Besides the hilarity of the bossom buddies screwing up another press conference and making announcements before final deals have been cut . . .
“There’s no deal,” Haugo said Wednesday from his home in Arizona. “No money has been exchanged and there’s no signed agreement. This was a case of the mayor and (development director) Darrin Smith overdriving their mouths.”
Well that mayor’s mouth has been on overdrive ever since he decided to run for mayor, I’m pretty sure it runs off a Hemi 440. His mouth was certainly in overdrive Tuesday night when he decided to get up from his chair and chew Kenny Anderson’s ass for not ‘controlling’ the city council discussion at the meeting, but you won’t see that tidbit on SIRE since somehow it mysteriously got edited from the video. Rex Rolfing likes to remind people to remove their hats during public testimony because of ‘decorum’. If we want real decorum at our council meetings maybe we should remove the mayor?
I digress.
Back to the $40 million dollar project that may or may not happen. I asked a committee member with the RFP the other day what proposals are being thrown out there (and these are very, very preliminary)
-The project would request $10 million from the city (taxpayers) to build the ramp. The city would own the ramp, and lease space to the hotel and apartment dwellers.
-The project may also be asking for a TIF.
I say one or the other, but not both. I like the idea that the city would own the ramp, but with such a large project ($40 million total) I don’t like the use of a TIF. I would want the remaining $30 million in private investment to be paying the FULL property taxes when the project is completed so that we can recoup our parking ramp expense. I would also be willing to throw in FREE use of the landfill if the other buildings need to be demolished.
I don’t thinking building a ‘boutique’ hotel is a wise choice of TIF money, and since the city would be ponying up $10 million already, I think the gift giving should end there.