A Special Message for Everyone Who Hates Alex Morse . . .

 

.  .  .  but can't stomach the idea of voting for Fran O'Connell because of his misogynistic attitude towards women.*

 

"Blank Vote"

Blank voting means to not vote for either mayoral candidate.  

In essence, "neither of the above".

 

*I get that some voters don't like Alex, but how can anyone reconcile voting for Fran O'Connell when he still thinks it's okay to belittle and sexually objectify women? 

Fran O'Connell not only made inexcusably misogynistic comments about a respected city employee (Google 'Fran O'Connell misogyny'), he then blamed and tried to discredit the woman who reported the incident.  And, to this day, he still refuses to apologize.

Given his unrepentant attitude toward women, how can he seriously be considered to lead ANY community, let alone a city of 40,000 people, half of whom are women?   

It's okay to be unhappy with Alex, but please think twice about the message it would send to every resident of Holyoke -- and to every resident in the State - to elect a man who shows complete disregard for women.  That's not moving forward.  That's moving back to the dark ages.

If you can't justify voting for Alex, please consider "blank voting" for mayor.  Let's not make Holyoke the laughingstock of the Commonwealth. 

 

 

NOTE:  before the conspiracy theorists start buzzing - NO, the Morse campaign did not put me up to this.  They are reading this at the same time you are.

Holyoke's $34 Million Dollar Boondoggle

Why spending $34 million dollars to renovate the Lyman Terrace housing project is bad for Holyoke; bad for homeowners; and bad for businesses

 

The City of Holyoke is about to embark on a $34 million dollar, taxpayer-funded renovation of 156 apartments at Lyman Terrace – a subsidized, low-income housing project in the heart of Holyoke's downtown revitalization district.  This excessively lavish expenditure of taxpayer money is bad for Holyoke, bad for Holyoke's homeowners and bad for Holyoke's businesses.  Here's why:

1. It's Way Too Expensive 
$34 million dollars comes down to paying $218,000 to renovate (not build) each tiny, 800 square foot apartment.  To put that into perspective, that would be the equivalent of you spending over $650,000 to renovate your existing 2,400 square foot home.  Furthermore, $34 million dollars could buy 156 median-priced Holyoke homes outright, and still leave an additional $50,000 to renovate each one of them.  

BOTTOM LINE:  This is an extravagant use of taxpayer money which only government bureaucrats would celebrate.


2. It's the Wrong Location, and it Undermines Nearby Revitalization Efforts
Given Lyman Terrace's key location in the middle of nearby revitalization efforts, replacing the existing low-income housing project with a "newly improved" low-income housing project is damaging and counterproductive.  Not only does it concentrate poverty in the heart of Holyoke's revitalization district, but low income housing projects notoriously attract higher rates of crime making it incompatible with the significant improvements and investments which have already been made nearby.

Instead, establishing market rate housing at Lyman Terrace would be a far more compatible use for that location and would complement, rather than hinder, other recent investments. 

BOTTOM LINE:  Placing a low-income housing project in the heart of revitalization does more harm in the long-term and becomes one more obstacle toward the goal of successful downtown revitalization.


3. Holyoke's 31.7% Poverty Rate is Unsustainable and Significantly Reduces Property Values 
At nearly 3 times the State average, Holyoke's 31.7% poverty rate is not only the highest in Massachusetts, it's amongst the highest in the entire U.S.  And it is simply not sustainable.

This massive concentration of poverty in Holyoke places a disproportionate burden on every homeowner and business owner.  It has depressed our housing prices, costing Holyoke homeowners tens of thousands of dollars in their home's value.  It's resulted in higher crime rates.  It's overburdened our schools.  And it's kept businesses from coming here. 

Holyoke didn't create poverty and it's not Holyoke's sole responsibility to solve it for the region or the State.  After spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and after decades of trying, it should be clear that we can't "social service" our way out of poverty.  Fairness says this burden needs to be shared or equalized with other nearby communities.   

Though perhaps unpopular in some circles, we need to consider transitioning some of Holyoke's poverty-based housing into tax-contributing, market rate housing.  If we ever hope to see Holyoke revitalized we, as a community, must be willing to wean ourselves off our poverty industry.  And we need to begin now. 

BOTTOM LINE:  We must end Holyoke's addiction to its poverty economy before it ends us.


4. Holyoke's Highest-in-the-State Commercial Tax Rate Chokes off Business Development
At an eye-popping $39.93 per thousand, Holyoke has the highest commercial property tax rate in the entire State – more than double the State's median rate.  Needless to say, this exorbitant tax rate scares off all but the bravest developers and investors, the effects of which can be seen in the painfully slow rate of commercial development here.  But the underlying problem isn't just one of a high tax rate.  It's one of low property values.

It's been shown that concentrated areas of high poverty result in decreased property values.  That, in turn, raises property tax rates.  To illustrate the effect of property values on tax rates, consider this example: 

Let's say your home is currently appraised at $200,000 and the tax rate is $20 per thousand, meaning your share of property taxes is $4,000 a year (200 x $20).  Now, let's imagine that tomorrow your home is suddenly worth $400,000.  Same home.  Same city.  Higher value.  In order for the city to net the same $4,000 tax revenue, they only need to tax your (more valuable) home at a rate of $10 per thousand (400 x $10).  In this example, you can see how the doubling of your home VALUE (from $200,000 to $400,000) results in a halving of the tax RATE (from $20 to $10) while netting the city the exact same amount of revenue. 

The importance of this example is to show that, if Holyoke's property values weren't so depressed from the extreme poverty here, our homes and businesses would be worth more and our tax RATE would be lower – making Holyoke far more competitive and attractive to business investment.  Higher values help everyone, but Holyoke's high rate of poverty depresses property values making it virtually impossible to lower tax rates and attract new business. 

BOTTOM LINE:  As long as Holyoke keeps welcoming more and more poverty to the city, Holyoke property values will remain depressed and tax rates will remain too high to attract meaningful commercial investment.


5. Lyman Terrace's Owners Pay Few Taxes, Shifting the Burden onto Homeowners and Businesses
At current assessments, the Holyoke Housing Authority, owner of Lyman Terrace, has yearly tax liabilities of approximately $600,000, yet pays just $11,000 in taxes.  The remaining $589,000 gets shifted onto homeowners and businesses.

And it's not that HHA and its residents don't utilize and depend upon city services – they do.  But the costs of providing those services currently gets shifted onto other taxpayers.  This is despite the fact that areas of concentrated poverty, like Lyman Terrace, place a disproportionately heavy burden on city services such as police, fire, ambulance and our school system. 

BOTTOM LINE:  This shifting of tax responsibility isn't fair and the Holyoke Housing Authority needs to help the City by paying its fair share of taxes to support the services its tenants use, just like other landlords. 


CONCLUSION:  Holyoke's inability to attract significant commercial development is due, in part, to our astronomically high tax rates . . . which are the result of our low property values . . . which are caused by our extremely high poverty rates.  This is an interconnected problem and we will never be able to solve one, unless we are willing to solve the others, too.

So, the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about is the fact that we have way more poverty than we can assimilate and policies that seem to revolve around retaining or attracting more of it.  Spending $34 million of taxpayer dollars on Lyman Terrace doesn't help solve Holyoke's poverty problem.  It perpetuates it.  And it does so at the expense of every Holyoke homeowner and business owner for decades to come.

While we have an absolute moral obligation to help others who are less fortunate, no city can absorb the extended costs associated with a 31.7% poverty rate and expect to make a recovery – not even Holyoke.  This burden needs to be shared with other local communities.  Holyoke must wean itself off its addiction to its poverty-based economy, and the Lyman Terrace property – for all the reasons mentioned – is the logical starting point for this transition to begin.  If we really want to be able to help Holyoke's poor, we must help Holyoke first.  There is no other way.


John Epstein

Hobby Lobby and ObamaCare -- You gotta love the hypocrisy

It was learned this week that Hobby Lobby -- the Christian-owned retailer whose deeply held religious opposition to birth control and abortion compelled it to take its challenge of The Affordable Care Act (Obama Care) all the way to The U.S. Supreme Court -- has been, for years, profiting from investments they have made in companies that manufacture those same products which the owners of Hobby Lobby so vehemently oppose. 

So, does that mean it's only bad when you're not making money from it?

***************************************************************************************

From The Washington Post:

 

Anti-abortion company Hobby Lobby reportedly invests retirement funds in abortion drugs

• By Gail Sullivan

• April 2 at 3:30 am

“Being Christians, we don't pay for drugs that might cause abortions … something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one,”  Hobby Lobby founder David Green wrote in an article for USA Today.

 

Hobby Lobby is so committed to those principles that it’s gone to the U.S. Supreme Court to challenge a provision in the Affordable Care Act that it says requires it to provide access to insurance covering birth control for its employees, some forms of which it equates with abortion.

 

No wonder then, the glee emanating from some quarters Tuesday when Molly Redden of Mother Jones reported that the company’s retirement plan holds $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that make abortion drugs.

Several of the mutual funds in Hobby Lobby’s retirement plan have holdings in companies that manufacture the specific drugs and devices that the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, is fighting to keep out of Hobby Lobby’s health care policies: the emergency contraceptive pills Plan B and Ella, and copper and hormonal intrauterine devices.

These companies include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which makes Plan B and ParaGard, a copper IUD, and Actavis, which makes a generic version of Plan B and distributes Ella. Other holdings in the mutual funds selected by Hobby Lobby include Pfizer, the maker of Cytotec and Prostin E2, which are used to induce abortions; Bayer, which manufactures the hormonal IUDs Skyla andMirena; AstraZeneca, which has an Indian subsidiary that manufactures Prostodin, Cerviprime, and Partocin, three drugs commonly used in abortions; and Forest Laboratories, which makes Cervidil, a drug used to induce abortions. Several funds in the Hobby Lobby retirement plan also invested in Aetna and Humana, two health insurance companies that cover surgical abortions, abortion drugs, and emergency contraception in many of the health care policies they sell.

The retirement plan comes with a “generous company match,” which amounted to $3.8 million in 2012.

 

Investments in these sorts of companies are commonplace for the typical retirement fund. But Hobby Lobby has been arguing that it’s anything but typical.

 

Hobby Lobby did not comment for the Mother Jones story.

 

But plenty of other people did.

 

“Wow,” said the liberal DailyKos.

From Feministing:

Yup, that Hobby Lobby. The company that’s taken their “deeply held” religious objection to contraception all the way to the Supreme Court. The company that thinks allowing their employees to get coverage for certain types of birth control through their insurance plans — plans, mind you, that the employees pay the premium on — amounts to subsidizing immorality. The company that pulls out the world’s smallest violin as it earnestly cries that Obamacare is “forcing them to violate the law or violate their belief that life begins at conception — a choice no company should have to make.”

And here was the headline on the blog Scholars and Rogues:

Hobby Lobby hypocrisy: 401k plan invests in contraception; Obamacare litigant secretly profiting from the very immorality it publicly opposes.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in the case.

 

Hobby Lobby says its committed to “honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles” and “providing a return on the owner’s investment, sharing the Lord’s blessings with our employees,” according to the company’s Web site.

 

According to briefs filed with the Supreme Court, Hobby Lobby objects to the Obamacare mandate requiring employers to provide access to policies covering IUDs and the two morning-after pills, Ella and Plan B, because it believes the contraceptives cause abortion by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg.

 

Researchers say these devices don't end pregnancies like the abortion drug RU-486. Nor do they stop implantation of fertilized eggs. Rather, these devices stop pregnancy before it happens by making it hard for sperm to reach the egg or delaying ovulation.

 

The kicker is that there are “faith based” investment options for companies like Hobby Lobby that are particular about whom they do business with. Dan Hardt, a Kentucky financial planner who specializes in faith-based investing, told Mother Jones that the performances of funds like the Timothy Plan or Ave Maria Fund, which screen for companies that make abortion drugs or support stem cell research, are about the same as if they had not been screened.

 

Forbes pointed out that Hobby Lobby has a fiduciary duty under federal law to know what the company-sponsored 401(k) is investing in for the benefit of its employees.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/04/02/anti-abortion-company-hobby-lobby-reportedly-invests-retirement-funds-in-abortion-drugs/?tid=hp_mm

Obituary

Probably the wittiest, funniest (yes, funniest) obituary I've ever seen . . .

Colbert does Jeremy Irons (and doesn't have a strong feeling for it either way)

Be sure to watch Colbert's hilarious mockery of Irons at the end of the clip.

Clearly he "doesn't have a strong feeling about it either way."


Click video link below:

http://www.hulu.com/#!watch/475483

 

 

2,243 Additional Gun Deaths in the 3 Months Since Newtown

Is this really the American dream?

   
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/22/gun-deaths-us-newtown_n_2935686.html



Plus, there's this searchable database:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/12/gun_death_tally_every_american_gun_death_since_newtown_sandy_hook_shooting.html

Wealth Inequality in America

This excellent 6-minute video takes a fairly complicated issue, and uses simple charts and visuals to make it really easy to understand.

Where do you fit in?

Were you surprised?

Is this how you think it should be?  
  

Then there's this:

The last two decades were great...if you were a CEO or business owner or banker or trader.

Not if you were anyone else.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facts-about-inequality-in-america-2011-11#the-last-two-decades-were-greatif-you-were-a-ceo-or-business-owner-or-banker-or-trader-not-if-you-were-anyone-else-5#ixzz17mMHL4yc