As a member of Ward 6 I am not motivated to vote for a candidate that is frustrated at paying attention to our City Council. You might get frustrated at the activity or discussion, but if you are frustrated by listening to others….don't run.

I don't believe anyone made deceptive arguments against why the city could not address the water issue. There is a difference of opinion on how to proceed….either reactively or with a life cycle management plan that has yet to be developed that includes identifying the funding sources and plan of action.  It is inappropriate to compare the infrastructure issues that the city owns to the revitalization efforts that are largely commercial activities designed to generate a profit for the private sector.

I wonder if we could get an injunction that requires City Council to get court approval before being allowed to go into executive session. The number of times they go into executive session in violation of the law is so frequent this requirement makes sense.

Would anyone else be interested in helping pursue this kind of action?  

I would like to see the candidates talk about issues.  For instance Council is discussing the Lexington Place TIF.  Staff gave them an estimate of $5.1 million dollars.  When I look at this I see the possibility of over $10 million or getting as little as $2 million yet no member of council asked questions that would help determine what is a plausible expectation.  Nor did they ask questions that show they understand the details that would change the amount the city will get.  Glenn missed his opportunity to show he is voting on the plan that maximizes our revenue.  But I would give him or Dana credit if they were to discuss it now.

In regards to your first objective… I think it is reasonable that you ask those types of questions.  But I also think you should ask yourself this… why should the city get to sit back and provide nothing, but reap all the benefits?  TIF is a pretty common thing used all across the country and in the rest of the world.  The whole purpose of it is to encourage develepment.

As for your suggestion to slow down development…. this has already been going on for how many years now and still has many more to go.  How long exactly do you want this to last?

Have you considered what happens if the city stops contributing and the developer pulls out?  The developer is currently paying millions in debt on behalf of the city are they not?  If DEC pulled out…. the city would have to start paying that debt again?  Or find a third developer at that point to take all the risk because the city doesn't want to help.

Your second objective is basically just to prove a point that you have power or to get some revenge on what some council members told the news in the past?  Tell me I didn't just read that.  You should be less concerned about what some PAC is doing and more concerned about the city.  That is just politics.  That PAC failed to even get enough signatures to support their movement 2 years ago.

This website theme has great potential especially since it is open source and free but I can see I'll need help to make it work. If you believe in the vision and you can write code for a website as sophisticated as this contact me. As useful as this site seems it loads pretty slow so if you know of another open source theme that does the same things contact me.
Also, I think if there are 8 of us willing to rotate through the committee meetings and then write about the key events we can improve this city. Contact me if you are interested.

Finally, if you have pictures of City events, construction, public areas or services I'd like to show them. Send them to me and I'll incorporate them into the site. Tom McMasters