I’m struggling as usual to make sense of all the goings-on; it seems like a cluster of clusters.

First, the sale of the former museum garners no attention. I’m always amazed by my own naivete in believing that at some point the public-at-large will care enough about its architectural and historic past. Clearly the majority only care enough to raze it and tear it down. Then it is progress; otherwise it’s a non-event. I’d think that the upcoming election would trigger some requirement for notifying the public on the proposition with some disclosure on the sale and the intended use of the property. If the same rules apply as a school board election, then the district must have mailed the public 6 days prior to election. I’m not sure how this election would comply with said rules with no public mailing.

But then, no one cares anyway; as long as we get a new paved parking lot, that signifies progress exclusive of any other consideration.

Speaking of the museum, you may recall that the opponents to funding the museum with a $25K tax cited the impact on people with fixed incomes as opposing the measure. And of course, we can’t do anything about graffiti because people are on fixed incomes. And last week, we can’t look at garnering more revenue from the golf course, because well, some folks are on fixed incomes. Never mind that not impacting the golfers on fixed incomes impacts the non-golfers on fixed incomes. But then demagoguery is hardly consistent and as practiced in the city, it is a true art form.

As I pointed out a few posts back, the emerging meme is that we need to engage our local youth’s talents and energies to turn the city around. What this really means is that we listen to what youth have to say and then discard and ignore what was said. Unless of course, we can task youth with public works for which we will not pay them. Hey, we need a Web site built; can’t we get some high school kids to do it? Hey, we need city streets cleaned; can’t we get some kids to do it? Hey, we’re losing a grant writer, can’t we get some college kids to do it? I mean can’t we just have kids running the entire local government from DPW to sewage to snowplowing?

This quite possibly the most compelling pitch on how not to engage youth, ever.

But let’s make sure we don’t get smart kids to do it because we’d hate to have what happened with those pesky Union MBA kids– a well written and researched business plan. Clearly that’s a misguided effort lacking the wisdom and experience of the local elders. What do kids know anyway?

So to any of you pesky kids and your dog Scooby reading this, the lesson is clear: we want your ideas and energies as long as they maintain and enforce the status quo; so keep those ideas coming as long as their our old ideas just voiced by a younger generation. And if you don’t like it, you can leave but of course we want you to stay as we want your ideas.

And finally, while the city faces all manners of external economic risks — rising unemployment, loss of state and federal funding, new capital costs — all leading to an already stressed tax base, we need to focus on the inside political battles waged decade after decade over an ever smaller slice of an ever smaller pie. It’s tough to craft policy; it’s much easier to wage politics.

It’s a cluster of epic proportions.