City Council

It has been a couple months since I could last attend my local city council meeting but this past Thursday night I finally attended. The major agenda item was a council vote on whether or not to allow a home builder to change the master plan of our housing development in order to build apartments for senior citizens and some "workforce housing" (aka "affordable" housing) units. Workforce housing? I could not help but have a mental picture of a southern plantation house surrounded by several cabins for the slaves.

Ultimately the city council voted down this proposed revision of the master development plan by a vote of 4 to 0 with 1 absent vote but the most interesting testimony I heard that evening was from the Community Development Agency (CDA) of our county government which was going to supply funding and staffing for these projects. The CDA representative testified that the "workforce housing is designed for employees at places like Target, local banks......where people are typically paid $10 to $12 per hour"

Yes I have a quirky sense of humor but I had to chuckle at this testimony because when I left the council chambers I glanced at the job postings in the doorway. One of the jobs posted was for the city owned liquor stores (we have two today and they are building yet another one -- this is not a necessary function of government!!!!!!!) with a hourly wage of $10.75.

So essentially one government entity -- the CDA -- is taking our tax dollars to build housing for the workers of the plantation (liquor stores) owned by yet another government entity -- our city council.

Call me crazy but why not just reduce government overall which will bring down the cost of housing for all of us?

I need a cabin,

Todd