According to my sources today, Mike has been holding private meetings with councilors this week about his EC plan. He has been doing it in small groups, I am assuming to trump SD open meeting laws. There is a public meeting tonight (budget working session) and as I understand it, some councilors are going to question him about the plan, and want answers before a (expected) Friday press conference on the plan. Mainly they want to know how are we gonna pay for it.
Secrecy and government don’t work together well. Spill the beans already Mike, at least to our elected officials.
My initial thought is he is playing big boy politics and trying to convince the other councilors to vote for his plan. On second thought though he is up to no good if his words cannot see the light of (public) day.
Trust me, there is dissension in the ranks about not making this process public before announcing his plan. But as I told my source, playing the devil’s advocate, the public process to get an EC done did not work, it failed 3 times, and that is probably why Huether is taking this path. But it will fail also. The main reason? The public is broke, and they don’t want to give anymore money to the government for special interest projects.
. . . and the public is tired of watching their and their neighbor’s turds flow down the street and getting a quarterly alignment on their cars.
I think the reason for Huether’s strategy is he’s basically floating & repackaging the last Task Farce’s plan, minus the destruction of Howard Wood and adding in a ramp.
He thinks that by spending several thousand dollars on schematics and a model, that the public will simply fall in behind him because they all have told him to “just get it done” . I love the way he says people need to “see & touch” the plan to get behind it…ie “you all are too damn stupid to envision something like this.
I’m sorry, but to build a facility like this in this manner is beyond asinine and will ironically lead to the Event Center bashers ultimately will be proven correct. Like the Convention Center it will more than likely be obsolete the day they cut the friggin’ ribbon. It won’t lead to any collateral development and there won’t be a shopping/entertainment district within walking distance to compliment it like the consultants have advised.
Hopefully, when this thing goes down in flames again, the next mayor (Huether could easily be one & done) will present a plan that isn’t the path of least resistance just to “get it done”.
It really does come down to economics. As a city leader, you need to have to pulse of the community, and realize that most people in SF don’t have ‘extra’ money to throw around. Staggers understood that. I don’t think Mike does.
As a city leader, you need to have to pulse of the community, and realize that most people in SF don’t have ‘extra’ money to throw around. Staggers understood that. I don’t think Mike does.
As a LEADER of any organization, you have to make the decisions that are in the best interest of said organization – whether they’re popular and easy or unpopular and difficult.
Unfortunately, Mikey seems to want ot go the popular and “easy” route for the sake of his reelection.
Old folks are afraid of the DT area, and they vote, so Mike says we’ll put it somewhere else. This is the exact excuse he gave me during the campaign.
“Old folks are afraid of the DT area, and they vote, so Mike says we’ll put it somewhere else. ”
Bingo…a politcally based decision that will cost the rest of us millions of dollars over the long haul. That ain’t leadership.