The Clark Report
I respect your privacy. If you would like your name removed from this email list, please respond to this email address.
|
|
|
News, Culture, Self Deprecating Humor
|
Jan. 2009 |
|
|
|
|
Get Your PHX
 I flatly reject the dire predictions of economists; at least as far as downtown Phoenix is concerned. We have the new university going up. We have light rail. Downtown is constantly packed full of art, people and activities. Best of all, there are new bars, restaurants and shops opening all the time. These are halcyon days and I think we should exalt this time together. So, please help me initiate a new monthly celebration of downtown called Get Your PHX. One day every month we will pick a new attraction to patronize. Join me on Thursday January 15th at Side Bar on the corner of 7th Ave. and McDowell at 5:30 pm. (See review below.) On Thursday February 19th, please join me at Hanny's, at the corner of 2nd St. and Adams at 5:30. (Also, see review below.) Goal: exploring all that is new in downtown while declaring proudly to the gloomy news anchors of the world that no economic downturn can prevent us from celebrating where we are and who we are.Watch for an invite from The Clark Report Mini on Facebook and please RSVP. I'd like to let the owners of The Side Bar and Hanny's know how many to expect.
|
|
Downtown Venue Review
The Side Bar7th Ave. and McDowell  I don't think owner Josh Parry had to advertise Side Bar's opening. It seems like people knew this one was coming and were lined up on opening day. Some developer took the weathered old brick building that used to house The Emerald Lounge, literally straightened it up again and cleaned it up, adding Starbucks and Pei Wei. Parry added this warm but modern, locally owned treat as a cap stone to the project. Parry should be commended for creating a space that is well-appointed without losing that downtown character. The Good: Parry and Company do a great gin martini and the bar tenders are knowledgeable. The ambient music complements the appropriately ironic old movies on the TV. (I prefer watching Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! over a ball game while I'm out with friends. It's part of my effete urban liberal credentials.) Check out the bathrooms, too. The Bad: Turning in to the parking lot on that corner of 7th Ave and McDowell is like playing a live game of Frogger and you're the frog. It is also not handicapped accessible. The Ugly: None. Hanny's1st St. and Adams  For years I passed right by this old haberdashery at the corner of 1st St. and Adams. I never knew it was anything other than just an old box of a building with a discarded department store logo on the wall. But inside is fantastic. The tall ceilings and centered bar reminds me of a scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Check out the empty old elevator shaft, refitted with a glass floor so you can answer that question that's always been nagging you: "Just what does it look like to fall down an elevator shaft?" The Good: The Roman Pizza is great. They have dual-flush toilets upstairs in the bathrooms, which look like a hold over from 2001 A Space Odyssey. (Dual flush toilets. Saving water in the desert. Who woulda thunk it? Well done owner, Karl Kopp of AZ88) The Bad: Only two types of beer. Downtown street parking blows (but that's not Hanny's fault). The Ugly: None.
|
|
Real Estate
Source: www.cromfordreport.com
If you see me around and we talk about real estate, please don't say something like "bad time to be an agent, huh?" Quite the contrary! I'm sorry for those who are losing homes. But if you are planning for your future, now is a great time to buy, and I have the numbers to prove it!My realtor colleague and mentor Leif Swanson and I crunched the following market data. - In 2007 about 54,000 homes were sold in Maricopa County.
- That total increased in 2008 to 59,768. That's a 10% jump!
- The average home sale in 2007 was $336,688 (73% of the sales were for homes under $350,000).
- But the average in 2008 dropped by 26% to about $250,000. What's really interesting is that now 85% of the homes in that time sold were under $350,000
What does that mean? It means that more homes are selling, but for less money. If you believed the news, you'd think that nothing was selling! Now, here's the interesting bit for first time homebuyers and investors. 14,649 (about 25%) of those sold in 2007 were under $200,000. The number of homes under $200,000 sold in 2008 jumped to 32,213 (about 54%). That means that people are snapping up homes in this segment of the market as first homes and investment properties, while pricey homes sit on the market for months, aka active market! Want more proof? Check this out: In December of 2008 the percentage of homes sold under $200,000 rocketed to 72%. So, in a month that is usually slow, people were snapping up cheaper homes! Add this to the fact that the credit market is starting to loosen up a little, and you will see the market start to move again soon. So, here's the pitch: I can help you get in to one of these great investments. Call me, let's talk! |
|
Aural Fixation
By Greg Ensell
Indie music connoisseur Greg Ensell continues his reporting of promising new music.
 Out of darkness the seductive voice, interwoven with piano and steel guitar, create a haunting mood that lingers and floats like a cloud of blue cigarette smoke.
While a tad melodramatic, that's exactly how I felt the first time I listened to the five minutes and forty-one seconds of the new song "I Forget It's There" by Icelandic Ingénue Lay Low.
An unlikely musical love child, Lovisa Elisabet Sigrunardottir ñ, a.k.a. Lay Low, has the masterful voice of Bjork and soul of Patsy Cline. Only 26 years-old, she voices each song on the new album, Farewell Good Night's Sleep, with a soft confidence that makes you want to invite it in, offer it a drink, and suggest it stay awhile.
While the album and first single "By and By" top the Icelandic charts, they are virtually unknown state side where they've garnered little more than thirty thousand plays on MySpace. This is especially true for "I Forget It's There" which has been played less than two thousand times, and for my money, is the best song on the album.
Hear more at http://www.myspace.com/baralovisa
|
|
Suggested Reform #3.1 (a little history)
For the three of you keeping track, I have been presenting a five-part series of suggestions about how to reform the Arizona Legislature. Well, I started writing this months' issue on redistricting and realized that this is just far too complicated for one Clark Report. So, I guess it's a six-part series now.
Source: www.redistrictinggame.org
Prior to 2000, the Arizona Senate conducted redistricting for our legislative and congressional. Lawmakers and staff would put maps on the wall with pins where legislators lived and they drew districts around them. We ended up with some really odd districts.
Along comes Jim Pederson in 2000 and runs an initiative to create more competitive districts and take the job of redistricting out of the hands of elected officials.
The problem: the way the initiative was written and interpreted by the courts; "competition" became the last criteria for the new Redistricting Commission to consider. They would first consider compactness, minority-majority districts and an amorphous thing called "communities of interest".
Here's another problem: redistricting commissioners are chosen by the leaders of the House and Senate. Can you say "conflict of interest"? These people are either trying to protect the districts they have or are trying to create districts that they can run in later.
Here's what happened: we ended up with fewer competitive districts in 2002 than we had in 1992. People manipulated "communities of interest" to favor whomever was in office already. As a result, we have less confidence in the process than we had before.
(We are still in court trying to decide the relative importance of competition. We are hoping for a ruling soon.)
Add the issue of minority-majority districts to all of this and things start hopping like crickets on a hot skillet.
Because Arizona has a less-than-stellar record on race relations, we are required to create a number of congressional and legislative districts in which a majority of voters are of a minority group. Those voters tend to be Democrats.
When it comes to drawing district boundaries, that means many of the rest of the districts that we create are deprived of Democrats and favor Republicans. In fact, Republican strategists were effective over the past decades at encouraging minority-majority districts that were "super-packed" with Democrats, thus making even more and safer Republican districts.
This became a hot-button issue for Democrats. I should know, I took it on the chin while working on this issue! Some wanted to get as many Democrats in minority-majority districts as possible. Others argued that this would take away from Democrats' chances at winning in other districts. Race and interpersonal politics make the issue toxic.
Basically, if Democrats want to be competitive in more districts, they are pitted against their own ranks, who also want to assure that minority voters are not neglected.
Going in to the 2012 redistricting, we are confronted by the same dynamic and the same broken system.
Next month:
- Why every district can't have the same political make-up of the entire state (40% R, 35% D, 25% Ind).
- Why it's in the interest of the parties to reject the past.
- The simple things we can do to improve the process.
|
|
|
Got any good downtown tips? Send 'em my way!
And, as always, I respect your right not to be bothered with annoying spam email. If you would like to be removed from my email list, just let me know. Thanks!
Sincerely,
Ken Clark
K. E. Clark Independent Consulting
  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
