Updates on Three Items

HARBESON: These things come in threes

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — I have three items to discuss today. The first two are follow-ups to recent columns and the third item is about the Greater Clark County Schools hoping that lots of people in the area will take their eyes off the road while driving.

Linden Meadows

In response to last week’s column “The sad tale of Linden Meadows,” a reader who calls him or herself “M” sent in two replies to the newspaper’s comment section on their website. You can go to newsandtribune.com to read the full text of M’s comments, but there is one specific point I’d like to address here concerning the lawsuit over ownership of the land used for the project. M said, “The court’s 3-0 majority did not base its decision on anything having to do with eminent domain.”

After I saw M’s reply, I felt like I should read the opinion again. I didn’t want to though. I had already read the darn thing several times before writing the column. I was sick of reading it. But I grabbed a bucket and read it again anyway. I still stand by my contention that eminent domain played a part in the court’s decision.

But don’t take my word for it. Don’t take M’s word for it either. Read the opinion yourself at this link: http://tinyurl.com/linden-opinion

If you do, I would be very interested in hearing whether or not you think the court “did not base its decision on anything having to do with eminent domain,” as M claims.

Mayor Moore and Competition with Private Business

My column, “Fit to be tied,” about Jeffersonville Mayor Mike Moore introducing a new government funded program (Anchors A-Weigh) through his newly created Fitness Council sure caused some people to burn a lot of calories pounding on their computer keyboards.

Several commented on the newspaper’s website, but there was also a rather lengthy discussion on one of the local online community forums, ClarkCountyChatter.com. A few forum participants did not understand that the column was not specifically about Anchors A-Weigh. It was merely an example I used to discuss the actions of a local politician.

The reason I chose Anchor’s A-weigh was because Moore had publicly stated his concern about government competing with private business and then spent government money to fund a brand new program that does the exact opposite of the principle he claims to hold.

The direction is clear for any politician who truly does stand for the principle that government should not compete with private businesses: Do not spend government funds to create new programs that contain services already being offered by existing private businesses.

Greater Clark County Schools Billboard Advertisement

The final issue for today is about the Greater Clark County School board’s decision to spend $2,000 for a billboard promoting their government school system.

Lots of thoughts popped into my head after reading this, some I can even talk about in public. Here’s my first thought (and it came up when I saw New Albany-Floyd County’s billboard as well): “Are there really people out there, people capable of driving down the local interstates while reading billboards, who really might not know — until they see a large shiny advertisement — that these government-funded and government-operated school systems exist?”

Greater Clark’s board and school officials sounded like they were unsure whether this was a good move or not and this tentative attitude is certainly understandable. After all, they’ve held a monopoly on government funding for so long, I’m sure it’s a real chore to figure out what to do now that some rules of the education game in Indiana have changed to allow more schools to grab money that’s been coerced from taxpayers for education.

— Clark County resident Debbie Harbeson keeps a bucket handy because she never knows when she may have to read a government document. Write her at Debbie@debbieharbeson.com.

Jeffersonville Government Competing with Private Business?

HARBESON: Fit to be tied

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — Shortly after taking office, Jeffersonville Mayor Mike Moore announced that he would not pursue renovations on the big blue barge, which was purchased under the previous administration and intended to replace the current RiverStage entertainment barge. Since this new barge included a banquet/reception hall, one reason Moore gave for drowning the idea was that he doesn’t want the city competing with private businesses.

That’s a great principle to hold and although there are many ways the city of Jeffersonville currently competes with private businesses, Moore at least took a first step by not adding another one. Upholding this principle didn’t last long though. Moore has already directly contradicted himself and created a brand new government program that has the city competing with private businesses — coincidentally using the RiverStage barge.

Here’s how it happened. One of the personal causes Moore wants to push as mayor is health and fitness so he created a Mayor’s Fitness Council and appointed people to work on ideas to promote fitness in the community. (Let’s hope these are walking meetings and members are not sitting on their butts in a conference room.)

 One result of these meetings is the Anchors A-Weigh program. This program, which has cost $19,000 — appropriated by the city council — so far and even has its own dedicated website, uses the RiverStage to hold “free” fitness classes, two of which are Jazzercise and Zumba. Guess who gets paid to teach the classes. That’s right, members of the same government council that created the government program — who just happen to be Zumba and Jazzercise instructors.

There are several questionable aspects here, but let’s focus on Moore’s previously stated principle that he doesn’t want the city competing with private businesses. Teaching various fitness classes is actually one of the few areas left that does not have huge barriers to entry due to government regulation. It’s a good choice for those who have a passion for fitness and want to be more independent and start their own business.

Many people work very hard in this field trying to build and grow a customer base that will enable them to make a profit. They stay busy trying to find prospective clients who are seeking effective methods to help them keep healthy and fit. So when Jeffersonville offers “free” fitness classes nearly every day of the week, the city is directly competing with those hard-working small business owners.

In addition, getting one’s name out there and developing a reputation as an expert is important in the fitness business, which means the members on the Mayor’s Fitness Council who are now employed by the government to teach these classes are getting an additional marketing benefit. While they are being paid, not only to teach but to market themselves, their competitors are out there marketing themselves on their own dimes.

Owners of fitness businesses understand that they need to find ways to attract clients and persuade them to use their services and they use various techniques to accomplish this goal such as giving free or introductory priced sessions to new students. Moore’s government program interferes with this process and creates competition with private fitness-based businesses, in direct contradiction to his stated principles.

If the mayor and his friends are so passionate and interested in promoting fitness to others, there are loads of ways they can do so without creating city programs that compete with private businesses. The instructors on the council can volunteer their time and host truly free sessions to introduce people to various forms of exercise. Mayor Moore could set up group sessions outside his government office focusing on squat exercises and call it “Quads on the Quadrangle.”

If they worked to promote their cause using purely voluntary means, then no government spending is necessary and private businesses will not be forced to compete with city government. Which is what the mayor wants, right?

— Clark County resident Debbie Harbeson exercises hard in the summer sweating over lots of push-ups — the orange kind that is.

"Moore" Sewer Problems in Jeffersonville

HARBESON: Sewer debate has turned into a mess

CLARK COUNTY — It’s clear that Jeffersonville Mayor Mike Moore regrets signing the ordinance that included the controversial change in how summer sewer usage is determined. (NOTE: See here and here for more background information.) He knows he made a mistake by not vetoing an ordinance that contained a provision he was strongly against. Now he’s trying to find a way out but he’s working inside government, which is like being trapped inside a well-used Port-a-Potty that’s been tipped over with the door against the ground.

Moore told me that the requirement to purchase a meter for outdoor water faucets is the only thing he objected to in the ordinance and none of this would have happened if he could use a line-item veto. I guess he’s learned the hard way that once an ordinance is on his desk, a veto is the only action to take if there is a provision he disagrees with.

The main reason this situation caught my interest is that there are very interesting principles being articulated as both sides debate the issue. Moore has been clear that he believes the residents of Jeffersonville should not pay for something they are not using.

I agree completely.

He’s not the only government official making this case. The officials who believe that mandating a meter is the best way to determine usage are really saying the same thing — it’s just the other side of the coin. They want to make sure that people who are paying less during the summer are doing so because their higher water use is indeed not going into the sewer system.

So if both sides really do believe in the principle that people should pay for what they use, why don’t they apply that concept universally and consistently? After all, there are many things the city of Jeffersonville forces people to pay for that they don’t use and we don’t hear the mayor or the council trying to figure out how to fairly charge users of those programs.

The real problem for many residents is that the government is telling people they now have to purchase a product so they can make sure they only pay for sewer service they actually used. I can understand why people don’t want to do that. But I can also understand why it could be helpful to use meters. If the point is to pay for usage, then meters could certainly help by getting an actual accounting of outdoor water usage.

It’s always hard to accept something like this because it means that someone is making money off of a government mandate — one of the major problems when governments monopolize a service.

This is probably why I see huge signs in Floyds Knobs that say “NO SEWERS.” Someone up there understands that once you are on the grid, you are stuck with government involvement and the increased control in other areas that comes after the collectivization of poo disposal.

There is another reason this issue caught my interest. Now that Moore has been unable to use the political process to keep the old sewer relief plan in place, he said he plans to ignore the ordinance and continue to give summer relief to people even if they don’t purchase a meter.

This means Moore plans to ignore a law he believes is unjust. That’s civil disobedience — at least when a private individual does it. I’m not real sure what to call it when a mayor ignores a law he thinks is unjust, particularly one that he signed in the first place.

Is this really civil disobedience? Or is it just another government official who thinks he is above the law and would never support a private individual who decided to do the same thing and ignore a law the mayor endorsed? I can’t answer those questions, but I still like it when anyone refuses to obey a law he believes is unjust.

— Clark County resident Debbie Harbeson has been told she should pay higher sewer bills because she’s so full of it.

Politicians Behaving Normally?

HARBESON: There’s always a way to get more money


> SOUTHERN INDIANA — Clark County Commissioners learned an important lesson this week: The quickest way to boost attendance at their meetings is to mention a possible benefit reduction for government employees.

Naturally, the employees were concerned and wanted to object. It’s only rational to try to keep what you believe you’ve earned.

We can all sympathize with the frustration of feeling dependent on the actions of politicians, particularly when watching how they behave under pressure.

According to local media reports, during the meeting Commissioner Les Young told a member of the crowd to “shut up,” Commissioner Meyer accused Commissioner Moore of taking stances for political reasons, and previously Moore said the other two were using the employees as political pawns.

Those last two comments belong in the obvious category. After all, princes play polo, possums play dead and politicians play politics.

We’ve seen other instances of questionable behavior, the most notable being the cell phone incident when Moore spit out a string of expletives in a voicemail message to Meyer, who saved it and passed it through his gossip mill.

Even though Young apologized and Moore expressed remorse for that expletive-laced message, clearly none of these men are behaving in ways we’d want our children to emulate.

I’m not sure the rest of us would do much better though. We must keep in mind that the purpose of their government job is to decide how to spend other people’s money that was taken through coercive means. There’s no better recipe for cooking up conflict and it always boils over when governments run low on money.

In this specific instance, the potential spending cut was employee health insurance benefits. Is this the right place to cut? Would another budget item be better?

There is no right answer. It’s simply a matter of opinion based on each individual’s perspective of perceived personal benefit. Any solution is going to taste rotten to someone.

The only easy question to answer is that no matter what government spends money on, the taxpayer ultimately funds it. Even if the insurance benefit is taken away and government employees pay “out of their own pockets,” it’s still taxpayer money when it comes from a government employee’s earnings.

The commissioners’ current argument focuses on the various boxes the government creates to store the coerced funds. Moore wanted to eat into the cumulative capital fund, but according to Indiana Code, I don’t see how employee insurance benefits fit the definition of a county emergency.

If correct, then the expenditure would likely end up in a future SBOA report. Oh heck, that wouldn’t really matter since there is always a lawyer available to make excuses for negative SBOA reports.

The commissioners did reduce government spending at this meeting by eliminating insurance for part-time elected officials. Interestingly, Moore, the lone Republican, voted against this cost-cutting measure. But he receives this government goodie so his action makes sense when you apply the perceived benefit truism I explained earlier.

No matter how this gets resolved, if some part of the county government decides it wants more money, there is always a way to get it, property tax caps or not. Just look at the lawsuits pushing mandates to force loans which would be paid for by the taxpayer.

I remember when Sheriff Danny Rodden was on the Clark County Council pushing for an income tax, which eventually passed. He had statistics and presentations proving how great life will be once the government gained access to that revenue source.

But obviously, government spending problems do not go away no matter what politicians say. It’s simply impossible to supply enough funds to satisfy the hunger of a monopolistic entity that claims the moral right to take your money by force.

— Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson says many recipes exist to lower the conflict count among humans. Individual ingredients vary but the base is always voluntary interaction.

Economic Development is the new Common Good

HARBESON: Bad can come from the common good

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — Do you know what the Ohio River Bridges Project and Jeffersonville’s Vissing Park controversies have in common? They are helping citizens see, on the local level anyway, that common ownership through government force doesn’t always work out so well for the individual.

Common ownership by way of government is based on the idea of the common good, a term that could have merit in the voluntary realm but not when used to legitimize government action.

The phrase common good is not used nearly as much as it used to be by government proponents. They have discovered a better term to co-opt: economic development. This language change makes sense once you start noticing the cozy relationship between business and government that exists today.

While your Thanksgiving dinner is cooking, let’s chew on these two local examples and study the damage caused when a decent and morally neutral idea like economic development is taken over by those who think it’s proper to use government to get things done at the expense of individual rights.

The Ohio River Bridges project has been simmering for decades and the one item that has finally gotten many to lift up the pot lid is the idea of tolling all bridges to pay for it. Some are willing to accept this and others are not.

Why? Well, it’s all a matter of winners and losers.

However, this issue does not come down to the clichéd battles of rich vs. poor, or big business vs. independent small business. The tolling of all bridges puts the conflict into a slightly different grouping: those who could benefit from a huge long-term construction project vs. those who are more directly affected by the tolling itself.

Those who will directly benefit from the bridges project include the lower-paid laborer and administrative workers of any company, big or small, that has a part in the project. These people could be employed for a very long time if the entire project gets the go-ahead and tolls would be a minor issue next to the possibility of long term steady employment in jobs that are often susceptible to layoffs.

But others, like local retail businesses who want to draw Louisville customers, will no doubt be harmed by the same action. So will businesses that transport their product over the river. And of course all those who cross a bridge to get to work will lose if they have to pay tolls on existing bridges.

These conflicts and problems are a result of past actions built on the idea of common ownership and the common good. As a matter of fact, Spaghetti Junction mess itself is a testament to the ideas of the common good, government ownership and central planning.

Next, in Jeffersonville, we see that certain residents are angry because government officials decided to clear wooded park land to make way for ball fields. This is partly due to the planned removal of another park because of the canal project.

Of course, those who will use the ball fields like the idea but those who enjoyed the park in its more natural state do not. This is typical of problems that occur when parcels of land are supposedly held in common ownership for the common good because in the end only a select few actually make the decisions.

I’ve never heard of such conflicts and issues happening with the privately owned Perrin Park. As a matter of fact, all those who are concerned about the effects the bulldozing at Vissing Park had on bird habitat can thank the Perrin Family they didn’t just hand their land over to the government. Perhaps any birds needing new homes will find this wonderful private space and be protected from the invasive species known as overly controlling politicians.

I know this park problem has further solidified a desire for a change in mayors for some residents, so I want to issue a warning for the next election. Mike Moore is on record as saying one of the things he’d like to do in the future is to create a park for the newly annexed area. This would of course mean putting yet more land under Jeffersonville government control.

Just something to think about as you talk with this mayoral candidate about his plans.

It’s time to start thinking about what government is doing in the name of economic development and to understand that individual cases of direct harm have little weight. In the name of economic development, officials will add new taxes on existing roads. In the name of economic development, officials will grab the nearest bulldozer and start knocking stuff down. In the name of economic development, government will harm some businesses that owners spent a lifetime growing. In the name of economic development, government officials are even willing to kick people out of their homes.

The next time you listen to anyone who has an idea that requires the use of government force, pay attention to what they say when defending their plan against those who object. Do they talk about the common good and/or use the term economic development?

If so, then they’ve just told you all you need to know about their respect for the individual. Maybe this knowledge will make a difference and maybe it won’t, but at least you’ll understand the truth. And that’s a start.

— Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson is working on a spray that will halt the growth of the harmful invasive species known as overly controlling politicians.