Just got an email from John Berdes the CEO of Shorebank Enterprise Cascadia with an attached FAQ that explains the difference between his Shorebank (The proposed entity to be in charge of the proposed National Heritage Area) and other Shorebanks.
Basically his Shorebank was created by the other Shorebank but now has no connection to the other Shorebank and would continue to do business even if the other Shorebanks didn't exist.
You know, it's been a very long day today and when I read this message the one question that immediately sprang to mind was "why call it Shorebank at all?"
Okay, I admit to being a little tired but it just seems to me that if the organization felt there was enough confusion about this to warrant sending this email to everyone in local media it might be that the easiest way out is to just
change the name to reflect the separation.
I suggest " The ENTIRELY SEPARATE SHOREBANK ENTERPRISE CASCADIA WHICH BEARS NO CONNECTION TO OTHER ORGANIZATIONS NAMED SHOREBANK AND ARE ACTUALLY BANKS AS OPPOSED TO US AS WE ACTUALLY ARE NOT"
It would make a very impressive business card don't you think?
Good night everybody....
PART TWO:
ReplyDeleteFor this to be stopped, Shorebank and the NPS would have to arbitrarily decide to stop a process they are totally in control of and who obviously feel is just a great thing for this area. Those who are skeptical are essentially to go pound sand. They of course don’t say that, and young Mr. Flint was very nice, very open to comments, but the process has a momentum he and the Shorebank people have absolutely no interest in stopping because they are certain to benefit from this designation, and they are certain this is good for the area.
Shorebank is known as a CDFI, a community development financial institution. This is a special designation within the Dept. of the Treasury, created to ostensibly address low income concerns, something that is addressed by a thousand different government agencies none of which are coordinated with each other but instead operate independently and are all low profile, but combined add up to billions of dollars. Anyway, the mother CDFI known as the CDFI FUND, a department of sorts overseen by the Treasury Dept., received an audit for 2009, which audit had many pages of "high deficiencies" the gist of which delineate poor management of money, poor accounting of money, and poor management information necessary to determine the success of the projects financed by its efforts.
Yet Shorebank uses their CDFI designation, which no normal person has ever heard about, as if it is some super special designation that means they are authentic, responsible, and important. From Shorebank Chicago to the CDFI Fund in Washington DC, mismanagement is the most common denominator; why should we have any confidence in anyone or anything connected with this ancestry?
This entire process is replete with government bureaucracy gone wild, but very stealthy. Oh, on the surface, it sounds nice, after all, who's against the National Park Service, who can clearly say they are not the contolling legal authority after this study is complete, because they won’t be. So a good guy, the NPS, helps get this off the ground, and the bureaucrats take over. Notice that once the designation is made by Congress, it is permanent. The promises made by Shorebank that they promise will be in the proposed law to designate this Heritage Area specifically is just that, a verbal promise. No one knows how to even describe this entire designation process, least of all Shorebank or the NPS.
It remains in my mind a congressional designation that will morph into a cultural, heritage, semi-land-use control boundary no matter how or what is promised or even worded in any final congressional act. Any time you see an official map with shaded boundaries(of any color) known as Columbia-Pacific National Heritage Area, you have the trappings of filtered control, period.
If Shorebank Cascadia is a non-bank organization that acts as a store for government and non-profit grants and environmentally aware lending, that's fine, be all you can be. But please, as a property owner within the area you wish to shade, I am not interested in being a prop for your own promotion. All property owners should have been advised of this proposed designation, but they weren't and aren't going to be, and I oppose this silent process of designating all property by congressional act without verifiable public approval. The various boards and public bodies who wrote letters in support of this (relying only on the so-called public input process held by Shorebank and NPS) were duped into thinking this was nothing to be concerned with at all, and it truly sounded like that if you listen to the presentation to the Clatsop County board on line. But this is more than that, and flies in the face of local government controlling its own territory by promoting a new designation and bureaucracy that will operate independently from elected officials, and permanent by an act of Congress.
Art Hyland
PART ONE:
ReplyDeleteI recently attended a meeting with Shorebank Cascadia's Jay Flint of Shorebank (North Coast Republican Women) who was the main speaker. Mr. Flint, along with Commissioner Patricia Robertson explained, or tried to, Shorebank’s connection and history, and the proposed National Heritage Area process.
Like you, I asked Mr. Flint, if it's not a bank, and it's not connected to Shorebank (of Chicago), then why do you retain the name you have, and what is the advantage of retaining a connection to a bank that just lost over $100 million dollars and is expected to lose that much or more this year? He said that Shorebank Cascadia is totally separate and essentially bears no relationship to that Shorebank despite being created by it originally. When I asked then, why is there a direct link in their current website to that Shorebank in Chicago, he admitted that in certain circumstances it is helpful to have the connection. In other words, when it's to their advantage to say there's a connection (as with environmental and low income housing proposals) they ARE connected. But when it's not to their advantage, as when confronted with the fact that their mother Shorebank is losing lots of money and is obviously poorly managed, they have no connection.
As to the National Heritage Area issue, both Mr. Flint and Ms. Robertson expressed surprise when I asked, tell me why I shouldn't be worried about land control when I see a map with a green-shaded area covering almost all property in Clatsop county as a congressionally-sanctioned area that for all the world looks like some kind of Park boundary, especially given that the process is being shepherded through the National Park Service?
Their answer: Wow, we now understand your concern. No, no, this is just essentially like a financial district, one that will allow specified grants and money from Congress which created this Heritage Area process as a way to encourage heritage type business stimulation and growth, with the help of an unusual type of coordinator (Shorebank Cascadia of course) who is saying they will help create or help businesses with cultural and heritage goals.
So, I asked why not call it a financial district, rather than a Heritage Area. Especially, as it stands, the confusion/criticism of the Heritage Area has prompted you (Shorebank on behalf of NPS) to specifically promise that it ISN'T a land-use designation, and they also promise that one can "opt out." They thought the financial designation might be a good idea, but I could see that concept will go no further than that little meeting.
Another question: if it's not a land-use designation, why the need for the "opt out" option? Their answer was they were only responding to concerns. In other words, opting out means nothing because the problem is fictionsal, a figment of the imagination of people who don't understand how benign this entire process is.
When I suggested that the Heritage Area designation would probably be used as a very important reason for those in opposition to just about any development in Clatsop county, they actually said: Well, we think that any testimony at any land use hearing opposing development using the National Heritage Area designation as a reason for opposition WOULD BE EXCLUDED TESTIMONY, as if somehow there would be comprehensive oversight available to control public opinion or public testimony.
I suggest that once this study process was authorized by Congress via Representative Brian Baird, D. WA, and the National Park Service was given the funds to make the study, the end result was virtually sealed in concrete. There is no way to stop this, and never was. The entire process is so controlled, and so obviously a foregone conclusion (since it's such a wonderful idea and hurts no one, and helps everyone, and it's free money, and how could anyone be against this mom and apple pie process? --sarcasm off).
(CONTINUED IN NEXT COMMENT)
Tom, I bet you know well that the financial industry wants to keep us all either guessing or in ignorance. Why a shore bank at all? It's not really a bank anyway. And how about the Bank of Astoria being our local bank, eventhough we get an increasing amount of stuff mailed from Columbia, a Washington bank that actually owns the Bank of Astoria. And we wonder why the financial institutions are in so much trouble (correction: why they have caused us so much trouble)? It's a shell game. What ever happened to the local bank where one had a checking and savings account, that made loans to local businesses and kept the money in the community? Is bigger really better?
ReplyDeleteShorebank sounds like one of those private businesses that the government paid to provide government grants to college students. Just how much are we taxpayers going to give to private business to fund public things?
ReplyDeleteAs I have said many time: "they are intending to put gates on the county (Clatsop) with this Heritage designation." Pacific county will also follow this course.
ReplyDeleteWhen this Heritage designation is signed, will we wake up and find out a committee will have to approve the sale of your property if it's located within the green zone designation?
God help us, what are we becoming? Bad question as I know and its bad.
Update:
ReplyDeleteLily Kolditz of Cathlamet last Wednesday attended a Wahkiakum County meeting about the National Heritage Area, and here are a few paragraphs from an email we received from her:
"At 1pm we listened to ShoreBank's representative Mike Dickerson tell us that ShoreBank is not a bank. They are a non-profit, non-regulated bank? If that makes any sense to you? He explained that while Shorebank Enterprise Cascadia still exists, there is no connection now between the IIwaco ShoreBank, and the Chicago ShoreBank. (I don't blame them for wanting to distance themselves.) But the players are the same...at least they were. Co-founders [of Shorebank Chicago] Grzywinski and Houghton are easing out of their leadership roles and running for cover.
Mike proceeded to say that separate legislation is required for each NHA and that they, I assume ShoreBank, did not like the language of the other NHA's because they have tried to influence property rights. He came right out and admitted it!. They would just be loaning money for high risk businesses that could not get loans from anywhere else. They were about job creation and self sufficiency.
Then Mike said that we would not be called an NHA, but Columbia Pacific Heritage Investment Fund. There would be no Federal land management, and there would be no other entity with our new designation. Mike explained further that the new feasibility study would contain explicit language against land use regulation and they would not allow folks to interfere with land use? (This after telling us they had no authority.)"
Note the newly suggested name: COLUMBIA PACIFIC HERITAGE INVESTMENT FUND!
This is getting interesting. Well, Shorebank Cascadia, that non-bank organization that can't take deposits but somehow has money to lend to environmental groups AND money to purchase carbon credits for its own carbon footprint (now there's a financially sound decision), and acts as though they already are the coordinating agency for the proposed National Heritage Area even though they are only proposed, and there would be no competition for that lucrative position since they are the only entity mentioned in the Draft study for the Columbia-Pacific National Heritage Area, and therefore would be congressionally awarded this permanent position--Shorebank is apparently listening to the criticism and making whatever adjustments needed to get this to Congress so that the money can flow. It would seem that all the public meetings previously held where none of this new status or mission were discussed may have to be re-held in order to explain to those many "stakeholders" and boards and commissions exactly what this thing really is. It's just a grant source, pure and simple, except that it permanently and Congressionally designates a chosen few people running Shorebank Cascadia, whatever that is, as the pipeline organization through which all the federal funds are pumped.
This is nothing but a money grab to help fulfill the environmental wishes and goals of a self anointed few who have connections (Chicago and now DC). This is how socialism works. Money is distributed via friends of the higher-level distributors all connected and of one mind with respect to the nebulous goals of global warming, or social awareness, or environmental stewardship, or cultural heritage or whatever buzz words or chic phrases are being used today or tomorrow. The main thing is that the chosen few get the rights to distribute the goodies, all of which come from the benificent federal government where money is manufactured by printing press and fiat along with the lesser source, the taxpayers of this country.
Another note: Regrets for typing Patricia Roberts as Robertson in my previous posts. My fingers were flying yesterday and I just didn't make time to edit.
LOL Art! "This is how socialism works". Welcome to the Social Republic of Oregon.
ReplyDeleteOregon is a great example of the beginning of what Greece is now going through.
It just doesn't work.