Wasn’t quite sure what I was witnessing last night, but there was the smell of burnt chislic in the air.
When the only two councilors to vote against the $90K Legacy money grab are the most conservative and the most liberal, one has to scratch your head a bit.
Councilor Starr questioned just how much parking we would get, and if this is just subsidizing the developer’s property and not really a benefit to ‘public’ parking.
Stehly had even more questions;
Stehly is concerned since Legacy Development owned the the Copper Lounge Building, which collapsed back in December. She wants to wait until the OSHA investigation is done.
She’s also concerned with not knowing who the investors are in the project, and using the 2nd penny sales tax as collateral.
While both Starr and Stehly make great points (and why they voted against the project). There are also many questions about the location and timing?
But even ‘IF’ we had all of the answers above, what baffles me even more is why isn’t Legacy paying these expenses? If they want the city to invest with them, then shouldn’t they be the ones to pony up?
And lastly, in reference to the lost sheep of the council, I actually expected a 4-to-4 OR 5-t-4 vote on this with the mayor fiddling around with a VETO or tie-breaker vote. Maybe that is why the council just gave in, they are getting tired of dealing with the VETO controversy. Which is disappointing, since it seems it only took 2 vetoes to whip the council back in shape.
Then there is the history of projects like this, like a lost sheep, they seem to have a short memory on how the administration has been able to ram-rod this kind of crap through. Always putting the cart in front of the horse and financing all the planning before a bond is even taken out. I told Neitzert if your family was planning on building a new home, you would go to the bank first and see what they would be willing to loan you and what you could afford before you ever met with a realtor or architect, unless of course you are independently wealthy and don’t care. Which is kind of the mayor’s mentality when it comes to taxpayer money.
The council certainly looked like lost sheep last night following the wolves into the forest. With so many unanswered questions and history behind this project, I can’t imagine any other reason they would approve something that was so obviously wrong.
Watch the full discussion. Second to last item on the agenda.