A city's budget first assigns a value to all those things we need & want; then proceeds to choose which of those things we are willing to give up in order to afford as many of the things we want.  It is for this reason that it is of vital importance to have a current and valid GENERAL PLAN that grounds our city's values, enlists its priorities, and sets down a vision of what success for our community looks like. Otherwise, how can we measure progress?

A healthy dose of skepticism is necessary to prevent a city from using debt to kick the can down the road.

The Dutch city of Den Bosch has about the same population density as Cottonwood Heights (around 3,600 people per square mile).  It is impressive what a city can accomplish when investing in quality public infrastructure rather than speculating in commercial real estate. 

It is inevitable: when a city fails to make a long-term plans, it finds itself in need of making good excuses for bad decisions.  One of the most insidious forms of trickery is the use of the "green label" to blur systemic inequities and provide cover for potential municipal budget shortfalls. These actions carry consequences, usually resulting in rapidly increasing taxes and gentrification.

There is a story about a boy who looked up at the sky and asked, 'Daddy, what is the moon supposed to advertise?' In this allegory the message is about what has happened to the relationship between man and nature in the era of rules by committee. On the one hand, nature has been stripped of all intrinsic value or meaning. On the other, man has been stripped of all aims except self-preservation. 

On this post, we intend to provide residents with the basic tools to create educated opinions about proposals put forward by our city, and intuitively know if the city has irrationally thrown a bunch of good ideas together hoping to fit a square peg in a round hole or carefully assembled a good concept of a plan. 

Wishful thinking won't cut it.