Community Planning for Sustainability

[Carolyn C]

Communities including Decorah are looking at updating city-wide Comprehensive Plans. In light of the need for systemic change, let's encourage our communities to think bold thoughts about the future so that cities can take necessary steps in the next 5 - 25 years.

Are you interested in helping our community(ies) make necessary changes? Can you show up to council and P & Z planning meetings? Let's have a dynamic conversation about what we need from our communities in order to be sustainable over the next 50 years.

[Craig Mosher]

Indeed. As the City of Decorah works on revising it's Comprehensive Plan, it provides an important opportunity, as Carolyn suggests, to think comprehensively and boldly about creating a sustainable future in this region. We need to be thinking long term - environmentally (global warming, air and water pollution, habitat protection), economically (jobs, food, housing for all), and socially (civil rights, immigration, etc.). It's a tall order but this is a remarkable community full of committed and creative people. We need an inclusive effort that brings together a wide variety of citizens to create this sustainable future.

[Jim Tripp]

Below is one good reason to support local business through our local government. I am not familiar with the local tax codes that exist today, but perhaps they could be improved to support business that is locally owned and operated...

"For every $1 spent at a local business, 45 cents is reinvested locally.
For every $1 spent at a corporate chain, only 15 cents is reinvested locally."

Source: YES! Magazine (sustainable seattle;civic economics)

[Bruce Askelsen]

Every dollar spent at a locally owned business turns over in the community 5 to 7 times and every doliar spent at a non-locally owned business only turns over once and leaves. Given that, a locally earned and spent dollar is worth $2.20 to $3.00 as compared to the corporate $.15. Also not considered is the fact that non-local business actually costs jobs in the longrun. Walmart for example not only costs jobs and dollars in the immediate community, but also jobs in the surrounding communities. Market basket surveys have been done over the years by various local franchises such as True Value that have found the 20 item basket is no cheaper at Walmart than at locally owned businesses, however Walmart may beat them on price significantly on 3 - 5 items. Also found was the propensity for those lower priced items at Walmart to be of generally lower quality and more likely to be from foreign sources.

Jim Tripp said:

Below is one good reason to support local business through our local government. I am not familiar with the local tax codes that exist today, but perhaps they could be improved to support business that is locally owned and operated...

"For every $1 spent at a local business, 45 cents is reinvested locally.
For every $1 spent at a corporate chain, only 15 cents is reinvested locally."

Source: YES! Magazine (sustainable seattle;civic economics)

[Jim Tripp]

I would like to add that chains like Wal-Mart which sell food and material goods at the same venue often take a loss on certain products. This loss is usually incurred with food products, but exactly which foods I'm unsure of. It would be interesting to know this. Such retailers can afford to take losses on food items, because their goal is simply to get people into the store in hopes that customers will make up for it by buying cheap unnecessary junk elsewhere in the store. Hard to compete with that if you're Quillan's or the Co-op.

[Bruce Askelsen]

Jim Tripp said:

I would like to add that chains like Wal-Mart which sell food and material goods at the same venue often take a loss on certain products. This loss is usually incurred with food products, but exactly which foods I'm unsure of. It would be interesting to know this. Such retailers can afford to take losses on food items, because their goal is simply to get people into the store in hopes that customers will make up for it by buying cheap unnecessary junk elsewhere in the store. Hard to compete with that if you're Quillan's or the Co-op.

Good point Jim, which is why service and a relationship with your customers is so important. Having been in retail both as an owner and employee of hardware and lawn and garden stores, you have to know what your regular customers want, know your product and constantly work for new customers. If you have the products they want at a reasonable price, you will develope a solid core of business. Take into consideration that 25% of the population will pay for that serve without quibbling over price, 50% will come to you periodically and 25% still shop only on price and not quality and service. The last 25% generally cost you more than the business you do with them, but they will always tout Wallmart or some other big box store even though they get a lower quality product and no service. Every once in a while they will even bring in something for repair with the Wallmart or Kmart sticker still on it.

[Jim Tripp]

Marjora Carter will be at Luther College at 7pm on Tuesday, Feb. 10. She is known for her work with Sustainable South Bronx, and has quickly become an international icon since. The event is FREE to the public, don't miss it! For more info, click here.

[Jim Tripp]

From www.decorahnews.com

The Trout Run Trail will top the agenda of the Decorah City Council Monday night. A public hearing will be held at 7:45 p.m. at City Hall on the bids for construction of Segment 7 of the trail. Following the hearing the city council may take action on the bids.

Also Monday night the city's Property Committee will discuss the location of a bike trail bridge across Highway 9.

http://www.decorahnews.com/cgi-bin/csvsearch.pl?mydatabase=db1&...

[Bruce Askelsen]

A prime example of why we must be personally responsible and not rely on someone else to do what we should be doing.
If you have to buy a product, buy it in a reuseable or recylable container and make sure that the merchant will take those containers back as part of their in store program. If they will not recycle their own junk, why should you buy it. The merchant brings it in to town, so conversely they should be responsible for getting it back out of town.
Keep in mind also that the Iowa legislature has been very lax in any type of recycling mandate. Must be that they are too busy keeping their big donors happy.

Kevin and Carrie Lee said:

Spectrum Network officials say they are getting out of the recycling business. The organization has run Winneshiek County's recycling program for nearly 20 years.

But times change, according to Spectrum officials, and the recycling program is no longer used extensively to give jobs to clients of the sheltered workshop program. Instead those clients are now being mainstreamed into other jobs.

Spectrum Network officials give their official notice on Monday that they will not renew their current contract with Winneshiek County to run the recycling program.

County officials now have until June to decide whether the county should run the recycling program, sell it to a private company or discontinue it entirely.

This is horrable news!!!!!!

[Bruce Askelsen]

I totally agree that we have a current problem that must be addressed and that can be done a number of ways. First of all, the city council and the county board of supervisors can pass a mandatory recycling plan that sets maximum amounts of material that can go to the land fill from each house, business, etc. on a weekly basis. As for the produce at Walmart, the council and supervisors can deny access to the landfill of biodegradeable products, They can force Walmart to take that product to the compost area and they can assess them the actual cost of composting.
The city council can also pass an additional tax on Walmart if they so desire. It would apply to all grocery stores, but be based on the amount of such refuse generated. Stores like Oneota Co-op would be given back a tax credit against the base tax on all items they took back for recycling. In other words they can either pay the tax, or recycle. All tax funds collected would then be specifically designated for landfill, composting and recycling.
A neat little quirk in Iowa law is that you can also have a city income tax, recycle tax, etc.
Bottom line is that you need to make your city councilman and supervisors actually do the job they are paid with your current tax dollors to do. Make them work for everything they do. Amazingly new concept.

[Jim Tripp]

Interesting idea of setting a "max on the amount of material that can go to the landfill from each house, business, etc." This sure would make people think twice about what they toss in their trashcan. But what are the arguments against this route? Does anyone know of this being successfully implemented elsewhere? This idea was mentioned at the inaugural workshop, to paraphrase, of "holding people responsible financially for their waste." Sounds like an exercise in personal responsibility which, based on what I see people throwing in the trashcan/dumpster on a day to day basis, is much needed.

Bruce, when you talk about the "quirk" in Iowa law, do you mean special taxation powers granted to city governments that other states' cities typically don't have power over?

[Bruce Askelsen]

This is a loophole in Iowa law that allows cities broad taxing authority. Problem is that most of the dunderheads on the city council don't even know about it and most city attorneys don't have a clue either. I found out about it on KCCI TV about a month ago. They had a brief news blip on what all cities could do under Iowa law to generate new sources of income. Beyond that, I have not had time to look up the specifics in the Iowa code.
Given that most counties I have any knowledge of, it appears that all cities and counties have different trash/recycling regs. In Eagle Grove for example, we have a limit of 2 bags of trash/garbage per week, we must have newspaper in another bag that is recyclable and the plastic must only be that which is approved for recycling. If anything doesn't meet those specific requirements, it is left in the container. If you have more than the 2 trash/garbage bags, the extra is left unless you pay an overage fee. Any construction debris has to be put in a seperate container that you also have to pay extra for. Cardboard or plastic without the proper recycle numbers has to be taken downtown to the recycle bins there. Any large amounts of trash or garbage has to be put in a rolloff for again an extra fee and even then you have to make sure their are no hazzardous chemicals or other liquids in the debris. Once or twice a year, someone comes in that will accept those liquids for recycling at a cost to the city, but so far other than taxes, it has not yet been passed on to the residents. So, obviously you can be quite restrictive on trash.
If you happen to be around tomorrow (Thurs) I will be at T-Bocks after about 4:30 or 5:00.
Talk to you later!

Jim Tripp said:

Interesting idea of setting a "max on the amount of material that can go to the landfill from each house, business, etc." This sure would make people think twice about what they toss in their trashcan. But what are the arguments against this route? Does anyone know of this being successfully implemented elsewhere? This idea was mentioned at the inaugural workshop, to paraphrase, of "holding people responsible financially for their waste." Sounds like an exercise in personal responsibility which, based on what I see people throwing in the trashcan/dumpster on a day to day basis, is much needed.

Bruce, when you talk about the "quirk" in Iowa law, do you mean special taxation powers granted to city governments that other states' cities typically don't have power over?