Another candidates’ night: Lutz unveils his grand plan

I’ve known Joe Lutz for at least 15 years. I like Joe Lutz. Should he be your next City Commissioner? Well, you can watch the video and make your mind up once I post it. This was his first public speech, and his “website” went live today. I think his header says a lot:

^[1]

Joe Lutz shoots light beams out of his forehead.

The meeting was at the beautiful Kroc Center, and hosted by the McCook Field Neighborhood Association. There were about 8 neighbors there to hear 3 candidates and two proxies. Jeff Mims was busy being a politician in Columbus and Joey Williams was in Boston being a banker. This was an unusual format- 20 minutes each- and you could use a projector. I led off with my slide deck and my “command voice.” Yes, I might sound scary, but afterward a voter came up to me and said, “if the rest of them wanted to be heard or elected, they should have brought a microphone- you’ve got my vote.”

I’ll hope to have video up on Wednesday. I may put the deck up on Slideshare.

David Greer talked about his history and his civic involvement. He wants a responsive city hall. He only used 11 minutes. Then came Joe Lutz. He went the full 20 minutes and was all over the place- literally. You’ll have to watch the video- flapping arms, theatrically posing- it was a sight to be seen. If you can hear him is another matter. I thought about bringing my PA out with me, but, why is it my job to make sure you can hear these other people? At least I try to share via video.

Lutz’s position is on his “website” – it’s really only one page- and look at the URL- it’s not even on its own account.

HOUSING and OUR LONG TERM FINANCIAL FUTURE: My main issue-Imagine, if you will, a run down house in the city. It is blighting the neighborhood, lowering home prices, fostering crime, and making the neighborhood less attractive to nearby residents. One solution is to demolish the house. We then incur a cost of roughly $10,000, the actual demolition costs plus future maintenance costs of the vacant lot. There is a greater cost incurred by the city: the loss of future revenues from income taxes of future residents, property taxes, and fees for water and trash pickup. A conservative estimate of lost revenues is $1,500 per year. At current interest rates, this recurring income stream of $1,500 per year is worth roughly $25,000 today. Think of it as a reverse mortgage on the house. Add up the $1,500 payments for 20-30 years, discount the payments at something like 4%, and you’ll get a present value around $25,000. Assuming that no new house will be built atop the vacant lot, once the house is demolished that $25,000 is lost. Suppose now that instead of demolishing this tired house, the home is restored. The city does not incur the $10,000 demolition cost and the home continues generating revenues worth $25,000. The net gain to the vity and our schools is roughly $35,000.

via Lutz for Dayton City Commission ^[2].

Not only is he advocating the exact opposite of what I believe in, he even thinks Dayton should try to be like Oakwood. He advocates for the same law A.J. Wagner is pushing for- except A.J. only wants to do it on absentee landlords- that is a vacant house registry- and all homes must be brought up to code before sale. Lutz also believes it’s our job to pick favorites and fund companies who want to move here.

So, I should pay my taxes to fix up my neighbor’s dump, so someone else can move in? Really?

How about if we stick to paying taxes for services that benefit all of us- and provide the services we expect from government?

Is that too much to ask for?