BY DONNA WESTFALL

Blake Inscore has many accomplishments under his belt.  He has lost 80 pounds and is now fit and trim.  He has a church that is in the black.  Husband, father, pastor of the Baptist Church and head of the Planning Commission. Calls himself “down to earth, and not a good one at small talk,” but don’t believe it. This man can talk.

“I like boundaries.  We all need boundaries to work with.  I enjoy being on the Planning Commission and I enjoy Crescent City.  I like having input. And I don’t rubber stamp staff.”  I also don’t live in the pipedream in the sense of Crescent City being a great destination place.”

I asked Blake how he came to relocate to Crescent City.  He blames it on his mother.  Or rather he credits his mother. Blake wanted 10 years as Pastor in his last location, Stockton.  He wanted stability for his family and his children while they were attending school.  After 10 years, his mother called him up and related that there were 2 places seeking pastors.  Crescent City was one of them.  Everything fell in to place and in 2008, he and his wife moved here.

We talked for an hour 1/2, and covered such areas as the homeless, events, brining business and industry to Crescent City, and tax breaks like they do in New York City…. come to New York and no income taxes, no sales taxes and no property taxes for so many years.  Blake thinks it may be hard to do something like that here because of the huge rate of failure for new businesses.  Why give all these tax breaks up front if they only last two years in business.  “Because it may create jobs in those two years which are sorely needed,” I contributed.

With the Indian tribes buying up more and more property which makes them exempt from property taxes, along with low income apartments being built which makes them exempt from property taxes, our tax base is not growing.  We agreed that in the event our area suddenly starts to grow, we can always builds up instead of out into the county.

I related to him the Censure Policy by the City and that it needs to be changed.  Right now, any three or four council members can utilize the Code of Ethics to gang up against the dissident council member and censure them as did Charles Slert, Kathryn Murray, Kelly Schellong and Dennis Burns.  The public has no right to censure anyone on the council.  Only Council members have that right.  And, there’s no investigation.  As in the case wherein I tried to point out all the suspected fraud and corruption, double and triple billing, etc related to the wastewater treatment plant project.

Blake isn’t into conspiracy stuff.  He wants proof and evidence and believes in micromanaging.  He says, “We need the spirit of cooperation that unites instead of divides.” I wished him luck and I told him I couldn’t agree with him more.  However, how do you achieve cooperation without respect. In my opinion, some of our current council members don’t know the meaning of respect.