And, In Other Big City News…

I read that 47% of the property taxable homes in Detroit do not pay their property tax.

Then they complain that the services don’t exist, so why pay property taxes!

Of course you see the conundrum, and, to be fair, probably they do also. The report says that looking at 77 city blocks, as an example, on average just one person in each block pays their property tax.

I thought that the Obama administration had solved the auto industry problem, and since General Motors is headquartered in Detroit!

Apparently, not. Reports are that the unfunded liability of the city is so high that the Governor of the state cannot find anyone to take it over for a turnaround. Just as a side note, Forbes Magazine just listed the 20 Most Miserable Cities in the US, and unsurprisingly, Detroit stands number ONE! Flint, Michigan stands number two!

(The state has taken over Flint, Michigan among other smaller cities.)

In other Detroit news about which you may not care except in the abstract, the former Mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, has missed paying his court required restitution to the city, so his Mother has paid the required $500 for the second month:

(He owes $854,000. You do the math as to how long it will take at $500 a month…)

“Kilpatrick, officials said, has had trouble earning money in recent months for two reasons: One, he’s on trial in federal court in Detroit for alleged public corruption; Secondly, he’s got a tether on his ankle for a parole violation and can’t leave the state.

Still, he managed to get his restitution payment in on time this month, thanks to his mother, the former Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick, who made the $500 payment on Wednesday.”

http://www.freep.com/article/20130222/NEWS0102/130222067/Kwame-Kilpatrick-s-mom-makes-his-500-monthly-restitution-payment-to-Detroit

 

 

 

 

You Are Kidding Me, Right?

I was watching Shawn Styles, who does weather on Ch. 8 in San Diego, and he was doing a piece on measuring and reducing your “carbon footprint.”

It immediately struck me as the former CEO of a TV station in Los Angeles, and Chairman of a TV Broadcasting system, that damn few things in most people’s lives have larger carbon footprints than TV systems!

Think of the size of a TV station, with multiple “sets” and the lighting required, not to mention the heating and cooling systems. Think of the people who drive there, and back throughout the day, and their car pollution. Think of the transmitter site — it takes huge electrical punch to distribute a local signal — and think of the power consumed to build a rocket and the fuel it takes to launch satellites to distribute the signal.

Ch. 8 (just like all stations) has multiple enormous trucks for remote broadcast, and even a helicopter — probably the least efficient aerial vehicle type known to man.

Multiply that imagining times all of the TV stations in not just this city, but the state, and then the nation.

Now, think of the number of TV sets in this country — probably close to a half a billion. The cumulative amount of power drawn by TV sets is enormous!

And Shawn, using all those power-using assets, wants me to be concerned about my washer and refrigerator?

‘Gimme a break!