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Good Times WIth U.S. Senate Wi-Fi

At the Dirkson Senate Office, when you try to access their wireless network, you have to agree that you've read the following disclaimer:

United States Senate Wireless Network

You have accessed the United States Senate Wireless Network. If you have the proper credentials then you may proceed with your login process. Warning, by moving forward on this system you agree to the fact that you have no privacy on this system and that you will probably be monitored.

Makes you think twice if you really want to check your e-mail, don't it?

NJ’s COAH: Finding Common (and Vacant) Ground

A version of this post first ran on Rooflines -- the blog of the National Housing Institute -- BΩS

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As New Jersey’s Council on Affordable Housing, or COAH, continues to defend its plan to use a growth-share model to encourage towns to build working class and affordable housing, we’re reminded of one thing that became clear a long, long time ago.

Full consensus is going to be hard to reach, but common ground is attainable.

Since everyone appears, at least in public, to share the same philosophy that communities should have socioeconomic diversity, there needs to be some common ground between the builders and affordable housing advocates who argue the new rules will allow suburbs to not live up to their intended housing goals, and those towns—about half of the state’s 566 municipalities—who argue they will be burdened—both financially and spatially—in being required to build far too much affordable housing based on current models.

Most of the remaining municipalities are currently participating in the COAH process, with the Council granting credit for approximately 70,000 affordable units, 36,000 of which have been completed, 14,000 of which were rehabilitated, and 10,000 that were transferred through Regional Contribution Agreements—a since-legislatively revoked method of fulfilling a town’s growth-share requirement where a municipality can transfer funds intended for affordable housing to another town.

It’s been 30 years since the original court decision that put the wheels in motion for the state to establish some sort of affordable housing guidelines, and they’ve been remodeled several times since. The most recent, established in 2004, outlines a growth-share model that encourages 4:1 ratio for market rate and affordable units, as well as one affordable unit for every 16 jobs created.

COAH has said repeatedly that it’s model is a guideline and that it would work with individual towns as they submit their 10-year COAH proposals, but the balking continues, the posturing mounts. Tough economic times only adds superficial logic (often outlined in the breathtakingly uninformed reader comments in various New Jersey newspaper Web sites) to the case that towns can’t afford to build and that the state should not be mandating them to do so.

So the latest, where The New Jersey League of Municipalities, a voluntary organization of towns throughout the state, has accused state officials of withholding materials that include a state-wide vacant land assessment, is just another step in forestalling goals that we should all work for: inclusive communities, workforce housing, not being priced out of your town.

COAH, according to an article in The Star-Ledger, responded in kind with a 130-page response to the challenges, that makes the case for the new rules, arguing that the agency had been reasonable in fielding municipal concerns.

Back in July 2008, when the state refined its latest COAH model, I argued that the Department of Community Affairs, the agency that oversees COAH, and its commissioner, Joe Doria, should go on a state-wide tour, selling the plan at public meetings, much like Gov. Jon Corzine did on his pitch to raise tolls on some key state roadways. Not everyone agreed with him, but there was an element of respect for the outreach tour—an element that he would be happy to re-tap this year as he seeks reelection. But beyond that, I thought that the state should take a real look at rethinking affordable housing:

• We need to move away from the property-tax-based funding for social mandates that benefit everyone (yes, even you there, living on the horse farm in bucolic northwest New Jersey). The implementation of an affordable housing policy that works and is reasonable can be funded by more than just property owners.

• The developer’s fee—the aforementioned 2.5 percent fee—and the municipal mandate system of funding affordable housing is ludicrous. This is important because it could very well thwart all economic growth in New Jersey with ratable-generating enterprise moving over to places like Pennsylvania.

Hopefully because they were reading Bowie of Suburbia, the state Legislature last month voted on a moratorium for this developer’s fee that exempts projects through July 2010, calling it an impediment to economic recovery, but housing advocates have rallied against the moratorium, saying that a freeze would pose a missed opportunity to generate revenue. The fee, they said, would help to promote that roadmap to more inclusive communities.

Diane Sterner, executive director of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey wrote in a February 2009 op-ed in The Trenton Times that:

[W]e are all responsible in some way for creating the homes we need so our state can grow and prosper. Residential developers pay fees to build. When private individuals build or purchase a home, they pay a real estate transfer fee. A portion of this goes into the state’s housing trust fund to finance housing development.

Agreed, but in a time when major institutions, particularly nonprofits like hospitals and universities, are also struggling with dwindling endowments, but looking to simultaneously expand and remain competitive in the country, a developer’s fee is ever-problematic. The housing advocate’s argument for a developer’s fee goes back to the fundamental case that fees are needed to encourage development. Yes, but let’s do it by way of:

• Creating a value-added tax, like a gas tax that would be used strictly for infrastructure. This can be criticized as a regressive tax, but think of the open space tax that New Jersey voters consistently approve.

We need to get on the stick, and we need to do it now. This economic downturn is scaring a lot of people and it’s only a matter of time before voters are fooled by the shell-game mentality that providing affordable housing is a costly burden for our towns.

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Who Will Lead Highland Park?

It's always bittersweet when you have a rising star within your own elected local government. On the one hand, it's good that you've got someone on your side who is motivated to make a name for him or herself, while elevating the profile of your town. If all goes well, that person's best interests are interwoven with the best interests of the community.

But when the town becomes too small for that person's aspirations, they move on.

For a long time, this was the case with Highland Park, NJ Mayor Meryl Frank, who, after more than nine years as mayor of this tiny Middlesex County borough of 14,000 whose identity, in addition to tree-lined streets, diverse housing stock, good public schools, and tight-knit community, is defined by its bedroom community status for large nearby institutions like Johnson & Johnson and Rutgers University.

Mayor Frank last week was sworn in as the United States representative to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. It's not clear how this will affect her mayoral incumbency, but her resignation is likely as she says she will stay on temporarily to ensure a smooth transition to a new administration.

Throughout the 2008 presidential election, Frank, a Democrat, was an ardent supporter of Hillary Clinton, and, subsequently, Barack Obama, and raised a lot of money in the process. Her appointment is the product of higher aspirations, and her legacy in Highland Park will be noted. In 2004, she created the Task Force on Ethics and Good Government, which is instituting wide-ranging rules and guidelines to assure clean government in Highland Park. Working with Borough council, she helped to develop Highland Park 2020, a long-term vision for the Borough, that focuses on creating a community that is economically, environmentally and socially sustainable. The plan highlights affordability, conservation and strong community relations, according to the Highland Park Web site.

Her term has also been marked with the ongoing redevelopment effort of Raritan Avenue, Highland Park's main street corridor.

Now Highland Park faces a change in leadership. The process to replace Frank, who is in the middle of her third term, is controlled by the local Democratic Municipal Committee. They will provide three candidates for Council consideration, and Council will then vote on who will carry out her term. This process should be public -- the local Dems should invite the community to participate in the process, as well as encourage Party outsiders to seek the spot -- those less qualified will be weeded out in the process.

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Let's Get Serious Here

Here we go again.

To use a catchy Obama phrase during his run for the high office, it seems like these days, it's _always_ silly season in politics, and the news today of Tom Daschle withdrawing his name as Obama's nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services only continues this pattern.

Now we all must suffer through yet another week-long news cycle as the cable networks unearth every partisan hack for commentary, culminating with Sunday morning's All Star lineup of hacks, pundits, gasbags, and blowhards, reveling in Barack Obama's missteps in his first two weeks in office.

What's worse: it's post-Super Bowl, the quietest time of year for sports, so there's _really_ nothing else on. Tune in, everyone! Let's get ready to talk about really non-substantive stuff. It's not like there's anything else going on: more and more people are unemployed these days, so television viewership's got to be way up.

Let me say this first: Secy. Geithner's and Tom Daschle's apparent inability to manage a personal ledger is truly reprehensible and there's really no excuse. While there is an argument to be made for the expeditious installation of a Treasury secretary in Geithner, despite his tax problems, Daschle should have been dismissed the moment he acknowledged his problems in unpaid taxes.

Why? Because we can't get caught up in the forever silly season of politics right now. Even though Tom Daschle is an ardent supporter of President Obama who was tapped to push through his health care policy -- an area where other leaders, Obama said in December, have failed:

"Our leaders offer up detailed health care plans with great fanfare and promise, only to see them fail, derailed by Washington politics and influence peddling."

Well, if this part of the Obama agenda is not derailed, it's certainly delayed -- and things are supposed to be urgent.

Here's a very incomplete list of what we need to be doing:

* Passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and working out fundamental differences in how to stimulate an economy in continued decline

* Working to improve the housing crisis

* Closing the military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay

* Withdrawing troops from Iraq and dealing, finally, with Afghanistan

* Dealing with Israel-Palestinian relations

* Fixing HUD

* Implementing sound urban policy

* Implementing sound transportation policy

And the beat goes on and on and on. This list is about the same length as silly season, which is, apparently, forever. I'm only watching Lehrer and will hold my nose through Sunday: say no to Morning Joe, swim through the Olbermann and Maddow snarky sludge, wade through Will, march past Mitchell, gallop over Gregory, take cover from Cokie, and shy away from Schieffer.

In fact, just keep walking sirs and ma'ams. There's nothing to see here this week.