October 12, 2005
Goodbye to "Our Town"
This will be the end of *Our Town* for me.
Friends who know me well are aware that politics in the city of South Haven is not a joy in my life, it's a duty . My joys are my family, my home, my work, my friends, my pets. My joys are laughter, cooking, gardening, partying, dancing, lunching, reading, Chicago, music and single malt scotch. And South Haven. But not politics.
I had quite enough of city politics in the '90s, trying to build my business and my home. I just wanted to be left alone.
I first came forward from "private life" about 3-4 years ago when the Downtown Development Authority proposed 230 advertising banners
to hang up and down North Shore Drive, down Water Street in lake views and in our residential neighborhoods. Competitive businesses had scheduled their advertising banners to hang in MY windows surrounding Yelton Manor on both Dyckman and North Shore Drive. The City Council, faced with the fact that the banners were illegal according to the sign ordinance, changed the law. They convinced themselves (and tried to convince residents) that if we couldn't have advertising banners on light poles, well, we couldn't have Christmas decor or American flags either. It stretched credulity, but it worked. In the end, due to the courage of a few vocal residents (like Dave Paull, for instance), the awful banners ended up staying on commercial streets, but they stayed OFF of our residential neighborhoods. But I was pretty PO'd and now I was paying attention for sure.
In the next years several more bad ideas were hatched at City Hall. One was to rezone all of the North Shore Drive peninsula from Dyckman to North Beach into something called "Traditional Resort Neighborhood". The problem was to find a legal way to permit Bundy's Bakery to have 4 seats. But the solution proposed was to rezone the entire peninsula permitting commercial development of North Shore Drive. This crazy idea was despite the fact that, except for the lone corner of my business at Dyckman, it has been zoned residential since forever. The plan failed, thank god; they found another way to help Bundy's seat some people. But without people showing up and saying NO WAY, it might have happened.
At that point I felt a bit under siege, but the worst was yet to come.
During the same years the city redrew the zoning maps and somehow my business property went from being zoned Neighborhood Business to being zoned Residential. This simple clerical error could have had significant detrimental effect on my future use of and/or sale of my business property. It took me almost a full year of phone work and showing up at Planning Commission and Council to get my authentic zoning reestablished.
In the meantime, the city was changing dramatically.
DDA had doubled in area and in wealth.
Plans were in the works for the Celery Pond and the Central Business District; plans that included high rise development.
Perfectly healthy trees were chopped down at Dyckman Park.
Huron Street parking lot was being built without Planning Commission overview.
DDA came out with an astonishingly greedy and ridiculous plan to spend over 20 million dollars of taxpayers money (over 5 year period) to defile all corners of the city with a series of 20-30 billboards shaped like sails and for wasteful radio and TV advertising.
Ordinances against transient rentals and commercial signage in residential neighborhoods were now not being enforced, blighting our neighborhoods and damaging legitimate lodging properties. This is still true.
Sherman Hills PUD went through and they clearcut the riverside.
National Motors came through in the night and tore down their building, despite an approved plan to restore it.
Council passed a highrise mixed use PUD for Wells St. despite the outcry of 600+ signatures on a petition and Planning Commision disapproval.
Gigantic outskirt schools were built though the Master Plan calls for neighborhood schools.
School, drug enforcement, street paving and the college millages, all passed with trust by voters, were looted by DDA TIF capture.
The city tore down 20-30 full-grown healthy trees on Baseline for a bike path that goes nowhere in both directions.
A dense, highrise PUD was being introduced for the Indiana School.
A tacky PUD was being planned for Maple St, despite the alarm of longtime neighbors.
Then a plan went forward to change the law AGAIN, this time to allow PUDs in the CBD. The first draft actually read: "Height will not be a consideration for PUDs in the CBD." Hello high-rise downtown.
Council was insulting citizens and passing rules to restrict public speech at meetings.
Anyone could see that the city was in a crisis. Mostly because we had all gone home to a quiet "private life", expecting our city to stay quaint and quiet and expecting our city government to be reasonable and connected to the desires of residents. Didn't happen.
And we were all asleep at the wheel, admittedly. We were not watching. We have ourselves to blame, sure enough. We were not watching.
Well, now we are. Residents have awakened and we are all now talking about the future of South Haven together.
I think progress has been made and consensus is forthcoming.
I'm done, for the most part.
I am sorry for the ruffled feathers along the way, but being provocative is sometimes a necessary tactic. I have always said that I serve better as a thumbtack on the chair of power than I do in the seat itself. But I am still sorry for the butts I have poked, really I am. And I much prefer consensus.
I am not going to stop paying attention. I am still going to make waves if/when the city tries to sell us out, blight our views or otherwise let us down. And I sure would like to see DDA cut back its area and let the library, college, seniors and others have their fair share of tax money.
But I don't want to keep poking any more. Things are on a roll, and I am rolling home. To all the things I really do for life and joy.
I do not own this website and anyone is welcome to take over the Our Town blog with the approval of the site's owner, Denise. I thank her for letting me use this site for the purpose of discussion. I wish we would have had more widespread participation, but it is, well...as it is.
Again, I am sorry for hurt feelings. I hope the result, a better South Haven with a more responsive citizenry and city government, will be worth the price. I apologize especially to Kevin Anderson, who I know has been just doing his job. He has never been vindictive or retaliatory, and this is commendable. He's actually been quite responsive. I just think he needed to hear what was desired by all. But I have been occasionally unfair to him, publically, and I'm sorry.
It's his elected Council that deserves our distain.
I hope this Mayor is ousted. I hope a better Council is voted in. South Haven will get what South Haven chooses.
I love South Haven. Thanks to all who love her too.
Posted by Elaine at October 12, 2005 06:28 PM
Comments
I think it would be great if Our Town were a trial run of a blog the City could offer. Clearly there are people who don't feel comfortable speaking in front of City Council and the televised meetings. Or perhaps they have mobility problems or health issues that make it difficult if not impossible to participate in the public dialogue which takes place in Council Chamber (including Commission and Board meetings).
Maybe the City could check the legal ramifications of a public blog and if there are no restrictions offer a blog with clear guidelines about identity and some basic guidelines about respectful - if vigorous - exchanges. The degree of participation by City officials would be one of many measures to let citizens know how interested a given department or official is in citizen input. Of course blopgging is time consuming so maybe a City posting would just be an update to a specific question under discussion. Also, it is true that not everyone has email so I wouldn't want a blog to take the place of human to human interaction. But it could be a tool for some citizens and officials to enhance communication.
Thanks Elaine for offering your ideas and well informed perspectives and acknowledgement of the good work as well as the troublesome efforts of our City government.
Posted by: Julie Ludwig at October 13, 2005 11:29 AM