>> Please plan to attend tomorrow's City Council meeting at 6:30pm at City Hall - 415 Diamond Street - Or, if you cannot attend, watch it live on local cable channel 8. The City Council will be voting on the wording for the Advisory Ballot that has been scheduled for next March, 2005. This ballot is the result of the "Public Process" that the City Council had performed in order to determine what the public would like to see at the AES Power Plant site if and when it retires. This process was performed after unanimously passing the "Heart of the City" plan two years ago, then having to rescind it due to public referendum.
    The City recently paid a consultant about $50,000 to perform a "Fiscal Analysis" on the two ideas that resulted from the Public Process - the "Heart Park" and "Village People" visions. The report was made available before the City Council Meeting where it was presented a few weeks ago. The report was acknowledged, by the authors, to have been hastily assembled due to budgetary and time pressures, and many who spoke at the Council Meeting indicated their disappointment in the deficiencies of the report.
    At the direction of the Council, the City Manager has come up with wording for the Ballot next March. The proposed wording for this ballot not only misrepresents potential costs and impacts for both ideas, but does so in a manner that clearly favors one idea over the other.
    The proposed Ballot Statements are as follows (to vote for one of the following):
        A) Acquire and develop 76.5 acres for park and recreation purposes at a cost to the
             taxpayers of approximately $347,268,000 to $351,736,000 with the possibility of
             undetermined funding from outside public and private sources; and, with a
             combined increase in operating costs and loss of revenue to the City of
             approximately $2,900,000 to $3,100,000 on an annual basis.
        B) Allow the construction of two hotels of 400 and 50 rooms respectively;
             450 residential units comprised of 147 townhouses, 100 condominiums,
             53 low-income senior units and 150 single family homes financed by private
             development; 18.5 acres of park and recreation uses at a cost of $50,525,000
             financed by redevelopment bonds, developer fees, and approximately $6,574,000
             borne by taxpayers, with the possibility of undetennined funding from outside
             public or private sources; and, a net annual increase in revenues to the city of
             approximately $794,840.
Here are two examples of the very misleading statements on this "ballot statement":
    1) Regarding choice A) (the park), the city indicates that the taxpayers will have to be burdened with about (a possibly very inflated figure of) $350 million to make this park a reality. The honest truth is that people representing entities that can arrange for state funds allocated for such park designations DID speak to the city, and they were also presented to consultant. The consultant and city prefer to imply that the local taxpayers will have to pay for acquisition of the park area, besides the residual maintenance, of which no mention was made of park-related revenues due to use fees, parking and the like (the current parking lot at the pier presently brings in about $1.5 million/year). There is no intention nor expectation that the local citizens will be burdened with any costs of creation of the park, unlike the $6+ million mentioned for the 'Village' development.
  2) Regarding choice B) (the 'Village' Development), the number of domiciles has risen from 350 to 450 since the end of the "process" (the 'Village' vision is still changing - growing), traffic impacts to the area will be increased many times fold by this option (over the park), anticipated redevelopment funds (which are not free) are not mentioned to be limited to the stated 16-acre park (remember the Heart of the City? - basically the same geographic area w/o the waterfront, was planning to issue over $400 million in redevelopment bonds), - - besides the fact that this is the last chance we have to do something really wonderful and unique for our community.

Even if you cannot come down to City Hall, please watch on TV. Please also bear in mind that every face that shows up at a City Council meeting is worth 100 that watch on TV. The City Council does not feel your presence if you watch at home - but keep informed, however you can.