News Cut: January 22, 2009 Archive

Green Acres

Posted at 12:13 PM on January 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Politics

Perhaps many Twin Cities-area residents shrug their shoulders when the topic of a tax policy for farmers comes up. For city slickers, farms are for the middle-of-nowhere and of little concern.

Wednesday's hearing at the Capitol on the Green Acres Law, should prove the exception. The law allows a lower property tax rate for farm property that is in production. It becomes an issue the closer you get to a city, however, because farmland is valuable property if it could sprout houses. Under current policy, if a farmer sells the land, he/she has to pay seven years of additional back taxes. But he/she also pays more money if the land is "unproductive."

When tax policy is used to force behavioral changes, it causes all sorts of unintended consequences. The Green Acres law was meant to "convince" farmers to keep the land in production, by making it financially impossible to sell it to developers.

The problem comes by the definition of what is "productive."

Take the case of Lake Elmo farmer Peter Kastler, as told by the Bemidji Pioneer:

Lake Elmo farmer Peter Kastler said his grandmother lives on the home place and wants it to remain farmland.

"It is a place I cherish deeply," he said.

The family even opted to keep open some land next to a housing development, so homeowners would not need to deal with cows, tractors and other farm operations. But forcing the family to pay the equivalent of seven years of higher home property taxes just for keeping land open is not fair, he added.

It's even worse in the Winona area, where hilly unusable farmland costs more money in taxes because it's "unproductive."

And the cost of adding environmental buffers to prevent contamination of streams through farmlands could eliminate such protections.

Earlier this month, MPR's Sea Stachura profiled a Belle Plaine woman who's trying to decide whether to tear out hardwood trees that act as a buffer between a stream and a hazelnut field.

This issue is one of the big non-deficit issues facing the Legislature this session. And while the argument is obviously being made that the removal of the tax breaks has unintended consequences, the debate also is set against the backdrop of the report from the legislative auditor last winter that led to last year's decision to limit the tax breaks. In it, the auditor said the Green Acres program, designed to keep farmland out of the hands of developers, didn't work.

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Unemployment by the the numbers

Posted at 12:53 PM on January 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

The state's unemployment rate jumped to 6.9 percent in December. What does this mean?

Flyable cars

Posted at 3:10 PM on January 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Science

Regular News Cut reader Brian Hanf sends me news that, in his words, "My flying car is coming."

His link reveals that a Boston-area company is planning flight tests of a two-seater airplane that doubles as a car.

Either way, it boils down to this: You sit down behind the steering wheel, drive to the runway, unfold two wings and take off. You can fly 500 miles on a tank of gas -- regular unleaded -- and when you land, you simply fold up the wings and drive where you want to go. At the end of the day, you fly back, drive home and park inside your garage.

It's an idea that many have considered but nobody has yet perfected. Judging by an article last May, this project is already behind schedule.

Terrafugia wants to deliver the first Transition to a customer by the end of 2009 and go into large-scale production by 2012. If you were just building a new type of plane or a new type of car, that schedule would be ambitious enough. But the Transition is both--and if, as the company intends, pilots are to land the vehicle on an airport runway, fold up the wings, and tool right out onto public highways, then this hybrid-of-a-different-color will have to meet federal standards for both aviation safety and highway safety.

Of course, the only thing worse than the new-car market right now is the small-airplane market, but putting that aside, what other challenges does this idea face? The skies are one of the few areas where there's not gridlock, and the government seems to have no plan at all for flying cars.

>>The developer points to the new "light sport aircraft" rules as a way to get FAA approval for his machine. But planes licensed under those rules can't fly at night.

>> It's only a matter of time before some neighbor decides the cul de sac would be a great thing to use as a runway.

>> Shouldn't Minnesotans learn how to merge on the highway first?

A lot of the focus of these stories is on the airplane-side of the equation. But it's the car side that's notoriously undependable. On your way home from work tonight, count the number of cars broken down by the side of the road.

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Where winter still rules

Posted at 1:54 PM on January 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Weather

Today was the annual March for Life Day at the Minnesota Capitol. Traditionally, I try to compare the crowds from year to year. MPR's Tim Pugmire took the picture above.

This is last year's march:

2006...

2004...

2003...

What can we conclude from these? There's significant climate change taking place.

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Help wanted

Posted at 2:44 PM on January 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

Al Tompkins of the journalistic think tank, the Poynter Institute, writes a daily list of suggestions for stories newsies can pursue. I usually don't pay much attention to it because I figure if I need someone else to come up with ideas of what is newsworthy, I need to find another line of work.

But today he talks about WHAS in Louisville, which airs programs with help wanted announcements. His column reminded me that on the drive down from Cloquet this morning, I listened to a radio station in St. Cloud (there's about a 5-mile stretch of I-35 in which you can't get an MPR station) which was doing the same thing.

Partly out of general interest, and partly out of personal interest, I turned the volume up to hear what's available:

Cyberbegging

Posted at 5:08 PM on January 22, 2009 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: War

I want to make sure the story of a Sleepy Eye family that aired on the national edition of Morning Edition on Thursday doesn't get lost.

It's the story of Robert Sprenger, whose Humvee was blown up in Iraq. He spent months in the hospital and when he made it back to Sleepy Eye, he and his mother made a surprising discovery, according to National Public Radio.

The government compensated him, but his mother says the money wasn't anywhere near enough to cover his family's expenses. So Sprenger and his family swallowed their pride, as a growing number of veterans have done, and went cyberbegging: They posted their story on a Web site and asked strangers to help.

"That was the most horrible-est thing," says Robert's mother, Vicky Sprenger. But she says they had no choice. "I wouldn't ever cut the Army down for any reason whatsoever," she says. "I just think ... it kind of stinks, you know, that we do have to struggle the way we do."

A Web site, USA Together, publicizes the needs of similar families.

The request from Specialist Sprenger goes far beyond any current definition of "touching."

I am Specialist Robert Sprenger and I was wounded in Iraq. I was a gunner in a humvee that was hit by an IED. I was burned on 40% of my body. One week before my injuries, my sister was diagnosed with Bipolar/Borderline personality disorder and put in placement. Since then my mom lost her job in Nov and had to take a job at the local grocery store making $8.50 an hour with no insurance. She had taken too much time off from her previous job taking care of me and my sister. She spent three months down in San Antonio (BAMC) taking care of me. Due to her job situation we have fallen behind on our monthly bills. My mom has sacrificed a lot to help me. I am still on Medhold waiting for a discharge from the Army. When I am better, I will be able to help our family.

He requested a washing machine. Mission accomplished. They've got one now.

Tara H needs help with her mortgage:

My squad was working out of Baghdad on Valentine's Day 2006, when an IED ripped through the passenger side door of my truck and the super heated shrapnel almost completely severed my right leg about six inches above my knee. My assistant squad leader saved my life and the rest of the injured soldiers in my vehicle. After resuscitation in the Blackhawk and again in the operating room, the doctors later determined that I suffered slight brain damage from lack of oxygen during these events. After countless surgeries in theater, and here in the USA I was fittted with a prosthesis. I am still unable to walk well due to balance and improper bone growth.

My husband was flown out of Iraq with me when I was injured, but is currently deployed back to the region. In the future, I plan on finishing my degree in business administration and owning a small business centered around pets.

Privately, a high ranking official in the American Legion calls the soldiers' need to go cyberbegging "pathetic," according to the story.

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