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The reason for time limits at Council Meetings.

Remember the “Good Old Days?”

Back when a City Council allowed legal private business to operate within their city limits without interference?

Hard to remember back then, isn’t it?

Now we have this …

A proposal to expand a liquor license to allow an outdoor beer garden at an Eau Claire tavern went up in smoke Tuesday.

The Eau Claire City Council voted to postpone the request by the Elbow Room, 679 Wisconsin St., because of concerns that allowing alcohol in an outdoor recreation area outside the bar would increase noise complaints there.

Tavern operators made the request in part to allow customers a designated smoking area. Smoking is not allowed in Eau Claire taverns or other indoor public places.

In a letter to the council, tavern manager David Husby stated he had spoken with bar neighbors and said they were OK with the proposal. But Councilman Andrew Werthmann said he spoke with neighbors who objected to the plan and hadn’t been contacted by Husby.

One of those neighbors, Dan Robinson, who operates the Inn Towne Hotel, 678 Wisconsin St., said he fears already numerous noise issues will increase if alcohol is allowed outside the bar.

“All around the Elbow Room there are families … this would be a step backward,” he said.

The council directed Husby to talk with more neighbors before it reconsiders the measure.

The Eau Claire City Council wants previously legal doors to close forever. They won’t be satisfied until they accomplish it. It is a power trip plain and simple.

Ah, remember the good old days.

It is summertime. That means one thing. Politicos are playing Scramble golf.

If you know golf, you know what I mean. If you don’t play golf I’m not going to try to explain it in a blog post.

Anyway, I played Scramble yesterday. None of us were really good golfers, but we all knew our way around a course.

We shot 11 under on a Golf Digest 4 1/2 star course!

We had 8 birdies in a row!

I smiled all the way home and woke up with one this morning.

Eight birdies in a row.

Wow!

I attended my 40th Class Reunion this weekend. 

What I was surprised to find, is the number of classmates who don’t like their job. Really don’t like their jobs.

Some of the “retired” classmates are unfulfilled in retirement.

I feel guilty for loving what I do.

On second thought, no I don’t.

I have finally firmed up my position on the whole National Health Care issue.

I have always believed the system is broke. Costs are not justified by normal market conditions.  I have no idea what the best solution is. I’m open to ideas. I really am. All ideas.

But, I will not support any plan passed by Congress which exempts them from the same system I have to use. 

When they decide on a plan that does not exempt themselves, I’ll go along with it.

But, until then, do nothing.

I think that is fair.

I was at a County Zoning Meeting.

The discussion was centered on if the Zoning and Planning Director should attend the State Convention of Zoning and Planning Directors.

One member said, “I don’t want her going somewhere, learning something new and trying to bring it back here.”

I do not believe that the world should “dummy down” to the lowest of intelligence levels.

Instead, those with the lowest of intelligence should be encouraged to bring themselves up to near normal.

After all, how hard is it to tell the difference between a building named Lindbergh and a building named Humphrey?

By early next year, drivers headed toward Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport will start seeing signs for “Terminal 1″ and “Terminal 2.”

After weeks of debate and a flurry of criticism from the public, the Metropolitan Airports Commission voted 10-3 on Monday to replace the existing “Lindbergh” and “Humphrey” terminal signs.

You read it right. The local government authority called the Metropolitan Airports Commission is taking the historic Minnesota names of Charles Lindbergh and Hubert Humphrey and replacing them with Terminal 1 and Terminal 2.

Why?

Airport staff earlier estimated that 30,000 fliers a year find themselves at the wrong terminal.

One speaker Monday pointed out that that’s less than two-tenths of 1 percent of the 16 million who pass through the airport each year.

Now, if someone gets mixed up between Lindbergh and Humphrey, I bet they could  get mixed up between 1 and 2?

Just think  … 2/10 of 1% … the names Lindbergh and Humphrey are gone.

Doesn’t sound right to me.

Every state legislature runs roughshod over local officials.

Unfunded mandates, laws to enforce and sometimes just meddling in general.

Recently the State of Wisconsin went above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to meddling in general.

It was a small item tucked into a budget bill filled with similar small items that shouldn’t have been there.

But the controversy that erupted around it showed one more thing that’s wrong with how the state Legislature operates — one more thing that needs to change.

The provision allowed “a federally recognized American Indian tribe in this state having a reservation … encompassing not less than 60,000 acres nor more than 70,000 acres or any business entity that is wholly owned and operated by such a tribe” to get a Class B beer or liquor license from the state instead of from its municipality.

It just so happens that the Oneida reservation is about 65,000 acres. That’s one of the tricks the Legislature plays. It doesn’t come out and say, “This only applies to Oneida.” It writes general language that really only applies narrowly.

But there’s a bigger issue here. The Oneida provision caused a stir because the village of Hobart had been in a dispute with the tribe. Oneida owed Hobart $500,000 in taxes and fees, but hadn’t paid. As a result, the village pulled the tribe’s liquor license at the tribe-owned Thornberry Creek Golf Course before the dispute was settled.

Hobart officials had no idea the provision, which took away their leverage with the tribe, was in the budget until it was too late. They’d like to know how it got in the bill. And that’s the problem.

The Legislature has little transparency about who adds provisions to bills, or a host of other actions lawmakers can take. They just happen and the public has no idea who’s responsible for it.

In this case, we know it was added in the Senate caucus. But a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker said she didn’t know if Decker was responsible for it. No legislator has stepped forward to say, “I suggested it.”

No surprise there. If there’s any way legislators can avoid taking responsibility for something that might cause them a problem, they’ll take it.

It’s cowardly and it ought to change. Any provision added to a bill and any action taken in the Legislature has to have a sponsor whose name is open to the public, just like any other bill introduced in the Legislature. It’s one more layer of secrecy in the capitol that needs to be pulled away.

Incredible story.

If I were on the Hobart Village Board I would be “smokin’ pissed.”

There is only one explanation … money.

The only question besides who wrote the provision in the budget, is how much were they paid to do so?

Hopefully we will find out some day.

Keep on it Post Crescent!

You may have read about …

Thousands of jumbo flying squid—aggressive 5-foot-long sea monsters with razor-sharp beaks and toothy tentacles—have invaded the shallow waters off San Diego, spooking scuba divers and washing up dead on tourist-packed beaches.

The carnivorous calamari, which can grow up to 100 pounds, came up from the depths last week and swarms of them roughed up unsuspecting divers. Some divers report tentacles enveloping their masks and yanking at their cameras and gear.

I don’t understand what all the commotion is?

If the squid are a problem we solve it like we solve every other problem nowadays.

We just throw money at them.

Did you know there are 511,039 elected officials in the U.S.?

Of those 542 are at the Federal level …  18,828 at the state level …  and a whopping 491,669  at the local level.

Those numbers to me indicate that the foundation of our government is at the local level. The foundation of our government is not based in Washington.  I have always believed that.

I guess I wrong all these years.

Or, at least that is what I am suppose to believe.