Indubitably!

Behind their placid exteriors Americans are enraged at the goings-on in the
economic and political realms

This commonality of thought is normal and healthy. And what a wonderful source of hope and inspiration for Americans! There is an inherent impetus to end today’s bad conditions and have an America that Americans want.

America is a world of constructs/positionals. America is not a world of engineering principles and their application.

The worst part about this is that thinking and action stem from and revolve around establishment constructs. The problem perpetuates itself. The building blocks for effective thinking and effective action are not on the table. An analogy would be trying to make a machine to do something that needs to be done and the wheel and electricity and metals and numerous engineering principles were not around. Sticks and rocks and groundless abstractions were it.

What America is and that America is even around are in spite of the constructs in place and not because of them. It is only the innate fairness/rectitude of the people and the resiliency of the human spirit that has granted us another day to get on that the world is a certain way and affairs must be conducted in conformity with the way the world is to survive and prosper over time. On this planet only immutable realities work over time.

What Homo sapiens are and what drives Homo sapiens were clearly set in place 30,000 years ago. What got Homo sapiens to 30,000 years ago was a process going back tens of thousands of years before that. What we inherently are is the only thing that has saved us, and the only thing that will save us.

In nature’s way citizens are royalty. Citizens are not disposable and replaceable peons; they are not chattel. In nature’s way it’s the country and the citizens of the country. In nature’s way it’s total responsibility and total accountability. In nature’s way it’s always engineering principles (immutable realities) and never constructs/positionals. In a constructs/positionals’ world it’s elites endlessly doing anything they have a mind to do.

Academic, business, and political leaders are about a global paradigm that marauds the citizenry and the country. These leaders fancy themselves as invincible and perpetual members of a global elite. These leaders, like all citizens, are first, last, and always citizens with responsibilities to the country and to fellow royals (citizens). An academic, business, or political leader, like every other citizen, is accountable.

Americans in their heart of hearts know that citizens are royalty and have no problem with responsibility and accountability. That is our way; it’s also nature’s way. Normal people are in sync with nature’s way, so there is always a consensus for having things nature’s way. Structures that serve the citizenry and the country and only the citizenry and the country are eminently doable.

By destroying the legitimacy of constructs/positionals. Taking away the legitimacy of constructs/positionals is analogous to taking away the foundation of a building. The whole thing collapses. What destroys the legitimacy of constructs/positionals and posits what serves the citizenry and the country as the only legitimate bases for endeavors is the immutable reality governance. This website and the www.DowntownCLCitizenry.net website explain and posit and provide a great slogan for governance.

If Americans know and wield the might sword governance, they will change for the better their personal lives and their country. Let the age of invincible citizen warriors begin.

Things are explained through consistent national conditions people are familiar with. From the get-go Americans have a solid background and understand what is going down. People understand through observing and living. As well it should be, on this planet anything of substance conforms to the way the world is constructed. Governance can be easily learned by the average American in a few hours.

What is done is tell a true story with exceptional facts. The exceptional facts cover both infrastructure and performance of government over decades. These facts shout systemic truths and are used to explain governance. Explanations and animations are added to explain governance.

What has happened in this true story plays out across the country continually and has played out across the country for decades upon decades. The facts are used to illustrate what government can and cannot do, and what government must and must not do. Things start with the comical goings-on to rezone property for a bar for Texas Tim. Texas Tim was the moniker for a guy from Michigan who reinvented himself. Texas Tim was wont to throw out that he was a friend of The Lone Ranger. Why one time Texas Tim rearmed The Lone Ranger for a gig in Chicago when some varmint stole The Lone Ranger’s six-shooters. Things continue with decades-long buffoonery by the local politicos that flies in the face of established management principles. The egregious policies of decades are covered in the companion website www.DowntownCLCitizenry.net. 

This home page including all the links can be reviewed in about forty minutes. A video-centric version can be reviewed in about twenty-two minutes. This copy-centric version makes some points that the video-centric version does not, and the video-centric version makes some points that the copy-centric version does not. If you are going to review only one version, the suggestion is to review this home page. The home page of the www.DowntownCLCitizenry.net website is for explaining governance. The original version is more for background and detail. The home page of the citizenry website including all links can be reviewed in about thirty-eight minutes. The original version of the citizenry website can be viewed in about thirty-four minutes.

In 1987 I bought a fixer-upper house in the original business section of Crystal Lake, called Downtown Crystal Lake. The property had general business zoning. Crystal Lake was once a town outside of Chicago. In 1989 it was a suburb of Chicago.

In 1989 the owner of a property adjacent to mine wants his property rezoned from general business zoning to zoning for a bar. In contemporary wording this old business and residential area is a shopping mall with a residency component in an area where consumers have many options on where to shop and where to live. “They don’t put bars in shopping malls” succinctly sums things up.

I didn’t want to go to a rezoning hearing with “I don’t think this bar is a good idea, and I oppose rezoning the property for this bar.” This would leave the door open for someone else to say “I think this bar is a good idea, and I support rezoning the property for this bar.” That would leave it in the hands of the politicians to pronounce “Oh! This bar is a god-send. We hereby rezone the property for this bar.” I wanted to go to the rezoning hearing with something to the effect “This rezoning application doesn’t meet the requirements to rezone a property for a bar. The property can’t be legally rezoned for this bar, and here is the irrefutable proof. End of story.”

The zoning ordinance said that to rezone the property for any type of bar, the owner has to show “That the proposed use is necessary or desirable at the location involved to provide a service or facility which will further the public convenience and contribute to the general welfare of the neighborhood or community. That the proposed use will not be detrimental to the value of other properties or improvements in the vicinity.”

At the time my thinking had not developed enough to view Downtown as a shopping mall. As I pondered over the requirements for rezoning for a bar, I kept asking myself, “What is the definitive issue here?” There was a bar adjacent to the proposed bar and adjacent to that bar is another bar and directly across the street is another bar. What we have here is a bar strip; adding another bar would be enlarging the bar strip. It’s not about a bar; it’s about a concentration of bars—a bar strip. Bar strips have a dynamic; Americans find bar strips undesirable. That was it! American’s don’t want bar strips in their neighborhoods; bar strips lessen the desirability of an area and so hurt area property values.

I understood that I needed supporting evidence for the concentration of bars position. I also realized that getting a bunch of signatures saying that “We the undersigned don’t want this property rezoned for a bar” can be countered by the other side getting a bunch of signatures saying “We the undersigned want this property rezoned for a bar.” That would throw everything into a judgment call for the politicians. What I did was compose a petition saying that the undersigned are opposed to the rezoning because “The concentration of bars on the block hurts our property values and creates an environment which is not desirable.” Then I went around a defined geographical area and rank every doorbell. Signing the petition was agreeing with the poll question; not signing was disagreeing with the poll question. 96.3% signed. When I submitted the petition, I said the petition was a market survey conducted in a specific area over two days and not a bunch of randomly collected signatures. I also said that “you can go anywhere in the country and ask the same questions and the results will be the same because that is the way things are. These statistics will stand up in any court in the land.”

What happened at the Zoning Board of Appeals hearing happens all the time across America and describes in a few words what tyranny Americans endure and have endured for decades upon decades. At the ZBA meeting, nothing was said to refute or obviate my position. Other property owners were there to oppose the rezoning. No property owner supported the rezoning. All that the guy who wanted the property rezoned did was outline his management policies—none of which has any relevancy at a zoning hearing because zoning deals with what property can and cannot be used for. Zoning does not deal with management policies. In essence he gave no reasons why the property should be rezoned—in so many words he said there is no substantive reason to rezone the property. The square footage to be rezoned was some 3,700 square feet. His bar would have a country-western theme and live music. He said that he “didn’t feel there would be a problem with noise because country-western music was not loud like rock and roll.” He never explained how he knows that speakers can’t crank up the volume in country-western music like other kinds of music. The board members unanimously recommended that the property be rezoned for a bar.

The City Council makes the decision. On the day of the City Council meeting I hand deliver a blistering letter to each member of the City Council. The City Council turned down the rezoning request because of the “saturation of taverns” and the property lacked the required parking for this bar under the zoning ordinance.

A campaign begins immediately to have the denial reversed. Obviously the petitioner couldn’t neutralize Americans don’t want bar strips in their neighborhoods, and bar strips hurt area property values, so he ignored it. A campaign was developed and executed about what a great guy the petitioner is. Zoning is about what a property can and cannot be used for. Who owns the property is irrelevant. 

Did you ever run across an individual who is an idiot but things always work his way, and he does well? Well, that describes the petitioner. He started a business he knew nothing about, made a lot of money, and sold the business for a handsome profit. What the petitioner did during the rezoning process is comedy. The petitioner was able to get to two of the three City Council members who originally voted no to turn 180 degrees and vote yes, but definitely not the third member who voted no, and I was there every step of the way. It’s an entertaining story. It’s all also an expose’ of what goes on in zoning. What makes the story great as an expose’ are that the issue is clear-cut and understandable by the typical person and how the petitioner and the politicians performed. That the story is comical and farcical also help.

In 1996 I put the story in a book. The story itself is an Upton Sinclair expose’ on what goes down in zoning. A work of fiction could not show the goings-on and make points as effectively as this true story did. In the book I also advocated that property owners should control the zoning in their area by plebiscite. In 1996 there was no Internet to speak of. Books were sold in bookstores. Books that sold in bookstores went on bestsellers’ lists, and the ideas in the books on the bestsellers’ lists entered the national dialog. Buying a book was giving a book a sales ranking and so doing something to enter the ideas of the book into the national dialog.

I knew that zoning books do not sell. The average property owner gets the short end of the stick in zoning and knows it and doesn’t like it. I asked myself: what does the average property owner have working for him in the zoning area to get things to where things benefit the average property owner? The average property owner had nothing working for him/her. What’s the price of a book in relation to value of property and quality of environment? People understand that results require input. People know that things don’t just magically happen. It seemed to me to be a no-brainer to buy the book.

Over the years the bar strip problem has gotten worse, and the city has routinely granted variances to the zoning ordinance instead of maintaining standards. Based on national parking standards, Downtown is some 400 parking spaces short despite a special tax assessment to purchase property to provide the parking needed. The money collected to solve the parking problem was spent on other things.

In today’s retail environment of big box stores and chains and franchised outlets, the independent has effectively been driven out of the major shopping malls. A Downtown run in accordance with accepted retail shopping mall practices would be a boon for independents. But such is not the case. Because of the egregious policies of the city government over decades, Downtown has been and is a basket case.

Since Downtown was developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, parking was grossly inadequate for contemporary needs. In the 1980s Downtown was a basket case in no small part because of the lack of parking. In 1986 a special tax assessment to buy and develop properties Downtown for parking, and so permanently solve the parking problem, was enacted.

The year is 2008, and the special tax assessment is expiring. These special tax assessments are enacted in accordance with state laws. State law specifies that these tax assessments designate a dollar amount to be collected. Since there had been appreciation in the price of property between 1986 and 2008, more money was collected than originally designated. State law specifies that any money collected over and above the original amount is to be treated as a new assessment. This means that public hearings are held on how the additional money is to be spent; then public officials appropriate the additional funds.

Before the public hearings it was a done deal on how the additional moneys were to be spent. And it wasn’t about purchasing property to solve the parking problem. I knew that. It didn’t matter. What I was about was putting everything in the public record. I went to the public hearing and requested that the money be spent on parking and outlined what properties should be bought and outlined the egregious conduct of the city over the decades. The document that I deposited at the public hearing is Principles and Realities Downtown Crystal Lake TIF.

The city officials spent the money on area roadwork—something that is not permitted under the state law. So I started a website www.DowntownCLCitizenry.net as advocacy for the state’s attorney to prosecute the city officials for misappropriation of funds. The website also explained what the city has been doing over decades and outlined policies that would make Downtown economically viable. The initial version of the citizenry website can be accessed here. It can also be accessed by going to the citizenry website and clicking on original website.

The state’s attorney did nothing. In 2009 I added animations and reworked the website to explain governance and to elaborate on what the city has done over decades.

One of the animations is Hired Gun Academy. It is a satire of the legal system. The theme of the animation is that there are no legal “engineering principles” and the enforcement of legal “engineering principles” as such; there are only absurdities posited and enforced by the legal monopoly. What has transpired in Downtown Crystal Lake over decades demonstrates that America is a world away from engineering principles, and engineering principles are a lock.

Bar strips have a dynamic. Americans didn’t create the dynamic, and Americans can’t change the dynamic. Government didn’t create the dynamic, and government can’t change the dynamic. Americans know well what bar strips are, and Americans don’t want bar strips in their neighborhoods. Since this is the case, government can’t put bar strips in American neighborhoods, and government must ensure that bar strips are not in American neighborhoods. If a bar strip comes to be in a neighborhood, the people responsible are brought on the carpet for what they did. And the people in the neighborhood that had to endure the bar strip and all the negatives generated in whole or in part because of the bar strip are compensated for each and every day they had the bar strip in their faces.

Shopping malls are an environment. If a shopping mall is attractive, people are attracted to a shopping mall. If people do not find a shopping mall attractive, they stay away. Shopping malls bring people to an area so locating a store in an area that is attractive to Americans makes a world of difference from locating a store in a shopping mall that is unattractive to Americans. Over the decades the City of Crystal Lake has operated a bar strip, does not maintain standards, and has not provided adequate parking. These policies fly in the face of good shopping mall management. In a system of engineering principles (nature’s way) the shopping mall would be operated in accordance with good shopping mall management principles. That would be a lock. Those that implemented and sustain the existing egregious policies would be dealt with, all money that has been egregiously spent would be returned so that the money could be spent in accordance with good shopping mall management principles, and people who endured what has transpired would be compensated for each and every day the egregious policies were in place. That would be a lock.

A person owns a business property in Downtown Crystal Lake. If Downtown were run according to good shopping mall management practices, that person would have a business and a life that comes from having a business in a shopping mall that is attractive to Americans. That business and life is not in today’s structures. Today’s structures define today’s institutions and the creatures they have spawned.

In a system of engineering principles, it would be a lock that Downtown is run according to good shopping mall practices. It would also be a lock that those in positions of authority who pursued policies outside of good management practices are to undo all they have done outside of good management policies and would have to return all moneys spent outside of good management policies. It would also be a lock that property owners are compensated for every day the egregious conditions are in place. In a system of engineering principles, things function according to engineering principles. In a system of engineering principles, when things are not functioning according to engineering principles, things are automatically addressed and corrected by the system.

In a valid system, engineering principles govern, and it’s a lock that engineering principles govern, and it’s a lock that every individual is responsible and accountable period.