Wow – a long one and a doozy. I’ll summarize what I remember hearing yesterday on the recorded audio.
- Parking commercial vehicles on residential streets. Apparently there are “ten to twenty” tractor trailers and semis being parked overnight all over town. This discussion lasted WAY longer than it should have. It comes down to the safety issue (fire trucks can’t get through) and an annoyance issue (noise complaints at 3am from the neighbors). They talked about permits, but that seems like nonsense to me. So it’s ok to annoy everyone around you as long as the City gets their $200 permit fee? Fuggetaboutit.
There has to be a free-market solution in there somewhere. Talk to Wal-Mart or Stripes about parking there for a fee. One thing there is PLENTY of around here is open space. Hell, maybe talk to the LEDC! They have 165 acres of “shovel-ready business park” sitting there unused. I also see a TON of open space in the parking lots of all the schools that are sitting there unused. Have ’em park there and charge the truck owners $200 a month or something. Mike White was on the correct side of this argument. Should have been over in 10 minutes.
2. Mandy Walsh took credit for handing out free money (‘grants’) from the LEDC to around 50 lucky businesses. To hear her tell it, these business owners wept with joy and hugged her and she was their salvation since they didn’t know if they could open back up again until Mandy’s $1,500 saved them! [Yes, it sounds ridiculous to me, too]. Ten minutes ago, I officially requested a list from the LEDC of all businesses that received grant money (along with the amount given). Not that I don’t trust you, Mandy, but since it IS tax dollars being handed out, we need to make sure there was no cronyism and waste...which seem to abound when it comes to other LEDC projects.
3. The City is discussing NOT opening the public swimming pools for the summer. That is an outrage. This “social distancing” bullshit is like a religion all of a sudden, despite the fact that it is snake oil and not science (kinda like the plastic straw bans). You CANNOT social distance in a pool. Kids need to be kids. They need to roughhouse, pick boogers, dunk each other underwater, wrassle, and BE KIDS. Mike White was AGAIN the voice of reason on this issue, while the Speed Bump (Randy Clark) was for keeping them closed. Mike White said “it is not our job to enforce social distancing…everyone on the planet knows about Wuhan Flu now and they can make their own decisions. We have already taken so much away from these kids with the lock downs“. I am totally paraphrasing Mike there, but when he said it I was cheering in my car and yelling “f*ck yes, Mike!!!”. [I again reiterate that Mike White resigning from council is a huge blow. He is oftentimes the ONLY voice of reason and logic].
This “shut down the pools” is just another step in the pussification of America. If you are too much of a scared rabbit to go to the pool, then don’t go. Kids ESPECIALLY are at very low risk of dying from the Wuhan Flu. Let the parents make the decision to go or not to go. Christ, it’s just like the ridiculous peanut allergy nonsense where peanuts are banned from a school of 500 kids because one kid can’t handle peanuts.
The Wuhan Flu is going to be with us a LONG time – probably forever. And yes, some people are going to die from it. Get used to that. It is very unlikely there will be a vaccine any time soon. Quite frankly, I’d rather get out there and spread it around and get it over with. If you are morbidly obese or over 65 you may want to be a lot more careful, but for the rest of humanity, let’s get on with it already.
I’ll be VERY keen to see what happens with schools in the fall. I’ll tell you this: if you don’t re-open the schools you are going to have a LOT of VERY pissed-off parents. We all pay a LOT of taxes to run these schools and having the kids “learning by Internet” is not going to cut it. Parents are not going to shell out THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS in property taxes and then have their kids underfoot all day long screwing around on the Internet. No way. There will be pitchforks and torches.
So, since you know you are going to open the schools in the fall or face riots, you may as well start now and open the pools and let these kids mingle and spread all their germs around. You DO realize that’s how immune systems work, right?? They need germs to practice on, to quote George Carlin.
ODDS AND ENDS: Also in the meeting, we learned that March sales tax receipts were UP 11%, which blows me away. We were basically shut down the last 12 days of March, so to see sales tax UP 11% was a real shocker. So I guess Mike White is correct so far and it is Mike – 1 and Lampasshole – 0 on those predictions. I guess we will know more in one month when the April sales tax numbers come out. I have to assume a massive drop-off then. We shall see.
I leave you with the great George Carlin and his germ lessons from NINE YEARS AGO but absolutely accurate today – LOTS of bad words in here!!! The two-minute mark onward is especially relevant today: