Dear Mayor Nash and City Council members,
Strategic Economics has given you some eye-popping advice to help close the $20-$45 million “funding gaps” the city would need to cover:
· Put in parking meters in our small downtown streets
· Slash the number of replacement parking spaces: i.e. a classic bait-and-switch
· Encourage biking and walking, i.e. discourage driving
· Reduce the number of low-income units: i.e. defeating the entire stated purpose of the project
· Charge downtown property owners and businesses a new annual tax: i.e. the cat finally let out of the bag—it’s going to cost the taxpayers
Do you think these “remedies” would go a long way toward helping our businesses stay afloat during 5 miserable years of street closures, noise, dirt, the smell of diesel fuel permeating the air, jackhammers, dump trucks, cement mixers, blocked off areas, and detour signs? You’d just guarantee the businesses would go under faster.
Of course these “remedies” also violate everything you assured us of all along: that all parking would be replaced, there would be no cost to the city, etc.
There’s only one thing left for you to do, Council members, unless you intend to abandon all logic, all ethical considerations, and all principles of good stewardship: Terminate this project and instruct City Attorney Doherty to notify HCD that we need to amend our Housing Element, since the downtown parking lot housing attempt has failed to pass muster, and the Willow Village plan has also fallen through.
Then get to work on realistic and sensible plans instead of pie-in-the-sky “visions” untethered to reality.
Sincerely,
Cherie Zaslawsky
