Today's Quote

“Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.”-- Winston Churchill

Finance Director/Treasurer

Under policy direction from the City Manager, plans, organizes, manages and directs the programs and activities of the Finance Department; serves as City Treasurer and Risk Manager; manages and participates in preparing financial analyses and reports; participates in and coordinates development of the City budget and long-range financial forecasts; oversees utility billing, business license and other permit administration, billing and collections; provides expert professional assistance and support to City management and the City Council on financial, accounting, financing and related matters; and performs related duties as assigned.

Oh yeah, here we go.

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

The external economies and diseconomies of land use mean that urban property markets have uncompensated externalities that result in unrestricted markets not functioning in such a manner as to achieve Pareto optimality.
It is generally consider obvious that the presence of external effects in the urban property market drive the desire for zoning. In other words, if one happened to own a house for their own residential use and a meat packing plant wanted to move on to the adjacent lot, it would no doubt be upsetting because of the possible odors, noise, congestion, etc., which might lower the property value of the house.
In fact, all zoning restrictions – use, height, area and density are efforts to eliminate possible externalities which are generated by uses or property features that might impose undesirable effects upon other properties in the area.
An external economy will increase the value of affected properties and external diseconomies will decrease the value of affected properties. If one neighbor decides to repaint his house and spruce up his yard so he can get a better price when selling it, he also at the same time is slightly improving the market value of other houses in the neighborhood, creating a “external economy” benefiting his neighbors. On the other hand, another neighbor who is a grade-A slob and lets the external appearance of his house run down creates an "external diseconomy" by depressing the attractiveness and thus the market value of the whole neighborhood.
Most of the critiques of zoning fall into four broad categories. Two concern fairness or equity and the other two are based on considerations of economic efficiency. Zoning is said to be: (A) unfair because it benefits some landowners at the expense of others; (B) exclusionary, and therefore unfair to those excluded from a particular community; (C) inefficient insofar as it adds large transaction costs to development decisions, outweighing the benefits (if any) of zoning; and (D) inefficient in that it "distorts" land use allocation decisions, resulting in inefficient patterns of land use.
Ultimately, resting a defense of zoning upon the controversial and unverifiable claim that these consumer surpluses are always (or even usually) sufficiently large to make zoning an efficient welfare-maximizing institution is difficult. However, the case against zoning on efficiency grounds is also not clear-cut once the consumer surplus is taken into account. Given that we are necessarily uncertain about which course of action will maximize aggregate welfare, it is reasonable to choose a course, zoning, that would simultaneously protect the stability of existing neighborhoods and likely maximize the welfare of current neighborhood residents.

REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS

The City of Lake Mills is seeking a qualified consultant to assist city staff in the provision of General Engineering Services. The Consultant shall function as an extension of the City’s resources by providing qualified technical and professional personnel to perform the duties and responsibilities assigned under the terms of the Agreement. The services under the proposed contract would start on October 1, 2011. The full Request For Qualifications information/instructions are available at the Lake Mills Municipal Building, 200D Water Street, Lake Mills, Wisconsin 53551 or on the City Website www.ci.lake-mills.wi.us.

To be considered, five (5) hard copies, and one (1) digital copy labeled “Lake Mills General Engineering Services RFQ” must be received at the City Clerk-Treasurer’s Office, 200D Water Street, Lake Mills, Wisconsin 53551 by 2:00 P.M. on Thursday, July 14, 2011. The City reserves the right to reject any or all proposals submitted.

It is anticipated that the selection of a General Engineering Services Consultant will be completed by September 6, 2011.

Fairness and the Law

No society can, of course, be a scheme of cooperation which men enter voluntarily in a literal sense; each person finds himself placed at birth in some particular position in some particular society, and the nature of this position materially affects his life prospects. Yet a society satisfying the principles of justice as fairness comes as close as a society can to bring a voluntary scheme, for it meets the principles which free and equal persons would assent to under circumstances that are fair. [John Rawls, A theory of Justice]

John Rawls, in defining what he calls “justice as fairness” puts forth the following two key principles:

First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. Second: social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably to be expected to be to everyone’s advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.

The law can and should be seen as the connection of freedom and fairness. We all scream that we want freedom, but we should also realize that absolute freedom is not possible in any society. Still, some level of fairness is possible and in statutory form can be seen as the only means of providing for freedom in ways that benefit society as a whole. Laws are made in our society to presumably protect the rights of all citizens. But fairness, while facilitating freedom, also thwarts it in the form of law. A property owner may wish to have the freedom to build anything they desire on their property, but the law, in place to protect the welfare of the community, says this is not acceptable. What is the quid pro quo in such cases? The property owner is giving up a particular freedom in exchange for a communal contract that all must give up such a freedom for the welfare of all. Law then, is an agreed to set of proscriptions, a covenant, that benefit all and, while limiting individual freedom, facilitates or enforces fairness.

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/sansom_freedom.htm

Political Theory

One of my favorite papers on political theory and/or economics wasn't written by a political theorist or an economist. It was written by a biologist. In 1968 Garrett Hardin wrote one of the most famous papers ever to be published in the journal, Science. He titled it, "The Tragedy of the Commons".

Garrett Hardin’s dilemma of the “tragedy of the commons” states that multiple individuals who act in their own interest will tend to destroy a common resource.

The scenario by which Hardin’s theory is often explained is that of cow herders sharing a common, finite parcel of grazing land. The grazing pasture will support only a limited number of cows.

But, human nature being what it is, individual herders will tend to put as many of their own cows as possible into the common grazing pasture. The benefit of taking more than one’s share is enjoyed exclusively by the individual herder while the cost (being the gradual degradation of the grazing land) is spread amongst all the herders.

In a reverse way, the tragedy of the commons reappears in problems of pollution. Here it is not a question of taking something out of the commons, but of putting something in — human waste, or industrial waste, and farm wastes into water; noxious and dangerous fumes into the air; and distracting and unpleasant property uses. The calculations of utility are much the same as before. The rational man finds that his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them. Since this is true for everyone, we are locked into a system of "fouling our own nest," so long as we behave only as independent, rational, free enterprisers. (http://www.constitution.org/cmt/tragcomm.htm)

In a nutshell, one or more persons acting selfishly will eventually ruin the resource for everyone.

Hardin’s theory can, of course, be readily applied to many aspects of modern life. As individuals, our actions – excess consumption of fossil fuels, overuse of pesticides, cattlemen leasing national land on the Western ranges – provide individual benefits while harming the population as a whole by degrading shared resources.

I recommend reading the article.

Today's Quote

Truth stood on one side and Ease on the other; it has often been so. --Theodore Parker

Face to Face

For some of our electric utility customers, including seniors on fixed incomes, energy expenses can be a financial burden. In fact, there are those in our community who cannot afford the cost of energy to meet their basic needs.
For those who cannot afford such an expense, this can lead to difficult decisions about how to allocate their limited resources. The City Utility has an Energy Assistance Program that is designed to help income-qualifying households cover their energy costs and reduce the financial burden that they face.
We regularly encourage people to establish their income eligibility through the federally funded Wisconsin Home Energy Assistance Program (WHEAP). If approved for WHEAP, people may receive energy assistance through our program.
Our Energy Assistance Program is funded with the portion of Public Benefits dollars specifically set aside for income-qualifying individuals and families.
We also have an emergency fund where people may qualify for assistance. Historically this fund has handle people who were chronically unemployable for some reason and failed to apply to Wisconsin Home Energy Assistance Program (WHEAP) for some reason. From the time the program started until 2009, the same people usually applied for the benefits. Starting in 2010, the applicants have changed.
The changing economy has put people who have never been in the social support system before into a situation where they need the support and they don’t know where to start. They have always been employable and had a short term system of support in case of health or employment issues.
Reviewing and awarding these grants has become a heart rending experience which everyone who wants to determine who does or does not get social assistance should experience.

Family, Friends and Communities

Fight or flight was designed to save your life; it is that design that gets our blood boiling when something happens beyond our control, leaving us wondering if we can fix it. In the past, these ‘threats’ would result in a fight or flight — thus releasing that pent-up stress. Now, however, we are left to deal with the built up hormones in other ways.
Just how stressful can anyone’s life be before it’s too much? I’m amazed at how many families are out there enduring incredible amounts of stress. Still, most of us pick up the sticks and carry on. We seem to find support from family, friends and communities that ultimately make life livable.

Engineering RFQ

I finished the first draft of the RFQ this afternoon. Plan to post it June 2, 2011 and a final decision by September 6.

Main Street Pedestrian Mall

State statute requires that pedestrian malls be designated by the Council. After referring the matter to the plan commission for report under s. 62.23 (5), and after holding a public hearing on the matter with publication of a Class 1 notice of the hearing, the governing body of any city may by ordinance designate any street, road or public way or any part of a street, road or public way wholly within its jurisdiction as a pedestrian mall and prohibit or limit vehicular traffic in the pedestrian mall. Creation of a pedestrian mall under this section does not constitute a discontinuance or vacation of the street, road or public way under s. 66.1003 or 236.43.
This ordinance follows State Statute for converting the alley south of Lake Street running between Main Street and the alley to the east as a pedestrian mall. This allows the city to prohibit vehicular traffic in the pedestrian mall while maintaining the public way.

Assumptions for Economic Analysis

Utilitarian theory: primacy of self interest (even in the name of larger collective interests)
Two sets of actors:
1.) Consumers seek to optimize “utility” (satisfaction)
2.) Producers seek to maximize profit
Voluntary choices get made by both parties based on constraints to resources. Efficiency is how best resources get used. Efficiency arises when there is no possible means of redistributing resources that would make one party better off without making someone else worse off.

Sense of Humor

In a environment of mostly irrational people and
processes, a well-formed sense of irony is helpful.

Brush Pickup

The purpose of operational standards for the removal of yardwaste, is to remove branches, brush, and Christmas trees from the landfill stream and reduce fire hazards in the City and to balance health and aesthetic performance with operational and budget constraints.
The main needs associated with this solution are to provide residents with a means to meet the statutory requirement to remove yardwaste from the landfill stream and the city ordinance to not burn yardwaste in the City. The City opted for two annual free brush pickups and monthly fee based pickups. The program use to require a truck and a chipper with at least two laborers to drive up and down both sides of every street in the city to determine where there was brush and then chip the brush. The City staff suggested the current program because the customer calls and provides an address that the crew can drive directly to and eliminates the time, gas and “wear and tear” on equipment which with the cost of gas was pressing budget constraints. The small fee was used to encourage customers with small amounts of brush to haul it to the yardwaste center themselves. The City also provides an annual Christmas tree pickup early in January. Occasional the City provides free citywide pickup due to weather related conditions.
The staff has completed the spring brush pickup for 2011. The question has been asked if the City would provide an additional pickup because the poor weather this spring has delayed spring cleanup for many residents. The Council would need to determine if this is a weather related pickup that falls under the current policy or if there needs to be a modification of the current policy.

Original Storm Water Plan

The Woodland Beach Road/Ferry Drive intersection experiences flooding from relatively small storm events. Flooding problems in the basin consist primarily of water ponding across streets, yards and homes at the intersection. The flooding problems are usually caused by inadequate storm drainage facilities in the area.

There are 11.5 acres that drain to four undersized inlets that drain into undersized pipes handling another 12 acres of drainage area. The entire Woodland Beach Development does not have even one storm inlet. The City storm water management plan at the time of the development must have been miraculous evaporation.

This would be consistent with the plan in most of the older areas of the city.