Rotten Local Government: A Downtown Parking Structure

There is something rotten and foul smelling in the City of Bowling Green. It is this. Ever since it was discussed and then built it had a reeked of crony capitalism and the worst form of governing. It in the end mismanaged funds of the citizens of Bowling Green and promised too much that could never be delivered. It is poorly designed and has been a failed experiment.

Bowling Green did need a parking structure downtown. There were more events down there and several new venues. The Mills Family Reality Group (MR Group) came to provide this service to the city while getting government binds to help fund the proposed development. Everyone was on board. The city gets free parking, the MR Group gets new office space to sell and a place for Hitcents.com to have offices, and the taxpayer gets paid back with interest from the revenue generated. The family who owns MR Group started Hitcents. As with most joint ventures this was a fairy tale and a poorly designed one too.

The new restaurants were touted to be delicious and a new wave in Bowling Green. They even bought an old bastion of Bowling Green dining Mariah's and moved it to anchor the block. It became clear that the parking lot was of poor design. Making it hard to get out and to the restaurants or for that matter just out of the parking structure. They had several car break-ins there and which they did not have security cameras plugged in to catch them even though they had the functioning hardware to film any illegal activity. Problems persisted with not enough traffic to keep the restaurants alive and not renting enough office space.

When MR Group decided to not pay the builders all of the problems were suddenly exposed. The Mills Group disputes that it owes money and that actually money is owed to them see here. It is a big mess and with several million dollars in dispute they can't decide who owes what and who can sue who. At one point the County Attorney Amy Milliken said she was unsure that liens could be placed since the government was involved. Since then there have been liens placed and it looks like the city is trying to get everyone paid.

The city though to make sure everyone gets paid is taking out $30 million more in bonds. To pay off the old bonds and pay money to the builders. This is ridiculous. The city should stay completely out of this mess and really should never have gotten in bed with industry. It made MR Group act more reckless and take risks because the government was funding the bill and screwed the taxpayers out of several million dollars without an offsetting benefit. In the article mentioned above the city government decided to lose $280,000 a year with these new bonds and plans. Yes, we the taxpayers should have to pay for this mismanagement of funds of a private citizen. Let MR Group pay for all the bonds and the costs they incurred building their monument to themselves.

If the city commissioners do decide to vote this plan into existence I will have to support all new candidates for the commissioner positions. It is a gross mismanagement of tax money and they should not continue the problem. I will stand for Mayor Bruce Wilkerson though as he was the lone vote. This was illegal and just shows us the taxpayers again that business should not nor do they need handouts from us. It creates too much drama and loses the taxpayer money that could have gone to building roads or funding schools.

Living Frugally and You Can Retire A Millionaire

The quickest way to become a millionaire is to get a high paying job and saving a portion of that income for retirement or future use. If you can't get the top jobs or create a start-up that can be sold then you can still become a millionaire it will just take more work. It is still possible as this story or this one and the most recent story of a gas station attendant who accumulated an eight million dollar fortune over his life can attest. We as humans are always so surprised when the person next door who lives prudently has more money than we do especially if their income is lower than ours. We wonder if they inherited it or they must have a second job. It really is most likely just a simple idea of saving money.

I'm fascinated with these stories because it shows that with patience and hard work you can move yourself from a lower class to a higher class. It does not happen for everybody yet it is attainable.
The media also likes these secret millionaires because we as consumers like to hear about them. It plays to our desires and wants.

All of these individuals have made good stock picks or investment choices. It was not by picking investments though that they were able to amass fortunes. The real change here is that with each increase in wealth they did not spend the new wealth but kept the same lifestyle. Not changing the lifestyle even if you could technically afford it means that you can use profits and the same money to grow your money even more. It is difficult to predict the future and to live frugally allows a person to accumulate wealth and be able to maintain the current lifestyle in case of job loss or other event. If each time you had new wealth and changed your lifestyle you would erase all the gains.

Living frugally is not the easiest choice and at times I do not take the frugal path. Yet if I want to amass a fortune too maybe I should start living more frugally and that should be a choice as wise investors also choose. It can be done and let's take the advice of their lives.