Tim, it would be simple to have the DPW give them a three year plan for necessary infrastructure repairs and upgrades. Mike Hullihan knows these things and how they would be required over the next 36-48 months. Perhaps $500,000 could be added in for some sort of downtown cosmetic upgrade. There will be new tax monies coming in from the VC, and the other new projects on Ogden and Burlington. If they didn't waste money on tinpot consultants they would have had a good start at sprucing up the downtown with maybe some new benches, plantings.awnings - whatever. Simultaneously they should build into the code a stringent design review process that would adequately control what is built in the CBD. They don't need a $30,000 effort by Camiros - they can look at other places that have them and adapt it to fit our situation. Then they can go to the voters with a plan that says we need to fix this and this is what it costs, we want to do this to make our downtown more attractive and hopefully entice another business or two to come in. Let's say they had a $5,000,000. bond issue and the people would decide if it was worth it or not. While that was happening they could look at other areas where cost-effective initiatives could be used - Harlem, etc. That would make sense to everybody, and people who voted for it would be entitled to demand its prompt execution.
Catherine - left to right as we face them, here is my personal opinion based on observation, conversations and guesses:
Trustee Grace - I think she will realize that this was a bad idea, poorly executed and could be expected to honor the will of the voters.
Trustee Scanlon - as above. He is genuinely interested in doing the best for the Village.
Trustee Shields - Hopeless.
President Wiaduck - Touted as a consensus builder one gets the impression that he is sometimes pained by the rants he hears from BOTH sides, but he also appears to believe that development (as at the VC) will be good for Riverside in the long run. He is viewed as the driving force and person most responsible for the VC being built in its present form. Negative.
Trustee Scully - Intractable - would love to proved wrong.
Trustee Smith - A maverick, independent thinker, takes it seriously, also thinks a lot of it is foolish and a waste of time, to his credit has voted against more money for consultants, against the VC variance, etc. I have high hopes that he understands that there is a genuine dislike among the residents for packing the Village with more VC-like buildings, developer handouts, etc. I have great hopes for Kevin to do the right thing. He's a PD and has to go against the odds quite often, but he can't be swayed by what we say - for or against. He'll do his own thing.
Trustee Gustafson - I hold out the hope that she will respect the voters. I think she believes this was the Village Manager's pet and has already cost way too much.
As you can see, I remain optimistic. Despite some speeches to the contrary, I think most of the Trustees believe in the concept of a free and fair election, where some win and some lose. This election was tainted to some extent, but not by those who opposed the TIF. By those elected officials that said it was meaningless and they didn't care how it came out. This is not Belarus. Using the bully pulpit to whine in the paper that the other side was unfair when you just spent thousands of the voters tax dollars to mail out your own puff piece is frankl;y pathetic. What can you do with people like that? Ojl;y watch them to see the voters get a fair deal.
At the last Workshop the land along the River near where the Youth Center is were conveniently left off the map and not included in the discussion and alsmot slipped through. Since I have been going to meetings and asking for that to be removed for months, I don't see that as an accident. I see the hand of the Village Manager behind this entire thing. Somebody said, maybe you, that they thought te Village Manager should live in town, and I think that's a great idea. The job pays enough to be able to do that. I think it is a good idea to ask the voters about what they want to do before attempting to do it, not after. And then full disclosure. Remember, we have still to see the numbers that relate to what the consultants actually project from this TIF. I don't know what they are, and they might be absolutely unreliable, but we should have had them out there before the election. Why didn't this happen?
We had a referendum about the tunnel - it lost, and there was supposedly to be a notification of closure sent to the RTA, but that was never done. At the last workshop I heard discussion of a "western crossing" discussed (which means a tunnel from west of the station to the Tomececk Parking Facility) which together with the land aquisition and construction of said facility would eat up a good $6-7 million or more. We don't need that. It would just serve commuters, and we already cope with al;l we need to.
In all these projects they are intent on discussing the devil is truly in the details. This workshop format of sitting there and including one thing and throwing out another when they will mostly all never be built while this Board is sitting is like the kings of europe drawing up boundaries in Africa and making new countries. Look at the problems that has caused.
I hope that enough of these honest and well-intentioned people will step up and say enough - recognize this as the mistake it was, abandon it and move on. Giving this sequestered revenue stream to the people who are likely to vote for it would be, in my opinion, the ruination of Riverside and the greatest disservice they could do.
Posted Friday Apr 20, 2007 15:16
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