There's An Old Chinese Curse...

...which roughly translates as: "May you live in interesting times"

Not that I actually know many people who hail from these ancient, oriental lands - let alone whose good auspices I may have transgressed so cruelly that they should feel the need to afflict this curse upon me - but I do, in fact, live in interesting times.

It's often said, "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade", but what if life gives you a plethora of 'interesting' events? Would others find them equally 'interesting' perchance?

Frankly I have no idea - but, in the spirit of "nothing ventured, nothing gained", allow me to present myself, Anton Stewart, your humble servant and New Paltz's newest Gadfly.

Having recently received a firsthand education into the innermost workings and machinations of local government, I must admit to finding the nobel ideals of the Gadfly to be somewhat appealing. I honestly believe that we have a civic duty to question authority - that's question, by the way, not flagrantly disobey.

We should question why and how decisions are made - even if those decisions don't directly affect us. We should question the motives, ethics and standards of those whom we have entrusted to make these decisions along with the fairness and transparency of the entire decision making process.

I believe there is no place for autonomy in a democratic society and that elected officials and civil servants should be held accountable. Government of the people, by the people, for the people is a basic principle upon which this great country of ours is founded and it applies just as much today as it did when our founding fathers wrote it into the constitution.

For my part, I promise to uphold the nobel ideals of the Gadfly by constantly seeking answers to difficult questions even if it makes me, in the words of Sean Connery, "a right, royal pain in the arse"

Did somebody swat the Gadfly?

Over a month without any new posts . . . what gives? Well, life happened to both of us. If we could get more intelligent-yet-somewhat-polite people to participate we could prevent such sad little gaps, but blogging is apparently not a participatory sport for most of the residents of Die Pfalz, so we'll make do.

Some quick updates:

• The contest response was underwhelming - one and a half entries. Thank you to the person who submitted a complete entry! Having the community review a single entry is just plain silly, so I'll probably just show it to kT and we'll decide if we like it or not. Again, if there's a particular type of prize that would be motivational, please let us know - but if you do, you'd darn well better submit an entry if we agree to it!
• I've been avoiding committing to any political candidates yet, because I want to know who's running and make as informed a decision as I can. My biggest personal criterion is transparency in government, which means that incumbents with a track record for secrecy are going to have a harder time impressing me that untried candidates who have no such baggage. I'm sure kT has different criteria than I do, and if either of us endorse any candidates here it will not be a collective endorsement unless we say so. I kinda hope we disagree - the whole point of this blog is to get different New Paltz viewpoints represented.
• The free pool experiment continues.
• Woodland Pond will be the subject of a special Village Planning Board meeting on August 24. They want to change some of the requirements for getting a certificate of occupancy.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Metered Parking or Skinner Box?

Sometimes I'm slow in coming up with good responses to intelligent questions. Such was the case of the metering of the Plattekill Avenue parking lot.

I told Terry Dungan that I didn't like the idea of metering the lot, because the stated objective was to open up more parking downtown, but the means was just a way to increase revenue for the Village. I don't believe governments should use taxation and fees as a means of behavior modification - if you want us to do something differently, just make a law telling us what's what instead of hiding it behind a way to charge us more money.

Terry explained to me that to regulate the parking entirely with enforcement would be impossible, as the officer wouldn't have any way to keep track of who was parked where, and for how long. Chalking isn't really viable, and just walking around noting down plate numbers would take forever.

However, we've got that fancy new meter on the lot now, and I don't know why it needs to charge money in order to work. If it were set to free, it would still be able to allow people to type in their plate number, and it still would be able to print out a report for a parking enforcement officer of what spaces should be empty. It still could deny people the right to enter the same plate number for the same spot for two consecutive periods, and presumably it could still help the officer identify scammers who just lie about their plate numbers in order to park for a longer period of time.

If we were to take Jason's idea of building a hidden parking garage, the money would make more sense because it would be to pay for the building, but given that the Thruway was paid off in 1986 but still has tolls in 2009, I don't trust my politicians not to pull the same kind of shenanigans.

Therefore, I have to assume that the Village Board really wants the money, and doesn't have the nerve to just ask the citizens for it. Fees hidden in behavior modification are among some of the most offensive of governmental bait-and-switch tactics. If you don't want us parking, the technology exists to deter that behavior without charging us more money. If you want more money, the legal mechanisms exist to honestly and open raise taxes without hiding it in parking fees. It sure would be nice to separate the two so that we could transparently look at these unrelated issues.