Lincolnite

A couple photos from tonight's performance at Southpointe by The Mac Five with Annette Murrell: The band faced a hot June sun: The crowd was a little smaller than the previous week, but there were still quite a few music-lovers around:

What does it take to prepare for the arrival of a new family member? A whole heckuva lot. The Missus and I have kept busy over the past week trying to get ready. The Missus in particular has been doing a lot of the work since she is home every day. She has been on the phone more this week than she has in the past year. The travel arrangements have been particularly tough. How do you plan for a trip with no end? Right now we are set up to stay in Boston for eleven days. Ugh, but there isn't much we can do about it. We just have to sit back and let Massachusetts and Nebraska do their thing with each other. Hopefully they've heard of e-mail, or at least FedEx. Lord help us if they communicate via USPS. (Case in point, The Missus received a package from her mother yesterday that had been sent Priority Mail. How much more quickly did it arrive than a normal package would have? Zero days. And it was two days later than the lady at the Post Office in Albuquerque promised.) A huge thanks to my dad, by the way, who donated enough frequent flier miles that our flights will cost exactly $20. You can't beat that with a stick. I just realized I haven't told you our son's name. We are calling him Robert Solomon. Robert is a family name from both sides; Solomon is the name his birth mother chose. We aren't under any obligation to use Solomon -- especially since the birth mother wants a closed adoption -- but we like it, and we had decided a while ago that we would try to take the birth mother's wishes into account when naming our child. It's tough to say right now since we haven't even met him, but he will probably go by Robert and Robbie. I have a hunch "Poopmaster" might also sneak in there a time or two. Daisy has finally relaxed a bit now that the flow of new baby gear has slowed. There for a while I think she was getting overwhelmed. She's still mad that we screwed up "her" room, though. Now she can't hide from the vacuum in there any more. We leave on Monday and we "officially" become parents on Tuesday. Then we'll have to live in a hotel until Massachusetts says we can leave. If anybody has any connections in HHS in either Massachusetts or Nebraska, feel free to help speed things along. I'll even buy you a burrito at Oso. I'll be blogging throughout the trip -- and working on the new version of Lincolnite, by the way -- so keep checking in here. Expect the first photos (and videos?) Tuesday evening.

The last line of Joel Gehringer's Planet Sub "review" in today's Ground Zero struck me as awfully funny:

...between the food, the atmosphere and all the other elements that make Planet Sub what it is, something told me to sit down and stay awhile.

In my experience, that's a given.

Lincoln is on a roll in designating areas as blighted. Which areas are next?

1. Cornhusker Highway. Talk about an unattractive strip through the city.
2. Downtown. It's too hard to just pick and choose which blocks to declare blighted. Let's just get it over with and cover the whole area.
3. The I-80 corridor. What better way to spur investment on the city's northern edge?
4. State Fair Park. Let's steal it from the state and put in an amusement park. Disneyland Midwest, anyone?
5. South 27th Street. It would be so much easier to widen 27th Street if we could declare the Country Club blighted.

*Yawn* Another big chunk of Lincoln has been declared blighted. Before long we'll all be living in slums in the local government's eyes. Snarkiness aside, what does Lincoln's blight mania tell us? There are a whole bunch of possibilities, including:

• Lincoln is aging, and blight designations in older areas are a natural way to assure those areas are not neglected;
• Parts of Lincoln are an economic wasteland;
• Taxes, fees, and regulatory hurdles make "natural" economic development difficult or impossible. A blight designation is the only way to clear those hurdles;
• There is too much money to be had on Lincoln's outskirts for developers to pay attention to lower-profit areas in the city's core.

And so on. My preferred explanation for a large part of the problem is the taxes and regulatory hurdles explanation. After all, one of the major purposes of a blight designation is to remove those hurdles. It is also consistent with what we have heard from developers over the years, namely that Lincoln can be a tough place to do business. It's certainly not the only valid explanation, though. Pick your favorite and make your case in the comments.

What's this I hear that Omaha wants to start up a new taxing district in their downtown area? That strikes me as a really stupid idea. It strikes the O'Keefe Elevator Company as a stupid idea, too. They've even threatened to leave Omaha if another tax is slapped on them. Mayor Seng, are you listening? That's opportunity knocking. There's also a lesson to be learned here, by the way. Hmm, I wonder what that lesson could be...

Lincoln is $1.4 million short in sales tax receipts this year. That's bad news considering the conservative projection used this year. Where has the money gone? Some will blame the smoking ban. It's an easy scapegoat, and there really isn't a good way to disprove it as the cause, especially since it will be quite a while before the tax receipts are broken down by industry. I think that's bogus, though. Outside of a few bars, anecdotal reports just don't support the notion that the smoking ban has had a widespread, large-scale negative economic effect. (Granted, anecdotes can only be taken so far, but they're all I have to go with right now.) You can't blame a declining population since Lincoln is growing. The housing market has cooled, but that was expected, wasn't it? Surely anybody making projections didn't assume the housing boom would last forever. Lincoln's residents could be getting poorer, I suppose. Is there any evidence for that? Got any other suggestions?

The crowd: Playing in the water: The stage, from behind: Daisy the hot dog:

Jazz in June kicks off tonight, featuring Nebraska Jazz Orchestra with featured guest soloist Paul Glasse. The Missus, Daisy, and I hope to get there tonight. Come say hi if you see us.

Oops, I guess we aren't headed to Boston tomorrow after all. Now we're shooting for Friday or Sunday. Every trip needs one hiccup. That counts as ours, right? The Missus and I are awfully excited right now. I know The Missus wants to go to Boston right now, paperwork and process be damned. That means I get to play the role of responsible spoil sport who annoyingly points out things like our bank account balance. Being the responsible one is just no fun at all, but one of us has to do it. And Daisy? Well, she knows something is up, but I don't think she has any idea just how big that "something" is.

Southwest Village is turning into quite the mega-development. Planned for the area around U.S. 77 and West Denton Road, the 1.3 million square feet project is even bigger than Gateway's 1 million square feet. The area is marked for development as a "community center" which, according to the Comprehensive Plan (PDF), "may vary in size from 300,000 to nearly a million square feet of commercial space. Typically, new Community Centers will range from 300,000 to 500,000 square feet." In the case of the proposed Wal-Mart on North 84th Street Mayor Colleen Seng opposed the megastore precisely because it was "too big" for the area's land use designation, even though the project as a whole met the guidelines for the area. (In that case the development was a "neighborhood center".) Will she oppose this development as a whole because it is 30% larger than the Comprehensive Plan's stated limitation for the size of a "community center", and over 150% larger than the "typical" size of a "community center"? If she doesn't, expect an outcry over her inconsistency. If she does, expect an outcry over her blocking a huge economic investment in Lincoln. Frankly, I think the criticism is fair either way. But in this case I'm hoping for a little inconsistency from the Mayor; losing this project would be a tremendous blow to Lincoln's economic development efforts.

The controversial project at 9th/10th and Van Dorn received zoning change approval from the City Council yesterday. It isn't technically a done deal just yet, but it's pretty close. Even more interesting is the city's move to explore a blight designation that would open the door for tax increment financing (TIF) for the project. That by itself isn't unusual (Lincoln loves blight designations). But it does strike me as odd that the city, not the developer, is initiating the discussion about handing over tax dollars. It is especially curious since the project doesn't seem to meet the TIF test. In short, a project is only eligible for TIF funding if the project wouldn't exist without the TIF funding. That's obviously not true in this case. Why is Lincoln so eager to hand over tax dollars? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Would anyone care to share positive personal experiences with auto repair shops here in Lincoln? Much to the delight of people who know me and have ridden in or seen my car, it (a 13 year old Mercury) is currently suffering from a battery of problems: vapor lock, failing power locks and windows, a yet to be identified transmission issue, and a number of electrical issues that have pretty much killed most of the car’s bells and whistles. Plus it looks pretty dumpy after being through a few dings. In the past few years, I have had direct experiences with three shops in town. Two of them have been very positive. One is Fayad’s way down in the southeast portion of town (5002 Rent Worth Drive). Fayad managed to squeeze me into a tight queue in an emergency situation with little notice, and fixed the problem quickly and inexpensively so I could leave town for an important trip. Although that is my only experience with his shop, I would likely go back again. The other notable place I take my car to regularly is Kevin Gilbert’s shop - Economy and Performance Auto, - at 233 N. 19th St., a stone’s throw from UNL city campus. Someone told me that Kevin has a reputation for being honest, helpful, and for doing good work. In the 3-4 times I have taken my car there, I have always been satisfied. Since I live and work near that area, I take my car to Economy and Performance regularly. Are there other reliable auto repair shops out there worth knowing about?

The Missus and I will be traveling to Boston on Wednesday Friday or Sunday. Many of you may know why.

Five things to do while you wait for your sub at Planet Sub:

1. Start a double-elimination paper-rock-scissors tournament
2. Get the other patrons to join you in singing Row Row Row Your Boat in a round
3. Create a life-size astronaut on a mission to Planet Sub using the foil from other customers' sandwiches
4. Nap
5. Every time a number is called out, yell "That's me!" and run up to the counter. Look dejected when you realize it wasn't your number