Alderman McLendon's Answers to WCAR Questionnaire
posted by Alderman Dana McLendon at 2:59 PM
Thursday, September 01, 2005
About Me
- Name: Alderman Dana McLendon
- Location: Franklin, Tennessee, United States
Previous Posts
- Continued....
- Further Water System Remediation Update:
- CCOF Update:
- The Big Shill
- The Devil Is In the Details
- Six Days a Week
- Update: Franklin Water System Remediation
- Alderman McLendon's responses to the Franklin Fire...
5 Comments:
Sorry about those spam posts (that I have now deleted). I guess it will be necessary to turn on the word verification.
Infrastructure First:
Respectfully, it is not a simple yes or no question and to attempt to reduce it to such risks embracing useless platitudes. Your perception that realtors and developers are in control of BOMA is mistaken; if they were, why has the BOMA denied any number of developer driven requests in the recent past?
I don't buy your implicit conclusion that big=bad and small=good. Big or small can be good or bad, to make it simple. If your assumptions were true, then the best schools in America would be in the tiniest hamlets where the lowest taxes would be levied. I don't think that is necessarily so, nor do I think every larger community necessarily has the worst school and the highest taxes.
You are incorrect in your conclusion that the only way to get more taxes out of the new people (growth) is to raise taxes on everyone. For example: do you ever buy anything in Franklin? If so, you are making a contribution to the tax base. No one raised taxes on everyone to collect that contribution. Here again, this is why it is not a simple yes or no question. I agree we do not collect in advance every penny that any given "growth" requires to "pay for itself." I maintain, however, my position that once the growth is here, it does pay more than only the cost of entry to arrive. This is also why it is not necessarily fair to compel new growth to prepay for all costs associated with it; that could unfairly give the current residents a free ride.
With respect to the argument that existing residents should not pay for growth, it is difficult to know where the line is between existing residents paying higher taxes to pay for growth vs. existing residents paying higher taxes regardless of growth. I agree that conceptually, current residents should not be unfairly assessed while new arrivals get a free, or cheaper, ride. As I said, the city has numerous policies to deflect this result.
You misunderstood my comment about what I think the BOMA has gotten better at in the recent past. Look carefully: my point was that the BOMA has been more deliberate in linking required infrastructure to requested development. In recent years, we have more and more often required developers to accomplish the infrastructure improvements as a condition to starting or continuing the project. I do not contend that traffic problems have been solved.
Gentlemen, how great a place we live that men can see great futures in the same direction, while looking down two different roads.
What I see is growing pains not uncotrolled growth. Growth sustains many things.
Agreed , the traffic stinks,but if developers were required to pay all cost up front a 2000 square foot house would cost 1.5 million( my estimate, a complete ficticious figure)
Point being,without growth,Franklin would have died out long ago. In 1968 as a kid I walked the streets of Franklin, worked in a grocery store that was situated where the Police dept. now stands, and I can tell you, It bore no resemblance to the wonderful city I live in today.
Those that call for a moritorium on growth are calling for higher taxes without even realizing it. A city must forever broaden it's tax base or due to higher cost, be forced to raise taxes in order to maintain services.
Infrastructure First:
Yes, I'm going to answer your comments as time permits. I practice law sometimes seven days a week, go to most or all of the meetings I am committed to be at as an Alderman (that's another five-fifteen events a month) and I am at Jim Warren Park or some other football field with one or both sons six days a week. My time for blogging is, as a result, somewhat limited. Still, public discourse is part of the gig and your comments deserve a response.
I, too, hope the voters of the Second Ward have ample opportunity to compare and contrast the platforms of their candidates. That is part of the reason I have been so active in the blogosphere. I think in the 21st century, local elected officials especially need to be very accessible and responsive to the constituency. I also believe that transparency in the government and public scrutiny is the best antisceptic for the problems that increasingly plague our various levels of government.
There is more traffic than there used to be. That is true probably regardless of when one picks as the baseline. I've lived here ten+ years, and there is more traffic than there was when I got here. There are also more places to go than when I moved here, and more people trying to get to those more places.
I tried to answer your question about new taxpayers/old taxpayers in a previous post. I think your paradigm of trying to separate strictly the "old taxpayers" vs. "new taxpayers" ultimately proves unworkable.
Let's take a look at a real-world example. In the recent past, the BOMA approved a multi-million dollar renovation/expansion to the wastewater treatment plant. The renovations would have been necessary regardless of growth because the state and federal regulations are increasingly stringent. Stated differently, even if no one ever moved here again, we would have faced millions of dollars in cost to upgrade the plant to meet state and federal discharge limits.
At the same time, the plant has been expanded. This was not only to accomodate new growth but to allow the plant to better serve existing customers and to prevent any potential problem with the occasional flood that we have here from overwhelming the system.
Now, here is the policy dilemma that your paradigm is not adapted to solve: who should pay for the expansion and renovation? Should all rate payers share in the cost of the improved plant? Even assuming it would be legal, should "old" rate payers get service for less than "new" rate payers? When do "new" rate payers become "old" rate payers? Ever? Never? What would you suggest?
My reservation about a "study" such as you suggest is that I think validity would be very elusive, for the reasons that I have expounded upon in this and other posts. I know from experience with things like the road impact fees and adequate facilities tax that numerical certainty in these things is very difficult to come by. Trying to answer the question, "Does growth pay for itself?" might be like trying to solve for pi with each "answer" begging three more questions.
Infrastructure First:
You'll be pleased to know that your proposed approach to the sewer plant is more or less what we did. There were a few more wrinkles to it than that, but that is the approach we have taken with respect to sewer and water. Sewer and water, however, more readily lend themselves to this kind of new/old customer analysis because there is the process of creating a physical connection to the system.
Road systems are much more difficult. New and old "customers" of the road system are entitled to use both the "new" and the "old" roads. I reiterate: the city of Franklin does collect millions of dollars from growth to defray the cost of new road construction.
On the school system, you are - no doubt - aware that the City of Franklin does not operate any schools. A school impact fee per new household has some intrinsic fairness about it. From time to time, various county officials have proposed increased or new impact fees. As I have stated previously, the City of Franklin collects more impact fees up front for and from growth than any other local government with the possible exception of Brentwood. I'm not sure the City could legally impose a school impact fee given that the city does not operate any schools, so that would necessarily be a county or FSSD function.
I will not commit to nor rule out supporting the study you have requested. I have pragmatic reservations about such a study; my concerns are in no way political. I value the opportunity to serve the people, but the job requires sacrifice. Being an Alderman is not a position to which I cling for the sake of clinging, so I have no fear about how the facts of any given circumstance impact my tenure as an elected official. I do the best I can to serve the best interest of the community at every turn, and I let the proverbial chips fall where they may on election day.
As always, I believe this discourse is productive.
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