Crossing the street?

I've not been able to view the world from my perspective on the public square in Shorewood lately and have had the opportunity to view the world on an expanded basis.

Some of my readings have led to broader thoughts. One main question was based on studies being done by astronomers as to life on the earth and on other planets, another, by a niece whose geriatric studies have led her to believe that human beings can not only live to be 120 on a normal basis but could even live forever.

In my mind, this raised the question, what is the purpose of the the human race? Is it merely life span and just living?

If the earth is someday going to become inhospitable to human beings and perhaps all life in the future, with scientists looking for somewhere else for us to go, we might ask the questions, what are we doing here on earth and what is our purpose here or what would it be on another planet?

Some already question our purpose which leads to questioning why we do other things within this overall  perspective of humanity.

How important is “of the people, by the people, for the people?” How important is government? How important is Wall Street and all other institutions? How important is it to live to 120 years if social security runs out and we should retire not at 65 but at 105?

Just think of all the aspirin that is going to be needed.  What will Wall Street make of that?  What about my scotch supply?

With the unemployment rate at what it is, how do we keep people employed and paying social security taxes to 105?

I think I'm going to get back to the public square in Shorewood and continue working on how to get the elderly across the street, especially when it snows.

Urban design?   What about the economy? 

Viewing the intersection of Oakland Avenue and Kensington Boulevard, one can now feel what it would be like if buildings over 3-stories were to line up on both sides of the Oakland Avenue.

The other two corners on Kensington are still  low rise and have become rather strange in appearance. I suppose both these properties would now seek making appropriate use of their land values and look toward these higher type developments too.

Four of these buildings without urban design consideration regardless of the beautiful architectural design of each of the buildings are going to give a strange and erroneous impression as to what Shorewood real is.

In addition to the urban design problem which can be handled if Shorewood would begin considering the urban design effects of their new developments, we now have an economic situation which is probably going to leave this as a strange looking intersection for some time.

I believe that even Shorewood is now beginning to feel the long term effects of our national and international economic situation.

Private enterprise is not going to be able to put to work the 20 million and the additional number coming onto the market in this country during the next decade regardless of which party is in control, whether it's economic stimulus or the freeing those with money of all their taxation.

For the present time, it seems that business will have to make do with the 90% or 80% of the employed that seem still to be employed.  Does supply and demand have anything to do with a 90% employment rate, with all of those on Social Security helping to  keep the grocery stores going?

Is this why we're in a recession instead of a depression?

However, this is off the point, a subject to be left for another time. Perhaps more readers would be interested in this than the design and development appropriateness of an intersection in little ol' Shorewood.

I would think that there's plenty of interest in JOBS, RECESSION, THE MIXING OF OIL AND WATER, 2 OR MORE WARS, NATIONAL DEBT, SOCIAL SECURITY AND WHICH OF THE TWO PARTIES HAVE THE REAL ANSWERS TO THESE PROBLELMS.

None of these problems are going to answer themselves. But what can politicians do? They are good at raising funds for upcoming elections and not adequately explaining what they are doing in office.   Fortunately not much fund raising is needed for running in communities like Shorewood and Whitefish Bay.

What do people of Shorewood think?  I'd like to hear from you?

THE ILLUSION: the walkable community. THE DISILLUSION: walking home to a BASEMENT FULL OF SEWAGE BACKUP.

So we're going to get doubling of sewer cost because they are outmoded and require more repair.

Last night brought home this fact to property owners with sewage backup in their basements. A great deal of damage to the various appliances and drywalls in finished basements and the place full of sewage stuff. Insurance companies pay only limited damage and for limited numbers of backup events.

What are the members of the SHOREWOOD VILLAGE BOARD going to do about our 100 year sewer infrastructure? What are the positive effects of last night's downpour? Isn't this proof that some action must be taken? If the Board doesn't act, perhaps the citizens must. Many citizens have been pleading with the BOARD that they do something.

This is not an oil spill. Here we can do something about it. It's the duty of each member of the Board to do something about this. Let's hear from you responsible individuals, elected representatives of the citizens of Shorewood.

Basements full of human waste. Is that what today we call sanitary sewers? (Check previous posting as well).

Some people in Shorewood would like to know why our government allows unsanitary situations like sewage backups into citizens basements to persist even as an occasional situation or even once after this situation is recognized to occur.

What does the stress of each rain storm bring to families that may experience these sewage backups that turn basements into to holding tanks of human waste.

It's terrible for people to be living above this waste even for a few hours and the cleanup and the damage afterwards becomes quite a mess.

Do residents of Shorewood know that some of their neighbors are experiencing these uncivilized situations. I've learned about it from some of my friends and all of us here should learn of it too.

How many would voluntarily turn their basements into storage tanks for human waste for their neighbors who are lucky enough not to get backups?

Citizens pay  for the disposal of their waste not for storing it in their basements for the district.  The District should pay for the trouble that these people have been put through as well as the cleanup, repair and inconvenience.

After all this is America in the 21^st century. This is not a third world country. This is an upper middle class suburb. Is this how upper middle class Americans live in the USA?

Last night a significant number of households in Shorewood were again put into this situation. Shouldn't we put a stop to it?

Put on the table what some residents are experiencing in their basements.  (Check previous postings).

Some communities hesitate to take any action called for by citizens.

In several communities that I've learned about, the citizens got the attention of their elected officials as well as of their appointed professional by initiating law suits.

After this recent storm and human waste backups into the basements of number of residents, not in mine, I've heard that a group of people might do just that and have begun talking to lawyers.

Wouldn't in be wise for our elected officials to avoid the costs of law suits and initiate a public hearing where citizens could be heard and officials can explain what is taking place to correct for these backup situations.

Has a wise person on Board suggested that this matter be put on the agenda for the next Board meeting? If not, I'm suggesting that we do so as soon as possible.

There's no question that Shorewood's sewers should be upgraded immediately so that they do not spill raw sewage into residents' basements, turning those basements into sewage holding tanks for sewage that is going to be sent into the lake anyway.

And what about the mess that follows and the required repairs? What is sanitary about our sanitary sewer system?

We don't want to be known for our raw sewage backups. What about the invention of an innovative sewer system that with the help of the appropriate bacteria would rid us of the waste, produce methane gas and hot water to be used for heating and in the end supply clarified water to be returned to the system or to the lake.

Perhaps that's too much to expect. But it seems that a community like ours, can make us safe from sewage backup. Let's get with it and let's do it now. We know the old excuses. Please, no new excuses.

Between the backup events and the next Board meeting, over a month's time, the Board should be able to present us with several alternatives.

Several years ago, I suggested some alternatives. Were they considered? Were others considered? Why not? There's been several years to consider those and even many more years before that. ..

Some one needs to run for office on the issue of upgrading our outmoded sewer system and to eliminate the backups of sewage in our neighbors' basements.

(Our sewers are linked to ancient ways of thinking. I want to get away from sewers for today.)

I'd like to talk about another outmoded way of thinking--”jobs, jobs, jobs.”

We're never again going to have large industries and corporations that are going to be the great sources of jobs.  Jobs cost these profit-making agencies a lot of money. And they want to avoid as many of them as possible.

Where they need people to work, they prefer immigrants who will work for less than those seeking jobs. Robots and other systems replace “jobs” and cost less than workers in the long run.

If these processes cannot be implemented then we outsource to countries where work is for less.

So the concept of “jobs, jobs, jobs” is an outmoded concept.

Many if not most of the millions of unemployed will have to make their own jobs if they can.

They will have to become like individual craftsmen or service people offering some form of individual service. They will have to create “their own space” similar to the way the family farmer operates.

Many immigrants who came here a century ago had to create their own jobs. In the cities they sold fish, vegetables and fruit from carts. Today, even here in Milwaukee these have graduated into large family held food distributing firms.

Some gathered junk and rags. Some became carpenters and barbers and later with the increase in car ownership became car mechanics. Some became cab drivers.

Lawyers, doctors and dentists, accountants and real estate agencies operate pretty much “in their own space,” “on their own”.

As industries and corporations are not going to be the providers of jobs that they once were, we cannot expect to take that route to provide for the many jobs required for people to make a living in this country.

The unemployed are going to require training in how to become individual entrepreneurs, in how to do it “on their own” and how to find “their own space.”

Even aiding small businesses in becoming bigger businesses is not going to be enough. We are going to develop ways of helping individuals to make it “on their own” and there are plenty of existing models and new ones coming up. The next decade or two will be that of the “individual entrepreneur.”

Does the hundred- year principle that this kind of flood occurs only once every hundred years make those citizens of Shorewood happy today that this happens only once every 100 years. What's going to happen tomorrow, another 100-year flood?

Are we the unlucky one-hundred year winners. How come this one-hundred year event has happened three times over the past 25 years—the hundred-year flood three times in 25 years. So its been  happening more often than once every hundred years lately. So much for that principle.

These heavy rains are "an act of God."  Of course, everything is an act of God. How else could it be explained? We drain the rain water from our roofs fairly successfully even though that rain is an act of God. We build up dams holding back rivers, even though that water flow is an act of God.

We've learned to act with God in many ways on this earth and fairly successfully. Has this cooperation with God broken down when it comes to Shorewood's and the Metropolitan Sewer District's diplomatic relationships?

Engineers seem to know how to cooperate with God. Maybe our elected officials rather not act with God. Let's get some engineers who are on the good side of God to design us a workable sewer and drainage system. I don't want to blame God for our outmoded dysfunctional sewers.

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Shorewood should definitely separate its run off water from our joint sewer system.   This is the only basis for a solution to our backups as I see it at the present time.

Another immediate bypass of run off water would be to develop underground water retention systems for run off water in the space occupied by our boulevard areas and areas along the park areas, on Wilson Drive for example.  

We could do this in conjunction with Whitefish Bay.  Forget about building on Wilson Drive. The expanded tax base doesn't seem to solve our basement backup problems.

Over a medium time span, we should work with UWM in developing a self-contained sewer system that would be installed in Shorewood.  One concept would allow thermophilic bacteria to consume the organic waste in our sewers and they would then return the favor by giving us clean water at temperatures that would permit us to provide heat for institutional buildings.  The system would also produce methane gas. 

 We should work toward obtaining patents on what we develop jointly so as to increase the possibilities of producing revenues for both UWM and for Shorewood.  What do readers say? Give us your opinions.

In reading the views of past successful businessmen and top economists, who are predicting the future or telling us what we should do now to cope with the future I've re-learned a bit of wisdom passed on to me one by my favorite wise men, that the future is never anything like the past nor the present.

Some economists however are in the business of predicting the future and some engaged in what that implies as to how to deal with the future.

I'm looking at the present and see few ways of doing things as we saw them in the past nor do I see how we can do many things in the future. For example, we may have millions more unemployed than we ever expected but we don't have the greatest depression expected.  How did that happen?

We have to recognize that some members of families, in many cases remain employed. Some are receiving unemployment insurance payments, some receive monthly Social Security payments and others are retired receiving monthly pension checks. Health care relieves a lot of people much of their health bill, all contributing to money circulation.  As this money remains in circulation, it keeps contributing to  many business in operation as well as to feeding many people.

This was not the situation that could describe to some parts of the Great Depression.  So we cannot predict the future based on these past experiences. We cannot cope with what should have been today's depression, that turned out to be a recession, as we did in the past, although features created as a result of last depression have served to make this one less severe.

Outsourcing wasn't a problem in the thirties. It is a problem today when we talk about business creating a sufficient number of new jobs to employ or re-employ all those who want to go back to work. Twenty-million people can't be advised to merely go out and seek a job when few jobs are available, not even half that number nor a significant portion of that number are there or we wouldn't be in an economic recession.

These jobs don't exist and even as our economy begins turning upward as is being predicted, corporations are not going to hire the way they did.  Among new employment characteristics is also the negative job factor of outsourcing.

We are fortunate that most families with unemployed members do not have only one breadwinner as in the past, this present situation having cushioned our general economic fall and present existence..

But the idea of “jobs, jobs, jobs” for the immediate future is a mere misconception.  Where are these jobs to be found and what is the process that is developing in our future economy that suggests that the future is going to be like the past with plenty of new jobs?

The amount of money in circulation determines the number of various jobs required to service the demand.

Where is the increased money in circulation coming from?  “What comes first the chicken of the egg?” Or is all of the money going to trickle down with the rain?  But have you ever immagined  money come down with rain,  unless you are a farmer of course?  

Overflowing sewers.

THOSE IN CHARGE in the past in Shorewood bet on more for less in a combined sewer system. Now we have less for more.

The time has come for THOSE IN CHARGE to concentrate on separating our runoff water system from our sewage system.

We should not be making plans and developing patches of residences here and there putting more sewer  backup potential in our community while ignoring our present sewer capacity.

Schools and property values stand to decline if we don't fix our sewers now.

Let's put someone IN CHARGE of achieving a workable sewer system for Shorewood now. What good is the slogan “the walkable community” if it means  in raw sewage.

More for less, doing it on the cheap usually means less service for more money in the long run.

And the long run has come and gone in the case of sewers in Shorewood. We cannot continue to ignore that this important element of infrastructure is dysfunctional and working against all aspects of community.

Bad sewers are not going to help property values nor potential sales, nor any potential commercial activity. This situation is certainly not going to help our school system.

A house with a "for sale "sign and a stack of sewage damaged stuff in front isn't going to be too attractive to potential buyers, is it?

So what do we do? FOCUS ON THE PROBLEM.  Let's come up with a plan and put a special person in charge of sewer improvement now.

Let's hear from somebody in charge and from some citizens of our community on this subject.