On The Keystone Path. January 12, 2012 Blog Entry

[Keystone Writer]

I remember Orrex use to post excerpts from his story here and I use to follow along, wondering what would come next. I was attracted to the writer's group because I also had a story to write, though mine was going to be a challenge to publish. It was a real story full of details that had to be absolutely accurate, which left little room for creativity. But I think I have found a way to turn it into a journalistic story. I'm posting the information on a website, which you can access at: www.Keystoneworksite.com.

But, like Orrex, I would like to post the articles here in DU and request feedback. Even feedback on spelling errors will be welcome. Thank you for any interest you might have.

Keystone Writer.

Pre-launch Day Reflections
January 12, 2012

If someone had predicted fourteen years ago that I would one day be on the internet blogging I would have waved it off as a case of mistaken identity. For one thing, I thought bloggers were people who were passionate about an issue, were programming wizards and possessed a spine stronger than mine. But that was fourteen years ago.

What I didn’t anticipate was what happens to a person as they get older, when experiences calcify opinions until one day you wake up one morning and realize that there is a great many things that need to be said.

Now I look back to what was happening in my life in 1998, and I wonder if things would have turned out differently if blogging was as accessible to ordinary people back then as it is today. As quick as the question comes up, I rush to answer: Yes, yes, it would have. Just having a medium to pass on information in a timely manner would have stopped some bad decisions from even being considered at all. At least, I would like to believe that’s the case, because it's an opinion that rests on one of the basic principles of our country.

In our republic, it was deemed so important to have good information available at all times, that a safety measure was included in the US Constitution to allow the press the freedom to report the news and to criticize our leaders when they felt it was warranted. What wasn’t anticipated back then was what would happen if the newspapers one day decided to make exceptions on the topics they printed.

I know I’m not alone in thinking that we just went through one of those dark pockets in history where the press didn’t live up to our expectations. But whatever effect their silence may have had on a national or state level is not the focus of this blog. Instead, one of the things this worksite hopes to demonstrate is what happens at a community level, when information is selectively withheld. One of the things this blog will continually hammer home is that it’s not just the press that is burdened with this responsibility to provide the public with proper information.

It’s conventional wisdom, or should be: bad information, bad decisions. It’s especially important to talk about today when the lines between government and business have become blurred and we don’t have the stop measures that once protected us from policies that could harm us or threaten our quality of life.

That said, my decision to become a blogger became easier when I recognized two changing trends: The first, that web design software is now simple enough for non-programmers to understand. And the second, that I recognize a change in the public’s willingness to take a critical look at our leaders. Maybe this healthy skepticism is the result of what has happened in Wall Street, or any number of the let-downs we keep reading about in the newspapers. Just the fact that the papers are now reporting freely about things that they would have avoided ten years ago is an example of this new change.

However we all reached this point, this website will ride the trend and discuss things that should have been discussed years ago, in an effort that others will not fall in the same traps and make the same mistakes.

[Keystone Writer]

1. On The Keystone Path. Home Page or Preface

Through My Eyes

We moved into a suburb in Central Florida during the mid-nineties when you were more likely to find thick patches of oak, pine and palmetto than you would a four bedroom with a bonus room. As much as I hated to see the forests cleared to make space for the next development I understood that a community of new neighbors opened the door to new possibilities.

So, for the last seventeen years I’ve been a spectator to this process called community development and I can say from first hand experience that you would be closer to understanding how it all works if you replace the word “process” with “accident.” It’s like that.

Decisions in City Hall are made from a chain reaction of colliding objectives and interests, much in the same way that multiple car crashes occur on the interstate when people drive too fast through foggy conditions. Except that in City Hall, when the last councilman votes for approval, the real calamity begins.

When something does go very wrong you expect a community to come together to clean up the debris and make things right again. What you don’t expect is to see how efficiently they hide the bodies so that no one wises up to the fact that bad things happen here. But as much as they try, the one thing that no one can hide is that dark cloud that hangs over the place, serving as a constant reminder that it’s impossible to move forward when bad decisions keep you rooted to the past.

The idea to launch this website came from the theory that bad practices tend to repeat themselves when they aren’t publicly corrected. This concern increased after the Florida legislature dismantled our Growth Management laws last year. An article in the Orlando Sentinel explained what we lost: Since 1985, the state “…required cities and counties to create long-range ‘comprehensive’ growth plans to fight sprawl and environmental destruction, including requiring developers to help pay for roads and schools that would be needed to serve their projects.” (Aaron Deslatte, Records show how developers got to gut growth rules, Orlando Sentinel, Sept. 4, 2011 at A1.)

Without this state oversight, community development decisions will now be left in the hands of local government, except where there are state resources involved.

The irony that many will see too late, is that the more you pool power at the local level the further away you get from the uniform protections found in the U.S. Constitution. That’s because the closer power reaches down into our communities, the easier it is to corrupt the process as people tend to rely on relationships to make decisions, rather than treat everyone’s interests equally.

The good news is that we don’t have to wait to see how this experiment will end because here in Florida there are cities which have already toyed with the concept of sovereign rights. That’s what makes this site a resource for those who wish to see how local government will evolve in this new environment. Or de-evolve, depending on your view.

The long-term hope is that this site will give Floridians an understanding of how good ideas walk into City Hall only to come out as a plan that not only falls short of its mark, but steals our trust in our government. For that purpose, this website is dedicated to providing insights to how local government operates when it thinks no one is watching—and how it covers its trail when they know somebody will.

Note: If you feel this post warrants a recommendation, I would appreciate it if you would go to the one I posted in General Discussion, to hopefully get it to the next level of attention. Thank you.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002359746