Clean Team Alaska
The following document is a email sent out by Mike Prax explaining how publicly funded lobbying and campaign contributions corrupt Alaska's governing process.
On Saturday mornings at 9am the Woodway offers a class called "Light the Fire" to help educate people on proper wood burning techniques. They have a DVD available by the HPBA that shows people how to efficiently use their stoves and even how to buy, split, and store firewood properly. Coffee is provided.
You can also go to www.TheWoodway.com there is a link to several videos produced by the HPBA that shows people how to burn most efficiently. Or you can visit The Woodway store at 1830 RJ Loop in Fairbanks on College Road nest to the Farmer's Market.
Blazing Sourdoughs work on Free Market Solution to Air Quality.
Download and read the following document to learn about one of our voluntary community efforts to help solve the PM2.5 issue is up to.
The Grandfather Rights meetings held last month by the Fairbanks North Star Borough (FNSB) Community Planning Department sent a clear message to the public: A constructed, accelerated push to change the characteristic of our community is underway. Under the guise of “health, safety, and general welfare,” FNSB departments and commissions are discussing and planning a massive rezone in our Borough, taking private property rights to “improve” their version of the Fairbanks aesthetic.
At the first few Grandfather Rights meetings the audience was asked, “how many of you live in General Use (GU) zoning?” (read more)
Don't Hobble Houston with Land Planning
by Randal O'Toole
This article appeared in the Houston Chronicle on January 19, 2008.
Houston is the freest major city in America, with no zoning and only moderate governmentintrusions into how property owners use their land. This freedom has made Houston the mostaffordable major city in America, with housing costs that are less than half of most other majorurban areas. This freedom has also created an innovative and growth-friendly environment that iscreating tens of thousands of new jobs each year.
Despite these benefits, the recent controversy over the Bissonnet/Ashby high rise has inspiredlocal planning advocates to call for an increased amount of government Proposals have rangedfrom a "general plan" for the entire city "based on citizen vision, values and goals" to a variety of ordinances that appear to be aimed at limiting dense developments. (read more)
Smart-Growth Plans Are a Failure in Portland
by Randal O'Toole
This article appeared in the Houston Chronicle on November 14, 2009.
Some people have suggested that Houston could have avoided the Ashby high-rise controversy if it had more planning and smart growth. In fact, the opposite is true: Smart-growth planning makes land-use debates even more contentious.
Smart-growth planners believe that Americans live the wrong way, and they use land-use regulation to impose on others what they believe is the right way to live. Surveys consistently show that all but 15 percent to 25 percent of Americans want to live in single-family homes with a yard, but planners think we would be better off if a much higher percentage lived in highdensity apartments or condos. (read more)
Why Government Planning Always Fails
By Randal O’Toole
Government officials claim their
plans will help us live happier lives. But planners’ predictions
of the future are no better than anyone
else’s, so their plans will always be flawed and those flaws lead
to more “grief an’ pain” than joy.
Everybody plans. We plan our workdays, we plan our careers,
we plan for retirement. But private plans are flexible and
we happily change them when new information arises. In contrast,
as soon as a government plan is written, people who benefit
from the plan form special interest groups to ensure that
the plan does not change, no matter how costly it proves to be
to society as a whole. (read more)
