Brutus_buckeye

I get that but the problem is that you cant look at it as "racist" in this case, but more the after affect of prior policy that may have had racist undertones. There is a big difference. If this were the 1960s which many in the race wars want to perpetuate, you would have the following scenario. 1) a redlined neighborhood mixed with poor and middle class African Americans, 2) The city/state wants to put a highway that goes through such neighborhood without offering any direct access to such neighborhood and allowing the community to share in the potential benefits of the highway. 3) While the land value in the redlined area may be depressed, the government buys the land through eminent domain, 4) Those who are displaced or want to move because of the negative externalities of the road, are limited in the neighborhoods they can choose, and must essentially live in the same neighborhood or comparable poor neighborhood due to the policies and deed restrictions in place. This was the 1960s. This scenario does not exist today. Let's recognize that and re-frame the conversation to actually address the problem at hand instead of engaging in the same race baiting semantics that the progressive left perpetuates. Now I am not going to say things are peaches and roses today, but the major difference today and one that is the most important differentiator is that now, when the highway comes in and buys the people's homes, they can move to whatever neighborhood they want and are not left to live in a ghetto anymore. There is opportunity for upward mobility. Now, this does not absolve the sins of the past forefathers but from an equality standpoint, those barriers have been removed. Yes, economically, the wealth is not there, but the way to correct that is not through handouts but by removing the barriers that prevent the opportunity for advancement. The key issues have been solved, but it will take a generation or two to fully realize that for many. We need to keep working toward advancement and removing barriers when we see them but the past is the past, it is time to quit living in the 1960s because they are not coming back.

We are floored by the people who order fast food through Uber Eats and the apps. It is not worth it for a crappy burger. If you order Indian food or some other ethnic specialty food, it could be a good service to use (although I would just rather drive and pick it up myself, I do not even like having my pizza delivered)

I think we need to abandon the hyperbole when describing construction of roads. Roads cannot be racist, people may be but a road is not racist. People also need to move on from the 60s mentality that we are still battling redlining and race wars. We are not. It is certainly worth discussion on whether it is a good idea to build a road through a poorer inner city area but it is not racist to do so. This is not the 60s, the same arguments are not relevant. In the 1960s, you could at least argue that redlining and other restrictive policies on land transfer forced African Americans into poorer sections of town and did not offer them the opportunity to get out. Then you have highways that cut through the neighborhood and further destroy the value of their properties. I will at least acknowledge that argument. But... today, those restrictions are gone. Yes, there are some reverberations of those policies that has left people poorer than they may otherwise be but there are opportunities for African Americans all over. They are no longer stuck in crumbling ghettos anymore. When gentrification comes to an area or other potential developments, there are options unlike in the 1960s. Now, it would be fair to categorize that many of these decisions are made without taking into account the voices of the poor who live in those areas, but poor and race are not the same. If you want to have the argument about whether building such a road is harmful to economically disadvantaged, then it is a worthy argument and has merit, but we need to drop the race pretext. The sixties are not coming back.

But again, that does not mean that public schools, which is a one size fits all model, it best for that individual child. If you walked by a child struggling and drowning in a pool and you could save them would you? Natural answer is of course, you do whatever you can for them. Now, if there is a certain protocol to save the child (aka the public school model) in which that protocol has proven statistically acceptable, that is the path you would probably try first, but what happens when it is seen that the accepted model is not going to work in this instance? Do you let the child just drown and just chalk it up to a numbers game or do you possibly break with protocol to try something different to save the child? That is what the advocates for school choice argue. They are not saying get rid of public schools, what they are saying is give people a choice for what could be better for their child. The end goal is the same here, it is about educating the child. Unfortunately, that gets lost amongst people trying to protect their turf too many times.

Not just that. Mostly just having to navigate the development process. You have to get city/township approvals, county level approvals, EPA and state agency approvals, you have storm water approvals, etc. This is even without NIMBYs. If you know what you are doing it is mostly form driven but it takes time. NIMBY's certainly play a role as do the egos of the politicians and economic directors. Throw those in and it is even more involved. Much of it is very relationship driven. Get to know the development directors in each town. There is a lot of horse trading that goes on too, and sometimes the developer who is not experienced may give away too much on the project to make it economical but be stuck developing it in a certain way to satisfy the politicians (and I do not mean that to sound negative but if you do not know what you are doing, you may compromise on certain things the NIMBY's may want to get the project going but then it drives the cost up so much that you can no longer make the development profitable). Again, not as big of a deal on an apartment rehab or single family but more significant for larger developments

I am hearing the same vibe too. That, plus the overall infrastructure that is already here makes it an extremely difficult asset to move, if the local area here is willing to continue to invest in it.

What I was implying is that most of the families who will use the expanded voucher are going to private schools already. However, it levels the playing field for them. Also, in a matter of fairness, many of these parents have sacrificed a lot for their children to go to a private or parochial school and they are not rich. The biggest voucher benefit has been to more of the inner city or poorer suburban areas of town who have ample options for vouchers. There are a number of Catholic schools in the area that provide a very good education and most of the children are on vouchers. These schools would not be able to exist without this revenue stream and they are able to serve a portion of the community who truly needs the option but cannot afford it on their own. I was just reading the other day about a new Catholic school opening in the inner city that will primary service non-catholic voucher students. Clearly, there are options for those in the city to go to Catholic or private schools. In addition, there is school bus service to take people there. To your point, if anything, the areas that will use the vouchers the least are more of the rural schools in the country where there are not as many options. However, in the inner city, which typically has the most troubled schools, there will be numerous options for families.

I do too. Which again, under the voucher program, the vast majority of the benefit will go to those who can least afford it. You clearly check the box about benefitting society because providing a quality education for children is a good thing. We both agree on that. the big difference is that I think parents, especially parents who do not have the means to offer their children an education that may be better suited to them can now have options to allow them to meet their potential instead of being held back. and that quote may be a bit simplistic. Not always the case in many cases as the value of the vouchers goes to families with students whether they are paying property taxes or not. Otherwise, the value would solely be a giveback to rich parents who are homeowners whereas the majority of the students who benefit from this tend to be lower income students who are often renters and do not pay property taxes. I think we both share the same vision of using the collective means of society to provide a benefit to educating our children, especially the least advantaged children. We just disagree on the best and most fair means to accomplish the goal.

you typically are not going to get non-recourse for the construction part of the project. Most of the time, this developer is going to put a traditional bank loan/credit union loan or use a hard money non-traditional investor or bridge loan to finance that part of the project. Only after the project is complete and stabilized will you typically put non-recourse debt on the deal. The one other key thing that I think the your post does not adequately address well is the working with government entities and the time factor to being able to build. This is the biggest challenge with any development and can take years from the time a project is proposed to get the shovels in the ground depending on its scope. Certainly, building a single family home in an existing subdivision is pretty cut and dry and can a permit can be issued in within a couple of weeks (if the paperwork is filed correctly and people do not ask for any strange zoning variances). Commercial properties will take much longer and have to go through a city/township approval plus get county approval and EPA approval for storm water runoff. Some states have state level approval as well (Indiana) which complicate things even more.

^ Dont know what some of this has to do with Covington developments and the noise issues. Probably better saved for the grievance forum on the site.

You have no disagreement here and I do not think you have any disagreement from the politicians. Remember, people who send their kids to private schools still pay their property taxes just as you do. Furthermore, the state still supports the public school for the "potential" need that their private school educated child may have if ever. The only difference is that a portion of the funds that would have been allocated to that child to be educated in a public school that they are not using are able to be repurposed to the private school This way, the funds that your taxes pay to educate the child are actually used for that child. So your civics lesson that you try and present here really does not hold water.

For the current year, it will be about the same. You are not going to see a rush of public school kids to private schools in the current year because those classes are baked in for the most part by April/May, which is before the voucher program passed. The students that qualify for need based vouchers in the past were also pretty much baked in. For the current year, I think school districts will be able to predict with around 95-99% accuracy where their funding will be. For 2024/25, it may be a little more murky as more families find out about this however, again, in the districts that were troubled, vouchers have been around for much of the last 15-20 years so these districts have been used to budgeting for vouchers. For the wealthy districts, most people will stay in their public school anyway OR the kids going to private schools will get a small discount (because their families incomes are so high they only qualify for the smallest amount). The people that win are the families that have been sending their kids to private schools over the last 20 years yet not receiving any subsidy for their educational choice. From a budget perspective, it should be fairly reasonable for a finance director to predict since the amount should be predictable.

Yes, because of Bally Sports and some of the other sports packages. still more efficient with AltaFiber than some of the streaming services.

Ohio's educational spend is already set. What is undetermined is the amount of money that some districts will get per student. For the most part, this can be figured with reasonable certainty in many of the urban districts as they are already used to vouchers and the amount of voucher money will not considerably grow in those districts (it is pretty much been baked in for 15 years now). The districts that may see a surprise are the suburban districts that have a great rating. They have never had to deal with a voucher before as 1) Most people send their kids to public school because it is a good school and well run system (and at this point will likely not change) but 2) Those who do live there and send their kids private, have the means to subsidize the public schools while at the same time affording private school. Now those families will likely get $650-$1000 per student (depending on year in school or more depending on income) and the school system will have to factor this relatively unknown factor. They can figure their exposure but you also have to answer the question as to how many of the parents who live in top districts but still send their kids to private school will find the hassle factor to get the $650-$1000 worth the effort on the paperwork side.

^ I think it may be dead. I thought someone told me recently that they were trying to sell the parking lot off to someone who may want that parcel for a development of some sort. Not sure though.

Michigan is in tax and spend mode now with the legislature and governorship operating in tandem. There are no checks to their crazy spending. For a state that is losing population, I would not worry too much about what Michigan is doing.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/ "Sokal went on to “disprove” his credo in fashionable jargon. “Feminist and poststructuralist critiques have demystified the substantive content of mainstream Western scientific practice, revealing the ideology of domination concealed behind the façade of ‘objectivity,’” he claimed. “It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical ‘reality,’ no less than social ‘reality,’ is at bottom a social and linguistic construct.”

That would pretty much make every gender studies professor need to resign

One of the challenges of the gerrymandering issue is the protected minority seats. These seats create impenetrable Democratic strongholds that cram a ton of Dem voters into a minority district to ensure a minority will win. When it comes to redistricting, many times, the office holders in these districts are extremely hostile to give up any of their district (because they do not have to actually campaign anymore) and often hide behind the civil rights act to ensure it stays in tact. Yes, the GOP certainly gerrymanders, however, one way to actually level the playing field would be to treat all districts equally and allow the Dems to spread their voters across mulitple districts.

I think if you look at how they have governed, especially during the Trump years, you are correct. However, if you were trying to boil things down to a quick postcard statement for mass media consumption or you were writing a basic textbook trying to quickly boil down the basic positions of each party in a plain vanilla way (without trying to demagogue any party) the this can characterize the popular narrative between the parties. However, to your point, if you look at how they govern, there are certainly a lot of contradictions and at the end of the day the key governing tenet of both parties is that both seek to hold and control power and ultimately it is their best interest (no matter what party you are in) to work to keep that power. It is really sad how the Trump crowd has co-opted the party. The GOP was big on policy and process in the past. That was the big knock on them in general is that they could not get anything done because they respected the process too much. This meant giving deference to law enforcement, the FBI, etc. Trump does not care about that and only cares when it benefitted him. This was always my frustration with many Democrats and especially Obama (and now Biden). Pushing rules and regulations that were clearly unconstitutional solely to use them as a political wedge against their opponents (such as the Court). Perfect examples were the Eviction Ban and Student Loan Forgiveness. While popular, they did not meet the rules of governance and that is why they were properly struck down. Unfortunately, Trump sees this and wants to act the same way and there are a lot of people on the Republican side who enable him or are afraid to stand up to him. That is why you see things like Jan 6 and the grievance tour that Trump is running right now. Regarding the Home Rule thing. That is more of a Federalist issue specific to Ohio. Some states are more generous in what they allow cities to do. Others have more restrictive policies. That is not necessarily a national matter but more of a local issue that you see on a state by state basis. I know in California, Oregon and washington, Republicans likely feel the same way many Democrats do in Ohio about certain issues.

I would think they build it right away. They have the cranes up and therefore have paid the staging fees, they have the elevator shafts poured, it would not make sense to leave them exposed for years in the elements. I am sure that as soon as they are done with the other 2, they move over to the 3rd

Instead of going all in on EV, if they really pushed hybrids, it would allow the EV infrastructure to be built up more before going all EV. People with hybrids would install the chargers and it would create more demand for them at places and still allow people the freedom to take long trips without fear of not being able to charge their battery. It would offer a good bridge

Yes, I get what you are trying to argue, I do not agree and think it is false. Certainly, a weak candidate on the top of the ballot is going to depress the bottom of the ballot because people will be less inclined to show up altogether, but it does not work in reverse. Heck, most state house candidates tend to be weak inexperienced politicians. Part of their success is attributed to the president or governors coattails to pull them up. If what you argue is true, it would be proven by the fact that voter turnout would be just as high in off year elections as they are in presidential year elections. Furthermore, you would see on the vote tally, that hidden democrats who may be afraid to vote for their local candidate because of local repercussions will still show up and pull the lever for the candidate on the national ballot or state ballot. I am sorry but you just cant argue gerrymandering to explain away the Ohio Democratic party's woes. The reality is that the electorate in Ohio tends to be more conservative than many of the progressives in the larger cities would like to admit.

Instead of going all in on EV's they really need to push the hybrids more.

In Clermont County down near Cincy, there is not a Democrat to be seen so the GOP controlled county has numerous factions who have engaged in a lot of dirty tricks against other GOP candidates over the years. They are not one party fighting the other party anymore but there are numerous factions within the party vying for more power in the party. It is similar to the Democrats in chicago. You have a place where Republicans cant win, despite likely having better ideas on how to run the city (You certainly cant argue that the current leadership in Chicago is competent and the Dems there certainly do not try to promote good governance there either) but they are shut out for numerous reasons in these types of areas. So yes, it is a both sides thing.