A Special kind of stupid

Sitting on the deck the other half and Kadizzle were discussing way back when they had a special person in place to draw up the plans for the expansion of Hazen. The energy boom was going full bore and the town was about to double in size. A local Republican had run for the Senate and lost. He was tossed the plum job of spending $600,000 to lay out how the town would grow. The plan was to incorporate the newest ideas in energy conservation. A new high school was built and the plan was to heat the school with internal combustion engines. These engines would generate electricity and the waste heat would be used to heat the school. In the end the idea never came to fruition, but the school was built to accommodate the idea. 

The insanity of the idea was not heating the school with coal. The school sat in the middle of the largest lignite coal field in the world. As part of the school a swimming pool was built adjacent to the school. The pool was heated with propane at great expense. The school ultimately was heated with coal. If brain dead thinking was no involved the pool could easily and cheaply been heated with coal. More than likely the coal companies in the area would have donated the coal for both the school and the pool, so the heating would have been almost free. Instead just heating the pool cost the park board about six thousand dollars per month. 

Since old non elected Senator Bob was part of the local cabal, the plan for the town was laid out not in the best interest of the town, but in the best interest of the right land owners. To top off the crazy outcome, the plan was violated to make sure the right people made money when the boom came on. In violation of the original plan commercial property was put where the plan called for housing. The ultimate mess that came about was a section of housing in the new plan. The game was rigged so the locals could sell their land first. The out of town developer was blocked at every turn. Hazen ended up with an entire section where no houses were built, but there were streets, water, sewer and all the infrasture. In desperation the land was sold for a dollar a lot for dingers to build steel building to store their toys. That part of town is now known as steel town and it is a mess. 

Now for the ultimate stupidity. Hazen had a relatively good plan on paper, but greed blew the plan to shreds. Because of greed the landowners could not wait for the town to fill.  Areas that should have been all nice homes were divided in two. Half Homes and half trailers. Go look at how the mess turned out. Now instead of making this mistake once the town fathers did it twice. Few know there was a reasonably nice plan on paper.  When you drive through Hazen and see the mumble jumble, that was not the plan. That was the plan seasoned with greed. 

The drive to get rich has destroyed our entire society, infrastructure and way of life. The 19.95 mentality is our bane. In the long run it almost always turns out the best thing to do, is do it right in the first place. The get rich quick scheme always blows up.