A new report by the US Geological Survey (USGS) says that the next few decades could see "rapid" ice melting in the arctic and a major rise in sea levels. The News Journal ran an article covering the report here along with a cool interactive map that shows how the Delaware coastline would change as sea levels rise. That map can be found here.
Now, let's put aside the whole "global warming" debate for a moment and just assume that the report is accurate. We can argue later about what's causing it, but it looks like the arctic ice is indeed melting and sea levels are indeed rising. The real question is what happens when the seas rise and ultimately overtake what is now dry land? This is where things get tricky. You see, like in most states, individuals cannot own the water. Delaware law allows property boundaries on the coastline to extend as far down as the low tide line (check out the Delaware Coastal Zone Act for reference). But what happens to a beach property when the low tide line reaches well onto, or even over, the property lot lines? Does that property simply cease to exist? Does the property owner simply lose the right to any land? As far as the law is concerned, I think the answer is yes. This means, among other things, billions of dollars of lost property and rent value for Delawareans and billions more in lost property tax revenue and tourism revenue.
One way to look at this problem is from the economic point of view. Like any other investment, property comes with risk. Flood, fire, sea rise...these are all risks involved with getting into the game of owning property. If the risks begin to increase with the threat of rising seas, property owners will simply have to choose whether to stay "in the market" or sell their property and invest in something else while they have the luxury to do so. For those that do hold onto their beach properties, they'll have to be okay with the idea that someday their investment will be gone, stuck under a few feet of seawater.
Another way to look at this issue is from the political point of view. For many years, taxpayers have reduced the risks of property ownership on the beach by paying for beach replenishment and dune construction. In my view, these are wasteful programs that simply delay the inevitable. "Polishing the brass on the titanic," so to speak. When these programs no longer serve their purpose to hold back the rising seas and the storm surges, we'll either have to ramp up our efforts or abandon them. Sure, we can go the Netherlands route and start building dams and levees and pump trillions into projects that would either maintain or create dry land out of what would otherwise be a home for fish. In light of our economic and social problems, this kind of brass polish seems like a poor use of our tax money.
The News Journal's website carried (very shortly) an article today (found here) about the State's intention to sue the EPA over air quality regulations that Delaware thinks are unfair. The result could be that Delaware loses millions of dollars in federal transportation funding.
This issue brings to light a fundamental concept that plagues every government entity: the "commons" problem. Now, you could fill an entire library with the number of books and articles that define and examine this problem (the field of ecology is basically centered around this one principle), but I'll try to outline some of the key points and how they apply in this case...and how Delaware may be up the creek without a paddle on this one. There are certain things that people need to survive, biologically speaking. Water and air are two biggies. Governments at all levels (federal, state, local) have a big role in making sure that these three things are available in sufficient quantity and quality to the people who live under their power. To do this, they use money taken from their resident taxpayers to keep the air and water and food clean and flowing free. But, when the federal or state government spends money on, say, nice clean air, people outside of their jurisdiction (people who did NOT pay taxes) end up getting some of the benefits in the form of cleaner air and cleaner water. This is the "commons" problem. Air and water systems extend well beyond the jurisdiction of any one government. And governments, like people, are selfish.
This problem works the other way too. When people in one place pollute the air with coal-fired power plants or lots of cars, the negative effects are felt by many people outside of the place that is causing the problem. This is called the tragedy of the commons, and it is the very thing that Delaware officials are whining about to the EPA. They're mad that states to the west (upwind, as it were) are polluting the air, leading to bad air quality in Delaware, and now Delaware is being held responsible.
It's a fair and valid point, to be sure. Delaware residents suffer with bad air and bad water because people and governments upstream and upwind have failed to "clean up their act." But, the problem here is the question of "who pays?" when it comes to the commons. No, Delaware cannot control what midwest states do to prevent air pollution. But, it can't just "pass the buck" when it comes to making sure its own people--its own taxpayers--have clean air. If we give in to DNREC's logic here, we end up in a massive downward spiral of buck-passing that ends in environmental ruin. Someone somewhere someday will have to pay. If not us here now, then our grandkids (or Europe's grandkids or Asia's grandkids) tomorrow. I would rather pay for clean air in Delaware knowing that at least we're doing something to improve our own health now. Yes, we're cleaning up someone else's mess. And yes, other states and countries will benefit without paying. But I'd rather be the one to step up and say "I'll do it" than the spineless wimp in the back of the room trying to hide from the problem. I believe that's the forthright thing to do, and for once, instead of just hopping on the bandwagon, we can MAKE the bandwagon that others might hop on.
This past weekend, the News Journal began its comprehensive examination of the volunteer fire services in Delaware by presenting interactive map data that it hoped would speak to the question, "Has Delaware outgrown its volunteer firefighters?" Based on a critical analysis of the maps and data that they presented, I made a very good case (see post below) that the data and information presented really didn't say anything about the issue of volunteer vs. career firefighters and served only as a sensationalist piece of fake news drawn up to sell papers and agitate/scare the public into thinking about an issue that really does not exist.
Today, TNJ has presented its second part in this series, which looks at how volunteer fire departments bring in money and how they spend it. Again, the article is rife with misinformation, misdirection, and psychological BS, and I aim to do a number on it all right here and right now.
Let's take a look first at the headline and by-line for the story: So, the fire companies are "sitting on" money? To me that language suggests that these fire departments are either unnecessarily hoarding money (to some unknown end) or they're hiding money from the public and it was discovered by TNJ's crack team of investigative journalists. Untrue on both counts. Second, the larger phrase "sit on cash cushions" suggests that the fire companies are so amazingly rich that they can actually afford to make chairs with cushions sewn together from crisp hundred dollar bills...oh, my, what a regal image! The entire headline, however it was meant, is misleading at best and really slimy at worst. No fire department is being accused of illicitly hoarding money nor doing inappropriate things with it. Only when you get to the off-white colored by-line (over a white background...very hard to see even for someone with 20/20 vision) do you get the real story, that our fire departments simply have big savings accounts.
So, our fire departments have become very good at raising money and saving a great deal of it. Why is this bad? Am I missing the scandal here, or is there something else? If not, then it seems a little less than newsworthy. Do you have any idea how much a new ladder truck, fully spec'ed out, costs? Maybe a half-million dollars or more, I'd say. In the event your department's current one gets smashed up in a major accident, wouldn't you like to still be able to save someone's life and property tomorrow morning? If I lived id Magnolia, I think I'd now sleep much better at night knowing about that two million dollar savings fund being "sat on" by my fore department.
Other than the headline, most people who (like me) hate reading will look at the pictures. Let's look at the pics that were meant to reinforce the main ideas of this article:
All of the pictures are photos of "firefighters in action," so we can expect that TNJ is trying to show us what firemen and women do during the day? The first picture shows a firefighter "on an unscheduled break," leading us to mistakenly conclude that our firefighters are apathetic and lazy? Why not show that same guy five minutes earlier or later while he's actually doing work, which is what most of our volunteers never stop doing while at their firehouse. The second and third pictures show firemen calling bingo and selling 50/50 tickets as part of their fundraising activities. So, fire departments are wasting our time and money just trying to raise more money? As we'll see, fundraising makes up less than 1% of the resource use of the fire departments. So, like with their first article in this series, TNJ is trying to show us exceptions to what is the norm in order to defend its indefensible position that the volunteer fire department system should be eliminated.
But it's not over yet, folks! TNJ uses some nicely erroneous and typo-ridden graphics to prove its point about the volunteer "problem" in our fire departments. Let's take a look at those: Corporate organizations that provide a necessary public service and are provided tax-exempt status by the government are called "non-profit organizations" (NPOs). The volunteer fire departments in Delaware are a great example of an NPO. These types of corporate organizations are governed by a board of directors (not a committee of stockholders like private corporations) and must abide by certain standards as established by any government entity (usually the state, along with a national board or chapter) from which the receive grant money, including not using their resources and money to make more resources and money that can be passed on to corporate board members(this can be done only in a for-profit enterprise). By definition, profit is the excess portion of money generated by selling goods and services for more than they cost to the corporation to make or buy in bulk. This excess money is then passed on to shareholders in the form of divided checks that must be declared as income to Uncle Sam every April.
I cannot believe that TNJ, knowing all they know about the function of NPOs, still decided to stick with the term "profit" and "profit margins" when talking about our volunteer fire companies. They could have used the term "budget excess" or "overage" or the term "reserve funds" which is what municipalities have when their utilities (water, sewer, trash, electricity) make more money than they cost to operate. Having reserve funds is an important part of managing an NPO, since it provides most of the capital money that can be used for big-ticket things like vehicular equipment, communications technology, and up-to-date facilities.
And here are the income and spending charts that TNJ published:
First of all, how confusing is the erroneous placement of "Donations and Fundraisers" on the Chart for Spending? It makes everything more jumbled, super-confusing, and less-decipherable to the regular reader.
Second, the American Institute of Philanthrophy (AIP) (charitywatch.org) sets minimum standards for deciding which NPOs people should donate to. One of the most important is the percentage of NPO money used for fundraising. According to AIP, this should be less than 40% for a good charity or NPO. As you can see here, our fire departments spends only 1% of their money on fundraising activities and more than 90% on their actual mission and operations (fire and rescue). Another AIP standard is the "years of available assets," which is the amount of savings the organization has. Well, shoot, TNJ said it was a bad thing to have savings, but not true. Apparently having money in the bank for a rainy day is a good thing! Go figure!
Once again, I am dumbfounded at the level of sansationalism and misinformation that is going on here. And once again, this article omits any comparisons to regional or national numbers, which keeps any contextual facts out of the picture. Once again, I say to The News Journal: why are you doing this to us? However much you think you can fool us, we do have some common sense and we look out for one another. The last thing we need here in lower Delaware is a big upheaval in a major public service that end with many more dead or wounded people who were previously receiving superior service.
Again, please let me know if you agree or disagree with my take on TNJ's numbers and facts. Maybe, as usual, I'm way off base here, but I don't think so.
The running local blockbuster over at the News Journal's website this weekend is an interactive map that purports to provide data regarding whether or not the volunteer firefighter system still works for Delaware. You can find the map here.
I'm by no means a statistical expert, but I do have some basic knowledge of research and data analysis along with a good helping of common sense. Just a basic reading of the maps and numbers that TNJ is using here reveals the truly "geo-centric" and faux-compelling nature of this report and the fundamental disconnection between the headline and the data they present.
To say that the piece is misleading is an insult to spin-mongers everywhere. First of all, here are the data legends for the two statistics that they show us: The first legend shows fire call response times as compared to the standard set by the National Fire Protection Association. They take this entire data set out of context for the reader by not saying what the standard is nor what percentage of national fire stations meet the standard. Second, they have two categories at the top: "meets standard" and "meets standard only." If they wanted to be really clear here, they would have said what they mean here: "exceeds standard" and "meets standard." Unfortunately, they chose to be controversial instead of honest.
The second legend shows the "'profit margins'" of the fire companies. TNJ should know better...our volunteer fire companies are non-profit corporations that are prohibited from "turning a profit" that can be passed on to shareholders, which is what "profit" means to the public. They could have chosen any word for this other than "profit" (e.g., surplus, excess revenue), but they chose the word "profit" seemingly to reinforce the idea that our fire companies "make too much money." The truth, of course is that most of the money is either public funds or donations from local residents, neither of which could be called "profit" since these fire companies do not sell anything to anyone (except maybe renting out their buildings for weddings and bar mitzvahs).
The maps themselves are also misleading because they collapse so much data into such simple categories and nice pretty colors to distract the reader. But more importantly, they reveal the clear and uncontroversial answer to TNJ's headline question.
Here is the map for departments' "profits": I don't know about you, but I feel much better knowing that a good portion of the fire departments have some extra money on hand for building and expanding and buying modern equipment than if it were the other way around. Hey Gannett, what happens when your company doesn't turn a profit? You probably have to cut jobs, right? How would you feel if our fire departments didn't have enough money and started cutting volunteers and using old, outdated equipment?
Here is the map of response times for fire companies up in yankee country: Looks pretty bad right? Oh my! We need to overhaul our fire departments, right? I'm not sure the data fits the question here. The better question would be WHY response times in northern NCC are so bad. The answer can probably be boiled down to three things--Traffic, Development Density, and Suburban Sprawl--all three of which go hand-in-hand...and all three of which have nothing at all to do with whether or not our fire companies are volunteer or paid.
To add to this critical deficiency, look at the maps of response times for all of us down here in the slower lower areas: The entire southern 80% of the state is served by volunteer fire departments that exceed the national standard. So, we're supposed to believe that the companies in the north are the exception that proves the rule?
This entire dog and pony show is an exercise in agitation that undermines a system that, as a whole is working well despite bad state decisions regarding development and infrastructure. So, TNJ wants us to turn the operation over to the state or county governments with their merit employment systems and expensive government benefits? Yeah, because DelDOT and NCC are working and managing their finances so well, it just makes sense! Please.
Why, just why? Why do this? Why agitate the public and upset our many honorable volunteer firemen and women? To the editors at The News Journal: Leave our well-oiled and well-funded fire departments alone! And until you do some real research and get some decent data to throw our way, stop doing stuff like this. We're not fooled and we don't want to be a New Jersey or a Southeast Pennsylvania.
If you have a different read of this data, please respond in the comments and let me know. Maybe I misread the whole thing, but I don't think so. Thanks!
UPDATE: The Sunday News Journal has published the text article to accompany the map data here. The comments on the article page are delightfully ridiculous so far.
This post started as a comment to an entry on another site, which is linked below. But, I just couldn't help but expand on the issue after it lingered in my mind for a few hours.
The Delaware News Journal publish an article here yesterday that outlined some of the work of the Leadership in Education Action (LEAD) Committee, which is seeking to change the way that Delaware schools are funded and adjust their finances. Delaware Politics posted here in defense of the current system of referendum, saying:
I favor the right of the people to have oversight over their property taxes. More importantly, I favor the right of referendum more broadly. Referendum is an expression of the basic right of the people to alter their form of government...We need the ability to bring active oversight from the people into the process. The best mechanism is the power of the ballot.
I seriously disagree with this view, and a quick lesson in the American democratic system will tell you why. The school district system of governance in Delaware is unique among any others in the state and for only one reason: referendum overuse. The result of this deficiency is limited public participation and deficient political representation. School district residents do not go to public meeting, do not read-up on the issues (including budgets), and do not provide the necessary level of input to the board members who represent them. Lastly, almost no one votes in school board elections (comparatively speaking), so potentially under-qualified people become board members end up making decisions "on the fly."
The US and our state was established as a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. I believe referendums have their place, like in circumstances that would put our schools at risk (e.g., a large bond issue that was more than half the value of the district's assets). We need to take more responsibility for getting very able people elected to the school board who can make good decisions and are well-informed about the way our school do and should function. Then, we needn't worry about whether or not they poll us every time they need to adjust their finances. This system would be no different that the cities, counties, the state, and even neighborhood civic associations, all of which share this same financial flexibility. The current system of public education in Delaware does not seem to work and seems to continue to fall in quality and number of available each year (I am sure that there are plenty of exceptions to this, but I'm just making an opinion-based observation, here, ok?). The root cause is a rambling domino-effect of problems. I believe all this can be traced to jaded, unenthusiastic, and discouraged political leadership in the school board. Many of these leaders run unopposed in under-attended elections for a governing body to which no one pays attention. These elections and board meetings are largely ignored by citizens because of their relative and seeming unimportance in contrast to budget referendums, which are seen as the ultimate "choke-chain" on a system that we see as a "misbehaving dog." Referendums are voted down over and over again until a critical point of crisis is reached. I believe we are at this very point of crisis, and there is but one solution: let. democracy. work. If we would just let the representative democratic system work as it should, we could have the peace of mind knowing that the best possible leaders are in place making the best possible decisions about administration and finance of the schools on our behalf. Then, maybe we'll realize that is is we who are the "misbehaving dog" pulling the choke-chain on the collar of our suffocating master who is vital to our own survival and that of our kids...er...pups...ummm...never mind, you get the analogy.
It is certainly hard for anyone to let go of power, especially the power over money that we see as ultimately "mine." If we could just let go (maybe with a provision for the new system to sunset and revert back in five years if it doesn't work) and give away the power to control "our" money to leaders who we choose very carefully and deliberately, who are undoubtedly able and can be trusted, I think we'll become increasingly satisfied with the quality of our schools and the great job such a group of leaders can do without the uninformed public leash of the referendum slowly choking them to the doom of vouchers and an increasing majority of private-school students.
The News Journal has really made a big to-do this past week over the State Police "superchecks" that allow them to see a person's involuntary mental health history. They have written multiple articles about it here, and they have even compiled a database of handgun permit rejections here that looks back more than a decade.
So, my question is: are there really legitimate reasons for granting handgun permits to residents who are otherwise responsible citizens but who have been involuntarily placed into inpatient mental health care (which, I believe, is the only thing these "superchecks" turn up)?
I believe that one perhaps-legitimate reaction is to say no. The idea of "crazies" having a gun probably frightens most mainstream people who have no experience with mental health issues or mental illness. Or maybe these are people who have had a major negative experience dealing with someone, even a family member, who is mentally ill and should NOT have a gun. Importantly, though, (and here's the perhaps-legitimate part) the issue concerns the State Police enough to say no, and they certainly have a great deal of experience dealing with people who are not criminals but are simply in need of help...sometimes very serious and long-term help. But, on the flip side, many would say yes, that there are examples of people who fall into this category who are absolutely responsible enough to handle owning a handgun. I think most people, after thinking long and hard about it, would come to this conclusion. A great number of teens today have a history of involuntary mental health treatment because of misunderstanding parents. Also, a history of mental health treatment may not be a bad thing, since this indicates that the person either has or is getting help to overcome any problems they may have. Also, a person who has a documented history of treatment is definitely a better bet than better than someone with untreated mental health issues who ends up slipping through the cracks of even a system of "superchecks."
Our justice system was founded on the concept that not one innocent person should ever be imprisoned, even at the cost of allowing many potentially-guilty people go free. Should this same concept apply to gun permits? Should we give people the benefit of the doubt and allow them a gun until they prove themselves irresponsible with it?
Maybe the answer is some middle ground where these people are not automatically denied a permit but are required to get a letter from a psychiatrist that certifies that they are not an immediate danger to themselves or others (I'm sure you're shaking your head saying "good luck," given the state of our modern, sue-happy society). But maybe there will be a law that says any letter like that cannot be held against the doctor, and only certifies the person's state of mind at the time of issue, or some disclaimer like that. I'm not sure that we have a constitutional option to deny people the right to have a handgun if they haven't done anything to prove themselves criminally irresponsible (a la 2nd Amendment), but it's certainly a big question to which I have no answer. The State Police and the ACLU are seriously at odds over this right now, and I hope everyone who reads this will write a comment and weigh in on this issue. I'd like to hear what you think, even if it's a simple "yes" or "no."
