Does Government Enhance Quality of Life?

HARBESON: Quality is job one

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — New Albany City Council member Dan Coffey recently introduced a resolution to move city council discretionary funds to the Board of Public Works and Safety. When questioned by other council members for specifics as to how the money will be spent, Coffey said the money is intended for “quality of life” purposes.

This really confused several members and no wonder. “Quality of life” is one of those fluffy, fuzzy phrases politicians love to utter when they don’t want to answer a question. When pushed further though, Coffey did offer up an example — a recent “Beach Day” where the fire department turned on its hoses so kids in public housing facilities could splash in the water.

So I guess quality of life has something to do with being wet. That does make some sense and not just for kids. I know many men who would say their quality of life definitely goes up when women in T-shirts get wet.

Seriously though, if asked, we know the examples people would offer up as quality of life issues would be virtually unlimited. When it comes right down to it, quality of life is one of those vague terms that can vary widely between individuals. Your determination of quality of life may agree with mine and it may not.

For example I like to get up early and go on bike rides. But I know others who would rather go out dancing, stay up all night and sleep in. Still others don’t care if they have to get up early or stay up late, as long as they can see wet women in T-shirts.

Isn’t it contradictory for government entities to take your money through threats of force and then tell you they are going to spend it to improve your quality of life? Wouldn’t your quality of life go up if they just got out of the way so you can determine for yourself how to give your life quality? Isn’t quality of life built on a foundation of mutually respectful voluntary relationships with others — relationships without coercion and threats of violence?

Even with projects that we have been told are “necessary and proper” functions of government, it’s impossible to definitively determine quality of life to everyone’s satisfaction. For example, just last week a recent letter to the editor in this paper was from a New Albany resident who claims that the quality of life in the city will go up if all of the city government roads were two-way instead of one-way.

When the questioning members of the city council continued to push Coffey for specifics, he finally said, “You know what, figure it out.”

What does that mean? It can’t mean he really wants them to determine quality of life purposes because at a subsequent meeting the issue came up again when discussing the city’s portion of costs for a new air conditioner for the City-County Building.

Coffey said that would not be a quality of life issue and in response a council person said it is for the people who work in the building. That’s probably true, particularly if they also get the fire department in there to spray any woman wearing T-shirts.

Of course, we must remember that both sides are really just concerned about who gets control of other people’s money. After all, those skeptical, questioning council members who voted against the funds being moved do not appear to object to the concept of a discretionary fund. Yet a “discretionary” fund is as equally confusing, fluffy and fuzzy for a city council when it comes to determining “proper” spending.

At some point during the discussions about this money, it was mentioned that spending it on the upcoming city bicentennial celebration would be a nice quality of life expenditure. What do you think? Does government spending on items like bicentennial celebrations really improve anyone’s quality of life or is it just a local example of bread and circuses meant to appease and deflect from the reality that these people are bickering over spending money that no one gave them voluntarily?

— Southern Indiana resident Debbie Harbeson knows that if her T-shirt ever gets wet, it would probably not enhance anyone’s quality of life.

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.

Housing Disaster in New Albany Indiana

HARBESON: The sad tale of Linden Meadows

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — Linden Meadows. Just the mention of this failed attempt to provide low-to-moderate-income housing in New Albany is enough to make people scream and pull at their hair.

The project is now a complicated, tangled mess of private and government entities, and what may be most troubling is the part the federal government has played in the fiasco.

Let’s begin with the soon-to-be-defunct New Albany-Floyd County Community Housing Development Organization. Although set up as private nonprofits, Community Housing Development Organizations (CHDOs) exist to take advantage of special federal funds (HOME Investment Partnership Program) offered through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The government, perhaps learning from past mismanagement, did create various restrictions on HOME funds such as requiring a 25 cent nonfederal donation for every federal dollar received.

It’s clear that this setup is part of the reason people in New Albany thought it would be a good idea to donate an entire neighborhood of old homes that were displaced due to hospital expansion to CHDO. We don’t know what decisions may have been made concerning these houses otherwise, but we do know now that — although this setup was meant to provide more taxpayer fund accountability — what this federal program did for New Albany was provide an incentive that created a perfect storm which has been nothing but disaster for the city.

Once CHDO had the houses, they needed somewhere new to locate them. The land they ended up acquiring from the city for $1, a park area, set the scene for more trouble.

After CHDO bulldozed the area, a suit was filed because this property was originally donated to the city in 1935, specifically to be used as a park. (Not sure what government tax policy was at that time, but could this decision also have been guided by government incentives?) The owner, Catherine Fawcett added a clause that said the title would revert to her heirs if the land use changed.

If the situation remained as it was in 1935, a settlement of the issue would have likely been fairly easy, but that’s not what happened. Ms. Fawcett correctly suspected government mischief might occur, but I bet she had no idea that it would be the federal government who would literally drive right over her deed by way of the interstate highway system.

When the state came to build Interstate 64, they decided they needed to take the park land and one of Fawcett’s heirs was paid $1,600, apparently as compensation for her reversionary interest in the land. I think. More on that in a minute.

To complicate the matter even further, the highway didn’t use much of this land at all. The unused portion remained in the state’s hands and continued to serve as a park, even to the point of spending additional money to add a ball diamond.

The neighbors and heirs who filed suit against CHDO based their objection on the reversionary clause that the property be used as a park but the local court ruled that the heirs had no interest in the property because of the compensation accepted at the time the land was taken. This did not satisfy the plaintiffs, particularly since the 1960 deed included the same reversionary clause. No one can figure that out. Even the appeals court says that’s confusing!

However, in the end, the appeals court decided the deed details were not relevant: “We base our decision on Dible (Dible v. City of Lafayette) and the principle that a reversionary clause cannot be enforced against an entity with the power of eminent domain.” They added that doing so would defeat the purpose of eminent domain. One can expect to be compensated as any other person with interest in a property, but that’s it.

They were very worried about maintaining eminent domain power: “If the reversionary clause would have been enforced against the state, it would have been unable to build I-64 as planned.” The court was much more concerned about the 1960 action than Linden Meadows not only because they needed to back up all the eminent domain actions that have taken place since then, but also to maintain the power for the future.

In other words, the court, and I’m paraphrasing here, said “Holy Cow Batman! We can’t allow this to go through! If we did then that means individuals can avoid having their property taken by government! People would start putting restrictions on land so they could actually own it! We can’t have that! Let’s enforce this stuff for private battles but by golly we need to give the government a special exemption!”

As you can see, we have at least two nasty results of this project — the Linden Meadows deal created another legal precedent which further bolsters the powers of eminent domain and, after seven years of various entities spending money on the project, the homes are apparently going to be razed anyway.

What is the best outcome to hope for concerning Linden Meadows now? I don’t know — maybe create a nice little park?

— Southern Indiana resident Debbie Harbeson has been pulling at her hair ever since she started really looking into government actions.

Risking Taxpayer Money

COLUMN NOTES: I changed my mind again. I am going to keep posting the full column here because I want a secondary online depository. I'm also going to try and link to articles and other sources of information I use to write the columns.

HARBESON: Windstream in it for the money


CLARKSVILLE — There’s no doubt Windstream Technologies has developed quite an interesting product. I was initially impressed by the publicity surrounding its wind turbine and when I looked deeper, I saw even greater potential.

First of all, any product that can help people get off the grid is a plus, so a turbine capable of supplying even partial energy needs using wind speeds as low as 4 to 5 mph certainly seems promising.

It’s fairly small and unobtrusive and I even like the design, too. As a matter of fact, I could see one of these babies looking very smart as a coffee or end table in a room decorated in a modern-style design. (Hmm, I wonder if such an installation might actually be operational inside government buildings where politicians are busy blustering.)

In addition, Windstream gained extra publicity when it installed its first turbine as part of the League of Green Embassies program and the company apparently even has a significant amount of preorders waiting.

So with all this going for the company, why does Windstream need to ask taxpayers to take on their risk? Where are the private investors?


If a company can’t convince traditional bankers to assume the risk, there are other ways to raise funds or move a product forward. What has it tried in order to gain access to the nonbank private investment dollar? For that matter, why aren’t the owners trying to sell the idea to an existing company who has the capital and/or infrastructure to build this product?

There are many alternatives and possibilities in the private market.

Do companies like Windstream get tied so strongly into government as the solution because they are in a business which is highly regulated and controlled? Windstream CEO Dan Bates seems to be all for using government to benefit his company because he’s promoted government caps on carbon emissions to force the market to move in ways that benefit his business. Is this really the best means to grow a business?

Maybe New Albany is better off not having companies which constantly look to government goodies. Windstream only came here because Indiana state government bribed them with deals using taxpayer money in the first place. Companies who arrive on such terms are certainly more likely to think they deserve more and more in order to stay.

Windstream ended up in North Vernon, accepting a government-backed loan for less money than they requested from New Albany. This may be partially due to North Vernon’s site being the old Regal Rug factory. A location that was previously used for assembly-type work likely requires less setup costs than New Albany’s retail site. Yet, Windstream still didn’t do it without using local politicians to force taxpayers to take on the company’s risk by providing banking services.

People who promote these special government favors like to label such actions as being “business-friendly.” But for “business-friendly” to be a meaningful term, it must be applied universally, not by handing out special financing deals to certain companies.

A friendly business environment is one that gets out of the way of hard-working, ambitious people so they can develop and grow their product or service without being constantly propped up by government assistance.

Less regulation and less taxation create an environment where self-sustaining businesses are free to invest as they see fit, and no one forces those who don’t gain favor of politicians to subsidize those who do.

It appears that dealing with companies who only come to town because they were bribed means cities will have to deal with demands for even more handouts. Which is kind of like finding out someone only married you for your money.

— Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson wonders if anyone has ever measured the mph that hot air moves inside government buildings filled with politicians.

If Only I Could Clean Out The Clutter of Laws Too

HARBESON: Debbie de-clutters

COLUMN NOTES: A commenter on the newspaper's site said "The same argument you make for libraries, could just as easily be made for the existence of National Public Radio, Public TV, and for that matter, the National Endowment for the Arts." I agree.

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — The file I use to collect material for possible columns is growing kind of thick which means it’s time to de-clutter. So today let’s take a quick look at a few of these topics before I throw out the trash.

The first item is an article about the Jeffersonville Canal. The government has started purchasing homes in the areas affected but at least one property owner, Fred Collins, says he isn’t interested in selling. When asked how they will handle such situations, government officials said they’d be as fair as they can.

What does this mean? If those in government were truly concerned about being fair, all they have to do is respect his wishes as a legitimate property owner and simply leave him alone. If you have any respect for the principle of individual property ownership, please join me in supporting Mr. Collins as he struggles to keep his home. Don’t let the government treat him as if he’s a bothersome piece of clutter.

Next up in my pile is a letter State Senator Ron Grooms wrote bemoaning the property tax circuit breaker because it affects the funding of one of his most beloved coercively funded institutions: government libraries.

To make his case for increasing the library’s options for additional coercive funding, he points out how many people love the library and gives statistics on local library usage. Grooms wants us to believe this is a valid argument for coercion, but it’s just as valid to argue that popularity proves there is no need to coerce. Such beloved institutions can surely be self-supporting because the many people who use the library and/or claim to love its purpose, as Grooms does, will act to close the funding gap with no need for government force.

For example, according to the numbers Grooms gave in the letter, if the Jeffersonville Township Library only made one change and charged a fee to check out materials, the cost would be less than 60 cents to use an item for several weeks. What library-loving patrons holding their daily $2 cup of coffee or 89 cent big swig of soda would object to this?

Finally, I have several pieces in my file dealing with the crazy clutter of laws we have concerning alcohol. Indiana’s oh-so-wise politicians discovered that elderly people get irritated if asked to show identification when they want to buy a six-pack and have a lot of time on their hands to bug their legislators about the problem. So, to de-clutter their lives, i.e., get the old people off their backs, legislators are messing with this law again, hoping to find that sweet spot, the age where people are desperately clinging to the illusion that they still look young, but are much too busy to complain to their legislators when they realize that’s not why they were carded.

Let’s add one more alcohol-related item to this de-cluttering column. Did you know that wineries need special government permission to sell their product at festivals and can currently only engage in such business activity for 30 days a year? Well, thanks in part to the work of Representatives Rhonda Rhoads and Ed Clere, they might now be allowed to have festival permits for 45 days a year. Shall we all have a drink to celebrate this amazing freedom?

I just don’t get it. I’m sitting here looking at another item I’m about to discard, a postcard from Rhoads’ campaign that says she is for smarter government. Wouldn’t smarter government best be defined by the repeal of such idiotic laws rather than adding to them?

I guess I can understand why politicians love legislative clutter. It gives them work to do because there’s always something for them to “clean-up.”

Sellersburg resident Debbie Harbeson de-clutters so thoroughly that she’s accidentally pitched her husband into the trash several times. No, really, they were accidents.