Podcast 545-Bob Davis Podcast Radio Show-42

Podcast 545-Bob Davis Podcast Radio Show-42. It’s labor day weekend, and as people head to the lake or to the State Fair, Podcast 545-Bob Davis Podcast Radio Show-42 is almost an hour of brand new content for the trip, and for your extra long holiday weekend. We start with a review of the week’s political landscape. Despite better national presidential preference numbers for Trump, state by state polls have not tightened appreciably in key electoral vote-rich states. Hillary Clinton continues to pace Barack Obama’s averages from the 2012 presidential election. Of course the state by state averages can change so we’ll revisit this polling at the end of September and again just before the election at the end of October. Meanwhile, neither of the two mainline presidential candidates is talking about permanently reducing the size, scope and power of governments, federal, state or local. In Minneapolis and Saint Paul we have had yet another example of government overreach in the form of an unelected body of Dark Lords known as the Met Council. After the Minnesota House decided not to fund the controversial South West Light Rail Project, which Minneapolis’ richest and most liberal precincts fiercely oppose, the Met Council decided to issue their own bonds to the tune of more than a hundred million dollars, and ask metro counties under its control to issue tens of millions in debt as well, all to end run the legislature and green light the project. Much has been made of the republican’s distaste for the council, but when they had a chance to drive a stake through its heart earlier this year, the legislature rearranged some of the terms of the councilmen and women, and some of the funding. A local mayor found a way to kill the Met Council last summer by empowering local municipalities to say no to them. Yep, local towns and cities – by state law – cannot say no to the Met Council. This law can be changed by the legislature. Why haven’t they done it? This is just one example of government overreach. In this Labor Day weekend’s radio show the dangers and costs of too much and too powerful government; something neither of the mainline candidates and their parties are going to do anything about. One wants to hand out free education and health care, and the other wants to spend billions to build a wall. Both will increase the size, scope, cost and power of the federal and state governments. This is a discussion we aren’t having now because we’re too busy arguing about whether one of the candidates should go to jail and whether the other one is a fascist. Meanwhile the advocacy media just keeps on covering politics like sports, and people keep watching and listening, all the while complaining about it. This podcast closes with something fun, a throw back podcast to the Minnesota State Fair from the early 80’s; an audio montage done then, just for fun. It’s amazing how much the fair and the people have changed. Sponsored by Brush Studio in the West End and Hydrus Performance.

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Podcast 506

Future Shock. As the 24 hour news media and talk radio fixate on gorillas and high school election antics, its hard to get a conversation going about the future. Is the future potential leaders want the future we should have? Is it the future we want? There are developments almost everyday now with autonomous cars, robotics, materials, aviation, and communications; the building blocks of a future wave that will leave nothing untouched and unchanged. A series of stories from today’s headlines shedding a light on one potential future and a question; Planners and government officials are  diverting resources to bring about a vision of the city of tomorrow, which is really the city of the early 1900’s. Is this what you want? Will the driverless car, autonomous software and machines, robotics, and other developments make trains, buses and the standard bureaucracy heavy city, state and federal government ‘obsolete’? If so, why is so much time, effort and authority expended to see that we plan for and create a urban spaces, and that suburban villages and towns conform to a vision of a city that probably never existed and never will. Driverless cars will render the amount of space needed for freeways and parking ramps obsolete. Remote technology, robotics and other technologies may mean that people will not have to travel to large office complexes for their work, with increasing freelance employment. What are our so called leaders talking about? Minimum wages, government controlled health insurance and trains. Trains. Why are we planning for 1940’s Chicago when reality could be closer to Jefferson’s vision than Robert Moses? The old world is being torn down and a new one is being built that will be very different from what we know. Do our leaders understand this? Future Shock. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and X Government Cars.

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Podcast 501 – Mark Korin

Podcast 501 – Mark Korin. Hear the story of a small town Minnesota Mayor’s battle with the mighty Met Council’s planning czars in Podcast 501 – Mark Korin. Oak Grove mayor Korin has had it with the overbearing manner and attitude of the Twin Cities’ premier regional planning agency; The Metropolitan Council, and he may have actually figured out how to beat them. Major cities all over the country have regional planning councils with varying degrees of authority, with issues related to central planning without the consent of residents in small towns, medium sized and large sized cities. The planning authority in Minneapolis and Saint Paul is something called the Metropolitan Council, a panel of regional ‘representatives’ appointed by the Governor, controlling urban planning, sewer and water, metropolitan airports and transportation including the Metro bus and train services. The Met council has a huge budget, its own police force, and holds sway over small town city councils such as Oak Grove and Lake Elmo and big city councils like Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Who wields this power? A panel of ‘representatives’ appointed, and not elected. This in a state that elects its Supreme Court Justices, and it could be argued, the Justices actually have less power than the Met Council. Over the years we’ve heard many people on all sides of the political spectrum complain about development issues in their towns and cities. Usually residents incorrectly blame these problems on elected officials on planning councils and city councils, all the way up to County Commissioners. In Oak Grove the issue is housing density and long term development plans. In Minneapolis the issue is the planned Southwest Light Rail, which will cut through one of the most pristine urban parks in the country — the Chain of Lakes Area — and one of the most wealthy (and politically liberal) neighborhoods in the city. Here we have citizens on completely different ends of the political spectrum dealing with overbearing – and unelected – government power. What these residents don’t know is, city councils and county councils cannot legally say no to the Met Council. The Minnesota Legislature just passed a bill ‘reforming’ the Met Council, which consists of some cosmetic changes to the terms of council members. Oak Grove and Minneapolis are represented by a collection of powerful politicians in the State House and Senate; Speaker of the House and representative to the residents of Oak Grove, Kurt Daudt, powerful State Senator from SD61 (The Senator representing those rich neighborhoods in Minneapolis up in arms about the light rail cutting through their backyards) Scott Dibble, and Oak Grove’s Senate District 31 Senator, Michelle Benson. How is it these politicians missed how to address the Met Council’s overbearing and unrepresentative power, and a small town Mayor may have figured it out? Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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