Open Letter to UFC about Bad Decisions

Dear Dana White:

On Saturday night, Matt Hamill was robbed in London. The split decision in Hamill’s UFC 75 fight against Michael Bisping, a Brit fighting in his home country, was atrocious. Hamill clearly won the first two rounds on strikes and takedowns, while Bisping’s punches landed on Hamill’s arms. Hamill did seem to lose the third round; although, one judge even gave him the third, probably based upon his takedowns. This is not something about which reasonable people can disagree. Matt Hamill won that fight.

The decision was a complete shocker. In fact, one could hear a whole lot of boos and whistles from the crowd after it was announced. This was the same partisan crowd that had wildly cheered Bisping before and throughout the fight. Many of these British fans must have thought the decision was bad too.

Bad decisions happen. You are lucky that they have actually been rare in the UFC. When a decision in a fight or a boxing match is bad, viewers feel the injustice. The same thing happens when an umpire makes a bad call in baseball, or a referee makes a bad call in a football game. Often, the only justice that a viewer may ever receive is the fact that an announcer agrees and justifies those feelings.

On Saturday night, your announcers had been making comments throughout the fight implying that they thought Hamill was winning. But, when the decision was announced, they failed to address in any way the boos from the crowd or whether they thought a bad decision had been made. The writers on your website did not even mention the fact that the decision was controversial.

In other sports, announcers and writers are independent journalists. They are not usually hired by fight promoters or the owners of sports leagues or teams. Even when announcers do have such conflicts, they still retain the latitude to express their opinions. Have you heard Teddy Atlas announce a boxing match on ESPN? He lets you know exactly how he feels about bad decisions, bad judges, and even bad state commissions.

Here are a few suggestions to rectify this injustice. First, set up a rematch between Hamill and Bisping that takes place in the United States. Second, insist on experienced, fair judges in all fights. Think about whether this includes Cecil Peoples, who has been involved in some controversial decisions. Finally, allow and encourage your announcers and writers to disagree and debate decisions. This will not weaken your organization in any way. On the contrary, being open and honest and fair will only make the UFC even stronger as the premiere mixed martial arts organization.

Champaign Property Tax Levy

Last night, the Champaign City Council tentatively approved a property tax hike. I favor keeping Champaign’s property tax steady at the same $1.2659 per hundred dollars of valuation used last year. I won’t bother to discuss the affordability of property taxes or how property values (and therefore taxes) have been increasing more rapidly than inflation; those arguments are well-documented. Instead, let’s concentrate on what property tax revenues mean to the city.

During the staff presentation, Richard Schnuer, Champaign’s Finance Director, showed a line graph of the major components of the property tax levy: library, pensions, capital improvements, and the General Fund. These lines were stacked on top of each other, and each increased over time due to the expected growing obligations of the city. He added a blue line, which was called "additional." This represented the amount left over, or in some years, the amount that we were short.

Even at the same $1.2659 tax rate as last year, the blue line was above zero. Next year, over $800,000 would be left over after fulfilling our obligations. The following year, the city would have even more "additional" funds available. In fact, the line remained positive, implying that we would have excess available, until 2014. Some have suggested that, if you don’t want to increase the property tax rate, then you must suggest which services you would be willing to cut to meet the shortfall. The truth is that the shortfall doesn’t exist. Additional funds are available at the current rate.

Now, the city will have some extra needs in the future, which include repairing arterial streets, catching up on pension obligations, improving the Public Works facility, and moving/adding fire stations. We should use the extra money to fund items like these-true long-term investments. And, who knows what will happen in a few years, or by 2014 when the blue line finally crosses and becomes a shortfall? It’s just as likely that we’ll be better off than we are projecting and that we will be able to afford some of these projects with existing revenues at current rates.

Some have suggested that those extra funding needs are new, that we didn’t know about them last year, and that we need a property tax hike to pay for them. This is nonsense. We knew about every single one of those items last year when we voted on the tax levy. In fact, I remember learning about the needs for the Public Works facility all the way back six years ago when I was receiving my City Council orientation. Each project is necessary, but they may not need to be as costly as is being predicted, and they certainly aren’t required to be funded by property taxes anyway. Property tax is often a bad choice, because it is one of the most expensive and regressive types of tax. We have other options.

So, last night, I initially voted for the $1.2659 rate, which I favor maintaining. Unfortunately, the only other Council Member to agree with me was Karen Foster. After a series of polls on specific tax rates, no rate received the five necessary votes. Karen and I eventually voted for a compromise rate of $1.2942. This was obviously our second choice, but it became clear that the other Council Members were intent on increasing our tax rate. I think the compromise was necessary to avoid the even worse alternative of $1.312 that was proposed by staff and could have passed.

Property taxes are going up. But, it could have been worse.

Does the Internet Decrease Library Use?

The new Main Library in Champaign is set to open on January 6, 2008. This momentous occasion reminds me of a debate that used to occur when the new facility was being planned. One particular argument against building the new library was that increasing use of the Internet leads to decreasing use of physical library facilities. This is completely false, and in fact, the opposite is true.

In 1990, per capita circulation at the Champaign Public Library was 13.9 materials per year, and by the year 2000, per capita circulation had increased to 15.8 materials annually. According to their 2006/2007 annual report, the library had an annual circulation of 1,786,773. When you take this against Champaign’s population of 75,254 (which was recently adjusted upward due to a special census,) the annual per capita circulation comes in at an astounding 23.7.

This blows away the current national average of approximately seven to nine materials per year, depending upon whom you ask and how you measure it. According to the American Library Association, circulation on a national level has also been increasing steadily since 1990.

What’s going on? Well, some people go to the library for their Internet access. Others use the Internet at home to search for books to check out. These two Internet-related activities actually contribute directly to increased use of libraries. And, information and services will continue to become more and more integral parts of our daily lives, our jobs, and our economy. This means that library use (including visits to the physical structure) will continue to increase.

http://factorfictionblog.com/2007/12/26/does-the-internet-decrease-library-use.aspx