Sunday, August 05, 2007

Blog days of August

Back from Denver for an extremely hot week on the street, wondering what next: to Rev up the bus issue again? Or continue fueling for a second run in Fall or Spring. Complete with posters of the City Council members who voted to inconvenience so many Greyhound bus travelers.

The Newell House building restoration continues, and my work at Art Lovers sometimes requires a hard hat.

Been keeping up with city politics with Scott Thorne, who's doing such an great job at Bytelife. No one else is posting much, city-wise, and frankly, I'm not much interested in most City Council business. Sales tax or property tax, it doesn't matter to me. A referendum on it might be a good thing, but we elected City Council members to vote on such issues for us, to save the time and expense of referenda. I think the sales tax increase would be a better idea -- if Carbondale Main Street businesses were exempt.

I wish Peter the Great was still in town, so I would know what to think. But having "Thorne on our side" has helped to salve the wound of Peter's loss. Many people are commenting on Bytelife, a full perspective of opinion -- possible fodder for the closing chapter of my blook about how blogging improved my personal life, and my community.

I should hire that Blook Blog gal to do pre-publicity PR for Carbondale After Blog. She has referenced it again, in the context of an experimental group fiction blog.

It definitely will need internet marketing like the Arthur Agency did for the Pillowshop and the Southern Illinois Miners. (Don't know if I can afford them, though.)

At least I can afford a couple of box seat tickets for the Chamber of Commerce "Carbondale Community Day" at Rent One Park in Marion -- as the Miners take the field against River City Rascals next Friday. Future Mayoral candidate Joel Fritzler will be among those to throw out the first pitch. He will be joined by Woody Thorne, and a player to be named later.

The Miners marketing really covers all the bases. Three persons throw out the first pitch at these events; and they have three different mascots, too. Not counting Auto Credit Man.

Speaking of naming players, Les Winkeler writes a SI Miners' blog called Miner Details!

And speaking of blogging newspapermen, I hear that Jim Muir's contract with the Southern has expired, and he won't be writing or the SI anymore. Perhaps he'll have more time to write to his long silent "From Where I Blog" blog, last posted to almost a year ago.

That said, this blog will fall silent for another week or so. I'll post some photos of the game.

2 comments:

PeterG said...

Hi Dave -

I see the tax issue like this... if you do a property tax, 100% of that tax will be paid by residents of Carbondale. If you do a sales tax, then 30% or 50% will be paid by people who don't live in Carbondale.

It confuses me why the Arbor District people who claim to want real residents to move back into Carbondale city proper, are pushing for a property tax. Maybe they are happy to pay higher taxes, but most people aren't. We know that the moment that the Carbondale property tax disappeared, the city started to have home owners going up, instead of down.

We are seeing this lots of places, when in doubt, have the non-residents pay the taxes if you can.

See you around,
Peterg

Parentheticus said...

That's what I was thinking, Peter, really! ;-)