Category Archives: Politics

Politics

New City Hall in store for citizens of West Lafayette

UPDATE 2017-12-08: From a reliable source, there are community meetings planned for February of 2018 regarding the new City Hall.

UPDATE 2017-11-20: Here is the Axis Architecture + Interiors feasibility study I received from Chandler Poole back in 2013.

Discussion is starting about building a new City Hall. This fall’s viability study will help us define: 1) what it should include, 2) where to put it, and 3) affordability. One of the most critical components is having my department heads under one roof again. Although the Morton Center has served us as a stopgap measure, the 89-yearold building is somewhat dysfunctional for hosting meetings because of aging sound systems, acoustics, seating, and lack of appropriate security. In our public meetings, we want your input on what features are important to you as well as suggestions about where to place City Hall. Both viability studies will be completed by next spring. Construction wouldn’t start until 2019 at the earliest. – from Mayor Dennis in the 2017 West Lafayette Connection Newsletter

Now is the time to contact the Mayor[1], on the record, about what you want to see for City Hall in West Lafayette.  Compounded by the possible construction of a new Recreation and Aquatic Center, the future of Morton is unknown.

I am trying to see if I received the feasibility study from the former Director of Development, Chandler Poole, back in 2013, before the Dennis Administration moved Development, Engineering, and the Mayor’s Office into Morton.  If I have it in my archives, I will post a link here.

Where do you want to see the new West Lafayette City Hall?  What functions do you want it to serve?  Don’t be shy.  Share your thoughts.

Email: mayor@wl.in.gov
Phone: (765) 775-5103
Formal Ticketing System Action Center
Politics

First 100 Days Madlibs for your Thanksgiving Gathering

In preparation for the Thanksgiving festivities this week, I decided to create a little Madlib game for those who will be attending.  This is the first crack the concept.  More to come from Trump’s First 100 Days.  I hope to include other presidents as well.

The first, First 100 Days, were with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Trump 2016

FIRST, propose a Constitutional Amendment to [verb] [plural noun] on all members of [noun].

SECOND, a [verb -ing] freeze on all federal employees to [verb] federal [noun] through attrition (exempting [noun], [noun], and [noun]);

THIRD, a requirement that for every [adjective] federal regulation, [number] existing regulations must be [verb -ed];

FOURTH, a [number] year-ban on White House and Congressional [noun -s] becoming [noun -s] after they [verb] government service;

FIFTH, a [span of time] ban on White House [noun -s] [verb -ing] on behalf of a foreign [noun];

SIXTH, a [adjective] ban on foreign [noun] [verb -ing] [noun] for American elections.

On the same day, I will begin taking the following [number] [noun -s] to protect American [noun -s]:

FIRST, I will announce my intention to [verb] NAFTA or withdraw from the [noun] under Article [legal number]

SECOND, I will announce our withdrawal from the [geographic region] Partnership

THIRD, I will [verb] my Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency [noun]

FOURTH, I will direct the Secretary of [noun] and U.S. [noun] Representative to identify all foreign trading [noun -s] that unfairly [verb] American [noun -s] and direct them to use every [noun] under American and [geographic location] law to end those abuses within [span of time]

FIFTH, I will [verb] the restrictions on the production of $[number] trillion dollars’ worth of job-[verb] American energy reserves, including shale, [adjective] oil, [adjective] gas and [adjective] coal.

SIXTH, lift the Obama-Clinton-[government name] roadblocks and allow [adjective] energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone [noun], to move [direction]

SEVENTH, cancel [dollar amount] in payments to U.N. [noun about earth] change programs and [verb] the money to fix America’s [noun] and environmental infrastructure

 

Participatory Culture, Politics

Real-time communication is more memorable and cannot be deleted

Part of the How to Not Limit Your Political Life to the Ballot Box series.

In writing a friend back this evening about an e-mail they wrote to an elected official, I encouraged them to also follow-up with a phone call.

I have always been a purveyor of real-time communication, but tonight the following line was born:

Real-time communication is more memorable and cannot be deleted.

Think about it.  If you are a public official, or anyone for that matter, and you start to read an e-mail you want to forget or stop reading after the first line, you can click delete and be done with well thought out piece that took the author 29 minutes to write, pepper with hyperlinks, quotations, citations, and other well meaning research.  All are vanquished with the click of a mouse, never bothering you again, all the while with the constituent swelling with satisfaction at their comfortable cathartic keyboard activism.

Instead.  Be heard.  Prevent being deleted by employing real-time communication via the telephone.  Talk is cheap.  Pennies on the minute.

With a phone call, the communication is projected into the ear and onto the official’s brain immediately.  Scrubbing this impression away is difficult, takes time, and may, in fact, be impossible depending on the quality of the interaction.  You will have achieved mutual knowledge (another important concept I will elaborat on), creating a reference point to be recalled upon at a future engagement.

Getting people on the phone can prove to be an art within itself, but with some practice and determination, you can get the person you are looking for on the horn and begin your historical transmission.