Back after a week off, and a lot has been happening. Since we’ve followed that Berg Heights development proposal from the beginning, we might as well finish it off. The short of it is We’ve said all along that this proposal didn’t smell right. Everything about it seemed vague, if not deceptive, and the City Council apparently felt the same way. The developer started out portrayed as a religious non-profit that builds houses for low-income people. Then the description shifted to middle income people who were priced out of the housing market. Then the proposal morphed again a couple of times at the eleventh hour, the developer apparently having second thoughts about what it would take to get approval. Three council members couldn’t buy it.

The Union teed off on the council. Editor Pat Butler, under byline, wrote that the council blew it It should have talked instead of taking a vote. He’s right. By the time a proposal gets past the Planning Commission, a lot of money has been spent. The council has every right to deny, but it shouldn’t be a guessing game. The council should tell the developer what it wants, the developer tells the council what he can and can’t deliver, then you try to close the gap. You know, like negotiating? It’s what political office holders are supposed to do well. This one looked more like high stakes roulette.

Here’s a recommendation for local governments: Adopt some guidelines. Publicly define exactly what you mean by that slippery little term "low-income," including the price of the house. Then when you try to tell a housing developer how much "low-income" housing he must provide, everyone will know the same rules.

* * *

The sidewalks of Nevada City looked almost like the Galleria on Black Friday. I trust everyone got into the black. Nevertheless, the past year saw the city acquire a merchants association which thinks it can drum up more business than the Chamber of Commerce is drumming, we’ve had the age old argument about how the kids on the streets are bad for business; and the City Council made a big show out of it’s desire to have an all retail ground floor in the historical district. It’s hard to tell, but my guess is business is good.

At least the crowds on Broad Street are civilized. The mainstream TV stations showed incredible tapes of people being trampled trying to get into a shopping center at five in the morning and people getting into fistfights over merchandise. I even saw a guy standing on a counter tossing laptop computers into a crowd. If you can catch it, you can buy it. I think Christmas ‘05 has the potential to raise the bar on crass commercialism to new heights.

* * *

Speaking of Christmas, that old Santa Claus, Jerry Falwell is coming again. Because Christmas really is a national celebration more than a religious one, a lot of people try to be inclusive about it. Not using the word Christmas quite so publicly is a result of that instinct. Falwell says all good Christians should follow him in a boycott of the stores that don’t include the word in the holiday greetings they hang in their ads and in their stores. I’m sure the retailers are cowering in fear. Membership must be down, Jerry had to hit the papers again.

* * *

Do you think John Doolittle can hold on by his fingernails? If he’s indicted, he’s toast. If he skates, he’s reelected. He’s got a district that probably would continue to elect him until they lock him up. Just as scandal is lurking outside Doolitte’s door, an eight-term Congressman from San Diego named Duke Cunningham pleads guilty to bribery charges. Most of us figure that most politicians are on the take one way or another, but they used to try to keep it a little quieter. Cunningham lived a very lavish life. He was rubbing his constituents’ noses in it. Even if Doolittle is dirty, I think he looked worse for that little Texas two-step he did to kill the Murtha cut and run bill in the House.

The fact that corruption is so flagrant tends to make the voters pretty casual about it. If you tell someone that a congressman has been busted for bribery, he’s likely to reply, "Yeah? What else is new?" A friend told me yesterday that she gets up each morning, wraps her hands around a cup of coffee, turns on the TV and hopes for more indictments. It wouldn’t even matter if the bribe was $25,000 or $25,000,000. With numbers in the trillions being discussed every day in Washington, many of us probably wouldn’t even notice.

* * *

The Chair of the Federal Communications Commission rattled his saber toward the cable and satellite TV stations this week. He says they better clean up all that sex and profanity or else. The FCC, of course, has no jurisdiction over those stations, but Kevin Martin was speaking to Congress. It would take Congressional approval to allow Martin to take his ax to cable and satellite. Here’s what I found most interesting about this story. People whose idea of free speech is a little different from that of the religious right are fond of saying to people who object to broadcast programming for any reason, "There’s a switch and a dial on that thing; why don’t you use ‘em?" Martin actually acknowledged that he knew that, but said, "Why should you have to?" I think he’s saying that he gets to choose anything he wants to watch, but people who watch what he doesn’t like are not.

Let the FCC go after cable and satellite, the Internet is next. Why should I have to turn off my computer? Why do they need porn on the Internet. Let ‘em go down to the dirty book store like I used to do.

The people of Hillsdale, MI must really dislike the mayor. He got beat in his reelection run by an 18-year old high school senior named, Michael Sessions, who ran as a write-in on $700 of his own money. Maybe they’ll close the city offices on the day the mayor graduates.