Step one: take public's money; Step two: Waste it

Lincoln City council sets goals
Setting goals is easy. Meeting them is more difficult, especially during tough economic times.

Lincoln City council members set four challenging goals last year, and have worked diligently toward reaching them. They met April 4 to review those goals and decide where to go next, and unanimously approved a new list for 2005-06.
What are these urgent goals you ask?

Goal One: "Develop an effective, stable funding source for effective services that keeps pace with inflation and growth." Benchmarks include examining all franchise fees to determine whether increases are "possible and reasonable," and look at the city's fee structure to make sure it covers the costs "where appropriate."
Translation: Take more money from residents.
Definitions applied: "Reasonable" means "as long as there is no public vote"
"Appropriate" means "whenever we want more"

Goal Two: "Develop a clearly stated city identity."
Toward that end, they want to adopt a vision statement; support efforts to add public art, a cultural center, and a nature center; and complete an economic development study, using the results to revise the vision statement to match those findings.
Translation: Someone's cousin is an out-of-work artist who builds crappy statues out of rusty metal and needs a $10,000 contract. Also a "cultural center" for "those people who vote for us but we still get nervous if one is standing behind us at the ATM" and a "nature center" where liberals can enjoy "nature" without having to put down their soy latte and strap on some boots.

Goal Three: "Review and revise the land use system in the city, including the comprehensive plan, Urban Growth Boundary (UGB), and zoning ordinance."
Translation: Artificially inflate housing prices, screw people out of their private property rights.

Goal Four: "Develop a long-term integrated capital improvements plan for water, transportation, and drainage."
Translation: This is actually necessary but since we are government we will screw it up by giving the contract to someone's uncle and the project will mysteriously run "over budget."

I like how the first priority with government is always "how can we get more money," second is "how can we waste it on art" and the last is "how can we increase infrastructure capacity with necessary improvements."