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Written by Ozaukee Press
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Wednesday, 05 December 2012 17:28 |
Parking is much easier and friendlier in downtown Port Washington than at malls and big-box stores
Port Washington’s downtown has had its ups and downs over the past few decades, but one aspect of the business district has remained constant: Parking paranoia is still the Great Satan, a terrifying bogeyman that provokes obsessive worry and sleepless nights. In Port, Chicken Little doesn’t warn the sky is falling; she warns the parking is failing.
No sooner did the news about the downtown start getting better—the opening of the Duluth Trading Co. store, a coming museum, the renaissance of the Lueptow/Boerner building—than the handwringing began anew. How are we going to provide parking for all those visitors and shoppers? Do we need a multi-level parking structure?
Settle down, folks. Port Washington does not have a parking problem. It has a parking asset. Other towns and shopping areas would kill for Port’s parking.
The city has more parking now—acres upon acres of it on main commercial streets, side streets and numerous public parking lots—than it had when its was a thriving retail center attracting so many shoppers from a wide trade area that it had downtown traffic jams.
And parking space is increasing, thanks to the new owner of the Lueptow/Boerner building buying two properties behind Franklin Street (with one structure already razed and another slated to be demolished) expressly to provide more parking space.
Port’s parking lots let shoppers park closer to stores than they are able to at malls and big-box stores, adding to the appeal of small-town shopping as an alternative to driving considerable distances for the dubious privilege of parking in crowded megalots (think Grafton’s Costco on a weekend) or, worse, creepy parking structures and walking long distances, often through harassing traffic, to and from stores.
All downtown Port parking lots are just a few steps away from sidewalks that provide a safe, easy stroll to stores. Shopping mall and big-box parking lots are notoriously hostile to pedestrians, who have to share space on the pavement with vehicles.
The city does a good job managing competing needs for its downtown parking space, recognizing that people who live and work in the heart of the city are as important to the downtown as shoppers. The sale of monthly parking passes for metered lots—all day for workers or 24/7 for residents at higher cost—has been a successful program.
(Most of the employees of Port Publications, Inc., owner of Ozaukee Press and one of the largest downtown employers, park in public lots off Grand Avenue, Washington Street or Pier Street.)
From time to time there are complaints about downtown workers usurping two-hour parking spaces meant for shoppers. It has even been reported that a few people spy out of workplace windows on the tire-marking activities of the city’s parking enforcer and then sneak out to rub off chalk marks or move their cars to another two-hour space.
Well, the Port Washington Police Department is on the case, though its response seems more like a pat on the backs of the offenders than a slap on their wrists. As part of its 2013 parking initiative in cooperation with Main Street and the Chamber of Commerce, the PWPD is actually going to stop giving tickets for two-hour violations during the month of January. According to Police Chief Kevin Hingiss, parking violators will given be “yellow written warnings” instead of parking tickets during the month. That sounds more like a license to park all day in a two-hour space than a move to assure parking turnover. In any case, the problem will probably go away when employers realize that valuable time is being wasted by workers on the clock trying to one-up the parking ticket lady—time that would be better spent walking from a nearby parking lot.
It says something when the biggest parking problem Port can come up with is a few scofflaws rubbing off chalk marks. It says Port doesn’t really have a parking problem.
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Written by Ozaukee Press
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Wednesday, 28 November 2012 15:07 |
Voters in Wisconsin and across the country sent a message that tax increases are sometimes justified; do the anti-tax pledge signers in Congress get it?
Grafton voters approved fire department upgrades that will raise their property taxes by $77 on a $250,000 home in the town and $55 on a property of similar value in the village.
Voters in 27 Wisconsin school districts approved school spending referendums that will increase their property taxes. The 71% approval rate in Wisconsin school referendums on Nov. 6 was far above the average success rate of about 50%.
California voters approved a referendum that will increase the state sales and incomes taxes to help fund education and balance the state budget.
For the first time in more than 20 years, exit polls on Nov. 6 showed that American voters favor higher taxes for wealthy citizens. The presidential candidate who campaigned on raising taxes for people earning more than $250,000 a year was elected.
In October, more than 80 CEOs of large corporations, the likes of Dow Chemical, Microsoft and Bank of America, placed full-page newspaper ads calling on Congress to raise taxes in addition to reducing spending to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff.
The message is clear: Americans support raising taxes for what they view as the right reasons — reasons such as improving fire protection, adequately funding education and paying for necessary federal government services while reducing the national debt.
As obvious as that message is, many in Congress are going to have trouble getting it. Among the House members and senators preparing to negotiate a way out of the looming fiscal crisis, 271 of 289 Republican members of Congress are encumbered by a document they signed pledging to never raise taxes.
A consensus that there will be no way out of the budget impasse and no way to bring down the national debt without raising taxes for the wealthiest payers has settled over the issue. Yet there is that pledge.
If the country goes over that fiscal cliff and sinks back into a recession because of a pledge that prohibits increasing tax revenue, it would be fair to say it was pushed over the edge by a lobbyist. A lobbyist? Now that’s adding embarrassing insult to economic injury. The pledge was invented by Grover Norquist, a man not elected by anyone who is paid to wield influence in Congress to prevent increasing taxes.
This is the same lobbyist who said the government should be starved of tax revenue so that it is shrunken “to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
That rancid sentiment is anathema to most Americans and there is growing evidence that some of the signers of the pledge are starting to understand that.
So how to get out of a pledge? Some Congress members are saying the pledge has sort of expired and wasn’t meant to be forever. Others are redefining the term tax increase — eliminating deductions, even if that would result in higher taxes, would be OK. Perhaps some will say they were crossing their fingers when they signed it.
Or the signers could say something like this: We meant well, but signing the pledge was a mistake. We are not going to let a lobbyist determine the economic future of our country. We will consider raising taxes for high-income citizens so we can find a way for America to pay for the government services citizens need and reduce its debt.
Call it a Christmas wish.
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Written by Ozaukee Press
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Tuesday, 20 November 2012 18:08 |
By reducing a deer population that is a costly nuisance in Ozaukee County, hunters are performing a service to the environment
Deer hunters are afield in Ozaukee County this week. Let us hope their numbers are large, their stalking skills sharp and their aim true so that this is a successful hunt with many deer slain.
The whitetail deer that overpopulate the county, not just in the countryside but amid suburban sprawl and in urban confines, have no predators besides man. Deer hunting here is more than an autumn ritual avidly performed by its devotees; it is an environmental necessity that benefits everyone by asserting at least a modicum of control over a costly and sometimes dangerous nuisance.
Deer are too numerous here because our habitat is irresistible, more alluring than the north woods thanks to the abundance of food in farm fields, gardens and back yards surrounded by a wealth of forested land for cover and shelter.
Secure in this accidental largesse, the deer reproduce abundantly and in their vast numbers menace roads and lay waste to plants in virtually every form, from the shoots of spring flowers to garden vegetables to ornamental trees. The animals munch away through the four seasons and in winter when other plants are dormant are content to graze on the likes of arbor vitae trees, vibrant evergreens that can be left disfigured or ruined by a single night’s visit by foraging deer.
This all comes at a high cost. Deer-vehicle crashes on Ozaukee roads number in the hundreds each year, running up a steep bill for vehicle repairs and medical treatment for injured passengers. (Nationally, there are more than 4,000 deer-vehicle collisions every day, resulting in more than 250 deaths and 30,000 injuries requiring hospital treatment a year.)
Few gardens or produce-raising fields can withstand the deer onslaught without elaborate and costly fencing. The massive, fortresslike fence surrounding the Hales Trail Community Garden in Port Washington gives a sense of the extreme measures needed to defend human food production against deer predation.
And so—bring on the hunters.
Yes, we know, that’s not a universal sentiment. Some people disapprove of hunting on the grounds that humans simply should not kill animals; others because they like having deer around. (Granted, Bambis are adorable and an adult whitetail bounding with exquisite grace over hill and dale is a stirring sight. If there were just a few of them looking adorable and graceful, there would be no need for hunting. Unfortunately, that isn’t reality.) There are also worries about guns being discharged near populated areas.
These attitudes deserve respect, but they offer no help in dealing with the problems caused by a superabundance of wild animals in urbanized places. The more clear-eyed view is expressed in direct language by an environmental studies professor in the just-published book “Nature Wars” by Jim Sterba: “Hunting is good—one of the best, most responsible forms of stewardship of nature.”
Hunting is carefully managed, and while there have been a few conflicts between hunters and homeowners over the years in Ozaukee County, it has a good safety record. Deer hunting here is limited to shotguns using short-range slugs, muzzle-loaders and bows.
It is also limited to rural areas, which means that hunting doesn’t have much effect on deer in the areas where they do the most damage. A few communities in Wisconsin and elsewhere have responded by hiring sharpshooters to kill deer. Some cities and villages, particularly on the East Coast, have opened their deer-infested areas to bow hunters, a tactic that could be considered here if the deer problem worsens.
As Ozaukee hunters pursue their prey, we might reflect on the one positive aspect of the deer population explosion: It’s a sign of the amazing comeback of the American forest. Millions of acres once laid bare by logging are now covered by trees. Today more than half of the land in Wisconsin is forest, with more trees, it is thought, than before the state was settled. In the eastern half of the country, the forest has grown back to 88% of what it was in 1630. In Ozaukee County, thousands of acres are covered with trees. No wonder wildlife feels at home.
We can celebrate the fact that when it comes to trees, the American landscape is much like it was described by James Fennimore Cooper in the Leatherstocking Tale “Deerslayer,” set in the 18th century, while acknowledging that the deerslayers of today are doing their part to rebalance nature in Ozaukee County.
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