Author Archives: Harry Styron
Nightly rental controversy in Ruidoso
I’m on vacation. I could have spent the night in a single-family home here in Ruidoso, New Mexico, rather than the Days Inn.
According to the local paper, the village council adopted an ordinance regulating nightly rentals after a judge ruled that this use was “residential.” The judge noted that the “business” aspects of nightly rentals–placing reservations and making payments–did not take place in the residences.
The new ordinance requires purchase of licenses, notice to neighbors, payment of lodging taxes, and placement of fire extinguishers in the homes. Violations can result in revocation of licenses after three complaints.
There are several hundred homes available for nightly rental in Ruidoso. The situation in the Branson and Table Rock Lake area is probably similar.
Film production injects dollars into Ozarks
The filming of Daniel Woodrell‘s novel “Winter’s Bone” at various locations in the Forsyth area will conclude next week. The story of the novel and movie concerns an Ozarks family affected by meth and violence. The silver lining to this depiction is that the process of making a movie puts cash from elsewhere into the local economy. This time of year, especially, that seems to be a good thing, since local unemployment is in double digits.
Jerry, Raeanne and Andrea
I was invited to lunch yesterday by Jerry Jones, director of the Missouri Film Commission, who was making a visit to the set. I dined at Cantina Laredo with Jerry, his wife Pam (who is my friend from college days), Branson mayor Raeanne Presley, Steve Olson of Springfield, Bill Lennon of Branson, and Andrea Sporcic, assistant director of the Film Commission.
When Mayor Presley was on the Missouri Tourism Commission, she became acquainted with the work of the Missouri Film Commission, whose effectiveness in recruiting film productions to Missouri depends on Missouri’s film tax credit program, which provides an incentive for filmmakers to come to Missouri in the form of state tax credits for those film productions that spend a substantial amount of money in the state.
The production company has been lodged at Branson Landing, with a production office at the Branson Landing Convention Center. The company has hired extras locally and at least one local has a speaking part. Read the rest of this entry
Court reminds city that its powers are limited
Elected officials tend to think that they ought to be able to do whatever seems reasonable under the circumstances. But the Court of Appeals for the Eastern District of Missouri took a different view, in Cliff Hindman Real Estate, Inc. v. City of Jennings, handed down March 10, 2009. The Court of Appeals struck down an ordinance requiring landlords to buy licenses from the City, because Read the rest of this entry
Constitutional problem? Who ya gonna call?
The United States Constitution is important as the statement of principles that restrain the things that the government can do. While we think of the Constitution as the document granting basic rights–to keep and bear arms and to express ourselves–the Constitution, primarily through the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment, functions by restraining the government from taking our property without due process, from quartering soldiers in our homes, from punishing us for conduct that was legal when we did it, and from unreasonable searches and seizures, among other things.
Constitutional protections are implemented through Read the rest of this entry
Good luck with that foreclosure, MERS members
A Missouri appellate court, without trying, may have drawn a map to a defense to foreclosures–if borrowers can figure it out before the Missouri Supreme Court overturns the decision in Bellistri v Ocwen. The opinion shows how an assignment of a loan to a servicing company for collection can actually make the loan uncollectible from the mortgaged property. Read the rest of this entry
Taney County will seek stimulus money
Ken Kline, chair of the Taney County (Missouri) Industrial Development Authority (IDA), persuaded the Taney County Commission yesterday to fund an Office of Economic Development, so that Taney County will have people actively pursuing money dedicated to rural projects in the stimulus package pushed through Congress by the Obama Administration.
Ken’s presentation was well-organized, with detailed descriptions of the duties of the persons that he wanted the county to hire. The request suggested that these county employees report to the IDA, which consists of unpaid appointees.
I spoke in support of Ken’s proposal and pointed out that many of the functions of the proposed Office of Economic Development were within the statutory duties of the county’s planning commission, but were not currently being performed.
Sarah Klinefelter, chair of the planning commission, agreed that the planning commission had been primarily responding to requests for zoning permits, rather than performing its planning function. New county commissioner Jim Strafuss told me after the meeting that the county commission had issued an RFP for a comprehensive plan.
I hope that rural counties in the Ozarks will take advantage of the opportunity to upgrade roads and bridges, water and sewer facilities, school buildings, and parks and to establish technology facilities. Otherwise, we’ll be faced with doing our part to pay for improvements made elsewhere, putting us even further behind.
Eureka School District loses TIF battle
School districts are the natural enemies of tax-increment financing projects (TIFs). The TIF designation of a redevelopment area limits a school district’s share of the increases in property taxes that occur in that redevelopment area, diverting what would have been the school district’s share of property taxes to paying for a portion of the developer’s cost of infrastructure.
On February 24, 2009, Missouri’s Eastern District Court of Appeals issued its opinion Read the rest of this entry
Economists agree. Really.
Economists agree that policy makers should listen to them. But wait, there’s more they agree on.
In reality, most economists agree on 14 propositions, according to reports compiled by Harvard prof Greg Mankiw and mentioned in his blog. The compilation is presented in Mankiw’s widely-used introductory economics textbook.
Here are the 14 propositions with the percentage of consensus for each: Read the rest of this entry
Styron & Shilling’s HOA database project
Suppose you are buying a home in a subdivision. You don’t see many occupied houses in the subdivision, which is not in a city or town. But you see a water wellhouse and storage tank and maybe an odd looking structure that must be a sewer treatment plant or pumping station. You don’t see any signs indicating that these belong to a local government entity. You wonder who maintains the streets, the water system and the sewer system. The answer is that a homeowners’ association (HOA) is responsible for maintenance and operation of these essential facilities.
But where is the HOA? You can’t find it in the phone book or on the internet. The public records are sketchy. Read the rest of this entry
Ozarks Law & Economy 