Off The Editor’s Desk – 1-29-2020
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New County Highway building!
Last Thursday I was given a tour of the new St. Croix County Highway facility just south of the Interstate in Baldwin.
Don Hogenson, a former employee of the highway department, arranged the tour with County Highway Commissioner, Robbie Krejci. The adjoining photo is of Hogenson standing on the left and Commissioner Krejci, at a wall of pictures of highway department activities over the last 100 years.
To say the least, I was very impressed with the new facility, and it appears that a lot of thought went into the planning of the 150,000 square foot facility. I walked through each department and noticed how everything was in order and how it was arranged to provide the best working environment for the employees, and how the structure is constructed so that it can be enlarged if the need arises.
A big job well done to those that were involved in the planning and construction of that facility which should serve the needs of St. Croix for many years to come.
Community Development Block Grants
Most communities around this area have benefited from the federal government’s program called, “Community Development Block Grants.” I hate to call it free money, as it does come from the taxpayers of this great nation, but it has funded street projects, municipal buildings, low cost housing, and interest free home improvement loans, among other goodies.
Back in 2015, president Obama proposed to add a requirement that the federal government would take over the local zoning ordinances and make changes in order for a community to receive any part of the three and half billion dollar federal funding.
One of the things that the Obama administration proposed was to do away with the local zoning that requires off street parking, and to redraw zoning maps to achieve racial and income integration. The program is or was called “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH).
Removing the off street parking would allow for more housing units on a particular piece of ground. But it would also remove cars from the people living in those housing units. To make up for taking the parking spaces away from locals is the idea of mass transit. Providing rail, bus or plane travel from your housing unit to your work place. That might work in downtown Minneapolis or Milwaukee, but not so much in downtown Glenwood City, Boyceville, Colfax or Elk Mound.
And, what will the cost be? But then you will not have a car, so that money can be forwarded to the government so they can lay tracks.
Now comes word that the Trump administration has removed that rule. In a news release from The Daily Editorialist, written by Rick Manning, the president of American for Limited Government.
“The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under Secretary Ben Carson has completed its review of the 2015 Obama era AFFH requirements, and removed requirements for more than 1,200 cities and counties to make changes to local zoning in order to qualify for $3.5 billion of annual community development block grants.
“Under the new rule, just finalized on January 14, Jurisdictions are free to choose to undertake changes to zoning or land-use policies as one method of complying with the AFFH obligation; however, no jurisdiction may have their certification questioned because they do not choose to undertake zoning changes.”
Manning stated, “This could have gone much differently. Without Congress’ action in the months following the 2015 Obama regulation to defund federal intrusion into local zoning administrations and asserting constitutional Article I powers of the purse, I cannot say that this rule would have ever been reformed. This is now one of those rare case examples limited government advocates can point to a direct Congressional action that was instrumental in helping to overturn a bad regulation.”
“The power of the purse works to rein in government excess, and we should let Congress know because they should use it more often.”
Thanks for reading! ~Carlton