Sport Stadium, City Link

I will continue to posit that there is a legitimate query as to why funding sports entertainment endeavors is remotely the role of government.  In the meantime, here’s the link to the city site for updates on where the process in Wilmington is at the moment.

The City of Wilmington is exploring the feasibility of minor league baseball.  (the real funny part is that the city has the actual logo for the Atlanta Braves up on the page, yeah. . . kind of unbiased huh?)

Even though they’ve spent almost $200k on a consultant and have the logo in place and have moved rapidly in one direction, they have an interesting disclaimer at the bottom of the page, in BOLD!

Note that no decision has been made regarding a baseball team, stadium or any potential method of financing. Any updates will be posted on this web page as they become available.

Money speaks

Wilmington StarNews editorialists declare that “Money is not speech.” (link) They seem to assume that “big money” runs randomly about and smothers “the voice of average Americans”; a ridiculous notion. The assignment of animation to inanimate objects childishly diverts attention to an object rather than the way it is used, and by whom.

Guns, for instance, prowl the streets indiscriminately shooting at innocent people, misguided gun “control” zealots hope we will believe. They ignore the real issue of controlling the few people who use guns with criminal intent; because focusing on guns is simplistically easy while coming down on criminals is difficult and might violate someone’s “civil rights.”

Editors have decided that the Supreme Court made a “very bad decision”: that campaign finance limits on Political Action Committees result in limits on free speech—makes sense to me.

Like it or not, money is needed to buy expensive media time so that candidate’s messages are heard and seen. We may not like how people choose to use their money, and we may not like their messages, but in a free society we should not allow government to interfere with our choices; even “unrelentingly negative campaign ads,” that upset editor’s sensitivities.

Despite their claim that we are “tired of big money subverting the political process,” most people respond positively to “negative” ads that support individual worldviews. Campaign ads, however worthy, obnoxious, clever or deceitful, probably change few minds about their candidates—unless they’ve been living in a van down by the river.

Contrary to editorial view, there’s no evidence that money subverts the political process. In fact, I think that the case could be made that large amounts of campaign money adds value to the process. The more we are exposed to candidates’ words and deeds the better we are able to sort out bad ideas and poor performance; critical to choosing higher quality people for public office.

Monkey Junction Occupation Ends Today

The NC General Assembly will end today a multi year attempt by the City of Wilmington to forcibly annex the citizens of Monkey Junction for their tax money.  It was long ago said that the annexation was about money, but that got lost in years of heated arguments, city overreach and hundreds of thousands of wasted taxpayer dollars.

All that being said it is sad that it became so contentious that the GA felt it necessary to stop the process in that area for 12 years.  Mind you, it is a lesson worth learning for the City of Wilmington to not pick fights that aren’t worth picking to start with.  It was the disdain with which Wilmington acted, along with other cities in the state, that forced the General Assembly to act.  It was also the actions of the NC League of Municipalities that essentially agreed with the previous legislation allowing such annexations to be stopped by property owners.  Once the law was approved, the League filed a lawsuit which demeaned what little integrity they had with the honorables in Raleigh.

The only question left to answer is how quickly Wilmington will withdraw their occupation represented by police cars in the area in spite of the fact that they are already understaffed for the patrols in the actual city limits.. . . Just sayin’.

HOAs. . . the new unresponsive governments

Two interesting stories lately about homeowner associations.  Of note, both stories involve wildlife.  The first is about an alligator (small one) in a neighborhood pond.  Alligators abound this time of year, there’s even a small one behind Sam’s on College Rd.  Anyway, the property owners think the HOA should do something, but. . . .

(WWAY) - The HOA told WWAY it is only responsible for the maintenance of the pond, not the removal of wildlife. We were told that if an animal poses a threat, call 911 or the police department, and they will send someone out to inspect.

Essentially the HOA doesn’t really care what happens in the pond that they maintain.  Individual owners would have to make the call on this even though the gator isn’t technically on anyone’s property yet.

The second story is a bit more alarming as an owner is alleging that the HOA is targeting her after she reported a wildlife problem. The original HOA response was disturbing.  The raccoons in the story have been living in the attic spaces, defecating and urinating in the walls and ceilings.

(WWAY) - We tried to talk to someone with the property. When we went to the office, no one answered the door. When we called the property manager, he told us he did not have the HOA president’s number, that he would not talk to us and then hung up. . . The resident says the health department came out and was appalled by what they found. So far the health department has not returned our call.

After the initial news story ran, apparently someone made a few calls and there was finally a response from the health department,  but the HOA is still unresponsive.

This is really a sad statement about why HOAs should act more responsibly.  If they don’t, it will a sad day when local/state governments take over and then the argument for higher taxes for less efficiency will replace would should a simple association of property owners dealing with their problems sans government.

(WWAY)