Interesting approach, especially considering that the American government has a fairly long history of saying “hey, y’all — your drug cartels are a huge problem that you need to get sorted” — Mexico has sued a list of US gun manufacturers in US District Court in Mass (1:21-cv-11269). “Defendants have a duty not to supply the criminal market in Mexico” and details how Mexico feels the defendants have failed in this duty.
A pizza joint shared its profits with its employees and that meant the employees made $78 an hour. I’m curious if the pizzeria used a realistic calculation for profit. If so? This makes the “I cannot afford to increase my starting pay rate to attract employees, the problem is the gov’t is making people all lazy and stuff” argument clearly disingenuous.
Profits are what you make after paying for the business’s expenses — so the ingredients, power, water, advertising, insurance, employee benefits, real estate, business loans, taxes, and such are all taken out before you call it a profit. Good accounting includes future predictable expenses as well — the facility is going to require occasional sprucing up, maintenance expenses pop up, at some point they’ll need to replace the pizza oven or refrigeration units. Just like a personal budget should include “replacement car, every 10 years, that means I need to accrue $5 a day to fund that replacement” … these expenses should be estimated out and included in the net/profit calculations. It’s possible they used a far simpler algorithm for computing profits — net proceeds minus food cost (which is something most restaurants track very well) … which would render my calculations here meaningless. But I’m going to assume “profits” actually means profits in the accounting sense.
In a lot of businesses, the owner takes a salary too — no idea if owner, well, takes a salary in the first place but if they took their salary out before calculating the daily profit. I am going to assume the owner’s salary was not already deducted. Then $78 an hour isn’t sustainable because the owner needs to eat too, but the owner could take $50 an hour per employee and still pay everyone $28 an hour.
Not that the owner gets $50 an hour for being open, but $50 a man-hour worked by any employee. Think about that for a minute — say they’ve got three people doing prep from 1P-3P and five people working when open from 3p-10p, then thee people staying on for close from 10-11P … that’s 44 man-hours worked that the owner’s keeping at $50 a man-hour. Owner keeps $2,200 each day, plus has his business has all of its expenses covered. For each of the 300 days a year they are open (since they’re open 7 days a week, this is a low estimate too), that’s $660,000.
Say I’m overestimating the owner’s share a lot — let’s cut that in half. Maybe they did the profit sharing on an unusually profitable day. Maybe they did it on a weekend day where they’re open a few more hours. Let’s say the owner can keep $1,000 a day . That means the owner pays the staff $28 an hour, pays for all of the business expenses, *and* has absolute minimum $300,000 in profit.
About a year ago, my boss observed that this entire pandemic sitch is just a nightmare for those with analytical thought processes.. Engineering, science, analytic types. Mathematically? The country was basically in a worse place when the health orders were lifted than it was when the orders were put in place last year. That was astonishing to me. And kind of like the anti-environmentalists who don’t seem to realize they need to drink the water and breath the air … even if you’re vaccinated and have a very good probability of avoiding hospitalization? Getting sick for a week sucks. It sucked ten years ago, it’ll suck ten years from now. But, if you can mitigate your risk of feeling like an elephant is roosting on your chest for a week … what’s the reasonable thought process that leads to someone saying “I’m going to show how very free I am by getting painfully ill”?!
I mean, there are plenty of ways to partake in your American Freedoms that aren’t painful illness. Head out to the range, rent a gun for a few hours, and fire off a couple dozen 50 caliber rounds. Publish a rant against whatever part of government irked you this week. Spend the weekend attending church services for ten different religions. Hell, marvel at the fact there’s not an uninvited soldier camped out in your spare bedroom and that the cops aren’t rifling through your belongings. And that just covers the first five articles in the bill of rights.
In fact …
| Article | Way to enjoy it |
| I | Spend a weekend attending services for a dozen different churches (synagogs, mosques, etc) |
| II | Hire a gun at a range and spend the afternoon popping off 50-cal rounds |
| III | Marvel at how your spare bedroom is not occupied by an uninvited soldier |
| IV | Notice how the police are not rifling through your personal belongings just because they can |
| V, VI, VII, VIII | Don’t know that I’d commit a crime just to enjoy my right not to provide evidence against myself, be subjected to cruel or unusual pubishment, or experience a speedy, public trial … but you do you. |
| IX | Go to work? |
| X | Oooh, experience all of the things your state does control — maybe hang at the DMV and renew your license |
| XI | Umm … well Michigan hasn’t sued Ohio today. Does that count? |
| XII | Well, you cannot be part of the electoral college … but you CAN vote |
| XII | No more slaves |
| XIV | The state isn’t depriving me of life, liberty and such. |
| XV | My rights aren’t being abridged because of my race |
| XVI | Taxes were withheld from my paycheque this week. Yeah!??? |
| XVII | My state has tw senators |
| XVIII | Grab a pint! |
| XIX | I’m a woman, and I can vote! |
| XX | Watch the certification of the election |
| XXI | Grab another pint! |
It strikes me, every time I talk to someone from the auditor’s office or the building department, that county officials must talk to a lot of people after-the-fact … like they built a shed, someone noticed it, and now they’re going through the permitting process for that shed. Because they always seem surprised that I’m in the planning stages of a project and am ringing them up to make sure I’m doing all the right things in the right order.
My note-to-self for the day — while the Medina County Building Department does permit fences over 6′, they do not require anything for agricultural buildings and fences. If you’ve got an agricultural exemption from the Township for a building, they’ll happily agree that the fence around / next to that building is for agricultural use as well. (For non-agricultural fences, you fill out the residential building form and specify the perimeter of the fence for the sq ft area and not the square footage enclosed by the fence).
Thus, I’ve concluded that the steps to build a bigger chicken coop and a pasture are:
Our coop and greenhouse shouldn’t need a permit from the county because the size is under 200 sq ft.
Long blurb I’ve written in response to the public outcry about the Hinckley Township BZA approving a conditional use permit for Pride One to construct senior apartment housing in a business district:
Since ‘senior housing’ is a conditional use in business districts, my opinion is that our zoning resolution put the BZA in a bind where they *had* to approve the request. When the BZA rule on something, decisions can be appealed in court. Now, if you wanted to build a shed a few feet into a riparian setback and they said no, you probably wouldn’t blow a couple grand on a lawyer to convince a Medina County Court of Appeals judge that the BZA were wrong. Big companies, on the other hand, will absolutely do that. Almost every case I see in the court docket is <Some Company> v <Some Township’s BZA>.
The setback variances, as an example, the company never presented any good justification for *needing* the variance. They wanted to build more stuff and ‘needed’ to build where they weren’t allowed to in order to have more units to rent. “I want to do it” isn’t the bar you’ve got to pass when requesting a variance (otherwise zoning rules would be pointless!). Had they taken appealed the denial in court, I expect the BZA’s decision would have stood. There are cases where the court determined that you don’t have a right to the *best* use of your property — in this case, they don’t have a right to pack as many units in the lot as possible.
The conditional use approval? If it had been denied, Pride One would likely have won an appeal (and quickly). We’d have the facility right where they wanted it, and they could have gone after the township for “damages” — legal fees, lost business, etc. Why? Because ‘senior housing’ is specifically listed as a conditional use for business districts. Our township comprehensive plan says residents *want* senior housing so long-time residents who no longer want to care for two acres don’t have to move away from the township. It’s not like we’ve got five other senior housing facilities that have already more than sufficiently addressed this need. There’s nothing in our zoning or comprehensive plan that says we want to slow the creation of senior housing facilities. They’ve got a lot of evidence that their senior housing facility should be allowed. I cannot think of any good (i.e. would stand up in court) reason the BZA could have given for denying the conditional use.
Which, of course, begs the question ‘why are we allowing senior housing in business districts!?!’ … and that, it seems, is the result of a comprehensive plan that got feedback from some 6% of the residents back in 2014 or 2015. Why would someone say “ok, that’s a reasonable response rate … I’m going to write up what the township wants based on these responses” is a great question. It seemed, from the past few Trustee meetings, that it’s possible to revise the comprehensive plan earlier than planned. That would be the first step in avoiding this in the future — once the plan changes, it’s reasonable to revise the zoning resolution to address the newly stated desires of the township. And, if there is an update to the master plan, make sure you respond to whatever survey is used. Make sure your friends who live in the township respond. Make sure your neighbors respond. Claiming to develop a plan based on responses from a small sampling of residents is absurd. Be specific — if you think we need more senior housing but don’t want apartments, then specify single-family residential senior housing.
I’d encourage people to read through the zoning resolution (https://www.hinckleytwp.org/content/zoning-regulations) and identify anything *else* that they don’t like. Look at the full list of conditional uses — you don’t want a hospital, then hospital shouldn’t be a conditional use either. Instead of reacting after the fact, we need to push through changes *before* whatever-it-is starts being built. Existing stuff gets grandfathered in (i.e. the senior housing is there even if we change the regulations), but new construction is limited by the new rules. Read the comprehensive plan (https://www.hinckleytwp.org/content/comprehensive-plan-master-policy-plan) and see if (1) it accurately reflects what you want to see in the community going forward and (2) if you think that plan is reasonably addressed by the zoning resolution.
Get engaged — attend township meetings (we’re starting to record the meetings and posting them on YouTube for people who aren’t able to join meetings at the scheduled time — https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTffOEhdDc7UO0fN-tgyEnw) or read the minutes. Email the trustees to let them know what you think. Do you think the comprehensive plan needs to be updated? Should there be a minimum response rate to consider feedback to be representative of the community’s desires? Maybe you think the Township should explore adding a growth management plan — limiting the number of building permits available. Hudson did so to ensure the City didn’t grow faster than the capabilities of city services (police, fire). Maybe you think the lot size or setbacks need to be increased. Maybe you think everything is awesome the way it is. Whatever you think, make sure your voice is heard.
What do I think might help keep the township rural? I think we need a combination of changes to the zoning resolution, training for BZA members (possibly even replacing BZA members), and changes to how variances are written.
Zoning changes — Increasing lot size has been discussed, and doing so would certainly would reduce the amount of development. We might want to include minimum green space / maximum total lot coverage in the zoning regulations. Some townships out in Geauga County have looked at such regulations to retain rural character. As currently written, I believe I could transform the entirety of my 2 acre lot into driveway, parking lot, patio, etc. Or just pave the whole thing. Increasing minimum lot widths at the road might ensure homes are placed farther apart, although that might have the unintended consequence of moving some houses closer to the street with neighboring ‘flag’ lots in the rear. Increasing the side yard setbacks would ensure spacing between homes too. Including a slow growth plan — limiting the number of new construction permits per year — could ensure development doesn’t outpace the township’s ability to provide police, fire, and road repair services.
BZA Training — The BZA does not have legal authority to issue variances any time someone finds a zoning regulation inconvenient. Their authority is to issue a variance when strict adherence to zoning regulations deprives the owner of beneficial use of their property. An extreme example — a lot with a bunch of riparian setbacks that mean the buildable area is a 2×40 rectangle toward the front edge of the property. The BZA has the authority to approve a variance from the township’s fairly substantial front yard setback because a 2×40 buildable area has certainly deprived the owner of the ability to have a house on their residential property. Building a house forty feet into the front yard setback lets them have a 40×42 house that’s closer to the road than the zoning regulations stipulate. Building within a riparian setback can destabilize the bank of the stream, so isn’t a good option.
There are several variances where I don’t believe the requestor has shown a “practical difficulty” for area variances. These requests basically amounted to “yeah, I could do it another way … but I don’t want to”. The BZA does not have the legal authority to issue a variance, and I believe these variances would be overturned if challenged in court. That’s a whole process — and you’ve got to own one of the adjoining properties to have standing to challenge it in court. But there’s no reason the BZA should be exceeding its authority in approving variances, and it seems like they need to have what does and does not constitute a practical difficulty or hardship clarified.
Changes to how variances are written — I think variances should be written as restrictively as possible to address the specific problem presented to the Board. If my rear property line is 200′ long, and I want to build a 20×20 garage in the rear yard setback because of some Very Good Reasons, there is no reason for a variance of 20′ from the 50′ rear yard setback. Issuing a non-specific variance means additional, future, construction can also be built 20′ into the rear yard setback. Without having to show any difficulty in building the structure elsewhere — you’ve basically got a lot with a special rear yard setback instead of special permission to build that garage. Write a variance allowing 20′ at the rear of the property to have a 20′ variance from the 50′ rear yard setback. Write a variance allowing the building blueprints presented to the Board to have a 20′ variance.
While I don’t think any survey with a 6% response rate is a reasonable basis for determining “what the township residents want” … desire for senior housing, called out in the 2015 comprehensive plan, seems reasonable. Two acres is a lot of property to look after, especially as you get older and getting around is more difficult. Walking the woods and mowing the grass … I could see this becoming a challenge. An apartment complex at the edge of town isn’t a popular solution, but how could the township make housing more appealing to older residents?
To start out with, I think any high-density senior housing should be a unique zoning area. S1. Getting property re-zoned is a more difficult path than requesting a conditional use be permitted. There’s more leeway to not re-zone the parcel.
Conservation development allows a development to bypass minimum lot sizes by using a combination of open spaces and private lots to average out to the minimum lot size. That is, if I have 200 acres in a two acre minimum district … I can develop a hundred one acre parcels and hold the other hundred acres as open space. What if we combine the high-density senior housing with a conservation development idea. A conservation development with small front, side, and rear yard setbacks that make quarter or half acre lots feasible. Then the senior development is enveloped in a huge area of maintained green space. This would allow for continued home ownership (I sure as hell don’t want to start paying a couple grand a month in rent after I retire!), minimize yard upkeep (part of the HOA fees could even go toward yard maintenance), and the rural environment is maintained.
Civics classes seem to do a good job of explaining the framework for federal and state government. The branches and processes are covered as well. But, ironically, there’s not much information about laws enacted/enforced by these governments. Sure, you know the legislature writes a bill, both houses vote to make it a law, and the head of the executive branch (president or governor) sign their agreement with the law to actually enact it. But … then what? How do people know what the laws actually are?
Laws are maintained in the “Code”. There’s a US Code and state code — e.g. Ohio Revised Code (ORC) in Ohio. At the federal level, there are also regulations in the Federal Register — this includes rules (and proposed rules) individual executive branch departments enact. It also contains executive orders. States maintain their own registers — the Ohio Register, for example. Now, someone may think rules / orders from the executive branch fall outside the scope of the law — and that person is welcome to bring a suit challenging the law. But, unless there’s an injunction or the regulation has been overturned … it’s still a rule you need to obey.
In addition to the laws enacted by congresses and regulations written by the executive branch, the American legal system is based on “common law” — basically what a court decides about a situation based on their reading and interpretation of the laws becomes guidance for future or down-level cases. Which is to say you can read the Ohio Revised Code front to back and still not have a complete understanding of the practical implementation of laws within Ohio.
Take, for example, ORC 519.02 which states that
Except as otherwise provided in this section, in the interest of the public health and safety, the board of township trustees may regulate by resolution, in accordance with a comprehensive plan, the location, height, bulk, number of stories, and size of buildings and other structures, including tents, cabins, and trailer coaches, percentages of lot areas that may be occupied, set back building lines, sizes of yards, courts, and other open spaces, the density of population, the uses of buildings and other structures, including tents, cabins, and trailer coaches, and the uses of land for trade, industry, residence, recreation, or other purposes in the unincorporated territory of the township
That’s pretty open ended. What is a comprehensive plan? If you’ve got a chapter in your zoning resolution that’s called “Comprehensive Plan” is that good enough [spoiler alert: it can be … see Central Motors Corp. v. City of Pepper Pike, 63 Ohio App.2d 34, 65 (8th Dist.1979)] or does the Township need to break that chapter out into its own “Comprehensive Plan” document? Who is involved in writing that plan, how often can it be updated, etc. These details emerge as someone says “hey, court, I don’t think this is right” and the court clarifies some detail of the Code.
So you’ve got federal laws, state laws, federal and state executive branch regulations, federal and state executive orders, and decisions made in court cases that make up “the rules”. Who do you complain to when you don’t like the rules?
Every time my daughter complains to me about being unable to drive, I tell her to write her state rep. Not because I particularly think the state rep is going to do anything, but “you have to be 16 to drive” is a state law. The only ones who can change a state law is the state legislature (I expect a federal driving age would be ruled unconstitutional, but starting at the federal level to change the ‘you only get our money if’ wouldn’t be a bad direction either. Sometimes the state has the law because federal funding is predicated on having the law — that’s how the drinking age got standardized across the country. But a state could, hypothetically, opt out of federal funding and do their own thing.)
What’s my point? If your township has some rule that you don’t like, there may not be much the Township Trustees can do about it. When the State Supreme Court has made a decision that creates a rule … you need to be talking to your state rep and senator to push to have that rule changed. They could pass a law that negates the court decision. Now someone could challenge the constitutionality of the new law in court … if the court deems the law unconstitutional, then the legislature could amend the state constitution too. When the federal government has created a regulation, you’d need to be talking to your federal rep and senators.
Reading about the meat processing that’s been attacked by ransomware, and thinking about the petrol pipeline … this really seems like proof of concept stuff to me. I’m sure there’s some ‘making money’ and more than a little ego stroking involved. Before we purchase and implement some major system at work (or spend a lot of time developing code), we run a proof of concept test. A quick, slimmed down implementation that runs on some virtual system that lets people see how it’ll work without sinking the time and money into a full-scale implementation. If the thing seems useful, then we buy it and have a capital budget for implementation. If it wasn’t useful … well, we lost some time, but not much.
Attacking small players in various industries to see what kind of impact you have have … seems a lot like a proof of concept series of attacks. How well secured was the company? What kind of incident response were they able to mount? How much access did you manage? What came offline? What was the public impact?