Some things just leave you speechless. I heard via Twitter, personal conversations and the news account of the meeting itself that the vote on the plan for the Highway 12 business improvement district ended in a tie. That means it failed. Sad and shortsighted, but it’s their choice.
Essentially areas of Highway 12 that choose not to reinvest in themselves will most probably follow the standard pattern of becoming blighted and will be left behind as other newer areas become more desirable. A boom-and-bust cycle is almost impossible to stop without a coordinated effort and positive leadership, none of which this group can seem to muster in an meaningful way.
What makes that outcome so fundamentally disturbing is the level of misinformation and deception used to get that vote. The linchpin of these lies was, yes, my friends, the dreaded sidewalks. Sidewalks are truly the devil’s playground.
According a news report, Dan Moreland said the city was going to make everyone put in sidewalks as soon as the BID was approved. Really? Nowhere in the BID planning or control was the city involved. Current city ordinances don’t require sidewalks unless it is a new development or a substantial redevelopment.
Mr. Moreland was instrumental in getting some members of this board of aldermen elected so how could anyone believe that this board has the backbone to require him to do anything? He didn’t even have to meet the code requirements for his new mini-storage project.
The vitriolic rhetoric evident during the BID meeting directed at the Partnership and the city was divisive to its core. Throwing around words like “socialist” is meaningless and panders to baser instincts that block the thinking process.
The plan rejected by a single vote was to allow the group to tax themselves and control their own destiny. That strikes me as taxation with direct representation, the epitome of democracy. Their solution was for the rest of us to pay for their property improvements using city tax dollars. I ask you, which is more socialist in its approach?
What I keep trying to reconcile is how we got here. To say we have a couple of factions of polar opposites in Starkville is an understatement. It was most evident in the mayoral election of 2013: entrenched old-guard Moreland versus new youthful, progressive, Wiseman. Progress won.
On the surface these differences appear to be mostly generational. Unlike other places, our anger and distrust revolve around views of what seems to be important to different generations. Bike lanes and sidewalks versus cars, population density versus suburban neighborhoods, students versus retirees. None of these should be mutually exclusive and they certainly shouldn’t lead to intolerant speech and behavior. Yet is seems they do.
You have to wonder how these issues are so diametrically opposed that a compromise can’t bridge the generational divide. What is the real reason for this venomous attitude? Control? Fear of irrelevance? Mortality? Change? Money?
I know I have no objectivity on this score, so I won’t even pretend I do. I am steadfastly on one side of growth and development issues for Starkville. I unequivocally view sidewalks and the new city hall and the landscaping ordinance and the focus on quality of life as primary components of who we should strive to be in order to keep and attract the best and the brightest.
I relish seeing people walking down the sidewalks in front of my business carrying book bags or groceries, riding the new SMART bus or jogging on the new bike path along Lynn Lane. For a business person of any generation in any town, what about that picture contradicts your best business interests?
I don’t want to believe it is age related but that seems to be the most common denominator of the differences, sidewalks simply serve as the boogeyman. The irony is old people are just one forgetful moment away from losing their car keys and needing sidewalks as much as anyone else.
If you don’t care enough about your property’s future to ante up and invest when opportunity presents itself, then so be it. If you want to kill the project because you are too cheap to spend the money or you just can’t afford the tax or you don’t think it is worth the price then say so, but don’t disguise your stance on the issue to influence your neighbor by using blatantly false scare tactics.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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