Letters, 02/07: Damage by impact fees
Two years ago Lincoln debated the merits of an impact fee and implemented the tax in June 2003. The Home Builders Association presented credible evidence arguing why impact fees were not good for Lincoln and offered an austere view of the future for Lincoln.
Now, 18 months after impact fees were implemented, the housing facts for 2004 are these. Residential building permits are down 22 percent. In a period of low interest rates, new-home sales in Lincoln are off by 9.4 percent while sales outside of Lincoln are up 17 percent and nationwide sales are up more than 10 percent. At last year's sales rate there is a six-month supply of new homes on the market.
Subdivisions are being planned and built in Cass County, Hickman and Waverly. Several Lincoln builders are now building in Omaha because it is so much easier to build homes for people in a growth-friendly atmosphere. Some local trade contractors have cut back to four-day workweeks and are considering layoffs. New-business recruiting is at a standstill. Local businesses are expanding outside of Lincoln.
Studies across the country have shown that growth does pay for itself and gives a profit to its community. It is no coincidence that as the housing market has slowed Lincoln's sales tax receipts are down 2.5 percent below national averages.
Before more damage is done, the City Council needs to repeal the impact fee ordinance. The fees collected should be returned to the community. Let's get Lincoln back to work!
Greg Schwinn, Lincoln
A small freedom lost
Every time I see a newspaper and I hear about more freedom for Iraqi people, I can't help but think about what is being taken away from us.
Smoking is a small freedom compared to the many great things we have in this country, but the point is, smoking is a choice and should be treated as such.
It seems to me that there are a lot more issues that are just as dangerous that are being considered to the state as acceptable. Only smokers are the ones who have to give up what they have. Everyone seems to forget that we smokers paid for the Devaney Center, a facility that the whole state uses.
As a smoker, I always wonder whether someday I will have to have a tracheotomy. If I ever do, I will make sure that the doctor puts the hole behind my neck. After all, it won't be long until I have to sneak around behind my own back to light up a cigarette.
Ernie Skinner, Beaver Crossing
Citizen rights crumbling
Congress should demand an investigation of the alleged torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. It was bad enough that the United States taught South American soldiers how to torture, in the former School of the Americas, but now our military is also doing it.
For seven decades I had been proud that my country was a crusader for human rights, but now I see its citizens' rights crumbling and read that our troops practice torture. No wonder we want to prosecute only other countries for war crimes but refuse to sign the treaty that would allow us to be prosecuted. This has to stop!
My father fought in World War I, my husband was in the Air Force for 12 years in both World War II and the Korean War, and my son has served overseas in this war. But none of them sacrificed in order for our country to run roughshod over the rest of the world. They were proud to serve, because our country stood for liberty and justice for all.
Norma Fleisher, Lincoln
In Bush's thrall
I had to laugh when I read the headline on Jeff Schmid's letter to the editor on Feb. 1 asking "Paper biased for Bush?" Apparently Schmid has not been reading the Journal Star's editorials and "news" for the past three years.
The Journal Star is so enthralled with this administration that if President Bush declares that down is up on Thursday, I would fully expect the front page to be printed upside down on Friday.
I used to enjoy reading the Omaha paper for a conservative viewpoint and the Lincoln paper for a different view, but lately if you tear the banner off the top of the page, you can't tell the difference between the two.
Michael D. Rasmussen, Lincoln
Casinos are happy
Pat Loontjer and her antigambling buddies no doubt will get a pat on the back as a result of helping to defeat the casino issue in Nebraska.
The biggest pat will come from the surrounding states that will benefit the most. I do not believe it is just coincidence that two Council Bluffs, Iowa, casinos announced large additions to their facilities soon after the issue was defeated in Nebraska. We will never know the full impact of their drive against Nebraska casinos, mainly in stalling the issue in the Legislature.
If the lobbyist-controlled Legislature would not have dragged its feet and watered down Sen. DiAnna Schimek's casino bill, it would not have had competition from another group, and I have no doubt it would have passed handily.
The antigambling group has not stopped casino gambling in Nebraska but has continued to send the money out of state. I just returned from my monthly visit to Ameristar, and by an accurate count 75 percent of the cars in the parking lot had Nebraska plates on them, and this does not count the charter buses or the shuttle bus from Omaha.
Daniel L. Dilla, Lincoln
U.S. failed to act
The Jan. 27 article about the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz was very good. Some additional history might interest readers.
When the Nazis began imprisoning people from groups they thought of as enemies, their prisons could not hold them all. Thus they built two types of death camps, which also supplied the slave labor they needed.
The first were "Konzentrationslager," or concentration camps. These camps held political enemies, people of Slavic origin, homosexuals, the mentally ill and other "defectives," as well as Jews. Many or most prisoners died from slave labor, disease, starvation, murder or "scientific" experiments on humans, but these camps were not built specifically to kill the prisoners.
When the Nazis found their "solution to the Jewish question" in 1942, they began to build "Vernichtungslager," or extermination camps to eradicate the Jews. Auschwitz and the others had gas chambers and ovens to do the job efficiently and "cleanly."
Many Americans believe the United States was ignorant of or actively opposed Nazi Jewish policy, but unfortunately this is not entirely true. A very moving visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., taught me otherwise.
On display there was a prewar letter from the State Department to its European consulates listing the kinds of red tape they should use to obstruct Jewish emigration. Anti-Semitism was powerful in the United States as well as in Germany.
I also learned that U.S. intelligence had aerial reconnaissance photos of Auschwitz and knew what the photos showed in 1944, before many Jews went to its ovens. The United States later claimed Auschwitz was out of bomber range, but the missions for which the photos were taken were flown against nearby factories where Jews awaiting death worked.
U.S. actions against Japanese-Americans during the war were shameful, but so was our failure to act on behalf of European Jews.
Roger Day, Lincoln
Now, 18 months after impact fees were implemented, the housing facts for 2004 are these. Residential building permits are down 22 percent. In a period of low interest rates, new-home sales in Lincoln are off by 9.4 percent while sales outside of Lincoln are up 17 percent and nationwide sales are up more than 10 percent. At last year's sales rate there is a six-month supply of new homes on the market.
Subdivisions are being planned and built in Cass County, Hickman and Waverly. Several Lincoln builders are now building in Omaha because it is so much easier to build homes for people in a growth-friendly atmosphere. Some local trade contractors have cut back to four-day workweeks and are considering layoffs. New-business recruiting is at a standstill. Local businesses are expanding outside of Lincoln.
Studies across the country have shown that growth does pay for itself and gives a profit to its community. It is no coincidence that as the housing market has slowed Lincoln's sales tax receipts are down 2.5 percent below national averages.
Before more damage is done, the City Council needs to repeal the impact fee ordinance. The fees collected should be returned to the community. Let's get Lincoln back to work!
Greg Schwinn, Lincoln
A small freedom lost
Every time I see a newspaper and I hear about more freedom for Iraqi people, I can't help but think about what is being taken away from us.
Smoking is a small freedom compared to the many great things we have in this country, but the point is, smoking is a choice and should be treated as such.
It seems to me that there are a lot more issues that are just as dangerous that are being considered to the state as acceptable. Only smokers are the ones who have to give up what they have. Everyone seems to forget that we smokers paid for the Devaney Center, a facility that the whole state uses.
As a smoker, I always wonder whether someday I will have to have a tracheotomy. If I ever do, I will make sure that the doctor puts the hole behind my neck. After all, it won't be long until I have to sneak around behind my own back to light up a cigarette.
Ernie Skinner, Beaver Crossing
Citizen rights crumbling
Congress should demand an investigation of the alleged torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. It was bad enough that the United States taught South American soldiers how to torture, in the former School of the Americas, but now our military is also doing it.
For seven decades I had been proud that my country was a crusader for human rights, but now I see its citizens' rights crumbling and read that our troops practice torture. No wonder we want to prosecute only other countries for war crimes but refuse to sign the treaty that would allow us to be prosecuted. This has to stop!
My father fought in World War I, my husband was in the Air Force for 12 years in both World War II and the Korean War, and my son has served overseas in this war. But none of them sacrificed in order for our country to run roughshod over the rest of the world. They were proud to serve, because our country stood for liberty and justice for all.
Norma Fleisher, Lincoln
In Bush's thrall
I had to laugh when I read the headline on Jeff Schmid's letter to the editor on Feb. 1 asking "Paper biased for Bush?" Apparently Schmid has not been reading the Journal Star's editorials and "news" for the past three years.
The Journal Star is so enthralled with this administration that if President Bush declares that down is up on Thursday, I would fully expect the front page to be printed upside down on Friday.
I used to enjoy reading the Omaha paper for a conservative viewpoint and the Lincoln paper for a different view, but lately if you tear the banner off the top of the page, you can't tell the difference between the two.
Michael D. Rasmussen, Lincoln
Casinos are happy
Pat Loontjer and her antigambling buddies no doubt will get a pat on the back as a result of helping to defeat the casino issue in Nebraska.
The biggest pat will come from the surrounding states that will benefit the most. I do not believe it is just coincidence that two Council Bluffs, Iowa, casinos announced large additions to their facilities soon after the issue was defeated in Nebraska. We will never know the full impact of their drive against Nebraska casinos, mainly in stalling the issue in the Legislature.
If the lobbyist-controlled Legislature would not have dragged its feet and watered down Sen. DiAnna Schimek's casino bill, it would not have had competition from another group, and I have no doubt it would have passed handily.
The antigambling group has not stopped casino gambling in Nebraska but has continued to send the money out of state. I just returned from my monthly visit to Ameristar, and by an accurate count 75 percent of the cars in the parking lot had Nebraska plates on them, and this does not count the charter buses or the shuttle bus from Omaha.
Daniel L. Dilla, Lincoln
U.S. failed to act
The Jan. 27 article about the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz was very good. Some additional history might interest readers.
When the Nazis began imprisoning people from groups they thought of as enemies, their prisons could not hold them all. Thus they built two types of death camps, which also supplied the slave labor they needed.
The first were "Konzentrationslager," or concentration camps. These camps held political enemies, people of Slavic origin, homosexuals, the mentally ill and other "defectives," as well as Jews. Many or most prisoners died from slave labor, disease, starvation, murder or "scientific" experiments on humans, but these camps were not built specifically to kill the prisoners.
When the Nazis found their "solution to the Jewish question" in 1942, they began to build "Vernichtungslager," or extermination camps to eradicate the Jews. Auschwitz and the others had gas chambers and ovens to do the job efficiently and "cleanly."
Many Americans believe the United States was ignorant of or actively opposed Nazi Jewish policy, but unfortunately this is not entirely true. A very moving visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., taught me otherwise.
On display there was a prewar letter from the State Department to its European consulates listing the kinds of red tape they should use to obstruct Jewish emigration. Anti-Semitism was powerful in the United States as well as in Germany.
I also learned that U.S. intelligence had aerial reconnaissance photos of Auschwitz and knew what the photos showed in 1944, before many Jews went to its ovens. The United States later claimed Auschwitz was out of bomber range, but the missions for which the photos were taken were flown against nearby factories where Jews awaiting death worked.
U.S. actions against Japanese-Americans during the war were shameful, but so was our failure to act on behalf of European Jews.
Roger Day, Lincoln
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