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WRA Promotes Beneficial Economic Development Package
by Tom Larson
Like great schools, a clean environment, and an efficient
transportation system, a healthy, vibrant economy is critical to
Wisconsin's quality of life. Many factors contribute to our state's
economy including a skilled labor force, an adequate supply of
affordable housing, and a favorable regulatory environment. If any of
these factors are lacking, companies will look to other states and
countries to do business.
The current regulatory environment in Wisconsin is problematic. This
is particularly true in the housing and real estate development
industry. Government red tape, excessive delays in receiving permits,
and a lack of financial incentives are making it difficult for
Wisconsin to meet our demands for housing and economic development.
To meet these demands, remain competitive in the global business
market and jump start our state's economy, the Wisconsin Legislature
is developing an economic development package that will consist of
legislative initiatives ranging from regulatory reform to tax code
modifications. The package will be introduced during the fall session,
followed by committee hearings, floor votes, and possible enactment
during the following months.
The WRA has compiled the following list of possible initiatives to
promote regulatory reform and stimulate economic development in
Wisconsin:
Priority Issues
- Health insurance coverage - Seek legislation making health
insurance more available and affordable for independent contractors
and small businesses, including but not limited to, exempting
independent contractors from the requirement that their employer pay
a percentage of the premium; and creation of a small business group
to which independent contractors can subscribe.
- E-commerce - Revise the state's electronic commerce statutes to
facilitate use of transactional platforms and electronic signatures
using federal legislation (E-sign) and the Uniform Electronic
Transaction Act (UETA) as the foundation for Wisconsin-specific
statutes.
- Permit processing deadlines - To help expedite the permit
approval process, require all state agencies and local governments
to establish timelines for acting on permit applications. If the
permits are not granted within the specified time frame, the permits
will be deemed automatically approved.
- Moratoria reform legislation -Authorize municipalities to enact
moratoria on economic development only where there is an existing or
imminent shortage of essential public facilities or a significant
threat to public health or safety presented by economic development.
- Reasonable fees on economic development - Codify existing case
law prohibiting local units of government from charging fees that
exceed the actual costs incurred to provide that service. Fees that
are imposed to generate revenue are an illegal tax unless
specifically authorized by the Legislature.
- Ch. 30 Reform - Streamline the permitting process related to
Wisconsin's surface water regulations by (a) providing permit
applicants with the option to bypass the contested case hearing
requirement and proceed directly to circuit court, and (b) reducing
the time period required for public notices.
- Expansion of TIF Authority - Seek expansion of the current TIF
district law to provide local units of government with additional
tools to attract new economic development, promote affordable
housing and protect against new restrictions on use of TIF
districts.
- Trans. 233 - Repeal and revise Trans. 233 to address the
excessive delays in receiving DOT approvals, unreasonable traffic
study requirements, and overreaching DOT regulatory authority; all
of which are creating tremendous obstacles for economic development
in Wisconsin.
- Vested rights - Freeze development regulations for completed
permit applications and provide that any subsequent changes in
land-use regulations will not affect the consideration of the
pending application.
- Impact fees - Assessed impact fees must be refunded to the payor
of the fee if the capital improvement is not commenced within five
years.
- State agencies' use of guidances - To provide the economic
development community with greater certainty about state
regulations, prohibit the use of "guidances" used for regulatory
purposes unless such guidances have been adopted by administrative
rule.
The WRA will be working with the Legislature to adopt these and other
regulatory changes to enhance the state's ability to attract, maintain
and grow Wisconsin businesses and jobs. If you have any questions or
comments, please contact Tom Larson
or Michael Theo at (608) 241-2047.
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What Are You Telling The World?
by Kare Anderson
"The secret is all in understanding a code. It is a most
elaborate code that is written nowhere, known by none, and yet
understood by all. That secret is how we tell each other, without
words, what we really feel."
- Author unknown
How do others perceive you? How well do you anticipate another
person's discomfort before the person freezes up and becomes
paralyzed, withdrawn, or even destructive in a situation. Whichever
side of the table you are on, these traits are crucial to your ability
to lead, mentor, or be an "MVTP" - a most valuable team player in your
organization. The adept capacity to fit into and solidify a team is
more valuable in today's organizations than the solo "star" leader
style of the past. Read Jim Collins' informative book, From Good to
Great, for the research on this finding.
Whether you are the boss or support person, being interviewed for a
job or conducting an interview, selling or trying to decide whether to
buy, your ability to project a comfortable confidence - and to detect
another's degree of comfort - will always play a huge role in your
ability to get things done through others and to succeed.
Here are some early warning signs of increased emotion. Learn to
look out for them in yourself as well as in others.
- Sweating: Might indicate an increase in some emotional feeling.
- Blinking more: Might indicate an increase in some emotional
feeling.
- Dilated pupils: Often indicates arousal or fear.
- Blushing: Might signal embarrassment, shame, anger, or guilt.
- Talking louder and faster: Usually signals anger, fear, or other
excitement.
- Talking slower and softer: Might signal sadness or boredom.
- Body gesturing: Signals a negative emotion, usually fear or
anger.
- Breathing fast and shallow: Indicates the presence of emotion.
Are You Out on a Limb?
Gestures are emblems of feelings. Using too many gestures usually
takes away from the potency of your natural presence, just as talking
high, fast, loud, or at great length diminishes your power and
credibility.
Most people cannot help "leaking" their feelings. Fortunately, few
of us are attuned to noticing the subtle signals that indicate strong
emotion in others. Or we misread the signals.
Your body is a hologram of your being: a three-dimensional movie
that is constantly running, showing others how you feel about yourself
and the world. As you walk through life, is your body saying what your
words are saying? Your body is a three-dimensional "full-motion"
billboard to the rest of the world. Even if people are consciously
reading your body language, they subconsciously react to your body
signals.
Tour Your Body for Vital Signs
For example, if you are literally uptight-rigid in any part of your
body, especially your face, where most people focus most of their
attention in conversation-people will instinctively resist or react
against you and your comments. This phenomenon is akin to bouncing a
hard rubber ball on a concrete surface and then on a soft carpet. The
ball bounces higher and faster against the hard surface than the soft
one, of course, just as others react more against your "hardened
surface." Suggestion: Whenever you are entering a potentially volatile
or even new situation, loosen up physically. Walk, stretch, and work
on the areas where you tend to hold most of your tension.
Probably-like many conscientious, hard-working people-you hold your
shoulders higher and slightly more forward than is natural, with one
of the tendons in your neck tightened up even more than the other. If
someone can give you a quick 10-to-15-minute shoulder and neck
massage, you will enter a situation more relaxed, and others will
respond more softly to you.
This is a good time to get acquainted with your body again, as you
were as a child. If you don't know where you hold your tension, and
most people don't, take a tour of your body so you can know what needs
the most loosening -- and exercise.
Are you shouldering the world's responsibilities or perpetually
drooping? In your determined drive toward success, do you plant your
feet solidly on the ground in a life gesture of hostility, defiance,
or taking ground?
Perhaps you have a forward-leaning posture, with your head tilted
slightly forward, as if ready to spring into action, actually
expressing a lifelong pattern of flight away from psychologically
threatening situations when you thought it was part of your makeup to
leap forward to new opportunities.
To be depressed is, in fact, to press against yourself. To be
closed off is to hold your muscles rigid against the world. Being open
is being soft, with no instinctive muscle-clenching such as the
jaw-tightening that is a growing pattern in Americans, even in their
sleep. Hardness is being uptight, cold, separate, giving yourself and
others a hard time. Softness is synonymous with pleasure, warmth,
flowing, being alive, drawing other people toward you rather than
forcing them away.
Are you itching to get at someone? Is a colleague a pain in the
neck? Are you sore about something? What is your aching back trying to
tell you? Is there someone or something on your back? What about your
ulcer, allergy, or muscle spasms? Is there someone you cannot stomach?
What is it you would like to get off your chest, or your back?
Your body speaks to you all the time, telling you your own needs.
Listen to it. It is your free and most sophisticated medical-feedback
testing system, continuously showing you your inner tensions, state of
mind, and habitual life attitudes.
When you are misaligned and tense, you expend outrageous sums of
extra energy in the everyday gestures of life. Because the body is a
high-viscosity substance that is 60-80 percent water, your bones are
floating in a relatively fluid environment. Over time, despite that
apparent fluidity, you have tightened the muscles around every major
experience of pain, fear, or anger.
In Western society, we usually hold the tension somewhere in our
upper bodies, whereas in many Eastern cultures, the tension tends to
be held in the lower body.
We all hold great muscle tension around certain bones in blind
remembrance of fearful events, long after the actual events are
probably long forgotten. You continue to tighten these muscles each
time you think you are experiencing similar situations, thus
guaranteeing that you make your pattern of uptightness increasingly
habitual until it becomes an almost permanent condition you no longer
recognize as not normal.
Ah, the misleading appearance of maturity. You might never recall
what initially made you afraid, but you can note where your body
reacted to protect itself. Then spend more time in your exercise and
massage or other bodywork to relax and loosen those muscle groups.
We go through life making decisions, closing down and limiting
ourselves unconsciously. If you don't begin a regular practice of
exercise and stretching, you are guaranteed to lose mobility sooner as
you age, robbing yourself of the most positive and alive present you
can offer the world every day -- a loose and relaxed presence.
Stay open literally by getting in motion more frequently. Stand and
stretch at least every 20 minutes when you are sitting and working.
Try to walk, hopefully in sync with someone else, in fresh air and
sunlight, at least 30 minutes a day. As Dr. Dean Ornish wrote in his
book, Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of
Intimacy, our survival depends on the healing power of love.
One of the safest and most natural ways to move closer to others is
to walk with them. Walk farther to the restaurant. Walk and talk on
the way to the meeting. Walk with your loved one, rather than sitting
at home, to come down from your day together. Motion is emotional and
makes every event more vivid and memorable. Literally move toward the
one you want in your life and loosen up together. Your life could
depend on it. In fact, why not get up right now and take a stretch,
look around, call someone, and suggest a walk?
Copyright© 2003, Kare Anderson. All rights reserved. For
information about Kare's programs, contact the Frog Pond at
800.704.FROG(3764) or email
susie@frogpond.com;
www.frogpond.com.
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