INTERACTION - - was at the playground and ball parks we all shared.

Of course, those days are over, and every suburban house is a world unto itself. I often look at the huge, elaborate Rainbow play structures in certain backyards - - out where they are accessible by all the surrounding houses, yet not usable by the neighbor kids because it's private property - - and wonder no more about where our civility has gone.

We began losing it when we lost neighborhood playgrounds. To save $18 a year on our property taxes.

From Slate.com:

Lawn Pox

Children's play equipment and the decline of the American yard.

By Tom Vanderbilt
Posted  Friday, May 2, 2008, at 7:13 AM ET

---

The next time you drive down a street in suburban or exurban America, pay careful attention to the yards. Lurking somewhere, either peeping out from the back or nakedly displayed right in front, some form of children's play equipment, typically in plastic and typically in some bright primary color, will probably be splayed on the grass.

I'd like to raise just one question about this picture of domestic bliss: How often do you actually see a child playing on, or near, one of these devices?

On a recent weekend trip through a posh Connecticut suburb, the kind with moss-covered stone walls and dense canopies of mature trees, I was dismayed to find the sylvan harmony of the scene constantly disrupted by garish blights, from wavy slides to inflatable contraptions of the kind once relegated to seasonal carnivals. It was as if a McDonald's PlayPlace—some alien, mother-ship PlayPlace—was spawning its miniaturized brood across the landscape (and simultaneously vaporizing the kids).

The Web site of Little Tikes—which boasts an American flag banner noting that some of its polycarbonate products are "Made in the USA" and then, just below, slightly less triumphantly, "or Made in the USA with US and Imported Parts"—offers a representative field guide to this kiddie sprawl, listing such injection-molded contraptions as the "Endless Adventures Slide & Hide Tower" and the "6-in-1 Town Center."

The phrase "fun that lasts" pops up often on the Little Tikes Web site, as if the manufacturer were trying to allay the suspicion of the purchasing parent that the giant red, yellow, and blue elephant he or she is buying will soon be nothing more than a mowing obstacle. For parents were once children, and they know the iron law: The more time spent in assembling a toy, the less it will actually be used. (A corollary: The packaging is inevitably more interesting than what's inside.) My sister-in-law reports that each year, her upstate New York town's annual "cleanup" day produces a massive haul of slides, swings, tubes, and tunnels, all of which seemingly have half-lives of one weekend and swiftly find themselves headed for the landfill.

The environmental implications alone—each piece of equipment must represent a lifetime's worth of plastic shopping bags—are reason enough to eschew this stuff. Then there are the aesthetics. On this, I'm hardly alone in my displeasure. In her account of the perils of suburban gardening, Paths of Desire, Dominique Browning recounts how a new neighbor installed an enormous swing-set with a plastic slide facing her house: "Obviously, I had developed an exaggerated aversion to the plastic; I'm the first to admit it. But brightly colored plastic (and who decided kids enjoy these colors anyway?) in the garden is one of my peeves." Or, as one blogger more bluntly put it, "The only thing worse than a neighbor with fifteen different pieces of play junk in his front yard is a neighbor with fifteen different pieces of insanely brightly colored play junk in his front yard."

Before you dismiss such complaints as mere aesthetic snobbery, consider another of Browning's pet peeves: "Why [does] every yard have to replicate the same debris, swing after swing, marching down the backs of the houses?" Her question highlights a few larger problems with this seemingly benign landscape element. The first is the decline of the playground. In her book American Playgrounds, Susan Solomon notes how the fear of injuries and their litigious consequences forced the closing, or banal "post-and-platform" retrofitting, of many playgrounds. Gone are the kinds of things that defined my own childhood: terrifying metal "monkey bars" pitched over a pit of hard gravel or the towering, twisting, all-metal "tornado slide," as we called it, which was at once the most exhilarating and the most dangerous thing in my young life.

But, injuries aside, a larger specter began to haunt playgrounds, Solomon notes: "Told incessantly to be mindful of lurking dangers and the people who might inhabit the outdoors, [paranoid] parents often defer trips to public spaces. Going to a playground becomes too exhausting for a parent to contemplate." And so instead of a communal play space, each yard becomes a (rarely used) playground unto itself.

It's not just fear that underlies the American tendency toward elaborate play furniture. One parent-blogger recounted how his wife had purchased a massive water slide from Sam's Club. This led him to reflect that, once upon a time, only one house on each block had "the cool thing." "Today," he writes, "I live in a neighborhood where, if one kid gets a toy, everybody else eventually ends up with the same thing, albeit bigger and more ghastly looking."

Yes, it's the aspirational spending race brought to the lawn. Of course, it was already there, in the execrable outrages committed in the name of "outdoor living," the kind routinely chronicled in the pre-recessionary Weekend section of the Wall Street Journal (the Masters and Johnson of bourgeois anxiety): the grotesque waterfalls coursing over volcanic rock from Hawaii, the waterproof plasma televisions hovering over the pool, the backyard pizza ovens. But this impulse has spread to the short-pants set. How else to explain the ridiculous ensembles found at the higher end of the children's play equipment market? At Posh Tots, for example, one can purchase, for $122,000, a "Tumble Outpost" filled with ropes and swings and ladders, the kind that would sustain an entire playground but is meant for private consumption. Or feast your eyes on the capacious "luxury playhouses," like the "pint-sized plantation" known as "Oakmont Manor."

I have come to think of all these things, in both their lack of use and aesthetic alien-ness, as being symptomatic of the decline of the American lawn. I don't mean grass per se but, rather, the whole relationship of the house to its exterior; the meaning of the outdoor space as a pastoral enclave in a larger natural setting; the civility and beauty brought by the carefully considered arrangement of plants, trees, and shrubs—the sort of things one used to see in the so-called "garden suburbs."

U.S. Census Bureau data tell us that as American house sizes have grown (despite shrinking family sizes), the size of lots has actually shrunk. It is now not uncommon to see massive houses crowding to the very edge of their property line. Whatever lot is left is typically barren grass with a few random shrubs installed by landscapers (the lawn version of a bad hair-plug job). The scalped appearance of these lots is usually not accidental—developers often find it easier to cut down mature trees than to work around them.

And so then one sees it: the asymmetrical, triple-garage-fronted, architecturally confused house, towering over a lawn that's utterly stark—as if surrounding a prison so escapees can be seen—except for the assemblage of plastic junk and recreation equipment scattered here and there. Which is not being used, of course, because the entire family is inside the giant house, where the sounds of Nintendo echo off the high walls of the great room. The bright plastic begins to look like a memorial to the noble, dated idea of children playing outdoors. As historian Kenneth Jackson notes in his book Crabgrass Frontier, the shift to largely indoor living, accompanied by the much-reported decline of gardening and encouraged by everything from air conditioning (often now needed because houses seem to lack shade cover from trees) to front porches being replaced by garages, has left yards—when they even exist—curiously empty. "There are few places as desolate and lonely as a suburban street on a hot afternoon," he writes.

The unused plastic playthings and private playgrounds scattered in the barren yard speak not only to vanishing outdoor play but to a larger cultural disconnect from nature, from one's own environment. But there is a simple solution for this. Instead of buying cheap, potentially toxic plastic water slides and the like, plant a garden. Plant a tree. Plant something. It may not impress your neighbor, but it will last longer, it will look better, and it will have a better effect on the environment than plastic slides. And there is another benefit. In his book Second Nature, Michael Pollan writes touchingly about a hedge of lilac and forsythia at his childhood home on Long Island, N.Y. To the adult eye, the hedges were simply flush against the fence. But he had his own secret garden, a space between the hedge and the fence. "To a four-year-old, though, the space made by the vaulting branches of a forsythia is as grand as the inside of a cathedral, and there is room enough for a world between a lilac and a wall." He didn't need a plastic playhouse or an obscene mini-McMansion to find space to play. The natural world, when it is embraced, not only provides the opportunity for play—I imagine many of you, like me, have fond childhood memories of a swing hanging from a tree, or a tree house, or jumping in leaves, or running through the sprinkler as it watered the tomatoes—but connects us all to something larger and more lasting.

Tom Vanderbilt is the Brooklyn-based author of Survival City: Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America and writes for many publications including the New York Times, Nest, the London Review of Books, and I.D.

Is Menards having its cake and eating it too with subdivision development?

No one else has asked, so I will: In cases where Menards is developing locations adjacent to or in proximity of land that they have acquired through subsidy deals with local governments, or near roads improved or built as part of that subsidy, is someone holding Menards accountable in some way as they exploit that subsidy in this new venture?

For example, are local municipalities seeing to it that taxpayer-funded subsidies to Menards are at least partially repaid by ensuring that these new subdivisions serve their constituents that are in need of affordable housing?

A sidenote to the story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel answers that question:

THESE AREN'T STARTER HOMES
Of the three residential subdivisions being developed by Menard Inc., just one - Prairie Meadows, in Yorkville, Ill. - has homes that have been built. Houses currently available there have listed sale prices ranging from $349,900 to $396,900. They include such features as three-car garages, walk-in pantries, stainless steel appliances and master bathrooms with whirlpool tubs.

Perhaps there is someone out there who can show me that the locations mentioned in the story were developed without subsidy support, and therefor Menards faces no obligation to local taxpayers. Good luck.

Wal-Mart plays a similar game. Local municipalities basically give Wal-Mart the huge chunk of land they demand for their superstores; then Wal-Mart collects rent from "out-buildings" on the huge unused frontage that are leased by Wendy's and other tenants (Wal-Mart counts itself as a tenant as well, paying rent to itself in the ever-popular REIT tax avoidance scheme).

What a deal.

Menards breaks new ground

Retailer hopes developing subdivisions will pay off

By TOM DAYKIN
tdaykin@journalsentinel.com

Posted: May 5, 2008

People typically run to Menards to buy stuff for their weekend projects: a new drill, maybe a toilet seat.

But lately, the company is stocking something a bit more unusual: home sites.

Eau Claire-based Menard Inc. is becoming more active as a developer of residential subdivisions - an extension of the company's role as the nation's third-largest home improvement retailer.

Menard is proceeding with plans to develop two large subdivisions, in Warsaw, Ind., and Urbana, Ill., and is currently developing another subdivision in Yorkville, Ill. The company also owns land set aside for a small condominium development that might someday be built near its Oak Creek store.

Those projects are happening through opportune purchases of excess land as Menard buys parcels to build home improvement stores, said Jamie Radabaugh, director of sales and leasing for the company's property division.

"We are actively looking for new residential projects around our new and existing stores," Radabaugh said.

The company appears to be the nation's only home improvement retailer that's also a subdivision developer, said Scott Wright, spokesman for the North American Retail Hardware Association, an Indianapolis-based trade group with around 13,000 members - most of them independently owned stores.

"I certainly haven't heard of anyone doing anything like that," Wright said about Menard's side business. "Especially in this economic climate."

Menard did its first residential subdivisions, in Franklin and Eau Claire, many years ago. The company's land acquisitions have increased as Menard, which operates around 240 stores in 11 states, continues to grow.

Because it's privately held, Menard doesn't have to meet the quarterly earnings expectations that Wall Street demands from the chain's chief rivals, Lowe's Cos. and Home Depot Inc.; the latter announced last week the closing of 15 stores, including three in Wisconsin. The fact that Menard is not publicly traded gives it more leeway to invest in real estate developments, according to a company presentation made in January to the Urbana Plan Commission.

By developing residential subdivisions close to new stores, Menard creates a larger customer base among those new homeowners, and among local homebuilders.

Houses go up in Illinois

Menard's development in Yorkville, on the outer fringe of the Chicago metropolitan area, illustrates that strategy.

Yorkville is in Kendall County, which the Census Bureau recently named the nation's fastest-growing county.

In 2001, Yorkville annexed around 250 acres of farmland owned by Menard. Some of the land was set aside for a new store, which opened in 2003, said Lynn Dubajic, executive director of the Yorkville Economic Development Corp.

Additional parcels were set aside for 164 single-family homes and 68 townhouse-style condos, Dubajic said.

Menard put in utilities and other infrastructure for the single-family homes, and so far, it has sold 129 lots to AMG Homes, a local homebuilder. Since 2005, AMG has built 110 homes, said Chad Gunderson, AMG co-owner and chief executive officer.

The townhouse sites probably will be sold once the housing market improves, Dubajic said.

Materials from Menard

In purchasing the lots, AMG agreed to buy virtually all of its building materials for the project from Menard, Gunderson said.

The shopping list includes lumber, windows, doors, flooring materials and roof shingles, Gunderson said. AMG was allowed to buy a few products, such as concrete, from other vendors, because Menard doesn't sell them in large enough quantities.

The arrangement has worked out well for AMG, Gunderson said.

"We look at the contract as mutually beneficial," he said.

The company will have similar requirements with homebuilders buying lots from other Menard-developed subdivisions, Radabaugh said.

"It only makes sense to tie our company's main business with the residential development projects," he said.

Two more sites in works

In Warsaw, in north central Indiana, Menard is building a store that will open early next year, said Jeremy Skinner, city planner. He said Menard owns 70 acres, with 30 acres set aside for the store and other commercial use. The remaining land is for single-family homes.

Menard originally proposed 66 single-family lots for the Warsaw site but now is seeking to develop 89 lots, Skinner said. He said Menard is in discussions with a local homebuilder interested in buying the lots.

In Urbana, in east central Illinois, Menard bought just more than 350 acres at an auction in 2005. Menard is still working on its plans for a store, additional retail space, single-family homes and townhouses. The company expects to have a total of 425 residential units in Urbana.

As in Yorkville and Warsaw, Menard plans to sell the residential lots to homebuilders, said Lisa Karcher, a city planner. She said the entire project, including construction of all the planned houses and condos, will likely take five to 10 years to complete.

In the Milwaukee area, Menard owns just over 5 acres of vacant land northeast of its Oak Creek store, at 6800 S. 27th St. That store opened in 1998, just across S. 27th St. from a smaller Menards store in Franklin, which closed.

In 2001, Menard was granted permission to develop 22 townhouses on the Oak Creek parcel, but that approval has since lapsed, said Doug Seymour, Oak Creek director of community development.

Menard is looking for homebuilders interested in developing the Oak Creek parcel, Radabaugh said.

Menard's foray into development is "very interesting," said Wright, of the hardware retailers association.

The chain, which has grown despite increased competition from national players Home Depot and Lowe's, "has staying power unlike any other," Wright said.

McMansion blight

Clip from the film Subdivided

"You're probably one of these people who thinks that the world has a creamy nougat center of oil. But it doesn't."

James Howard Kunstler on The Daily Show.

Civic pride: Franklin provides example of terrible street design for national organization

The folks at Smart Growth America didn't have to look far when searching for an example of terrible, hostile-to-pedestrian street design to illustrate their article on Complete Streets bills now before the House and Senate - - they grabbed my photo of the gauntlet-like entrance to Franklin's Pleasant View Elementary School (see screen shot above).

Congratulations, Franklin - - national recognition!

UPDATE: The Smart Growth America people were nice enough to update the photo caption on their site; now the whole world is aware that it's indeed Franklin, Wisconsin that makes its most vulnerable citizens walk a ditch and brush against traffic on the way to their daily destination.

See also:
Complete the Streets: The upcoming Drexel-Shoppes test, and
Complete the Streets pt 2: Saner streets for Franklin?

Pabst Farms looks pretty sad

As a commenter on this post from Water Blogged in Waukesha says, it's one thing to read about this debacle, but quite another to actually see the growing blight-by-design - - be sure to see the video posted by blogger Jim Bouman:

Water Blogged in Waukesha: Pabst Farms is looking like a bust...:

(Via .)

The Political Environment: Raid On Federal Transit Funds For More Roads Sought By Bush Administration

We get the government we deserve. $10 a gallon gas on the horizon, and NOTHING being done to prepare.

Raid On Federal Transit Funds For More Roads Sought By Bush Administration

An excerpt from Michael Horne's report at MilwaukeeWorld (read it and weep):

In testimony April 3rd, 2008 before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, it was reported that the Bush administration has proposed two measures for remedying an expected $3.7 billion cumulative FY2009 deficit in the Highway Account of the Highway Trust Fund.

The first would cut federal highway investment to $39.4 billion in 2009 from the announced $41.2 billion. (The $1.8 billion difference is roughly the proposed cost of the I-94 North – South corridor project championed by the Doyle administration.)

The second plan of the administration to maintain solvency in the Highway Trust Fund would be to borrow $2.7 billion for highway construction from the separate Mass Transit Account which is not in a deficit condition at this time. (It won't go broke until 2012). According to testimony of James S. Simpson, Administrator, Federal Transit Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, the numbers work out like this: "The administration is projecting a $3.2 billion shortfall in the Highway Account. The Mass Transit Account is expected to remain solvent through FY 2009, with an estimated balance of $4.4 billion, leaving a net total of $1.2 billion in the combined Highway Trust Fund at the end of FY 2009." Simpson asks for "a new flexibility to manage funds," and requested "temporary authority to allow 'repayable advances' between the Highway and Mass Transit accounts."

 

(Via The Political Environment, via Michael Horne on MilwaukeeWorld)

Here it comes: $10-per-gallon gas

... And, thanks to obstinate leaders at the state (Scott Walker) and national level (the Bush petro-gang), we will be far from ready to deal with the consequences.

Who needs sane mass transit when we can all drive?

From The New York Sun:

Gasoline May Soon Cost a Sawbuck -
Big New Shock at the Pump Forecast by Two Analysts

BY DAN DORFMAN - Special to the Sun
April 28, 2008

Get ready for another economic shock of major proportions — a virtual doubling of prices at the gas pump to as much as $10 a gallon.

That's the message from a couple of analytical energy industry trackers, both of whom, based on the surging oil prices, see considerably more pain at the pump than most drivers realize.

Gasoline nationally is in an accelerated upswing, having jumped to $3.58 a gallon from $3.50 in just the past week. In some parts of the country, including New York City and the West Coast, gas is already sporting a price tag above $4 a gallon. There was a pray-in at a Chevron station in San Francisco on Friday led by a minister asking God for cheaper gas, and an Arco gas station in San Mateo, Calif., has already raised its price to a sky-high $4.62.

In Manhattan, at a Mobil gas station at York Avenue and East 61st Street, premium gas is now $4.03 a gallon. Two days ago, it was $3.96. Why such a high price? "Blame the people at STOPEC (he meant OPEC) and the oil companies," an attendant there told me.

These increases are taking place before the all-important summer driving season, signaling even higher prices ahead.

That's also the outlook of the Automobile Association of America. "As long as the price of crude oil stays above $100 a barrel, drivers will be forced to pay more and more at the gas pump," a AAA spokesman, Troy Green, said.

Oil recently hit an all-time high of nearly $120 a barrel, more than double its early 2007 price of about $50 a barrel. It closed Friday at $118.52.

The forecasts calling for a jump to between $7 and $10 a gallon are based on the view that the price of crude is on its way to $200 in two to three years.

Translating this price into dollars and cents at the gas pump, one of our forecasters, the chairman of Houston-based Dune Energy, Alan Gaines, sees gas rising to $7-$8 a gallon. The other, a commodities tracker at Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla., Sean Brodrick, projects a range of $8 to $10 a gallon.

While $7-$10 a gallon would be ground-breaking in America, these prices would not be trendsetting internationally. For example, European drivers are already shelling out $9 a gallon (which includes a $2-a-gallon tax).

Canadians are also being hit with rising gas prices. They are paying the American-dollar equivalent of $4.92 a gallon, and they're being told to brace themselves for prices above $5.65 a gallon this summer.

Early last year, with a barrel of oil trading in the low $50s and gasoline nationally selling in a range of $2.30 to $2.50 a gallon, Mr. Gaines — in an impressive display of crystal ball gazing — accurately predicted oil was $100-bound and that gasoline would follow suit by reaching $4 a gallon.

His latest prediction of $200 oil is open to question, since it would undoubtedly create considerable global economic distress. Further, just about every energy expert I talk to cautions me to expect a sizable pullback in oil prices, maybe to between $50 and $70 a barrel, especially if there's a global economic slowdown.

While Mr. Gaines thinks there could be a temporary decline in the oil price, he's convinced an overall uptrend is unstoppable. In fact, he thinks his $200 forecast could be conservative, and that perhaps $250 could be reached. His reasoning: a combination of shrinking supply and increasing demand, especially from China, India, and America.

Mr. Brodrick's $200 oil forecast is largely predicated on a combination of pretty flat supply and rip-roaring demand. Other key catalysts include surging demand in China and India, where auto sales are booming, and major supply disruptions in Nigeria and also in Mexico, our second-largest source of oil imports, where oil production has fallen off a cliff.

More factors include the ever-present danger of additional supply disruptions from volatile countries in the Middle East that are not our allies, and the unwillingness of SUV-loving Americans to trim their unquenchable thirst for foreign oil. Likewise, for the first time, emerging markets this year will use more oil than America.

To Mr. Brodrick, it all adds up to an ongoing energy bull market. His favorite plays are the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund ; United States Natural Gas Fund LP; Apache Corp.; Occidental Petroleum; Anadarko Petroleum, and Schlumberger.

Dandordan@aol.com

Kunstler: Good-Bye, Cheap Oil. So Long, Suburbia?

In BusinessWeek, our hero warns of rough sailing ahead for a car-dependent society. Artificially low (yes, I said low) gas prices will not last forever and we're doing nothing to prepare (and, of course, some people just don't get it).

Good-Bye, Cheap Oil. So Long, Suburbia?:

The suburban landscape has been marred by foreclosures and half-built communities abandoned in the subprime aftermath. But James Howard Kunstler, author of a dozen books, including The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape, thinks there's a bigger threat to those far-flung neighborhoods: the scarcity of oil. As Kunstler sees it, oil wells are running dry and the era of cheap fuel is over. Given the supply constraints, he says the U.S. will have to rethink suburban sprawl, bringing an end to strip malls, big-box stores, and other trappings of the automotive era. Kunstler, 59, predicts a return to towns and cities centered around a retail hub—not unlike his hometown of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. But the shift to this new paradigm, he says, will be painful. (Kunstler could be off the mark; he predicted technological Armageddon after Y2K.) BusinessWeek writer Mara Der Hovanesian spoke with Kunstler about suburbia, which he calls "the greatest misallocation of resources the world has ever known."

Why has suburban life flourished?
The suburbs were largely products of industrialism. We had a huge supply of oil and cheap undeveloped land, and we decided to become a happy, motoring utopia. It had many practical benefits. The trouble is after a while it became a cartoon of country living.

Why is suburbia now threatened?
Cheap oil is what made suburbia possible. But we'll run into problems with spot shortages. As we get into trouble with these supplies, our economy will suffer. Major instabilities in the system will present themselves much sooner than we are led to believe. And by that I mean the way we produce food, the way we conduct commerce, and the way we move around.

When will all that happen?
The rise and fall of oil production is asymmetrical. In other words, it'll be a steeper, rockier tumble down than the steady increase going up. My own sense of things is that we will be in very serious trouble inside of five years.

Won't it help to cut back on gas?
I get people who come up to the podium after a speaking engagement to tell me they've just gotten a Prius, expecting brownie points. It's not that we're driving the wrong cars. It's that we're driving cars of any size, incessantly.

What about biofuels?
We will use all of them, probably. But we will be greatly disappointed by what they can do for us. We certainly aren't going to run Wal-Mart (WMT), Disney World (DIS), and the highway system on any combination of solar, wind, nuclear, ethanol, biodiesel, or used french-fry oil.

Isn't it a bit radical to declare game over for Wal-Mart?
It is part and parcel of the suburban predicament. How long can they maintain their warehouse-on-wheels as the price of motor fuels goes up?

How will the U.S. have to adapt?
Virtually anything organized on a grand scale is liable to fall into trouble—government, finance, corporate enterprise, agribusiness, schools. Our gigantic metroplex cities will prove to be inconsistent with the energy diet of our future. I think our smaller cities and towns will be reactivated. We are going to be a far less affluent society.

Does your lifestyle reflect all this?
I live in a classic Main Street town. I've always had a garden. It certainly doesn't provide for all my needs, but for all of my salad and salsa fresca needs, in season. I'm not a survival nut. I'm not squirreling away wheat berries in plastic tubs in the basement. I don't have an arsenal of firearms. I lead a pretty normal American small-town life. Of course, I'm a self-employed author and don't have to commute to work.

 

Der  Hovanesian is Banking editor for BusinessWeek in New York .

Pain of Foreclosures Spreads to the Affluent - New York Times

This home on Hettiefred Road in Greenwich, Conn., came close to being auctioned off three times as a result of foreclosure actions. But each time, its owner managed to rescue his position.
( Douglas Healey for The New York Times)

From the New York Times:

April 25, 2008

By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
GREENWICH, Conn. — This wooded town of roughly 60,000 on Long Island Sound — home to dozens of hedge funds, many millionaires and more than a few billionaires — is one of the wealthiest enclaves in the country. But even Greenwich is not immune to the wave of home foreclosures sweeping the nation.

On Stanwich Road, for example, a house worth $2.6 million is close to going on the block. On Hettiefred Road, the owner of a 2,720-square-foot, four-bedroom colonial featuring a luxury kitchen, swimming pool and tennis court, has been threatened with foreclosure for months. Several dozen other owners in Greenwich have received foreclosure notices this year.

But there is a difference from most other communities. Auctioning off such homes is a far greater challenge here than elsewhere, as affluent but cash-squeezed owners often find ways to delay losing their homes, sometimes by coming up with just enough to make last-minute payments avoiding a final sale — for a while, anyway.

Just ask John Thygerson, who parked his Jeep sport utility vehicle in front of the empty house on Hettiefred Road on the flawless spring day last Saturday.

As a foreclosure auctioneer, he was scheduled — for the third time since January — to sell the house. But the owner, a construction business owner who has fallen on hard times, made a last-minute mortgage payment and the foreclosure was postponed yet again.

So Mr. Thygerson was there to shoo prospective buyers off the property, nod at inquisitive neighbors and stake out a new spot for a fourth set of foreclosure signs after the first three had been mysteriously torn down.

“We never had a case that had gone through three separate sales attempts,” he said, still dazed that the auction failed to take place. “Greenwich being Greenwich, foreclosures are a rare occurrence.”

Tomah Journal - "Unsustainable exurban development exposed by mortgage meltdown"

I was led to this excellent article via The Political Environment blog:

From the Tomah Journal:

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Editorial:
Unsustainable exurban development exposed by mortgage meltdown

One of many realities exposed by the recent mortgage meltdown is the economic and environmental unsustainability of exurban development.

So, what did the U.S. Senate do in response? It passed a bill to subsidize more exurban development.

The Senate passed an awful bill last week that would create $6 billion in new tax subsidies for homebuilders. It also includes $10 billion in tax-exempt bonds for local housing agencies to refinance subprime loans and provide new mortgages for first-time home buyers, $4 billion in grants for local governments to buy foreclosed properties and $100 million to expand counseling for homeowners at risk of defaulting on their loans.

In an overbuilt housing environment, the last thing the federal government should do is encourage another building binge. While the government can’t stop anyone who can afford it from scraping off a piece of farmland and erecting a 2,500 square foot home, the government has no obligation to subsidize it. If the government is going to be an active player in the housing market, it should pursue policies that:

• Encourage people to live closer to where they work. A family may have every right to choose an exurban subdivision, but the government is under no obligation to pave a convenient commuter road or provide preferable tax treatment. Such funds are better spent on mass transit and refurbishing existing neighborhoods.

• Encourage the purchase and renovation of existing housing stock. While there will always be a need for new residential housing construction, much of the recent boom is driven by families who scoff at the idea of a used house. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the government is under no obligation to subsidize that preference. It’s difficult to imagine a circumstance in which the Federal Housing Administration (federal) or Wisconsin Housing Economic Development Authority (Wisconsin) should issue a loan for new residential construction.

The explosion of residential development in the countryside has environmental and economic consequences that have finally come home to roost. It’s more sustainable to live in a city or village and consume less gasoline driving to work. It’s time for government taxing and spending policies to reflect that truth.

All stories copyright 2006 Tomah Journal and other attributed sources.

Garageland

Garage:

'garage' by rendezvous_avec_spyvspy

View the rest of the images or add your own to the Project Outrage Flickr group.

(Via Slow Home.)

Rowen: "Billions To Be Wasted On Highways As Era Of Cheap Gas Ends"

If you're not checking in to James Rowen's The Political Environment regularly, bookmark it soon. The man speaks truth:

At what point will driving recede because of the price of gasoline?

Doesn't it feel that way already? Isn't it clear that people are minimizing their driving, and will continue to do so as the price of gasoline rises.

And will adjust their lifetsyles, housing and work options to save money by reducing their gasoline burn?

Gas is at $3.49 a gallon, with $4 a gallon fuel predicted for this summer.

$4 gas today: do I hear $5?

And still the state forges ahead with the freeway rebuilding and widening plan, with eight years of construction due to start this year on the North-South leg of I-94 to the Illinois state line from Milwaukee.

Continued at THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT

Senator Lazich's theory on "who pays what" in taxes is incorrect and more than a little sad

RE: Republican State Senator Mary Lazich's "Conservatively Speaking" blog entitled "How Does the Government Spend Your Money":

The senator's  "who pays what" numbers are skewed and easily dissected (her ongoing reliance on the "nonpartisan" Tax Foundation - - "in Washington D.C."! - - doesn't help).

As a PERCENTAGE OF INCOME, it is the middle class and lower-income population groups who pay MORE in taxes (not to mention fees and transportation expenses you may choose to ignore). This is a result of non-progressive tax and social policy embraced by the current administration (who unapologetically embrace their base, "the have and the have-mores.")

To say "In general, households that earn the most income pay the most dollars of taxes" is self evident; 4% of $10 is $4 and 4% of $1000 is $4000, for instance.

Examine instead the more intelligent - - and more personally consequential - - numbers: the percentage of each dollar earned that is paid in taxes and fees by the very rich as compared to the middle class and poor. THAT'S the real eye opener, and that's the embarrassment to anyone who cares to couple a cursory grasp of math with a rudimentary sense of morality and social justice (see, for example, "Warren Buffet: The Rich Need to Pay More Taxes").

The widening gap between what is expected from the rich as opposed to what is extracted from the middle class and poor is also the reason we can't afford sidewalks in our neighborhoods, decent schools for our kids, effective transit options, amenities for non-affluent communities, and librarians for our libraries.

I read recently that greed is the last socially acceptable vice. You reinforce  - - and pander to - - that sad observation, senator.

Fountains of Franklin continues to underwhelm, remains characteristically disconnected from non-vehicular traffic

Though ostensibly home to one of the more welcome additions to Franklin commerce in many years (Sendik's), the Fountains of Franklin commercial development continues its slide into the valley of lowered expectations (a tumble which began with their unveiling of DQ Grill & Chill as one of their "high-end" tenants), with the announcement of CVS Pharmacy as an "anchor tenant."

Greg Kowalski's "Today's Concerns" blog notes that FoF developer Greg Devorkin also proposed commercial development for the SW corner of 51st & Rawson - - which is backed up to the impassable quarry, allowing only a single plane of access (from the 51st and Rawson side) unless hot air balloons are made available to residents of Franklin who might want to get to that particular corner without a car.

Unfortunately, the long-promised walking/biking path on 51st Street that would have made these proposed Rawson businesses accessible by foot or bike to the substantial population on and south of Drexel - - - and, by the way, vastly improved the survival rate for Franklin High School students who might want to walk or bike to the new commercial concerns on Rawson without being brushed by traffic - - never materialized.

Meanwhile, we pat ourselves on the back for various Oak Leaf Trail extensions which, while a boon to recreation runners and bikers like myself, require an actual parking lot for accessibility and lead nowhere.

(Franklin's not alone in dubious stewardship of the Trail. In theory, you can bike all the way to the lakeshore from Franklin or points west on the Oak Leaf Trail - great, right? However, the picture below shows the Oak Creek portion of the Oak Leaf Trail that that stands between you and Lake Michigan. Those little rubble-strewn areas delineated by the white lines on either side of the road are reserved for you and your bike. Enjoy.)

So, anyway, a CVS is coming to Franklin, and you'll be able to drive to it and park and shop and get back in your car and then drive to another place. Whoo-hoo.

The ongoing, self-perpetuating wonders of sprawl.

Community-building: Where is REAL support for local Franklin businesses?

Last week I went for coffee and tried to patronize a locally-owned establishment. Alas, a sad note (dated February 14) on the door: MOONDANCE COFFEE is closed down again.

Well due to many reasons this is hard for us to say but we will be closing down. The last day open will be Feb 19th 2008 at NOON. Please redeem all credits that anyone may have by them.  We tried our best and it was nice getting to know everyone that came in on a Regular basis. Thank you for your support. Maybe we will see you down the road. Thank you. Laura & Jerry.

Candidate for mayor Basil Ryan made a good point at the candidate's forum last night: The land between the Franklin Library and City Hall is city-owned and should be looked at as a development opportunity.

Local entrepreneurs should be offered incentives and/or subsidies to put amenities like coffee shops in place on that land, which would go a long way toward making a true  - - and much needed - - community gathering place.

Or we can wait for another Starbucks to open on Rawson...

Because there's not enough out there to distract you already ....

Journal Sentinel Photo by Mary Louise Schumacher

Not only do they change, the billboards are illuminated by LED light. I once knew a guy with OCD who couldn't look away from a bank sign until he saw time, temperature, and whatever message was flashing that day.

Ask anyone who studies traffic "accidents"; there are very few actual "accidents." Most are caused by careless, reckless, or inattentive driving.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Council approves billboard changes

Milwaukee accepts 8-second ad rotation but adds permit requirement

By LARRY SANDLER
lsandler@journalsentinel.com

Posted: March 18, 2008

Milwaukee will allow digital billboards to change their messages every eight seconds, the Common Council decided Tuesday.

But in a victory for critics of electronic billboards, the legislation will require special-use permits - and potentially public hearings - whenever a new electronic sign is erected or an old-fashioned billboard is converted to an electronic format more than 1,000 feet from a freeway or Lake Parkway.

Only nine of the city's 579 billboards are now electronic, and current rules limit them to changing messages every 30 to 60 seconds. But current rules place no limits on converting traditional billboards to electronic ones.

The new ordinance would limit how bright the digital billboards can be and would require them to be at least 400 feet from a residential neighborhood and at least 1,000 feet from each other. Ald. Mike D'Amato, the measure's chief advocate, called that reasonable regulation that wouldn't obstruct business.

Opponents of the measure, led by Aldermen Bob Bauman and Michael Murphy, focused on the electronic billboards' aesthetic impact on neighborhoods and on the possible safety hazards of distracting drivers.

Milwaukee's transit mess: "A comical story about how a community can waste and squander"

I guess my favorite example of the kind of short-sighted thinking that opponents of comprehensive public transit engage in can be encapsulated by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Patrick McIlheran's now infamous blog entry (unlinkable today - jammed because of - choke - Favre's retirement news Fixed. But Favre is still retiring) where he made the following deeply revelatory financial calculation:

I wanted to see what the posh place in Franklin had on offer. And -- here's the key -- I had it somewhere my head that gas was down to $2.85, so why not spend a little cheaper gas getting there?

That's just brilliant. Remember, folks, these are the same live-for-the-moment guys who tell us that light rail is a bad, expensive idea. Because after all, we have enough gas today.

The bill is coming due ....

UPDATE: Finally got through to the McIlheran blog to be greeted by this gem:

Owen Robinson finds the best part of the story about people inconvenienced when the county transit system cuts off low-ridership routes and portions of routes -- the woman who fell on ice while walking the added distance to reach a bus route. It boils down to:

I broke my knee. I blame Scott Walker.

The best part. What a knee-slapper, so to speak.

(Also noted at Whallah, where McIlheran gets no love - - he and I both deployed "knee-slapper.")

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

$91.5 million federal transit aid blocked

By LARRY SANDLER
lsandler@journalsentinel.com

Posted: March 3, 2008

After years of wrangling over how to spend $91.5 million in long-idle federal aid, a bureaucratic mix-up has blocked further study of using the money for public transit improvements, officials said Monday.

And until that problem is solved, the federal money - the last remaining piece of a $289 million appropriation from 1991 - can't be spent on express buses, streetcars, light rail or anything else that has been proposed, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker said.

City administrators will be summoned before the Milwaukee Common Council's Public Works Committee on Wednesday to explain what happened, said Ald. Bob Bauman, the committee chairman.

"It's a fitting conclusion to what has been a fiasco and just a comical story about how a community can waste and squander" a shrinking pool of federal money that is now in increasing danger of being lost altogether, said Bauman, a longtime transit advocate. He added the issue to his committee's agenda after learning of it from a Journal Sentinel reporter. Walker, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and other leaders said they are appealing to federal transit officials and may seek help from the state's congressional delegation to straighten things out.

Full Story in extended ...

Oak Creek-Franklin: Water battle now in court

In nearly every meeting that I attend wherein Oak Creek is discussed (most often in relationship to Oak Creek-Franklin cooperative efforts on behalf of 27th Street), someone will mutter under their breath about the "water issue." An uneasy peace - - it's always there, just under the surface.

And now the dispute enters the courts.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Franklin files suit to get $303,000 from Oak Creek

By MARIE ROHDE
mrohde@journalsentinel.com

Posted: Feb. 14, 2008

Franklin has gone to court against its neighbor, Oak Creek, in the latest salvo in an ongoing war over water.

According to a lawsuit filed this week:

Franklin began buying water from Oak Creek for one subdivision under a 30-year contract beginning in 1973. A similar agreement was reached in 1979 for another subdivision.

In 1994, Franklin agreed to buy all of its water from Oak Creek. As a part of that agreement, the earlier contracts were amended to expire in October 2003, when Franklin would have built its own water utility. The state Public Service Commission in 1994 ordered Oak Creek to relinquish Franklin customers within 10 years.

When Franklin notified Oak Creek that it expected the transfer to occur by October 2003, Oak Creek balked, demanding $300,000 compensation for infrastructure improvements made in Franklin. Franklin said it had paid for the infrastructure, and the PSC agreed.

Oak Creek asked the PSC for a water rate increase that would have affected only Franklin customers, to the tune of more than $300,000. The PSC refused. Oak Creek appealed and lost.

The customers were not transferred until more than a year after the date ordered by the PSC because of court appeals. That cost Franklin $303,438, an amount the city is asking the court to order Oak Creek to pay. Franklin also is asking for legal fees. The case has been assigned to Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Michael Dwyer.

CNI NOW Newspapers UPDATE: Utterly unrepentant about concealing context

Well, I'll say this for the gang at CNI's "Oak Creek-Franklin-Greendale-Hales Corners NOW" newspaper - - they appear to have a sense of humor. The very next week after they consciously mislabeled an aide for a Republican State Senator and conservative radio fill-in as simply a "Franklin resident" and "Community Voices blogger on FranklinNOW.com," they run another one of his blog entries, this time a rant that ends with the line, "Shhh! Don't tell anybody!" Very amusing.

And, to add ineptitude to injury, they change Mr. Fischer's bio line this week - - but don't add the required information! 

That's not to mention the fact that this tired screed is labeled "Best of the Blogs." Nothing better than this simple tripe was posted on FranklinNOW.com the past seven days?

I guess we shouldn't hold our breath for a series of stories in the CNI NOW papers about, for instance, transparency in local government while they routinely conceal the true identity of their contributors.

An embarrassment. But don't let ethics stop you, legislative aides and other bought-and-paid-for partisans - - sign up at CNI NOW today so you can begin misrepresenting yourself with the full blessing of editors Mark Maley and Roger Bartel.

And, once again, let's give credit to Kevin Fischer for seeing and exploiting a lapse in journalistic ethics.

"Shhh! Don't tell anybody!" Indeed.

RELATED STORY: Journal Communications Sees Profit Plunge 59.5% (because advertisers shy away from media formats that make themselves irrelevant.)

"NOW" newspapers: Duped or complicit in abandoning context?

Now do you see what's wrong with this picture? Read on ...

Backstory

It's a sad mark of our complacence that we in the Milwaukee area have long since accepted without a whimper that Wisconsin's largest metropolitan area is served by just one daily newspaper. Last year Journal Communications made their monopoly complete by utterly obliterating the local character of CNI's "community newspapers." As reported last year in the Business Journal, now deceased are papers like the Wauwatosa News-Times, the West Allis Star, the Franklin-Hales Corners Hub, the Brookfield News and the Whitefish Bay Herald. These papers were re-branded under the new "NOW" moniker; The 80 year-old Franklin Hub, for instance, died and became part of a paper called (evidently) "Franklin, Greendale, Hales Corners, Oak Creek NOW."

These weekly "NOW" papers are now included in Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel subscriptions, meaning that folks in Franklin who'd never subscribed to the Hub now get their region's "NOW" paper every Thursday with their MJS.

An intriguing component of the otherwise disappointing "NOW" transition was the creation of web sites coordinated to each paper, along with a "community bloggers" function. Simply put, CNI-Journal Sentinel Inc.  provides blogging space to any local person who would like to comment on local and national events. So, in theory, you get the viewpoint of the average Franklinite on this, that and the other thing via FranklinNOW.com. The NOW online editor is Mark Maley.

For quite some time, these blogs had no "comment" function; i.e. there was no way to interact with the bloggers if you agreed or disagreed with them. "Franklin resident" Kevin Fischer - - who I honestly hadn't heard of up to that point - - embraced the platform firmly and wholeheartedly, an unabashed locked-on-FOX conservative just to the right of Sean Hannity.

Before things got really, really ugly over there, I participated in Franklinnow discussions now and then. I eventually learned a few things about Mr. Fischer (besides the fact we share a fondness for Elvis). As I noted in a post this past July:

Mr. Fischer is an employee of Republican Wisconsin state senator Mary Lazich (as his FranklinNOW.com bio emphatically avoids mentioning) and a right wing radio fill-in host. He's on a short leash; he will not be long for either gig if he suddenly goes off-message.

Fischer's blog bio said only that he worked "for the state." (Shades of the Bruce Springsteen song: "My name is Joe Roberts/I work for the state/I'm a sergeant out of Perrineville/Barracks number 8...")

Well, Mr. Fischer is no State Trooper ala the protagonist of Springsteen's song. Make no mistake: He gets paid to advance the cause of his boss and the GOP; he serves at their pleasure and discretion and is beholden to them. And, in turn, his boss is beholden to a long line of corporate, individual and PAC contributers to the party and her specific campaigns. In other words, you won't see Kevin Fischer speak critically about Wal-Mart (or other big boxes such as Target at Shoppes at Wyndham Village) while Wal-Mart Stores/WAL-PAC is a contributer to the Lazich campaign (though you will see Lazich and Fischer heap praise on Wal-Mart).

This is, of course, not behavior confined to the GOP. Plenty of Democratic leaders have similar entanglements and we should expect full disclosure from them as well.

Journalism 101 - Context is everything

I'd emailed Franklinnow editor Mark Maley in February of '07 questioning what I felt was Fischer's very careful concealment of his true professional affiliation on his blog. Maley answered that he saw no problem.

I replied:

Hi Mark,

Thanks for taking time to respond.

I have no issue with Mr. Fischer's right to blog, but to say in his bio that he "works for the state" is simply facetious. It smacks of hiding something. You should make it clear, up front, that this guy collects a paycheck in service to the Republican agenda OR have him stay off any political opinions. Why should CNI give the Republican Party free ad space under the guise of "your neighbor's opinion"?

I hope your sites will address the lack of interactivity in the near future as well.

Thanks again,

John Michlig

That roused no response, and I didn't hear from Maley until June 12th when he asked if I'd consider becoming a blogger on the FranklinNOW.com site. I took that opportunity to reiterate my concerns with Fischer's concealment of his professional affiliations. Frankly, I held out very little hope that the change would be made even though Mr. Maley conceded that I'd raised a good point (irrespective of whether or not I'd agree to blog for CNI, I should add).

Then, on August 13th I noted the following item added to Mr. Fischer's blog bio:

"Kevin, who is a legislative aide to state Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) ..."

It's only a dozen-or-so words, but they are words Kevin Fischer seemed loath to admit. (He even wrote in one blog entry "Another local blogger on a different web site likes to go after me and my profession" - -without actually mentioning his profession. Well played!)

I was satisfied. Moreover, in the comments section to my post "Better late than never: Franklinnow.com makes blogger's professional affiliation clear", I went so far as to extend an olive branch to Mr. Fischer. Despite the fact that he and I disagree on certain issues, I saw no reason that we couldn't be friendly combatants in a positive clash of ideas.