Fees Increased to Pay for Effects of Development; Increased Revenues from Development Ignored, Milton Friedman Spins in Grave like Top

In More Exciting News In the War on Affordable Housing - Council Mounts Major Offensive!

Story but not headline from:
The Daily Sentinel

Thursday, December 20, 2007 (excerpted)

...“We’re fighting every day in this community to make housing more affordable,” Munkres said.

(But Wait. ed)

City Manager Laurie Kadrich told council members that standing pat would only widen the gap between the city’s traffic impact fee and the actual cost of new development. ( it is unclear what this is even supposed to mean-what about increased tax revenues from development. ed)

“My concern is that if no fee increase is approved tonight, we’ll be even further behind in a year or two,” she said.( too silly to even comment. ed)

I would like to be able to translate this but our readers can tell that it's not a problem with language but rather mental process. The calculations used to come up with this number ignore such basic economic principles that I dearly wish that it was done on purpose but doubt that it was. The connection between the public good and these activities is thin or nonexistent.