After a nearly three-year effort, the council unanimously adopted the first-ever Historic Preservation Plan as a supplement to the city’s Comprehensive Plan, directed staff to implement recommendations, and accepted an Underrepresented Communities Historic Resource Survey Report, the latter seen as a “living document” that will be a starting point for diversifying stories the city is documenting.
May 20, 2020
Help me understand the city where I've lived for the last 36 years.
It's just one sentence — from "City Council approves... historic preservation plan" (Madison.com) — and I'd just like to see it in plain English, if anyone would do me the service of translating it:
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What it says is: "We are going to take taxpayer money, and give it to our friends."
I'll try!
After years of wasting time and money, the council added extra regulations; and hired more staff... These regulations (like ALL regulations) will be implemented in a racist manner, and can be changed AT ANY TIME
Here's my stab at it. Zoning decisions are now explicitly to be made through an added layer of Social Justice/Identity politics.
They have authorized tyrannical free rein for themselves. Anyone who they believe stands in their way is now in notice. You will be be labeled a racist and there will be consequences.
Translation: Left wing, White guilt-ridden Madison is going to have its very own little 1619 Project.
The hired some grievance studies majors, and now they have to find something for them to do.
"I'd just like to see it in plain English, if anyone would do me the service of translating it"
Sure thing:
Our pet projects are historic preservation. They don't make economic sense in a free market (i.e. they can't possibly have a positive return on investment). But, by our values, they are really, really important. So we need further studies, an increased staff and an ever widening, never ending flow of tax payer funding.
It's really for a good cause.
Promise.
The document is alive!
The comprehensive plan wasn't.
I would guess that it means "Gentrification is bad, mmmkay?"
It's just a bunch of stuff that happened.
Ok, the very first comment beat me to the one I was going to make.
See, the magic of Common Core. We all commonly don't know what that means on a minute basis, but the overall scheme is clear - "We're gonna be spending public money on something stupid."
They're making slums historic landmarks as a celebration of black culture.
"It took us three years to massage the groupthink, but from now on we have an even more arbitrary scope to rule over private property and its uses, including declaring something "historic" so the owner cannot maintain or update the property without slogging through burdensome bureaucracy, ponying up extra fees/expenses, completing endless paperwork, and enduring interactions with the intrusive purse-lipped do-gooders who like to be on these kinds of committees to say "No" just because they can. We will be elevating previously-unnoticed and historicaly inconsequential landmarks of oppression in ways that line the pockets of our friends and fellow grifters."
It means they're going to do something nice for everyone except straight white men:
historically underrepresented communities — African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, LGBT people and women — to celebrate and preserve their stories and places as part of the city’s collective history.
"Historically underrepresented" = they didn't do much that was worth remembering or recording.
So now they're going to celebrate and preserve their boring stories and uninteresting places as part of the city’s collective history.
(I woulda thunk that "city’s history" didn't need to be modified by the word "collective", since the city is a collective...)
1) We've been fighting over this stupid issue for three years.
2) We've given the city government increased control over private property.
3) We've told staff of their new powers.
4) We've received a demand for money from the usual suspects.
5) We're planning on spreading the wealth around for a long time.
I'd look at this as a sign that the city is not going to allow gentrification. And that they need a large cut in city and state employees. Too many with way too much time on their hands.
These kinds of proclamations are meant to START A CONVERSATION.
Mission acomplished.
Once it hits 200, send this comment page to the city council.
Take for instance the diversity represented in the people involved in the duoble homicide of UW Dr Potter and husband. Celebrate the diversity!
"Poor and low-income people are not welcome in Madison.
"We're not going to let you subdivide buildings, institute mixed-use zoning so you can have a barber shop and live above it, build mother-in-law suites, or otherwise respond to a rising cost of living caused by our redistributive policies.
"Have a nice day."
The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.
My comment led me to read the Wikipedia page on the monkey theorem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
Apparently, there was an experiment of this:
"In 2003, lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth MediaLab Arts course used a £2,000 grant from the Arts Council to study the literary output of real monkeys. They left a computer keyboard in the enclosure of six Celebes crested macaques in Paignton Zoo in Devon in England for a month, with a radio link to broadcast the results on a website.
Not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five total pages largely consisting of the letter S, the lead male began bashing the keyboard with a stone, and the monkeys followed by soiling it"
So...it took the Madison City Council three years to produce what six monkeys could produce in a month.
Wikitorix said...
What it says is: "We are going to take taxpayer money, and give it to our friends."
What it says is, we're going to fuck you and if you don't complain about it, it isn't rape.
Madison's overall city plan includes a section on planning historic preservation which mandates that historic preservation include houses or areas known from first-hand recollections of minority community members to have been important to one of these diverse elements of our community.
In my view, when one uses complex language to convey a rule or guideline, the purpose is to allow a liberal interpretation of such. In short, if there is anyone hoping to make an investment in property in Madison, you'd best be prepared to spend a lot of money to mollify the whims of underrepresented communities as expressed through the council; esp. if you're not a member of said communities.
Это наш славный пятилетний план! Вопросы не разрешены.
Diversity not including people... persons.
All your base are belong to us.
"Be it resolved that developers will now be required in some instances to make generous donations to organizations favored by city officials to avoid claims of historical significance on their properties."
Nice to know that Madison's economy has suffered no ill effects from the Covid 19 depression and thus having surplus tax dollars to piss away. If not, the the appropriate thing to do is terminate everyone involved with this turgid idiocy as they are not essential workers.
The City of Madison requires that you please read this Underrepresented Communities Historic Resource Survey Report carefully.
What’s with “stories”?
I'd just like to see it in plain English
Here it is in plain English. Get out of Madison. Leave as quickly as you can fix your house up to sell it. Do not pass Go and do not collect $200. For the sake of your wallet and sanity Get. Out. Now.
TO:
John Borell 12:23.
Finally had a button pants belly laugh this week.
Feeling lots like wendybar, with three children and four grandchildren (different thread, but very powerful. Despair is a sin to be fought. Hard.)
Your blog is what a genuine living document looks like, Ann. Not this other crap.
Written by a collaborative group who were:
Left side of the Bell Curve ,honor graduates in Urban Studies,and had an Uncle who was a local elected official.
Lifted from the City of Madison Website:
Historic Preservation Plan
The Historic Preservation Plan will provide a framework for future preservation that goes beyond the City's current, primarily regulatory, role. It will recommend strategies to more effectively integrate historic preservation into public policy, explore zoning and land use tools, capitalize on economic development and financial incentives, and encourage heritage tourism. This process will employ strategies to engage, educate, and connect with all the groups that make up Madison's unique history, with a particular emphasis on traditionally underrepresented groups.
An important goal of the Preservation Plan is to preserve what is most important to Madison's fabric. It is necessary to have an inclusive, complete and accurate inventory of the places that create its story. This part of the process will build on current documentation of resources, identify gaps, and develop a strategy to ensure a complete, accurate, and expandable survey.
As part of the Historic Preservation Plan, they need more information about the history of Madison from the underrepresented constituencies, in order to promote historic tourism.
Always remember and don't forget, eschew obfuscation. Take comfort in knowing that it is closer to here than by bus.
Short version is no more white people
They're going to do stuff for the people who live around Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. (Every town has one, and it's always in the "Underrepresented Communities" neighborhood.)
Sentences with lots of capitalized words, especially many in a row, make my eyes glaze over.
“This is pompous, boring bullshit” is quicker and to the point.
This will likely turn into a racial shakedown, where trying to develop property in historically black parts of town will lead to a petition from "diverse" elements to have a "study" before construction can occur -- until they are paid off.
The only way I was able to tolerate this kind of crazy liberal leftard elitist local politics was the fact that you got to live in Santa Cruz probably the most geographically desirable spot on the planet. A tiny sliver banana belt on the foggy California coast. Still old school old style California except the politics.
I don't know how you could live in a backwater like Madison and put up with the crazy collective consciousness feel good progressive wet dream.
MadTownGuy,
I have seen part of that phrase so often over the last two decades, I recognized "Five Year Plan", and I don't know shit about Russian.
Dear Ann:
This is what happens when you elect Democrats.
XOXO
Fled
I'd just like to see it in plain English
That's super easy, barely an inconvenience:
"If you own anything remotely historical, burn it down NOW."
House prices will increase and the number of minorities will decrease.
Seems to be written in the same language as the legendary Pandemic Playbook from Obama, bureaucratese.
5 Introduction The purpose of this survey report was not to write a definitive history of the City of Madison, but rather to provide an overview of the history of the city with specific emphasis on six underrepresented communities including African American, First Nations, Hmong, Latino, LGBTQ, and Women.
I read through the article, a linked article, and some of the survey document above. I deal with this stuff all the time in archaeology, notably the National Register criteria. This seems to me to just be watering down those criteria to make anything arguably 'historic' if someone in a designated victim group wants it to be. Thus, primarily a shakedown tool aimed at developers.
After a nearly three-year effort,
After three years of feathering an unknown number of beds...
the council unanimously adopted the first-ever Historic Preservation Plan as a supplement to the city’s Comprehensive Plan,
...we have decided to increase our budget and therefore your taxes,...
directed staff to implement recommendations,
...handed our bureaucrats blank checks..
and accepted an Underrepresented Communities Historic Resource Survey Report, the latter seen as a “living document” that will be a starting point for diversifying stories the city is documenting.
...to provide walking money to the City's most reliably Democratic micro-politicians as the electoral situation warrants.
Ann,
Thank you, I needed an afternoon chuckle.
RE: "stories".
This is generally about preserving built environment. Built environment expresses culture and who we were at the time, design trends at the time, or attempts to marginalize. It is why places like former Japanese interment camps are preserved and turned into historical monuments. It expands on the idea that only mainstream architectural structures qualify for preservation.
Thank you for letting me use thousands I spent on landscape architecture education.
Complete list of appendices to the Underrepresented Communities Historic Resource Survey Report (a living document):
•Save Money Through Tax Credits to Preserve Your Home
•Contractor Standards for Typical Tax Credit Projects: Historic Homeowners Income Tax Credit Program
•Invest in Your Commercial Building Using Tax Credits
•Guidelines for Planning Historic Preservation Tax Credit Projects in Wisconsin: Income-Producing Tax Credit Program
Fascinating. If I weren't so confident that the Madison city leaders are good, honest men and women and transsexuals who are only trying to do what's best for their community I'd think this was some sort of money grab for contractor/builder/cement salesman types.
Diversity is not a strength. It is bias against the majority group.
I bet it means destroying historical edifices. Anything “associated” with “white supremacy” or “patriarchy” or “heteronormative” can now be targeted for demolition or removal. It means nonpreservation.
Althouse,
What’s with “stories”?
Surely you've noticed the supremacy of Teh Narrative in today's corrupt politics and culture!
"Help me understand the city where I've lived for the last 36 years."
We're progs, doing our prog thing, 24/7.
@John Borell
"The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare."
There was a much earlier test of the infinite monkeys theory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGdMTLgU4hE
ALP@2:59: your definition sounds about right to me. In practice, I wonder if developers will now have to fund a study (by the commission to serve the underserved) to determine the significance of the property in question.
I'm also reminded of the Knights that say "Ni"!
"Living document", diversifying, and stories when put so close together are a sort of code for something that they are trying to hide. Mission accomplished.
It means getting rid of that damned Confederate cemetary once and for all.
This is the same city that proposed rainbows be painted on the sidewalks, no?
Madison sounds like some leftwinger's vision of Heaven. They are welcome to it.
"underrepresented" and "community" are the giveaway words. "Community" means "a list that I control, of people willing to raise hell when I ask them." "Underrepresented" means "I want your money."
Quoted from the Madison website: "...An important goal of the Preservation Plan is to preserve what is most important to Madison's fabric. It is necessary to have an inclusive, complete and accurate inventory of the places that create its story."
Translation: We will spend your money interviewing our friends about the crap neighborhoods where they, their parents, their grandparents and their great-grandparents lived pretty ordinary lives. We'll build a slick website with videos of all that. Maybe somebody will visit it someday.
...I have no particular problem with getting more history into more-accessible form, especially oral history from people whose memories go back almost a century and who are leaving the planet in droves every day. I do have a problem with a crony-run taxpayer-funded open-ended project...
There goes the neighborhood. Big Mike has the right idea. Sell now before property values take a hit.
The answer, my friends, is written in the wind.
https://www.nps.gov/preservation-grants/community-grants.html
Ka-ching - using somebody else's money. Milwaukee got $500K.
It means if you own a property the city considers "historic" and you want to do anything with it other than what we want, you're fucked.
Flee! Flee before it's too late!
"Darky Butch" was apparently one of the first documented AA folks. That seems to cover at least three of the under represented groups.
After a nearly three-year effort, the council unanimously adopted the first-ever Historic Preservation Plan as a supplement to the city’s Comprehensive Plan, directed staff to "implement recommendations, and accepted an Underrepresented Communities Historic Resource Survey Report, the latter seen as a “living document” that will be a starting point for diversifying stories the city is documenting."
Business translation: I wasted your money. I should be fired.
Taxpayer translation: I wasted your money. But you won't fire me.
Council translation: Thank you. I look forward to your future "living document[s]".
Common sense translation: I wasted your money. I will continue to waste your money. I'm untouchable because I'm made. And watch for my 2021 recommendation titled "hold my beer...watch this".
I'm pretty sure this is just the retroactive justification for desecrating historical gravestones of people who died in the civil war.
There are details here. Your city council is voting or has voted to "accept" but not "adopt" the Underrepresented Communities Intensive Survey Report or the Underrepresented Communities Historic Resource Survey Report. I have no clue about what the differences are. There is also a bunch of pictures of undistinguished buildings that are important because of their connection to some group or other.
The National Parks service has an Underrepresented Community Grant Program (URC) that gives money to communities for programs like your city has or is trying to set up. I could play the snobby East Coast card and point out that what gets preserved here is of more value than your barber shops, taverns, groceries, student clubs and multicultural centers, but that would be wrong. Instead I will just say that people who were alive a century ago are all underrepresented today, whatever their color or gender or sexual preference.
Language becomes more and more meaningless..
Late again: it means the city is going to transfer taxpayer money to various ethnic groups to collect historic items, documents and stories telling how racist white people have explained people of color since before the city’s founding.
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