This was a long meeting, with two principal topics: a request for a conditional use for a property downtown, and discussion of a moratorium on approval of first floor residential space in our downtown.
The second topic was more interesting, being broader and more general, than the first. I’ll come back to that meeting as part of a series on planning.
I have spent more time on police leadership, probably, than any other topic. It is the last concern any reasonable person wants to address. I can think of no greater risk to a community than poor police leadership, inequitable enforcement, and failure to administer justice. Few communities are beset with these problems, but when they are present, they’re especially destructive.
Fortunately, most people don’t feel the effects of bad police leadership; the violation of rights and propriety usually falls only on a few. Most others feel no consequence, or prefer to rationalize the consequences visited on others. Bad police leadership is like a rare, deadly disease: it affects directly only a few people, but severely. An ill-led force distorts the administration of justice itself, and puts some — including officers — at risk of reckless personal injury, too.
Ultimately, the injury to a few disgraces and injuries all the community.
One could not — in good conscience, or under any circumstances — ever compromise or relent on matters involving the administration of justice. If anything, one should probe more deeply, more thoroughly, on these matters. I know that I will.
State and municipal economic planning, though, is nothing like bad policing. It’s not a matter of a different degree; it’s a matter of a different kind, entirely. There is a vast difference between being reprehensible (bad police leadership, failure to administer justice) and being good but mistaken (planners, bureaucrats, and advocates of managed solutions).
There are, however, compelling libertarian objections to any number of planning proposals, including concepts widely-touted as ‘smart growth’ proposals. On the week of January 21st, I’ll run a series on the problems of planning, including smart growth proposals. It’s only fair to set out the libertarian case more fully, more clearly, and in detail.
Although I have criticized Dr. Roy Nosek’s views on code enforcement and affordable housing, etc., I don’t consider his views representative of planning, generally. In fact, I’ve had to stitch together his various objections merely to arrive at a position to consider. Important issues that a planner would consider — timing and sequence, among them — are unconsidered in his proposals. That’s why, in the end, I think his objections are more cultural than anything else.
I do not doubt that the city has planners, and advocates of planning, far more capable. As someone wrote to me recently, and correctly, I have been scornful of planning, but have not set out a thorough, persuasive case against it.
I’ll take a stab at setting that case out starting on the 21st.