The Big Stuff

March 1, 2006

That familiar friend of Northern Michigan is coming around again: Mr. Big Stuff, as in, how big do we allow our beloved, but small, cities to become?
Mr. Big Stuff was last spotted in Petoskey where citizens argued the pros & cons of an $80 million development that would add a half-million square feet of retail, office and housing space downtown. That debate seems to have been resolved with plans for Petoskey Pointe, a building that will look sort of like a five-story wedding cake, housing luxury hotel condos, a restaurant, spa, movie theater, bank and parking structure.
Mr. Big Stuff has also been spotted in Frankfort where residents are pondering the advisability of building a swath of new condos along Betsie Bay on the way to Elberta.
But you can really expect to see him popping up in Traverse City over the next few weeks as the City Commission discusses the perennial question of “how big, how high?” in regard to a massive new development on West Front Street. That, and the possible creation of two new parking decks downtown.
Opponents are already rallying around the notion that the eight-story project planned by developer Michael Uzelac is far too high, messing with TC’s “small town character.” Uzelac needs a special land use permit to construct his 100-foot building and opponents vow a fight on the principle that “less is best.”
Opponents also feel -- as was the case in Petoskey -- that a city plan to help finance a private/public parking deck at Uzelac’s development is bad news. Under the plan, up to $16 million in city bonds would be issued to help finance part of the parking deck.
Then there are concerns over the creation of a third parking deck in Old Town -- a three-decker that would be built sometime in the future at an unknown cost.
Some are calling for a referendum on the parking deck issue. A similar vote got the thumbs-up from voters four years ago for construction of the Larry C. Hardy parking deck.
Personally, despite the warnings of critics back then, the construction of that parking deck on East Front didn’t rain on my downtown TC experience. I rolled with the punches -- barely noticed it, in fact. Even parked there once. And if this town eventually gave birth to a few eight-story buildings, many of us would likely take them in stride. That’s the whole idea of cities -- they build up, limiting the need to sprawl out. That way you can save some of that rural land for parks and such. Kapeesh?
But everyone’s got a different opinion on that score, and we’ll no doubt be hearing an earful in the months to come. In the meantime, enjoy Traverse City‘s “small town charm“ while the last fleeting shreds of it remain (if you can find it). Some feel it moved on years ago to Leland, Suttons Bay, Wolverine or Cross Village...

The Golden Dome
Imagine if radical Baptists blew up St. Peter‘s Cathedral at the Vatican in Rome. Imagine if fanatical Episcopalians bombed the Morman Tabernacle to smithereens in Salt Lake City. Or if crazed Methodists torched the Christian Science temple in Boston.
Americans would probably scratch their heads, say “What the hell?“ and go back to watching American Idol or whatever. The bad guys would be punished and things would get sorted out and rebuilt -- but there would be no threat of a civil war as is the case in the bombing of the Golden Dome in Iraq.
The Golden Dome (actually the Golden Mosque) is one of the holiest sites of the Shiite Muslims, located in Sammara. The Shiites believe that an important religious leader will show up there someday bringing salvation, whatever that is.
So it‘s a big deal, but it‘s still just a building. Does religion really mean anything if the loss of a building must be paid for in rivers of blood?
That‘s one of the blessings of living in America -- a land where religion isn‘t the end-all, be-all. Appalled by the religious wars and persecution of Europe, our Founding Fathers wisely mandated the separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution. Let‘s recall the fanatics behind the Golden Dome bombing the next time we‘re tempted to mix government and religion.

Funny as a crutch
These days the Bush-Cheney team is producing funnier material than the comedy writers on the Jackass reality TV show and spinning out more kooky ideas than you could hope to find on Fear Factor.
It makes you wonder how the Bush White House manages to top itself week after week. When last week’s flap over Dubai blew in like Hurricane Katrina, most Americans were still discussing whether Vice President Cheney was drunk when he shot his friend in the face with a shotgun.
What next? Talk about a backlog.
Back in the late ‘90s, more than 100 major newspapers called for President Bill Clinton to resign because of his wandering willy. To borrow a quote from the Clinton-bashers of that era: “Where’s the outrage?” when it comes to George Bush? Where are those plucky 100 newspapers now?
Can you imagine what would have happened to Al Gore if he’d been elected president and had presided over such disasters as New Orleans, the imaginary weapons of mass destruction, the war in Iraq, failure to head off the 9/11 attacks, illegal wiretaps, encouraging Mexican guest workers, holding secret energy meetings leading to higher gas prices, the torture scandal and tampering with Social Security, etc.? Impeachment would have been too slight a punishment.
And now this idea of handing over the security of U.S. ports to Dubai... Osama must be busy writing his thank-you notes to helpful George & Co. for making his job easier.
By now, of course, the president’s apologists are saying that Bush just didn’t know -- he didn’t have the details of the deal -- he was out of the loop.
Like this is something new?