The Kerrigan Club: NO TRAIN!
Actually, I don't recall whether Chris Kerrigan and I spoke about any of the proposals to restore rail service to Humboldt back when he stopped by my house a while back. I do know his supporters over at the Tuluwat Examiner are opposed, at least if it does anything but haul a few passengers.
The latest proposal from rail supporters seems to be hauling oil. Whether that would work, paint me as skeptical.
Funny thing is, you can bet 9 out of 10 of the Kerrigan folks support the Governor's High Speed Rail plan. That plan has no higher ambition than hauling people to the same places they're already going to do the same things they're already doing.
But new commerce? NO WAY! We can't have that.
I've already gone on record as saying I don't think a rail line from here to the east or south is feasible. I question whether the bay is big enough to handle the traffic and, most important, this is California- the State of NO. And it is that way in large part because of the kind of folks we see in the Kerrigan Club.
I respect and admire those that are trying to bring new commerce to the area and wish them well.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 11:45 AM
8 comments
8 Comments:
When Fred is out of material, he always falls back to the HSR or street tree rants. Poor guy.
Not really. I already made my obligatory post for the day. This is an extra!
Right on, Fred!
You've got it backward Fred. Opposition to rail is sort of like the NRA's opposition to all forms of gun control, even reasonable gun control... it's fear of the slippery slope.
In rail's case, the slippery slope is that if a rail line is restored for freight, we're much closer to considering restoring passenger service.
Local progressives most definitely do not support the governor's high speed rail line. In principle, the plan is fine, but decades into the future when the rail line is extended, it could result in passenger service through the redwoods.
Basically, keep the redwood curtain closed to slow development... to slow environmental degradation.
I'd have to disagree. I seem to regularly from those that don't seem to mind the thought of rail restoration if it included passenger service, which plans for up here hardly ever do.
Conversely, you'll hear lefties defend the high speed rail project as a more green and efficient way to ship goods, despite freight not being part of the HSR plan.
The Progressive or really leftover Leftist local economic development destruction planning serves the Yuppie class as it attacks the working class people in Humboldt County. These extremely selfish failed Leftist ideologues whose incomes are assured in one form or another by HSU student body largesse or pot growing, don't care a fig about the plight of working class families in Humboldt County--or the poor-as they consistently attack any and all forms of economic remedy for poor and working class people, the great majority in Humboldt County.
Stephen, you are right about the need to incorporate ideas on how the public sector can incentivize to keep rents low.
I suppose you'd rather hitch you wagon to those listening to Lee Ulansey and Julie Williams when they talk about "affordable housing". When they use that word, and when they advocate for or actually write language in the Housing Element they mean "affordable" to all classes - low, middle, and high.
What affordable should really mean, and our focus should be is low income housing.
And yes, a large part of developing a plan for growth should include where and how are low income homes going to be regionally. They shouldn't all be in Eureka, McKinleyville, and Arcata, but we also should start incentivizing subdivisions of land as a source of low income housing. Because, that is really a misdirection. The goal of that sort of incentivization is not primarily low income housing, its more likely increased value of one's property and gaining the ability to earn rental income.
While understandable, we can't incentivize a pattern of growth for that reason alone.
Long story short Steven, your narrative and description of left of center politics in HumCo is not quite right. But it does make a great narrative and conservatives/libertarians love it because it sounds true(ish).
And yes Stephen, it's either Julie Williams/Chamber of Commerce or left of center planning. It's either the market knows best, or the public sector needs to be empowered to plan to the future.
The conservatives what both the public and private sector not only to be on the same page, but to be the same. That's why they insure the Planning Commission which will advise on affordable housing is filled with contractors and private land use lobbyists.
In one great moment Robert Morse even said (paraphrasing) that he thought the professional planners did not understand what he did about affordable housing. Clearly affordable housing could be created by building nice, expensive homes and then the affordable home would be the one the family left for the new home. Seriously, he said something to that effect and he was so proud and sure of his insight.
So, unfortunately Stephen, you are going to get one or the other. You get to choose who you want to vote for who will consider what to do to insure low income folks can live in this County comfortably now, and very importantly, 10, 20, 40, 100 years from now.
Good luck with that decision.
"Long story short Steven, your narrative and description of left of center politics in HumCo is not quite right. But it does make a great narrative and conservatives/libertarians love it because it sounds true(ish)."
"Because it sounds true(ish)"...
This is why Proggies hate me so much. I tell it like it is with no punches pulled. I've seen the Left in action for over 50 years ever since Commies tried to capture me for the Cause at age 17 when I first attended a Fair Play for Cuba party in Berkeley in 1961. No thanks then and really, that ideology which ran its course and now is the watered down white-washed "Progressive" anti-corporate capitalist agenda,(Republican capitalists-not liberal capitalists who are never criticized).
Libjon, I don't do politics like you do. I do alternative eco-community organizing work because that's what we need to really get off the corporate capitalist tit. You and Proggies just play name-calling games and don't help the community grow out of its social dysfuntioning, you only exploit it as if it were a game with winners and losers.
We all lose when we let political gamesters control community development.
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