Oh well . . . There’s no vaccine for COVID Crazy.
“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “COVID Voicemail Menu” Bumper sticker
Month: October 2021
“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “The role of the victim” Bumper sticker
Just as the bereaved are sometimes put in the position of comforting those who are uncomfortable talking to them – victims can be put in the position of justifying their own “victimology” – even if they’re already deceased.
But then; they play such a small part in the Criminal Justice System – do they really need to?
“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Tompkins County is so stratified” Bumper sticker
“Tompkins County is so stratified: You can’t just kneel – You have to grovel.” It’s not just that the County’s policy-making elite think so much of themselves; it’s that they think so little of everyone else. Their pretensions can be laughed at – but their pronouncements must be feared. A fool with a gun; has a gun.
“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “New York State’s Agriculture Policy” Bumper sticker
When it comes to Agricultural Pollution; New York State isn’t doing the same old worthless things – they’re doing a new version of the same old worthless things. As our lakes and waterways become increasingly impaired; State authorities do a handshaking-dance with powerful Agribusiness interests in a dog-and-pony show of endless data-deflecting studies. Voluntary guidelines and regulations with less teeth than a Gummy Bear – stewarded by agriculture controlled committees with a no-fault/no-fine manure spill mandate.
Is anything changing? Yes, the pollution is getting worse — and the corruption is getting “grandfathered”.
“Tompkins County and Tammany Hall” – Town of Lansing Comp Plan – Introduction: “From First to Last”
The Town of Lansing is proposing a new Local Law – one that only applies to the “Rural/Agricultural Zone”; and further restricts the lives and activities of the town’s rural residents.
In today’s world of unabashed self-promotion; where the most repressive and discriminatory policies are marketed as the “Greater Good” — a dictatorship has crawled through the crumbling remains of our once representative government. How can you survive on the path to world-wide dissolution? Conforming won’t help you get a place in the lifeboat: you’re just clawing up the backs of those who are already drowning.
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TOWN OF LANSING COMPREHENSIVE PLAN
Introduction
From First to Last
Buried towards the end of Chapter 4 in the Town of Lansing Comprehensive Plan; is a paragraph that should have come at the plan’s beginning – a statement that reveals the true authorship and intent of the town’s future policy making:
“The best way to plan for the long-term future of the Town of Lansing is to decide regionally where the major commercial, educational, shopping, recreational, health care, agricultural, manufacturing and residential sectors will be located. The reality is that our municipalities are not in competition with each other; rather they survive in symbiotic relationships. We should build upon these cooperative relationships in land-use decisions as well, while respecting a town’s right to home rule. New York State Law delegates planning decisions to the town and city levels but does not forbid a more coordinated process.”
This statement unilaterally rewrites the whole structure of responsibility and obligation of town government; and directly contradicts New York State Town Law § 272-a:
“The development and enactment by the town government of a town comprehensive plan which can be readily identified, and is available for use by the public, is in the best interest of the people of each town.”
The Law clearly shows the intent of the law is NOT to make the Town’s comprehensive plan a “regional” decision.
“Among the most important powers and duties granted by the legislature to a town government is the authority and responsibility to undertake town comprehensive planning”
The comprehensive plan is an important “duty” and “responsibility” of the town government – and as such cannot be delegated or subordinated to other agencies or interests.
“The participation of citizens in an open, responsible and flexible planning process is essential to the designing of the optimum town comprehensive plan.”
The Town of Lansing planning process was anything but “open”; with citizen participation relegated to a scattering of meaningless pre-planning activities – and offering NO participation for residents throughout the entire decision-making and policy approval process.
Lansing Town Government’s claims of public representation rests on a single telephone survey, prepared and administered by Cornell University’s Survey Research Institute (SRI) [See Ruler of All you Survey for a more detailed examination.] – A survey that was widely attacked by Lansing residents in a Town Meeting. The advocates of the survey retreated – and ended up by claiming that it was only meant to give an indication, and was not to be considered an important policy document. This same survey was later cited and used throughout the final Comprehensive Plan as both a definitive source and as a mandate from the town’s residents.
In this “Community Survey” – 365 town residents were cold-called on issues that had never been brought up for discussion or debate, to reply to a series questions that showed a definite bias in their preparation.
The Survey’s method of formulation and its inclusion as the Town’s only source of policy-defining public participation – shows the ongoing misrepresentation of policy goals and lack of ethical underpinning that pervades policy-making in Tompkins County.
New York State Town Law § 272-a:
“In the event the town board prepares a proposed town comprehensive plan or amendment thereto, the town board shall hold one or more public hearings and such other meetings as it deems necessary to assure full opportunity for citizen participation in the preparation of such proposed plan or amendment”
Everybody I talk to; everybody; believes that there is no meaningful participation by the people in either Town or County government — and the actions of government policy-makers to stubbornly continue insisting that there is meaningful public participation; while refusing to allow public participation and oversight; gives legitimacy to that belief.
The lead writer of the Town of Lansing Agriculture and Farmland Protection Plan [from Cornell Cooperative Extension] publicly expressed the opinion that nobody but farmers “deserved to live in north Lansing” [an opinion that no Town official would rebut] – And the entire Plan was prepared while excluding 95% of the rural residents from any participation at all. This “Protection Plan” [including its policy of rural citizen exclusion] was then approved by both the Town of Lansing, and Tompkins County governments – and became an important part of the Town’s Comprehensive Plan’s “vision.”
It’s should be interesting for students of Tompkins County government to note how perfectly both the Ag Protection Plan and the Lansing Comp Plan dovetail together — with both supporting each other and claiming that the other Plan is essential to the success of their own.
Unsurprisingly; the 2018 Town of Lansing Comprehensive Plan echoes the exact same policies and concerns as the Tompkins County Comprehensive Plan of three years earlier: Lansing Town Government has abjured their duty to the people of the town — and meekly acquiesced to the County’s primacy by accepting “planning at the county level”.
The Town of Lansing should post a disclaimer on all their documents stating: “No meaningful public participation was used in the formulation of these policies and regulations.”
“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Integration in Tompkins County” Bumper sticker
“Put the poor urban blacks and the poor rural whites together – somewhere else.” The County Comp Plan calls it “balance the burdens” – but it’s another name for the County’s policy to move everything and everyone they don’t want in Ithaca – somewhere else.
When a drug rehab center marred their vibrant downtown – they found a better home for it in another municipality. Necessary public works in Ithaca’s “jungle” displaced the homeless; but they were found new housing – elsewhere. The County’s urban housing authority merged with rural providers and absentee landlords turned rural homes into subsidized housing apartments for the urban unwanted — and since agriculture is the only rural activity and land use that the County considers of any importance – those people [and their problems] effectively disappeared. Clever. And there are other words for it . . .
“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “What’s changed?” Bumper sticker
1521: “He was fated to die” – 2021: “He was in the wrong place; at the wrong time.” What’s changed? In one way; nothing. But in another way; everything: in 1521 “fate” was a way of coping with something that couldn’t be changed – in 2021 the “wrong place/wrong time” is an excuse for writing off human lives as bureaucratic overhead. In 2021 being murdered in a “robbery gone wrong” is almost considered dying of “natural causes.” In 2021’s society: everyone has a place; and they’re kept in it — even victims.
“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Form Based Codes are like Dictators” Bumper sticker
“Only a fool would assume they won’t abuse their power.” Don’t we know it. It seems like wisdom has become old fashioned – with so many cautionary tales about people who expect to retain power while renouncing their authority; and those who give over their authority for the promise of thoughtless ease – it’s surprising that today’s uber-naive demand that their government act responsively; when they’ve already given up the power to demand anything.
“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Form Based Codes: If you think they’re not authoritarian” Bumper sticker
“Form Based Codes: If you think they’re not authoritarian; Try to get them changed.” Form Based Codes have the following attributes:
1. They give government a much greater regulatory power over where and how people are allowed to live.
2. Developers get a “streamlined” approval process.
3. Most descriptions of the advantages of form-based codes are only statements without any actual proof.
Are Form Based Codes right for your community? Do you wear a sign on your back that says “Kick me!”?
“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Times change – But for the better?” Bumper sticker
“Times Change • But for the better?” The Adolescent Society is all pride and prevarications – so when they tell you they’re doing this so that things will be better in the future – they are only thinking about what they want now. “If you buy me a dog; I’ll take care of it.” Maturity and responsibility are Adult traits.
“Ethnic mix” was for everybody — today’s “Ethnic purity” is a proud doctrine of privilege and hate – argued for a future that is only an excuse; not a goal.
Everybody I respect; from Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglass, from Mother Teresa to Malcolm X: believed that the Only way to achieve a future of human worth and equality was by never practicing discrimination.
They weren’t fools. Human nature hasn’t changed; and these were smart people; people who heard a lifetime of arguments and pronouncements telling them that they should turn from that path – even if only a little bit, or just for a while – and they refused.
Does this mean you are walking on a different path? Yes, and if you think you’re heading to the same destination – just look who you’re on that path with. And clean up your room.