Lincoln's City Impact Fees


I don't know if other US cities have impact fees, but this is what they boil down to here in Lincoln: extra fees levied by the city onto contactors/builders to offset the costs of running new water, sewer, roads, etc. to new developments. Many people here in Lincoln don't like the impact fees, which typically run $2800-3500 on a new home. I don't like them either but because they are WAY too low. I think that the fees should start at $10,000 and go up from there. Lincoln does not have a shortage of existing homes for sale, especially in the more established neighborhoods towards the middle of the city. Some families buy these houses for themselves, but a more-common fate for them is either purchase by a landlord or rental company to be rented out to whomever or to be demolished to make way for an apartment complex. These neighborhoods then begin a slow decline into slumhood, with trash-littered yards and meth labs. You can't park your car in the alley behind your house or even on the street in front of it because you'll wake up to broken windows. You'll wake up late because you were kept up all night by parties and and screaming matches in the street. Or occasionally a gunshot.

It doesn't have to happen. These houses could be bought by families and renovated as necessary to be lived in and cherished as houses of character. These houses have so many individual touches of craftmanship and with a little love can become neighborhood showpieces. Many of the houses are large and have more than enough room for a family where each kid can have their own room and a large shaded backyard for recreation.

But that's not what people want. People want new houses generally not built to last, which cost a couple hundred thousand and look just like the house on either side and the house across the street. They want to live miles away from the nearest grocery, park and school and then gripe that they have no services in their area. So then the area gets filled with stores and schools (paid for by taxpayers). And filling up the SUV for the long drive into the middle of the city for work costs too much. Then THAT area is too "in-town" and a new house must be built in a new development on the edge of town, and the cycle begins again.

So I say if you want to live in a brand new cookie-cutter quasi-mansion in a curvy-streeted and romantically-named development on the edge of town - great! Just be willing to pony up for it. Maybe if the impact fees get raised closer to the true costs of development, people will start coming back to and loving our beautiful inner city.

I really disturbed my dog last night. At about 1:30 I woke up feeling strange. A few minutes later I was in the bathroom driving the porcelain bus and making all kinds of pained noises. After I was done I looked at my Honey (who to her credit left the nice comfy bed to sit by my side while I was on my knees in the bathroom) and she looked shaken. I'm her rock, her door-opener and leash-getter and her food-and-water-in-the-bowls person. I was vunerable and she looked scared. After we crawled back into bed (well, she walked) she snuggled up extra close. I guess that's why dogs are man's best friend. I love my doggy.

What is it with these things? Celebrities are carrying around their dogs in these purses MADE ESPECIALLY for carrying around small dogs. How does the dog get any exercise or socialization with other dogs if you are carrying it everywhere? Here in the Nebraska when we want to get our dog from point A to point B, we use this cool long thing called a leash. As I am always telling my kids - Honey's got 4 legs and you've only got 2. That means she walks twice as well as you do. (put the damn dog down NOW). 

Just wanted to give a shout out to all the good folks in the South that I'm thinking about you here in Nebraska. May you all come through the hurricane alive and well.

Can I make a little teeny suggestion? When you are in a store, let's say a bookstore for example, and you are looking at merchandise - be a grown-up and put it back where it goes!

"But I dunno where it goes," you say innocently.

Back in the exact spot from which you got it. Whatever happened to "leave the world a better place than when you found it?" Do Mommies not teach that anymore? Or does it only count in National Parks? All I know is only three people in this town can say their mommy (me) works at that bookstore and whenever they browse they DO put things away so I don't have to. That means YOUR mommy is not there to pick up after you, you mid-30's aged man with the screenwriting magazine; so you will need to pick up after yourself. I had such high hopes for you after I mentioned casually how disappointed I was that more people did not pick up after themselves. You let me down worse than any of them, leaving it on a Back to School table across the store. I am SO glad I am not your wife, because you probably leave your boxers in the kitchen when you're done with them.

Yep must be doggy porn. Look at that smile! 

My Husband Ken and our furbaby Honey working hard on the computer. (Are they looking at internet porn? Are there doggy porn sites? 

My most beautiful puppy Honey. Actually she isn't a puppy anymore. She's 2 1/2 and she is completely my baby. She's my one constant friend and companion when my kids are at their dad's and my hubby is on the road. Aren't dogs the best? 

Ooooh ooooh ooooh ooooh... it's about that time!

I am one of the 12 women obsessed with football. I know there's 12 of us because I am in a 12-team all-female fantasy football league on NFL.com. And I know I'm obsessed because that's only one of my three fantasy football leagues. Plus I have a dozen fantasy football magazines by my computer desk.

I don't know when it started. I have always been into sports like baseball, football and college basketball. My dad wasn't into sports. He got into Husker football for one season and took me and my mother to a couple Royals and Chiefs games but that was it. My mother always had some sporting event on the TV and listened to it while knitting or crocheting or something. Didn't matter what it was (except she never developed a taste for televised golf.) It could be NASCAR or the Celtics or the Jayhawks. But this wasn't the beginning of the obsession.

I think the true passion began when I became involved with my husband. Ken followed the Minnesota Vikings. Even more important was the timing though - we started watching the year Daunte Culpepper started playing (and playing well). It was magical watching a new quarterback develop into something special. I didn't think much of Randy Moss - too much trouble, overpaid. But Cris Carter was THE MAN. He would wait there one yard past the first down marker... Daunte under pressure would launch the ball in his direction... Carter was up, reaching with one hand, grabbing the ball with his fingertips, then one hand, then pulling it in and coming down just in bounds. First down Minnesota!!! God it was a beautiful thing. I mourned when Cris retired... and then started playing for the DOLPHINS??!!! WTF!!!! And I was so proud that Gary Andersen, the NFL's all-time leading scorer, was OUR kicker. And he retires, and I mourned again. So later on I'm watching a Titans game and THERE HE IS! And NOT in purple and gold. How could he BETRAY me like that?! (Funny thing is, I wouldn't be hurt if my hubby strayed but I would not have spoken to Gary Anderson ever again if I had the opportunity. He hurt me deeply.)

So right now I am getting my fix on preseason football. This year I am doing my research. This year I am not going to draft until the last preseason game is in the books (all the rosters are set and all the players will hopefully have decided whether pot or football is more important Ricky Williams). And this year... I WILL DOMINATE!

PS another funny from my 14 yo son: We were eating Hawaiian pizza and he had a little warm cream cheese on his finger. The kitten was trying to eat it off his finger and he said (innocently enough) "It's ok to lick but when you start biting, you're done."

This first post will be a narcissistic post, AKA a little background on me.

I work full-time in a bookstore. I have three kids, friends (co-workers plus a few others), occasionally a husband, a dog I adore and a new kitten who has just figured out the true meaning of kittenhood (exploration and destruction). I like to make things: words, clothes, jewelry, soap, scrapbooks, butt-kicking fantasy football teams, killer bass lines, observations. I think gradually society is drifting towards a culture of not making things. Our jobs now consist of selling things and servicing things. Fewer of us actually Create. I think it's kinda sad myself. However there are more Things on earth now than ever before in our history, so maybe it's an OK thing for fewer people to be engaged in creating them. Once upon a time people made books and shoes, furniture and toothpicks, clothes and clothespins and cars and quilts. Ask 20 people what they do for a living nowadays and you'll probably hear telemarketing, mechanic, bookseller, manager, programmer, driver and fire fighter. Makes you wonder if in 50 years anyone in America will create anything because they need it.

I do like funny things though. My kids are to that age when they can say or do funny things on purpose, but the accidental occurances are the funniest. My 14 yo son, a bright young man who likes to think deep thoughts and wants to be an engineer, made this comment while I was driving him home a couple weeks ago: "Farts are just turds honking for the right-of-way." Ever had to pull over because you were laughing too hard to drive? Not ten minutes after that when we pulled into their driveway my almost 12 yo daughter delivered a classic that will be rehashed every time she brings home a young man to meet us. We had been discussing people who don't eat meat/animal products (differing degrees of vegetarianism) and my little hamburger-loving omnivore declared "I don't ever want to become a virgin" (I think she meant vegan). You just can't make this stuff up!

By far some of the funniest things I hear or observe are at work. My friend Melissa has this game she plays with the books when she gets bored, and she taught it to me. (My co-workers have taught me many things but this was the best.) You can make almost any book title more interesting by adding the words "of death" to the title: South Beach Diet of Death, Beautiful Lawns of Death, Oxford English Dictionary of Death (unabridged), Windows XP of Death for Dummies, Building Web Pages of Death, Harold and the Purple Crayon of Death, etc. Next time you're sucking down a Caramel Frappuccino (try it affagato style - it doesn't cost that much more and you can go ZZZIIINNNNGGGGGG) wander around the bookstore and try a few on your own. Post any ridiculously funny ones here in my comments. (Thanks Melissa, and also Jessie whom I believe was in on the creation of this game.)

As with the creation of many new blogs, there are a million ideas bouncing off the walls of the author's mind. She wants to pound you with all of them on the first day. But she shall restrain herself... at least for a few hours.

Me and my Bass