Soooooo, did Mike come up with this idea all on his lonesome?
At a press conference this morning, Huether said he supports building a new events center seating 10,000 but that it can be done for $75 million to $100 million. The mayor’s events center task force has come forth with a proposal for a new facility that could hold as many as 15,000, expanded convention center and new hotel that could cost as much as $200 million, if a plan to relocate Howard Wood Field is included.
The 10,000 seat facility is what MPLS consulting group CSL proposed in a EC task force meeting. I think the words they used was ‘sweet spot’. At another TF meeting I was sitting next to Mike and told him that is what CSL recommended. Later in the meeting Mike asked me where the money would come from to build a new HW? I chuckled and said, “You and me.” Don’t get me wrong, I agree 100% with Mike on this, I just wanted you to know it is not an original idea, it has been floated for a long time, and the TF chose to ignore it. I also got the feeling from Mike during last week’s Mayoral Forum he isn’t on board with the funding source, he has also hinted that to me in person, because of the impact the retail tax will have on working poor. I just wish he would publicly come out and say it. So far the only candidate to publicly denounce the funding source is Staggers. I have a feeling Mike will be following suit shortly.
The KELO story is even better. It seems Peterson, Brown and Costello are have a hissy-fit over another mayoral candidate having a different (the right) idea;
“All of the candidates now, we could all play this game, we could all come out and say well, I’ll build one for, get into a bidding war and say I’ll build one for $50-million dollars, or I’ll build one for $25-million, but that doesn’t serve the citizens well,’ said Bill Peterson.
“We have to find a way to pay for it first, and then we can have the discussions about how big it should be, what the cost should be,” said Vernon Brown.
Candidate Pat Costello is a member of the events center task force. He says Huether’s pared-down version will short-change the city.
“It’s not going to have a $52-million dollar impact to our community. Could it work? Yeah. It worked 50-years ago, it’s called the arena,” said Costello.
Doesn’t matter if Mike has the right idea or not. The funding source will never pass 1) The Legislature, and 2) it won’t pass the voters.
You will see Shemp (Mike) setting himself apart from the other three stooges (Costello, Peterson, Brown) over the next couple of months. I still think it will be a battle royal between Huether and Staggers in the runoff.
Most often, Staggers is getting favorable responses from those who are concerned about spending issues. But when you add other factors such as which candidates are the best known or considered to know the issues well, then the race becomes much more even.
Yet, Kranz didn’t print any of those comments? Did he? Yah wanna know why? Because they are rare. The Gargoyle has it in for Kermit, and they just can’t bring it to themselves to say something positive about him without knocking him down in the next sentence. Talk about fair and balanced reporting.