Mike Huckabee in Esquire

Mike Huckabee was profiled in this month's Esquire magazine during his 56 city book tour. While I disagree vehemently with Huckabee's social views, I can't help but find his approach appealing and different.

Anyway, reading the last part of the piece lent me two nuggets from him that I think is all too appropriate for some of the political chatter going on in Howard County.

First, on hypocrisy on Wall Street:

"I mean, I just want to scream," he says, "especially at these guys at the National Review, The Wall Street Journal, who are supposed to be these bastions of conservatism. And how can they call Barack Obama a socialist when everything they're doing in economic and monetary policy is classic socialism? I find it so hypocritical. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a terrible mistake to revert back to welfare, because what Democrats are doing is pushing welfare for all people who are working individually, while you've got people on the Republican side pushing welfare for the highest CEOs in the wealthiest corporations in America. It's insane."

And, then, on letting your detractors make your case for you by using Bill Maher's appearance on his show as an example:

"My view was that letting Bill Maher talk did more to advance my argument than I would have done by arguing with him," Huckabee says. "He said people who are spiritual have a neurological disorder. And I said, Okay, let's take that where it would go. Are Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, in your view, mentally ill? Well, he had already put himself in that box, so he basically had to say yes, and I didn't argue with him because I thought, Bill Maher has just alienated 99.99 percent of the world's population."

Some Critical CB58 Documents

I got word through HoCo Free Market about Greensburg Gibbons' nopetition.com - a website that basically shares their message directly with the people of Howard County about their plans for Turf Valley Town Center.

While the idea may well be a bad PR move (seriously, the developer vs. citizens dynamic is a no win for Gibbons), I did find a couple of documents of interest. Namely, I wanted to provide the document that the County Council wrote to citizens in an effort to clarify what CB58 does and does not do. It clears up a lot of procedural and legislative misinformation being spread by commenters on this blog, other websites, and in petition drives. It should be read.

Also, we had a commenter on here who said that Greenburg Gibbons did not detail their campaign contributions to council members. Per the law and the ZRA petition form, they don't have to. Check it out yourself.

As I have said before, taking your case to the people is one thing. Providing them with misinformation and out-and-out lies is another. That goes for both sides.

Let's Discuss the Players in CB58

I know that CB58 has been passed. I know that HCCA finally has a public position on the referendum, after much debate. And I now know that the HoCo Chamber of Commerce wants the signature threshold for petitions to be increased from the measly 5000 that it is today (in a county of about 300,000 people).

With the new entry into the fray, let's talk about the players in this game.

On one side, we have businesses and developers that want as little restrictions as is possible over where they want to conduct business. And businesses with models that command stores with huge square footage want to be able to build and operate wherever. That's where the HCCOB comes into play. They feel that our elected officials in the County Council and the HoCo Planning Board are supposed to be a check on those desires. Also, they think that a referendum (passed or not, I guess) would send a bad signal to businesses that want to come here. From the number of chain stores in Columbia and HoCo, that's not likely.

Of course, there's also the development company Greenburg Gibbons Commercial that submitted the ZRA so that their proposed Turf Valley Town Center could have a 55000 sq ft zoning cap. They're saying that no shopping center with an anchor supermarket of less than that amount could survive today. That's a load of BS because Trader Joe's and Whole Foods do very well for themselves in areas closer to 20000 square feet. They may have caught less flack for making that claim and just coming out to say that they want a grocery store up to three times the size allowed now. I'm not sure how they could shed the common label applied to developers as being profit-driven (they are) and having elected officials in their back pocket (they do a lot of lobbying, contributing, and attending County open meetings with pretty drawings and charts).

We also have the Marc Norman-led Howard County Citizens for Open Government. In the interest of openness (and irony), he won't reveal to anyone how many people comprise his organization. He thinks that the planned shopping center would hurt other businesses and increase traffic into Turf Valley. I'd definitely need to see studies on that to prove the concept instead of allegations of lack of foresight and officials' improprieties with developers.

Norman has the backing of HCCA. He also, conveniently, has the backing of labor unions that represent workers at union shops of Giant and Safeway. They oppose Wegman's (160,000 square feet?!) and Harris Teeters popping up in the county because they're not union shops.

Basically, everyone has made their own not-so-savvy moves in this mess. What this boils down to is whether or not the shopping center will make sense for Turf Valley and the immediate surrounding area in terms of commerce, convenience, and urban planning. It has nothing to do with enfranchisement of voters. It has nothing to do with adding union jobs. It has nothing to do with sending signals to big corporations. The issue is as simple as it really sounds.

Does the already passed regulation change make sense in terms of those three criteria? Stop the sideshow and make that call for yourself. If you don't think so, then sign the petition. If you have an ulterior motive or think that it does make sense, then don't. And we'll see how it hashes out by February.

Forum on Fed Health Care Policy

I wasn't able to make the forum tonight that Exec Ulman is holding on federal health care policy - per the suggestion of the incoming Obama administration. I would have liked to have gone, but couldn't make it. Can anyone that went send me some notes of what was discussed? Particularly, I'd like to hear if anyone discussed how the Healthy Howard Access Plan hasn't worked well at all and how it should probably be transformed into a debt forgiveness program to encourage general practice doctors in the County.

You can drop me a line here.

County Council Aims to Increase Affordable Housing

The generally accepted philosophy in Howard County is that there must be a delicate balance between growth and sprawl. Some would argue that it is too restrictive. Some would like to see even more careful planning and direct citizen voting on how that planning is decided upon and executed.

Another critical issue in the county is that of affordable housing. Working for a nonprofit considered one of the national authorities on the subject, I am naturally a supporter of publicly-designed and privately-executed affordable housing plans.

Right now, the county's Adequate Public Facilities Act requires developers in the county to acquire housing credits for each unit they want to build. The County allots approximately 1500 per year based upon their expectations of housing growth between now and 2020. Also, developers must set aside between 10 and 15 percent of their developments to be sold to buyers with incomes below 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI). [That's a problem unto itself. There needs to be more broad classification than just that if it doesn't exist already.]

The rub is that only 100 credits are set aside each year for those moderate-income housing units. So, if developers want to build more than 100 moderate-income units per year, they cannot do so under current law.

In an attempt to alleviate the issue, County County chair Mary Kay Sigaty sponsored a bill that would no longer require developers to acquire credits for moderate-income housing units. The intent is to allow developers to build more of this class of units. Also, the bill would allow developers to reserve up to one-third of a development's units for moderate-income housing before having to acquire credits for them. All developments would still have to fulfill sufficient infrastructure requirements before approval.

Critics of the bill included Greg Fox, who said that removing the credits would cause too much growth in the County that would not be accounted for in the general plan. It's a valid concern.

County housing and community development director, Stacy Spann, approved of the bill and noted that the economy will compel higher demand for affordable housing.

All sides appear to be happy with the intent of the bill, as am I. Mixed-income communities seem to work best in the affordable housing world, though there has been evidence in Memphis that the presence of mixed-income communities alone do not make a city better. The issue we face is how best strike a balance between managed growth and the demand for affordable housing.

First, we have to not be short-sighted. Ms. Spann does note that the demand for affordable housing will increase given this economy. It is likely that more people will default, lose their homes, and have to go into rental communities. Demand for housing - existing and new construction - has dropped dramatically and brought prices down with it. It is expected that the market has not yet reached bottom because of a coming wave of mortgage resets in the Alt A and Option ARM markets. The housing market is in a corrective phase and its ending point is still anyone's guess. The 1500 units that the County expects to see annually will not happen for some time because of depressed demand. Therefore, we should not address this issue through the prism of current housing market conditions. This depression in the market represents an anamoly.

Second, we should continue to strike the balance between growth and a desire for mixed-income communities. We have seen sprawl in Columbia as commercial development has outpaced housing growth. Infrastructure concerns and urban design do not appear to have been adequately considered in making these approvals, so it is difficult to not call for serious pause when discussing modifying County-wide development regulations on the residential side.

In this market, the credit program works. It may be in our interests to keep the allocation schedule concept, but increase its flexibility without going quite as far as what Sigaty supports.

Let me provide an exteme example. Say a single county development would encompass all 1500 units provided under the general plan. If a developer were keen, they could set aside 500 units of moderate-income housing before having to get any credits. They could then allow for an additional 500 replacement units. Now, we've approved 2000 units provided that the infrastructure is there or could be developed to provide for the expected growth. That's the worst case scenario for the County - a 33% overage in the number of units ok'd by the County.

Perhaps, then, we should make the credits more flexible. Instead of setting aside just 100 credits for moderate-income housing, the County allows for some percentage of the total allocation of credits to be used for either moderate-income or market rate housing.

As it relates to the debate over the Downtown Columbia Master Plan, critics are hoping that 25% of the proposed 5500 units added to downtown in the 30 year plan could be deemed affordable (up to 120% of AMI). So, why not allow for an additional 15% of "flexible" credits each year? The County could allocate a floor of 100 credits, and a maximum of 325 (or round it off to 350). That would seem more likely to appeal to both off the County's development concerns.

CB58, Turf Valley, and a Referendum

HCCA is gathering signatures for a petition that would activate a referendum on CB58 - the proposed legislation that would allow for a change to zoning restrictions in Turf Valley. At the center of the issue is the regulation change that would increase the grocery zoning max to 55,000 square feet (up from a 18,500 square feet) and cap other stores in the zoned area to a size of 20,000 square feet.

HCCA opposes this legislation and would like to have it put to a referendum - presumably in the hopes that it could advocate effectively enough to have it voted down. It seems that a lot of the effort behind this stems from a distrust of the County Council and Executive Ken Ulman. The underlying tone appears to me that the HCCA feels that the elected officials are in the back pocket of Turf Valley developers that asked for this zoning change.

The citizens that comprise HCCA, though, have legitimate and earnest concerns about what this kind of rezoning and redevelopment would to for traffic on Route 40 and I-70. I don't find that there's anything wrong with having a concern about the traffic, environmental, and overall infrastructure impact of proposed rezoning or development.

The opposition to the HCCA - comprising many of the residents of the Turf Valley PGCC - believes that this proposal has been thoroughly vetted by citizens, incorporates their input and concerns, and should not be a matter for the population of Howard County at large. They feel that they want their shopping center and have worked out a plan that will respond to that desire.

The HCCA would argue that the issue here is responsible growth and development. Therefore, since growth and development have an impact on many more citizens than just those of Turf Valley, they argue that the issue is one that should be put to a vote of a body much larger than the County Council - a body elected to determine matters such as this on our behalf.

For a moment, let's put aside the allegations of misleading communication from the HCCA and CB58 supporters. It is apparent that both sides are clearly willing to misrepresent themselves and each other to achieve their ends. That is troubling to itself, but not the point of this essay.

The issues at play, really, are those of "standing" and the real merits of a referendum. Who has a right to oppose development? Is it everyone in the jurisdiction? Is it only those in Turf Valley? How about some group in between? It is difficult to decide. For me, it is probably somewhere in the middle. The citizens of Turf Valley should clearly have standing. Some measure of those outside Turf Valley should have standing, too. Still, it is not clear whether they should have standing in the form of a vote on legislation.

The referendum is a clever political ploy. It allows politicians to sideskirt the very issues that they are charged with making decision about and can put it to a vote for the people to decide. In a representative democracy, though, the referendum really is a way to avoid doing a critical part of the job.

For those that approve of the referendum in question, they will always claim that politicians make big mistakes, are not aware of the will of the people, and that they do no provide enough of an outlet for concerned citizens to impact policy.

Naysayers like me will say what I just did - that a representative democracy compels our elected officials to make tough calls for us. We elect them to do that and they should accordingly take the flack and consequences for such decisions. Officials are elected with the charge from voters that we trust their judgment on a comprehensive set of issues. In this case, zoning is one of those issues. Yes, philosophies are considered when voting, but ultimately, a vote for a candidate is a validation of their thought process. We should trust the thought process of elected officials because that is a implicit consequence of representative democracy.

Referendums are political campaigns unto themselves. They often warp an issue from its core into namecalling, misinformation, and scheming. Instead of focusing on the real problem at hand, it becomes something far larger and worse. Need I remind anyone of the misinformation about a host of candidates in this past November's election?

Advocacy - without the campaign ads, money, and lies - is really the best way to work on these issues. Concerned citizens should organize to petition their elected officials for time and opportunity to present their side of an issue. It is clear that members of the HCCA and the supporters of CB58 are well-informed and intentioned. They are armed with facts and research that intends to prove their cases. The process that we have for public comment and consideration of an issue is the right way to handle this. Ultimately, the fate of CB58 should be in the hands of those we elect - elected based on their judgment.