Death and Taxes | Craig Malin

The best idea I ever had was someone else’s. I got it from the back page of the American Planning Association’s monthly magazine. A stolen idea. From the last page of an APA mag. That makes me a thief, a planning nerd and one of just seventeen people who ever made it to the back page without falling victim to terminal narcolepsy.

The idea would keep me awake into the night and, more irritatingly, wake me before dawn. I suspect this constant processing of problems and solutions interrupting sleep is a city manager thing, but I’ve never had the courage to ask anyone else if they’re afflicted. I’d feel kinda dumb (ok, dumber) if they weren’t.

The idea rattled around inside my skull for months, where it bounced off other great ideas. Amplifiers that go to eleven. Feeding mayo to tuna. Hey, let’s start a school. Hey, this Midwest manufacturing city looks like a great place to work. You know, I think I’ll ask Mitch to intentionally walk this batter. Oh, the horror.

What’s his name was giving me grief one night from the other end of the Council dais when it hit me. You want a show? I’ll give you a show. We are going to send every Davenport kid to college. Every. Single. One of them. Your fake social equity stick it to the man bullshit can kiss my ass. We are going to make Davenport a place where the American Dream lives and breathes. I didn’t say it. And I didn’t even smile in the slightest as the idea finally found its way out of the innumerable dead ends of my grey matter. I’m going on offense, pal.

So we went on offense. The crazy idea on the back page of the APA magazine, where some anonymous philanthropist in Kalamazoo ponied up enough cash to send every Kalamazoo high school grad to college, was adapted to Davenport. We had a shortage of philanthropists but a healthy supply of kids who needed help. One in four living in poverty. As a Big Brother in the central city elementary schools, I saw it first hand. The second graders were certain they could be President of the United States. By seventh grade, they were certain they could never go to college, and in a variety of trouble. What kind of community do you want? Belief and success, or dispair and failure? It's not a rhetorical question.

A small, determined band (including the current Mayor, by the way) answered the question. We’d redirect a portion of City sales tax to a universal scholarship program. A Task Force was formed. A City election came and went. Voters rewarded the cranky guy with more free time. The issue was studied for months (short version – it was a miracle cure for enrollment decline in Kalamazoo) and handed off to the new City Council. The new City Council heeded the Task Force's recommendation and put it on the ballot. Universal Scholarship + Property Tax Freeze + Some Extra Cash For More Police Officers & Firefighters = What’s Not To Love?

Not what not, but who not? Three libertarians, Sheena Dooley and her handlers, and a few school leaders who were quite content to preside over decline because … well … they liked the presiding part. The School District wouldn’t even allow us to send a one-page flyer home with kids the night before the special election simply stating there was a special election the next day. 6,000 or so voted yes and 9,000 or so voted no. 20,000 or so parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles didn’t show up to vote.

Later, the electorate supplied the recalcitrant school leaders with more free time. New School Board President Ralph Johanson and new Superintendent Art Tate would open a new front in the battle and acquit themselves well. The Davenport City Council would vote 9-1 to take another crack at more than enough money to send every kid to college while lowering taxes by retaining every dollar of casino revenue in the community but that … well … how much time do you have? I'll make it brief.

You believe. Or you die.

Not just on your journey from the delivery ward to the church (or not) to the casket (or urn) that’ll contain what you once were. But every gifted day you are in public service. You either believe in the vision and power of community action to further the public good - and you act on it – or you and the community die.

Back where the river runs west, crime is up and public safety staffing is down. Investment's been turned away and jobs are lost. The streets are a little bumpier and many lives are much bumpier than they otherwise could have been if just a few simply believed in their community, and acted on that belief. Another school is closing, while Kalamazoo's are bursting at the seams with kids on their way to college.

R.I.P. Davenport Promise. Welcome to the world, Seaside Scholars. I still believe.

Update: Staff report and Seaside / CSU MOA (here)

Monterey County Weekly article (here)

4/14/16