Cheapskates

Some people can just feel the money coming out of their pockets.

Doesn't even have to be their money.

Just the idea of the government spending money, just the thought that there's a fortune to be made that someone's not making, just the rumor that thar's gold in them thar hills and no one's gone up there with dynamite yet makes them feel as robbed and violated as if they were watching a thief making off down the street with their wallet.

Few months ago I was at meeting here in town over the possibility of getting a large parcel of land hereabouts listed on the National Register of Historic Places.   History happened here, as the signs say, and some other time I might write about that history.  For now all you need to know is that involved dairy cows.  Fella came down from the governor's office up in Albany to explain how the town might go about taking care of this and what it would mean if we succeeded.

Short version:  It's a lengthy process but not a difficult one and probably worth it in the end, even though not a whole lot would come of it.  A listing on the register is not like being declared a national landmark or a historic site or a preservation area.  The benefits are mainly to civic pride, the town gets some new bragging rights, and it gives the town some extra tools for controlling---but not curtailing---development.

There would be some drawbacks for people who own property within the historic district.  They couldn't develop their land in a way that destroyed the historic character of the district.  For instance, since the history we'd be preserving concerns cows, the historic character of the district is farmland.

Doesn't mean that all the land has to be preserved as farmland.  It means that if you wanted to develop a property you couldn't put up a skyscraper or widget factory.  You could put houses up and even some storefronts as long as they were designed to fit into the landscape.

You couldn't block the view, so to speak.

And if you happened to have on your property a building---a house or a barn or an outbuilding---that was original to the farms that give the district its historic character and you needed to do a major repair on it, to the point of essentially having to rebuild it, you'd have to make it look like itself.  You could modernize it, you could even add on to it, but you'd have to keep its essential character so that other people looking at it would recognize what it once was.

If the building was in such disrepair that it just had to be torn down, you could do it, but you'd need permission from the town, the state, and the historic registery, permission they'd all be glad to give if you honestly needed to demolish the structure.  And you wouldn't have to promise to put up anything in its place.

I don't believe you have to keep up maintenance on the building.  If there's a barn on your property that's on the point of collapse, but might be saved with intensive architectural surgery, you could probably get a grant to do it, if you wanted.  But if you wanted to let it go and see what nature and gravity have in mind for it, that's your business.

At any rate, there were about a hundred of us at the meeting and a show of hands said that about 80 of us were all for it and a bit of discussion revealed that 10 or 12 more of us wanted some time to think it over and talk about it with their neighbors, which was pretty sensible of them, really.

My neighbors were all there so we all knew what each other thought.

All but one of us was for it.

Our neighborhood is within the proposed district but none of our houses are old enough to be considered part of the original character, so it was easy for us to say go right ahead.  Nothing but good could come of it, as far as we were concerned.

But that one neighbor didn't like the idea, no way, no how.

I talked to him about it out in the parking lot afterwards.  He's an old man, in his late seventies, I'd say, in good health and pretty vigorous, but his prospecting days are over, so to speak.  He's as retired as retired can be.  He worked in a factory all his working life and although I think he finished as a foreman, he did not get rich.  He doesn't own any property besides his house.  So he's not going to be making a million developing any land for a shopping mall or investing in the development of one.

The proposed historic district isn't going to cost him anything.

But he was worried about the people who might lose money from it.

He felt strongly about it too.  It bothered him that anyone in the district who wanted to couldn't turn their land over to whatever moneymaking scheme they could hatch.  He thought it would be wrong if someday, some property owner's heirs would not have the opportunity to make a mint off their inheritance.

And listening to him I didn't get the impression this was an abstract matter of principle with him.  Anyway, whenever people are talking about money and they use the word principle, as in, It's not the money, it's the principle, they mean principal.  It's always the money.  My neighbor was emotional on the subject.  He was feeling it.

He felt the loss of the money that wasn't going to be made just as if it was his money, in his wallet, and someone was picking his pocket.

On top of that, he was convinced that somehow, someway this was going to cause the town to raise taxes.

When Pop Mannion was supervisor of our town, he had to deal with characters like my neighbor all the time.  Everyone in local government everywhere has to deal with them.  They're usually elderly and the knee-jerk assumption is that they oppose expenditures on the part of the local government because they are on fixed incomes or because their kids are grown and they don't need town services like parks and schools anymore.

But you can bet on this.  They were the same way when they were thirty and forty somethings with kids in school.  It's just now that they are old they have time to show up at the town hall to complain about their taxes in person.

These types do not ever see the point in any town, state, or federal project.  All they see is the cost.  The immediate cost.  You can show them how in the long run spending money now will save money, even make money down the road, and they'll still lie down in front of the bulldozers in spirit.

Pop Mannion finally managed to get the new town hall the town desperately needed built, but it wasn't easy.  He had worked it out so that the town would not have to raise taxes a dime to pay for it.  He had secured some great loans, found some grants, and because the town was prospering and raking in the tax dollars, the long term payments could be fit into the budget without adding to the yearly spending.

But this is key.  It meant that spending wasn't going to be reduced for a while.

And it meant there'd be no tax decrease.

People yelped and whined.

To them, anything but a decrease in spending was an increase.  Anything but a decrease in their taxes was an increase.  These are the people who are convinced they are paying out way more in taxes than they really are.  You can break it down for them on paper, show them they aren't shelling out what they thought, and they'll see it, agree you're right, reluctantly, and start whining that what they are paying is too much.

Push them on it, ask them how they expect the government to do what it needs to do without spending the money it spends and they always have the same answer.  Waste.  The government's wasting their money.  You can't trust politicians to spend money wisely.

But, really, they don't want the government to spend anything.  They think it should all come to them for free.  The water should flow from their tap, the cops and the firefigthers should come when they're called, the schools should teach their kids, the plows clear their roads and the crews come out to repair them for free.

Deep down they believe that they are the only people who pay taxes and they hate the unfairness of it.

You hear them talk like this all the time.  Suggest the goverment provide free well child visits to the doctor for poor women and they'll scream bloody murder.

"I don't want my tax dollars spent on some welfare cheat's too lazy to go out and get themself a job!"

You can say, Fine, let's use my tax dollars to do it.  Your tax dollars can buy the army a new tank.

Of course they have an exaggerated idea of how much they are paying in taxes anyway and probably think they are buying the army three or four tanks a year already.  So your breath's wasted.  You aren't paying taxes.  They are.  Only them.  You don't even exist to them.  What's real to them is themselves and their money.

Other people's money is real to them in a strange, psychotic way.  They feel it is theirs too.  If Donald Trump makes another million today, they feel they made a million today too.  If the government gets in the way of a deal, and Trump has to go off and find another way to make a million tomorrow, they feel like they were the ones who lost the million.

Money not made is money lost.

This is why they are suckers for any politician who comes along and tells them that everything can be had for free---or at least at much less than it's costing now---and that money will fall from the sky onto everybody's heads once you elect him and he gets government out of the way of honest businessmen and women.

Governments have to spend money.  Which means they have to collect taxes.   Libertarian utopias where public services somehow spontaneously generate out of individuals pursuing their solitary, selfish ends are the pipe dreams of childish minds.  You want a new sewer line, try to get your neighbors to come out and dig it with you.  And if you think it's just because they've been spoiled by indulgent liberal goverments, ask yourself why Europe went without indoor plumbing for a thousand years after the fall of Rome until goverments were finally convinced that it wasn't a good idea to let sewage run raw through their streets.

The surest sign your taxes are going to get raised, too, is when a set of politicians come into office promising to cut them.

Ronald Reagan oversaw one of the largest tax increases in our liftetimes because his initial tax cuts cost too much.  Reagan did it openly.  George Bush has been raising taxes since he came to office, he just calls his tax increases tax cuts.

He cuts taxes on the rich and then makes the middle class and the working poor make up the difference through increases in user fees, out of pocket expenses on services the government is ostensibly providing, and state and local taxes.

His minions in Congress and the conservative think tanks have been dreaming up ways to tax the poor, the lucky ducks who don't pay taxes now beause they don't have the money.

Requirements that everybody carry health insurance are taxes on the poor and the lower middle class who work for companies that don't provide benefits.  (Why shouldn't we require health insurance?  We require them people to carry car insurance?  Because people can choose not to have cars.  They can't choose not to get sick.)  Give them enough time and the power to do it, and the Republicans will free big business from the obligations of health insurance and pension plans.

That'll be their way of increasing taxes on the middle class.

The money will be taken from the pockets of characters like my neighbor.  And they'll yelp and squeal and holler about it.  But try to tell them that the goverment could and should provide the services they are paying through the nose for more cheaply, show them how spending a little money spent now saves money and makes money later, and you'll get nowhere.

Because they'll immediately forget about the money they spent at the drug store and the gas pump yesterday and start feeling all that money that might be spent tomorrow coming right out of their pockets.

Comments

[DuWayne]

I have to weigh in on the creation of a historical district. It is critical that certain rules are well established for the governence of the historical society that oversees the permits for repairs.

I have worked on houses for 15 years now and foun very few municipalities with historical societies that are easy to work with. In one situation in Allegan County, MI we ran into a brick wall of refusal to allow a family to side their house with an inexpensive siding that would match closely to what was there already because it was vinyl. Nor would they allow a roof of ashphalt shingles that would, from the ground, appear very similar to wood shakes, still an expensive shingle but not nearly as expensive as real cedar shingles. Both the roof and siding would have kept in line with the original nature of the house and been affordable to those who owned it. Instead the historical society refused and the house had to be razed. The owners of the house took a catastrophic loss - they had paid $105,000, after the house was razed - a $36,000 cost to them, they sold the land for $52,000. The shit of it was that when they bought the house they had already obtained permission from the HS then, but when they really needed to get it done and had the finances aranged a new board was in place and refused to allow them to move forward.

The best place I have found for historical homes was in Okemos, MI. They just buy the homes and move them to a historical village. They have some tendrils into certain areas of Okemos with historical signifigance but consider their first priority to be saving the structures of signifigance - including a great grant program. They also allow owners to commit alterations to areas not visible from the front. They get a signifigant amount of their funding from well organized tours, including bi-monthly dinners in a Frank Loyyd Wright house (that I roofed and made structural repairs on)hosted by the owner. Only 1.5% of their budget goes to administrative costs. They also have grandfathered bylaws, the changes of which only apply to a property if it changes hands through a sale. If you own or inherit such a property then the rules that were in effect when the property came into yours or your heirs hands apply.

[Exiled in New Jersey]

I read along, nodding my head in agreement as Professor Manion demonstrated that money does not talk, it swears, as Dylan put it. I made a connection; watching the fireworks on the river the other night with fellow Ocean Gate residents, I brought up the problem of our deteriorating boardwalk in our borough with a deteriorating financial base. I suggested each resident buying a board. A woman over 65 was horrified. "You won't get one cent out of me."

It was only when I began to type this comment that I realized that here, in the state that has gone to sleep, local governments have abused their trust and are busy shafting long time residents such as your neighbor, not by creating historic districts but by using government's power of Eminent Domain. They are busy now trying to bulldoze homes in Long Branch. I would hope Pop Mannion would have been up in arms, and not like so many mayors around here, have their fingers on the controls of the Caterpillars.

[Linkmeister]

I forget which Heinlein book introduced the concept of TANSTAAFL, but it ought to be required reading for a lot of people.

[nothstine]

The intellectual and ideological kin of your neighbor passed an initiative last year in Oregon breaking the back of land use planning laws that have kept Oregon from turning into northern New Jersey, and now every land owner in the state feels entitled to demand that the state either exempt them from all zoning restrictions or else pay them for any conceivable profit that they, their ancestors, or their great grandchildren might make/have made on the land in any possible universe.

The "good" news [?] is that this black[-top]mail bonanza hasn't cost the state quite as much as it might have because everyone is lined up at the zoning office claiming their free lunch and the state offices are so swamped by the number of applicants that they haven't been able to act on much.

And this is called "progress."

bn

[mac macgillicuddy]

This reminds me to mention how upset everyone got when Bill Gates, who has already made so much money that the "Alice clause" applies to him (see Calvin Trillin), announced that he was retiring. And then, to make matters worse, Warren Buffet (I still get him mixed up with Jimmy), announced that he was going to give most of his "hard earned" billions to Bill's foundation, which is planning to do something about the poor state of healthcare among the world's children. What a waste, everyone said.

It also reminds me of the words of one of my college housemates who had to comment, upon observing that one of our friends who was gay was also very well off (so to speak). What a waste, my housemate said.

[DanK]

While I appreciate the slant of your post, I think you've picked a really bad example on this one. Wait till that neighbor actually opposes spending on clean tapwater, schools, roads and maintenance, firefighters and cops before you rip into him.

Designating the whole neighborhood as a historic site seems like a pretty big overreach just to preserve the parts of town that you think are important. The local historic commission (at least in the city I grew up in) is a great reference source, but generally a body that is more concerned with making itself feel important, than actually preserving historic character.

That was definitely what I saw when I was a high school intern there years ago. They will definitely nickel and dime a small homeowner and his/her architect for some minor changes to an 1860s house, but when the time comes to tear down an entire block and build a new steel hotel "progress must be served". It's the worst of both worlds, and at least in this instance I'm inclined to side with the ornery neighbor.

[Lance]

DanK and DuWayne,

I know historical preservation societies can be nuts. But no nuttier than most suburban homeowners associations. The difference is that the preservations societies usually finally have to answer to local and state governments and the homeowners associations answer only to themselves. And the kind of development that's going on around here is tending towards gated communities and "planned" ones. So we'll have nuts vs. nuts soons.

But getting on the register of historic places is not like putting yourself in a preservation area. There's really not much to it, like I said, mostly bragging rights for the town. We can put it on our welcome signs.

Every community needs to make its decisions for itself based on what's going on and what's being conserved or preserved. Here, it's a landscape and a sense of place more than actual buildings. There are few of them anyway and almost all of them are barns and outbuildings that are still being used as barns and outbuildings. The original farmhouses are already part of a musueum.

And Dan, you're assuming I never talked to my neighbor before. Or since. He's a good neighbor and a nice guy, but he's a type, and I wasn't ripping him as much as trying to characterize the type.

NJ, Pop Mannion's a believer in strict zoning laws. He had it easier than a lot of town officials elsewhere in that our town was pretty well built up as much as it could be by the time he came to office. And the people in town liked it the way it was, which was almost purely residential. No room for another shopping mall even if anyone wanted one next door to them.

[DuWayne]

Please don't think I am knocking all historical societies - just the nutty ones. I do think the problems that stem from historical societies gone wrong are the same same as home owners ass. - you get people who thrive on petty power trips and either don't care or (I suspect more often) don't notice that they are making the lives of their neigbors hell.

Well reasoned, well run historical societies are an absolute pleasure to work with. I love to work on restoring old structures to their original beauty. It really is a blast - even when trying desperately to make a F.L. Wright house water tight - which is very hard in MI. But trying to deal with the other sort of historical society is sheer hell.