ACHD

The Case For “Term Limits”

We just returned from a visit to Hawaii’s “Big Island” where we observed a public notice sign on Alii Drive–the posh oceanfront street packed with hotels and condos.

The proposed project included “60 condos and 20 AFFORDABLE HOUSING units!” That prompted us to ponder just exactly what constituted “affordable” on the trendy real estate? Then, we realized the local lingo seems to be the same throughout the USA.

With that in mind the GUARDIAN has compiled a list of terms which can mean whatever the politicos want them to mean.

TERMS WORTHY OF LIMITS

REVENUE, CLAWBACK, TRANSPARENCY, SHARROW, AFFORDABLE HOUSING, HOMELESS, INCENTIVES, HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION, CONNECTIVITY, URBAN RENEWAL, TAX INCREMENT FINANCING, SUSTAINABILITY, GREEN CERTIFIED, ROUNDABOUT, COMMUNITY POLICING, OUTREACH, LISTENING, FIRST RESPONDER, CLIENT, CONSULTANT, DEVELOPER, SURVEY, POLL, PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP, SUSTAINABILITY, LOCAL OPTION TAX, TRANSPORTATION CORRIDOR, INCREASED DENSITY, MASS TRANSIT, BICYCLE FRIENDLY, URBAN RENEWAL, INFILL, INCREASED DENSITY, SMART GROWTH

SELECTED DEFINITIONS

REVENUE–a term used to disguise “tax money taken from the hard earned wages of local citizens, usually against their wishes.

CLAWBACK–A way to grab REVENUE previously not collected.

TRANSPARENCY–A way to hide CLAWBACK of missed REVENUE.

TRANSPORTATION CORRIDOR–Formerly called streets, but includes bike lanes, pedestrian routes, street cars, scooters, electric bikes, and some autos.

ROUNDABOUT–A junction of two TRAFFIC CORRIDORS where it is difficult for HOMELESS to solicit because cars don’t stop.

MASS TRANSIT–Church bus for Catholics or use of TRAFFIC CORRIDORS.

INFILL–Result of INCREASED DENSITY and justification for MASS TRANSIT.

BICYCLE FRIENDLY–Motorists who stay out of SHARROW lanes to make a right turn.

SUSTAINABILITY–The ability to keep collecting REVENUES.

GREEN CERTIFICATION–A government declaration of color. Not red, yellow or blue. The certification can lead to SUSTAINABILITY.

INCENTIVES–Payments and tax breaks for DEVELOPERS and businesses seeking to exploit Idahoans. These lead to increased density and the clamor for GREEN CERTIFIED BUILDINGS.

PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP–A scheme for DEVELOPERS to get tax REVENUES and INCENTIVES for free.

SMART GROWTH–A cult following. Those in the cult advocate SUSTAINABILITY, SHARROWS, INFILL, ROUNDABOUTS, MASS TRANSIT, COMMUNITY POLICING, CONNECTIVITY, SURVEYS, CONSULTANTS, CLAWBACKS. A fantasy not rooted in reality.

Comments & Discussion

Comments are closed for this post.

  1. Eamonn Harter
    Jan 31, 2020, 10:02 pm

    The use of “affordable housing” implies that the remainder is unaffordable, and therefore proves that your market is experiencing a speculative bubble.

    Here’s another overused, deceptive term to add to your list: STAKEHOLDER

    EDITOR NOTE–Special interest person, not necessarily part of the Church of Latter Day Saints.

  2. I think I understand that “Public Private Partnership” thing.

    For many years the missus and I have had an agreement, with regards to the checking account. I (representing the “public interest”) put money into the account. She (representing the “private interest”) takes money out.

    Is that close?

  3. “Nothing is true and everything is possible…Adventures in the War against Reality” —Peter Pomaratnsev

    While Pomaratnsev is examining the remnants of the Soviet Empire under Putin, his reporting portends where the US and much to the rest of the planet seems to be headed.

    Unable to face the likelihood of our suicidal extinction, humanity is losing its bearings. Trump is the embodiment of this phenomenon. Following his botched impeachment, his reelection will seal the deal.

    EDITOR NOTE–C’mmon, stay on topic, go to Freedom Foundation to troll for Trumpers.

  4. Bikeboy…only if she regularly berates you for not putting enough money into the pot and then connives to spend more than is there.

  5. From SE part of USA: Net neutrality
    Sustainable,Urban, Linearity, Community alliance,
    Resource sharing (formerly mutual aid), Abundant resources, Causation, Spacial awareness

  6. Night Trader
    Feb 1, 2020, 9:45 am

    Botched impeachment? RUBBISH What scares me is no one in the wings to perpetuate Trump’s ‘make America great again’ after his second term.

    EDITOR NOTE–Stay on the fun topic and troll for Trump bait elsewhere. See note to Rabula.

  7. Aloha!
    All funny except, “BICYCLE FRIENDLY–Motorists who stay out of SHARROW lanes to make a right turn.”

    For clarification for the slow drivers, a ‘sharrow’ lane is ONE lane.
    For a motorist to stay out of the sharrow lane would be to stay off the road- ride a bike perhaps.

    Different than “a motorist who stays out a BIKE lane to make a right turn.” It seems that is what was intended for the post, since that that is the law.

    To safely turn right over a bike lane, a motorist looks in the side mirror and visually looks to see a clear lane and turns right while still in the traffic lane; unless there is a turn lane, whereupon a motorist uses the DOTTED line portion to make a safe (clear of bikes) lane change over the bike lane into the turn lane.

    That is the traffic safety tip of the day.
    Let’s share the road and know the rules for everyone’s safety. 🙂

  8. from the back of the bus, other words that should be term limited:

    alternative facts – whatever you want to believe
    crony- back scratching for money and votes
    Extremist – killing people in a Walmart and at nightclubs
    misogyny – grabbing a cat without consent
    obstructionist – being King for a day x 1,460 days
    ostrichizing – drinking alternative facts from under the sand
    zealot – believing one is the chosen one when you just randomly got lucky
    Pathological liar/sociopath liar – POTUS

  9. Editor: C’mon yourself. Trump is a mine, even a landmine, of oxymorons.

  10. Dave Kangas
    Feb 1, 2020, 5:40 pm

    Here’s one: PROPERTY RIGHTS- developer trigger phrase to intimidate politicians and get whatever the developer wants.

  11. The view from that end of the tunnel for some of you has just become redundant and boring. Easterner, would you like to put a year, decade or century on that liar-POTUS post? Keep your doctor/plan, Benghazi only irate movie critics, WMD’s, Bay of Tonkin, Bay of Pigs, Remember the Maine etc…

  12. Sorry, I misspoke. I apologize. It’s the Gulf of Tonkin. Label me a liar to discount my opinion. That seems to be the current SOP.

  13. Eamonn Harter
    Feb 2, 2020, 11:39 am

    Here is an easy way to defeat the PROPERTY RIGHTS argument: So I should be able to legally operate a strip club next door to an elementary school, correct? After all, it is my RIGHT to use my PROPERTY any way I want.

    PROPERTY RIGHTS, as it is typically used, means public subsidy to private development.

  14. Apathy Is Implied Consent
    Feb 2, 2020, 1:56 pm

    For those of you just now discovering you’ve been lubed up and taken advantage of:
    Where have you been your entire adult life?
    Who have you voted for?
    Party line voter?
    Why did you vote for them more than once?

    I see the local elected officials are going to shamelessly take another 30% year over year tax property increase. Then they’ll set the budget to absorb every penny. Then they’ll post public information to make it look like they have a shortfall. Many of them are supposed republicans. Admitted democrats and liberals would be much worse.

    Apparently apathy is implied consent. We need to elect financially competent, honest, conservatives. And we need to flush them out before it becomes a career for them. I agree term limits is the only way to do this.

  15. Highest & Best Use – for who or what? code for greed.

    A New Library – code for a Civic Center for Education and Culture (CCEC), as the city realized many citizens would not buy into a CCEC, especially with a book robot.

    No New Taxes – to describe the mega-library project, because the City had already stashed away $50 milllion in excess tax collected, which they are still sitting on.

    Lease Financing – a vague term for the average citizen, that Boise used to disguise a way to “work-around” the constitutional limitation on debt, and a clever tool cooked up by Wall Street.

    Listening & Community Engagement – to make the citizens feel good, think their concerns matter, when the decisions have already been made.

  16. one might remember Idaho voters DID pass a law of term limits in 1994.

    The Idaho Legislature repealed it.
    The veto override was led by Bruce Newcomb(R), House Speaker with the special professional skills of a farmer/rancher from Burley (District 27), he was quoted as saying, “it [term limits] was not in the public interest.”
    He said the Citizens Initiative was all due to OUTSIDE money- there’s another one for the list above– Not out-of-state voters, but out-of-state money. He fed at the trough for 20 years in the legislature; so of course he opposed limits. Can you say PERSI with an “e”? SMH.
    To be more accurate over 2/3 of the legislators said thumbs-down to term limits.
    And current Governor Little recently was quoted to say Newcomb “was always about doing the right thing.”
    And now the current Speaker Bedke (also Dist 27), reping the same people and made of the same cloth including his cow experience. So our Legislature is being controlled by one group in the Magic Valley – opposed to limits .
    —There you have it. THAT “public private partnership’ is neck deep in self-preservation and sustainability.

    Also THE SAME group currently wanting to limit your ability to pass fture Citizen Initiatives. go figure. 🙁

    So? Want to grab your musket and meet on the steps tomorrow morning?

  17. 3% Budget Increase – a term to disguise the 3% COLA for personnel (cost of living adjustment). In the budget every year; compounding each year therafter to the current tune of more than $6 million a year.

  18. what a cryin' shame
    Feb 3, 2020, 12:23 pm

    Better keep your eye on the Ada County Fairgrounds talks. They’re talking about partnerships, best use, and they’re thinking Kuna might be a place for the fairgrounds. The deck is unfairly stacked. Leave the fairgrounds where it is.

    A use of the fairgrounds should not by definition include the option to sell it off and move it. What is the price for that land? Let the taxpayers speak for this enterprise property. We don’t need more chain deli’s and coffee shops. Nor condos.

    The property borders Boise and Garden City. So whose property is it? Whose property rights rule?

  19. And when one seamlessly combines all the above words the resulting synergy creates The Most Livable City in the Country.

  20. HOMELESS- The most environmentally sustainable person on the planet. They consume very very little and their ecological impact is nil.

    You forgot TINY HOUSES.

    TINY HOUSE- A place where a homeless person can finally climb out of one low income category, and into a new one. Currently, radical enviros want almost all of us to surrender out current homes and downsize into a TINY HOUSE, in order to restore Greta Thunberg’s childhood that we all stole from her.

    CONSULTANT- A specially selected mouthpiece that always justifies everything about your hidden agenda with academically approved semantics.

    SURVEY- A specially worded poll, that is targeted in a venue that almost guarantees the outcome you desire (e.g. any poll conducted in downtown Boise to ask about the need for improved mass transit).

    POLL- See above.

    INCREASED DENSITY- The special goal of this State’s minority Party to increase its voter base…AKA, importing people that flee Californication, just to vote for the same people to repeat the cycle once again, because THIS TIME, it will be different.

    LISTENING- That thing you pretend to do while telling yourself that you don’t have to oblige that person at call, cuz your 5 year plan has already been written and approved by the Politburo in Portlandia.

    MASS TRANSIT- The ONLY form of transportation that will be available to you once your personal vehicle has been taken away in that mandated buyback program, in order to offset your carbon sinning ways.

    URBAN RENEWAL- That new improvement that they created because your old property didn’t look “woke” enough, and now they can tax it for more.

    CLAWBACK- Alot like “buyback” but without the insulting pittance amount they pay you for it with.

    GREEN CERTIFIED- It means Greta Thunberg likes it.

    CONNECTIVITY- It means that you can walk everywhere when your personal vehicle has been confiscated.

    FIRST RESPONDER- The only person that Legacy Media and/or Government recognizes as the legitimate authority on scene. “Hey, you should have called 911 instead of using your own ability to respond to that emergency outside of the political narrative we want to exploit for political gain.”

    PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP- I think Mussolini called this…Fascism!

    ROUNDABOUT- It’s supposed to be a type of traffic concept, but is really the preferred method that Team Dave has appropriated funds during his past administration.

    TAX INCREMENT FINANCING OR TIF-

    A clever way to extract favors from your favorite developers, who promise to develop “blighted” zones, that they were going to develop anyway. Or…”Capturing the full tax increment and directing it to repay the development bonds ignores the fact that the incremental increase in property value likely requires an increase in the provision of public services, which will now have to be funded from elsewhere (often from subsidies from less economically thriving areas). For example, the use of tax increment financing to create a large residential development means that public services from schools to public safety will need to be expanded, yet if the full tax increment is captured to repay the development bonds, other money will have to be used.”

    Or…a TIF is that thing your city government will throw when it can’t get it’s way.

  21. A couple terms we could use more of:

    PRINCIPLE ABOVE PARTY – An endangered species

    A HERO – Mitt Romney

    It is not often we see it in politics, right?
    An elected official doing the right thing despite the personal outcome to that politician.
    Doing the right thing.
    Not what the lobbyists want to benefit the big corporations; not what the extreme base voters want for individual benefit; not what the campaign donors want in return for their money; not the easy vote; but doing the right thing- following the truth, obey an oath, being thoughtful.

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