Thursday, March 31, 2011

Housing so affordable we can't afford it

Far be it from me to get into Winnetka's home battle but the Tribune has stuck its imperious nose in there in a particularly clueless story. (Gee, it's deja vu all over again)

Let's see, home prices are at lows not seen in generations and we're facing perhaps a double dip. Taxes are at an all time high in this state.

Teachers (plug in New Trier) and other "public servants", wow, --how bout those truck drivers-- are pushing for raises and benefits already richer than many in the private sector have gotten for years, to the point that seniors are being driven out of their homes because of high taxes.

Yet the Trib's and other bossy lefties who love to spend other people's money want more of the same?

Does it make sense to raise taxes on seniors, for example, to keep seniors in the village?

Should new families subsidize other members of the community?

As for this land trust, does anyone with any brains think that it would ever be enough to keep people living affordably in this expensive area? It's not just the home, it's the utilities, the maintenance, the TAXES.

The last time I saw Gail Schechter was at MOLDFEST. (The Wilmette experience--thankfully we just said NO)

This in a county, state and next door to a city that are all going BANKRUPT.


Let me ask the Tribune why it is that the Chicago Gold Coast is not subject to affordable housing mandates, hmm?

Perhaps the Tribune Tower would make a good AH building--centrally located, close to transportation and what jobs there may be left in this Dem dumpster state, and with all those lovely inspirational quotes in the lobby. A shame if anything might happen to them.

Cabrini Green was just demolished yesterday.

Let's not build any more unaffordable monuments to leftist idiocy.

More. Analysis by North Shore Barrington Association of Realtors here.

...I would just add I think Carry Buck is a very brave, hard-working woman to raise awareness of this issue and inform voters. She had to know the Tribune was setting her up for predictable class-warfare envy (the comments attached to the article are personal and awful, typical ad hominem from the left) but forged on to try to get a more complex message out.

8 comments:

pathickey said...

Carry Buck speaks truth to power - that will confuse the lefties and the high-moral-groundsmen. They in for the fight of their lives - this is an honest and tough human being.

Anne said...

I've never met her, don't know her.

But I have a lot of respect for her. Agreed.

Unknown said...

Carry Buck is a true hero of the North Shore. Since 1993 she has been fighting to keep Winnetka a great place to live. First it was the Landmarkers who wanted to make Winnetka a museum where they controlled every thing from the color of your shutters to who you sold your property to. Now outsiders are trying to turn our town into a public housing project.

Rabbi Bruce Elder was listed as the Vice President of the Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs in their Fall 2010 Newsletter. On February 7th he wrote a guest editorial in the Winnetka Talk in support of Winnetka's Affordable Housing plan. He also attended the December Affordable Housing meeting at Village Hall and spoke passionately of the need for AH in Winnetka.

He was in the news recently offering sanctuary to Wisconsin’s Democratic politicians. We also learned that he is active in the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice. http://www.ajwnews.com/archives/8884

He was also recently involved in protesting the Arizona Immigation Law. 24 members of his group were arrested. That day he was representing the Jewish Council of Urban Affairs as a board member. He was quoted, “I’m not here to say ‘shame on Arizona.’ I’m here to say ‘shame on America’ for allowing Arizona to happen.” http://www.jewishjournal.com/nation/article/rabbi_jewish_officials_arrested_at_immigration_protest_20100428/

The Rabbi is very active politically. If you have any doubts about his party you should know that he was active last election in Rabbis for Obama. http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2008/09/10/999591/rabbis-for-obama

The Rabbi doesn’t limit his activism to the US. He has actively supported Hamas which is considered a terrorist organization by the US and Israeli. In 2006 under the cover of another one of his organizations, Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, he signed an open letter to President Bush requesting among other things continued funding of Hamas in Palestine. http://www.btvshalom.org/pressrelease/20060306_PR.shtml

If you are not sure about Hamas, the governing body in Palestine, here is what their charter states, “The Day of Judgement will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp

Here’s what American born Israeli author Naomi Ragen had to say about the letter, “Who will be handling these funds you want President Bush to hand over? Mother Theresa? Or thugs with machine guns who will use it to buy more bullets to kill Jewish children?” http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sanhedran/message/1067

This is not an isolated incident. The Rabbi also plays an active role in the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “Critics of CAIR, including six members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have alleged ties between the CAIR founders and Hamas. The founders, Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad, had earlier been officers of the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), described by a former FBI analyst and Treasury Department intelligence official as ‘intimately tied to the most senior Hamas leadership’ Both Ahmad and Awad participated in a meeting held in Philadelphia on October 3, 1993, that involved senior leaders of Hamas, the Holy Land Foundation, and the IAP. Based on electronic surveillance of the meeting, the FBI reported that ‘the participants went to great length and spent much effort hiding their association with the Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas]. Participants at the meeting discussed forming a ‘political organization and public relations’ body, ‘whose Islamic hue is not very conspicuous.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_American-Islamic_Relations

Anne said...

Thanks very much for the background.

What an unsavory bunch of connections. The left's claims to the moral high road are shown to be hollow once again.

pathickey said...

Anne. Me Love, the Lefties and their wannabees subsist on adiet of BS. De Gustibus Non Est Disputandem.

Anne said...

Very unsavory

epicureman said...

Common sense and hard knocks had taught me that to make something affordable the price had to be lowered or features had to be removed. Golly, after reading Winnetka's Plan Commission report on AH I had a personal epiphany; Its those wonderful, eleemosynary developers who are going to "lower" the prices of new homes. Isn't that just peachy.

But what about those parcels of land to be owned by the land trust? Sign me up for one of those since I won't have to pay any capital gains taxes on the house and lot I buy because there won't be any. I don't need to build any equity. The Commission sure has thought this out haven't they!!

Anne said...

It's those pesky unintended consequences