I participated in the Leelanau Grand Vision workshop at Suttons Bay School last night. A lot of other people participated as well; the venue was packed and the presenters seemed a little overwhelmed by the crowd. The idea was to gather input from the community our how we would prefer to see our area grow, and then use that to formulate a coordinated plan for the Grand Traverse area. Our elected officials can then refer to this plan when they are making decisions about zoning, transportation, energy, and other infrastructure.

I found out that I'm not that much into scenery. Or maybe that my idea of scenery is a lot broader than other people's idea of scenery. They started out by giving us a score sheet and asking us to give our first reactions to a series of outdoor scenes. Much of the audience was murmuring in approval or tsking in disapproval at various pictures. I was in the back, and couldn't see that well, but all I saw was buildings, grass, and trees. Or sometimes grass, trees, and buildings. My responses were all in the middle range. There was one picture of a vineyard, but no gardens, no playgrounds, no livestock, no orchards, none of the scenes that I find pretty or restful. It was like they looked at Leelanau through the eyes of a suburbanite and couldn't see anything else. (The photo above is closer to my idea of nice looking scenery.)

But that was that. The next part was the part where we got together with the people at our table and plotted the next 50 year's growth on a giant map of the county. Or a giant map of most of the county, as our map did not have Peshawbestown, the National Lakeshore, or the gravel pits in Kasson denoted. The group at my table included three younger people, one full time farmer, one part time farmer, three people from Northport, two from Suttons Bay, two people who worked with the Leelanau Conservancy, and a master gardener. Our group spent a good deal of time plotting out the best farmland in the county, then plotting out the Lakeshore and Pere Marquette Forest, then the critical bird habitat on the tip of the penninsula. After that, we were supposed to figure out where 20,000 more people were going to live, and how to get them the goods, jobs and services they would need.

We started out brainstorming a list of what we wanted for the future. We wanted everything --a protected environment, vibrant villages, open shorelines, broadband access, local food chains. The younger people wanted to walk everywhere -- to work, to shop -- or they wanted to ride bikes. The lady next to me kept saying "Ban Cars! No Motorized Traffic!" and I couldn't tell if she was serious or sarcastic. I threw out my own far-fetched idea, calling for small scale alternative energy -- wind and solar -- with a smart grid so that households could sell excess power back and local electricity storage so that our county could be self sufficient in electricity.

The people of our future were at least going to eat. We were given stickers that represented one household for every five acres, and we could trade stickers in to get fewer stickers representing higher densities. It was clear that if we let everyone have the 5 acre mini-estate, we would end up cutting up farmland and crowding out critical habitats. We would also end up with a scattered population that would be far from the village centers and harder to serve. But it was hard to envision any of our current villages absorbing even one whole sticker's worth of people, so we took the higher density stickers, cut them up, and shoehorned them in around the existing villages. That all took a lot of time, especially the part where we debated the exact size of an economically viable farm. So we quickly sketched in some light rail transit lines to connect the villages and drew in a few (not enough) bikes trails and Table 19's contribution was complete.

I had to be the presenter. (I always have to be the presenter.) The various tables had a host of different problems that they were trying to solve. Some groups were trying to move cars -- several groups proposed a bridge across South Lake Leelanau from Hohnke Road to Bingham; one group wanted to make M-22 one way north and Center Highway one way south. Several groups were trying to move people, and were plotting ferry routes. One guy said that he had already located some vintage ferry boats in good condition and made an appeal for investors in a new ferry business. One group made a vastly expanded Suttons Bay the focus of their planning. One group presented their map with a bunch of population stickers out in the Bay. When asked for an explanation, they said "We didn't know where to put them." A guy in the crowd said, "I guess they just have to sink or swim."

Since we were last (I wasn't going to wait in line) I talked about the things that the other groups hadn't mentioned. I said that we were interested in food first so we had plotted out farmland first and shoehorned the populations around that. I got applause by saying, "We need broadband access everywhere." and more applause talking about small scale alternative energy. So I went out on a limb and spoke about dark skies, my own favorite sort of scenery. Finally I said "Our table, like everyone here, likes the county the way it is, but we're willing to be flexible, so that others can enjoy what we have."

I'm not sure if that last statement was exactly true, exactly yet, but it can't hurt to potry ourselves as less selfish and more interested in the common good. Sometimes people live up to their reputations.

Labels: cars, energy, farmland preservation, leelanau, local food, night skies

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Yup. This Saturday is National Train Day, with events at train stations across the country. This is the 139th anniversary of the laying in 1869 of the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit, Utah, which completed America’s first transcontinental railroad. Amtrak is using National Train Day to highlight the growing popularity of trains as convenient, energy efficient, environmentally sound ways to travel.

The National Association of Rail Passengers puts it this way:

This year’s festivities come at a time when sticker shock at the gas pump is creating greater public interest in more passenger train service. What’s more, this interest was well established even before the current rise in gasoline prices, as reflected in polls, referenda, and ridership data on train systems across the country all point to one clear conclusion and that is we need more trains.

My congressman doesn't agree. Here is part of his response to my recent letter about the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement bill

:....policymakers have long debated the extent to which the federal government should fund rail transportation. This issue has its roots in a 1997 agreement between Amtrak and the federal government, which authorized $2 billion for Amtrak in exchange for the company's promise of self-sufficiency by the year 2003. While Amtrak has made progress in fulfilling the terms of the 1997 agreement, it is still far from being self-sufficient and its future remains unclear.

I remember 1997. Anna was a babe in my arms. Climate change was barely heard of. Gas was about $1.29 a gallon. Terrorism was something that happened in other countries, and it certainly wasn't funded with our gas money. It was still fun to fly back then, when you didn't have to stand in line and take off half your clothes to get on a plane.

It's not as if we could drive anywhere without federal investment in roads and bridges. Airlines also enjoy support from the federal government, as Jim Loomis points out at Travel and Trains and Other Things:

Here's another mind-boggler for you: One of our speakers this morning was Congressman John Mica (R-Florida) who is a key member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He told us, among other things, that the federal government is going to spend five billion dollars -- that's billion, with a "B" -- to build one new runway for the Miami International Airport. Yes, I said "ONE new runway". Amtrak's funding request for a full year is one-third that amount.

It is -- I must tell you -- a frustrating and maddening situation. Fortunately, I do think there is a new awareness of the importance of rail transportation and of the benefits it brings to the country. Most of the Members of Congress now "get it." Bush and his people don't, won't and never will.

I'm glad to hear that most members of Congress are more on the ball than my guy.

Labels: Amtrak

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Labels: school funding

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That's Richard, with one of the biggest walleyes he has ever caught. He got up early this morning and went down to the dock as the sun was just rising. He nailed this one on the first cast, then struggled to land it as it was surely going to break the line if he tried to haul it up conventionally. It weighed in over 6 pounds and yielded some beautiful fillets.

I woke up early (by my standards, but hours after Richard) to drive Anna to her dog sitting job. I was able to snap that picture because over the weekend I took my old broken camera to work and spent my breaks disassembling it and trying to figure out why the batteries drained within ten seconds of turning it on. I was looking for bad contacts or a short, but once I took the case off and tested it, it started working almost fine again. I say almost fine because it makes a strange new noise when the lens extends. Before I took the case off, the lens was totally stuck and the camera was wasting all of the battery energy trying to move the lens. Once it started working, I put it all back together, testing it at each step, and now I have a working camera again.

The camera is going on four years old, which is ancient in the world of digital cameras. Richard has his eyes shut in the picture, just like he had his eyes shut in Shelagh's graduation picture. I'm still wishing I had a camera with a screen that I could see without my glasses. But my wishes and my budget just don't coincide. It's good to have any camera again.

I spent all Friday baking bread for a bake sale to help Leland's Odyssey of the Mind teams go to world competition. Anna didn't do OM this year, but her old team members still have their teeth sunk into structure problems. Her old teammates now are split among two bound-for-worlds teams, and it's going to take the whole community to raise enough money to get them there. I contributed 20 loaves of bread, one of many bakers, and I hear the Saturday morning bake sale raised over $600. Their next fundraiser is dinner at the Steak Haus by Sugarloaf on Thursday May 15th from 5-8 pm. . All tickets are $15.00. You have a choice of either a steak dinner, battered shrimp dinner or a veggie alfredo dinner. Team members are selling tickets and they are also available at Northwoods Kitchens.

I keep getting interrupted by people who saw the rhubarb sign. I take them out to cut some rhubarb, chat a little, and take their dollars. Eggs are selling, too, faster than my hens can lay. I've started giving away my tomato plants, using them to encourage the many people who are starting new gardens this year.

Labels: family, fishing, gardening, Leland Public School, Odyssey of the Mind

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There was a long story in the Leelanau Enterprise this week about Leland School's band program and the hard decision not to grant tenure to our band teacher. Tonight I had a long conversation with a school board member as we waited for kids at choir. She confirmed what I had suspected, that the decision came down to a matter of money. Keeping the band teacher on, even part time, would have meant cutting an elementary teacher. We talked of keeping band as a pay-to-play activity or somehow drawing on talented members of the community to provide some sort of band experience. But a full-time tenured band teacher is not something that our school can afford.

As I explained last post, Leland School would be in a different position if we had been spending a little more money in 1994. We would have the option of asking the voters to approve millages for operations, for payroll, utilities, and bus fuel, the biggest hunks of a school's budget and the fastest rising portion of everybody's costs.

But Wait! There's More! If your school was one of those spending more than $6500 per student in 1994, your school gets special "20j money" straight from the state of Michigan because....well... just because.

Leland School's business manager, Sandy Potts, described the situation in a March 2008 paper. Here are some highlights:

PROPOSAL “A” AND SECTION 20j
The promise of Proposal “A” was that both property tax levies and educational dollars for K-12 schools would be equalized throughout the state. The formula created would, over time, narrow the gap between the highest funded and lowest funded K-12 school districts.

Language in Section 380.1211 of the State School Code, as revised, limited the increase in per pupil funding for each district to the lesser of the rate of inflation or the amount determined by the legislature in each year’s budget. This meant that those schools with very high per pupil funding would get enough to cover inflation but the lower paid schools would gradually be given more to bring the funding levels closer together. The gap between the highest and lowest school districts’ per-pupil funding began at $7,532 in 1994 and narrowed to $5,454 in 2000 under this formula.

In 2000, the increase to the Student Foundation Grant Allowance was $238 per pupil but the inflation rate was relatively low at 1.6%. This meant that the schools at the highest end of the funding range would have received less than $238 per pupil. (Remember that these schools were already receiving as much as $5,424 more per pupil than the lowest paid schools.) This was not satisfactory to the schools at the highest end of the scale and therefore the legislature was convinced to add Section 20j of the State Aid Fund which allows them to receive the full foundation increase. This was a direct, purposeful, political change in opposition to the intent of Proposal “A” as passed by the voters of the State of Michigan.

Section 20j payments average $251 per pupil and are given to the 51 highest paid schools in the state. The total paid out under Section 20j has averaged $54,000,000 annually for the last five years, for a total of $270,000,000 paid to the 51 wealthiest districts in the state...

...The 20j schools will insist that they can’t survive without the 20j payments but even you if remove the 20j payments, these schools will still receive a minimum of $1,118 and as much as $5,135 more per pupil than the base foundation grant which is the amount with which than half of Michigan’s schools must operate their programs.

In fiscal year 2000, to qualify for the original 20j monies, a school must have had a base grant of $6500 or greater. Since that time a hold-harmless base grant has been set each year and those above that amount receive the extra monies based on the above mentioned calculation. Fifty one districts qualified in the first year. However, only 50 districts qualified in 2000 based on their foundation grant allowance and only 45 districts qualified in years 2002-2008. Yet each year, all 51 of the original schools have been given 20j payments. To date, the 20j payments made to unqualified schools from 2000-2008 is approximately $84,250,000; money that should have been used elsewhere.

Dan Hanrahan, Director of the State Aid and School Finance Office, states that the legislature has never given him direction to change the funding formula for the 20j schools even though the base grant for those schools has been changed each year. Thus all 51 schools on the original list, whether they meet the new 20j base amount or not, continue to receive additional funding for each of their students.

I can't figure out what the moral of the story is. Schools that always had more money still get more money. The rules are so complicated that I can barely find out what they all are, let alone explain them to you. The Director of the School Aid Fund can't even give a good answer as to why some schools get more.

I keep thinking about last fall when the State of Michigan almost shut down because they couldn't come up with a balanced budget. My brother called some friends in Lansing and asked what the legislators were discussing. His friends said, "Oh the legislators aren't talking, they're just sitting around. The lobbyists are meeting and when they come up with a compromise, they'll tell the legislators what to do."

Meanwhile, there goes the band teacher.

Labels: Leland Public School, politics, school funding

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Graphic from the Citizens for Equity site

Labels: school funding

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