D.C. Mischief, TC Persistence

Spectator

By Stephen Tuttle | April 11, 2020

While the rest of us have been focused on the virus, mischief is being made in Washington, D.C. We shouldn't be surprised. Locally, Traverse City’s Downtown Development Authority wants to expand the size of a third proposed downtown parking deck though they can't yet finance it.     
 
First, the D.C. shenanigans: At the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), leadership is no longer involved in the business of, you know, protecting the environment. Instead, the deregulation of environmental protections race on unabated. This must be a nightmarish time for the scientists there who have dedicated their professional lives to improving the environment only to watch their work ignored or discarded.  
 
The EPA Administrator, Andrew Wheeler, is a former lobbyist for the coal industry, so looking out for our air, land, and water is not exactly in his wheelhouse. Most recently he's decided, along with the other political appointees in the agency, that petrochemical companies and other corporate polluters can take a holiday from regulations prohibiting them from spewing filth. This, we're told, will somehow help us fight the economic impact of the COVID-19 problems. 
 
Equally helpful, they've also banned the use of some science in regulatory decision-making. Not just ignore it but ban it if it wasn't conducted under the specific auspices of the EPA. That means actual scientific research — peer-reviewed and published — is referred to as “secret science” by Wheeler and his team, and it can no longer be used to help make regulatory decisions.
 
So, what science will be used to make those decisions? None.  
 
As a bonus, they've recently rolled back improved vehicle mileage standards, claiming the rollback will make vehicles cheaper and safer. Those new rules might have made vehicles almost imperceptibly more expensive, but their argument regarding safety is especially precious. You see, if there are more big vehicles, especially SUVs, on the road, fewer people will die in accidents because big vehicles are safer than small vehicles. 
 
Of course, it will also increase air pollution, which, according to study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, already kills about 200,000 Americans annually. 
 
Elsewhere, another member of the intelligence community has been fired by President Trump. Michael Atkinson, who Trump appointed to the job of Inspector General of the Intelligence Community in 2017 and the Senate confirmed in 2018, is the latest victim of the post-impeachment purge. 
 
Atkinson, whose job was to provide oversight and ferret out wrongdoing, was the official who received the infamous whistleblower letter. Deeming the information credible, he turned it over to Congress as he was required by law to do. For that he has been fired and then called a disgrace by the president.
 
Atkinson was the seventh member of intelligence agencies to be fired or transferred; all had some involvement in the impeachment proceeding. Well, almost all.
 
You'll recall Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman testified before the House about what he overheard in the “perfect” phone call Trump had with the Ukrainian president on June 25, 2019. Of course, he was transferred out of his job. But so was his twin brother, who had absolutely nothing to do with the impeachment at all.  
 
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Locally, the Traverse City DDA is buying buildings to make room for an expanded version of its proposed third downtown parking deck. The DDA is already purchasing a former dry cleaning building for $645,000, which comes from their parking fund. (And you thought the parking operation was supposed to be a break-even proposition. Silly you.) 
 
No appraisal was done, and the DDA is spending two-and-a-half times what the building was purchased for in 2017. Add to the price another $9,000 for an environmental study that should have been done before agreeing to the purchase. It's likely there will be significant mitigation expenses since dry cleaning operations often leave behind ground sodden with toxic solvents.  
 
The DDA has persistently pushed for a third downtown deck for years, so there's no surprise here.
 
But the expanded proposed deck, which will require purchasing additional property, cannot be financed without an extension of the TIF97 tax capture. Set to expire in 2027, the DDA would like an extension to 2040. The City Commission has not yet approved that extension, but a majority seem to function as a subsidiary of the DDA and march to the beat of its drums.
 
Spending significant money on property without an appraisal or environmental evaluation for a project that has not yet been approved does seem a bit presumptuous. Unless, of course, the DDA already knows TIF97 will be extended. 
 
We have to harden ourselves to the fact the EPA is now being led by those primarily concerned with protecting polluters, not the environment.
 
We should also accept that as long as vehicles are allowed in downtown TC, parking will be a problem, third deck or not. And the DDA will always find reasons to extend its TIF tax captures.