Mayor Garrent Nancolas stated publicly this past spring he would allow citizens of Caldwell to vote on the TVCC project to be built in downtown Caldwell. Today we have another announcement we're going to try a project concept that failed in downtown Boise right here in Caldwell. Government and retail in the same building just like the Ada County Courthouse flop. There will be not voting on this matter as our Mayor has decided and we get to pay for his wisdom and decision.
Team Garret is going to spend millions on a building project nobody has asked for nor have they a public mandate to proceed with this project. They want to provide TVCC with $300k to stop-gap finance improvements and upgrades to the Mercado building right now until they get into the new taxpayer funded building. Next, they also want to break ground on a building in downtown for TVCC that is too small to meet their needs. The cost of this building will be around $10 million for the taxpayers to shell out with no formal vote or approval process.
There is also another downtown revitalization effort that will attempt fix all that is wrong with downtown Caldwell with no dedicated funds for the effort. Mayor Nancolas has apparently forgotten all the studies and reports in city file cabinet drawers collecting dust. This appears to be nothing more than a thinly disguised effort to silence critics of his administration and his lack of progress with downtown Caldwell. It is another effort where hope springs eternal and fools will never learn. People in attendance at the meeting this past week knew little to nothing about previous studies and efforts.
Absent from the new and improved downtown commission are the R/Udat study, the Leland Report from 2006 and other studies. The City has paid out nearly $400k for all these studies. Caldwell deserves better than what we are getting from the current city administration and Mayor Nancolas. Unilateral decision making does not build community. Nor does irresponsible spending of Urban Renewal property taxes on non-economic projects. All this bad behavior will continue until citizens start holding elected officials accountable for the millions they have spent with no apparent results. We do have a five block addition to the city park system in the form of the uncovered creek project. True economic development, synergy, and sense of community continue to degrade in our downtown core. Twelve years of Mayor Nancolas leadership and we are worse off today than we were before he took office.
Add to this the we learn the Canyon County Fair Board is pulling up stakes and leaving the city of Caldwell. Mayor Nancolas has claimed he knew nothing of this move but people close to the fair board claim the City of Caldwell was very difficult to work with when it come to doing something in Caldwell to improve and make the fairgrounds a viable venue for the fair.
City officials also have managed to bungle a new big box retail complex out of 20/26 as well. Again the familiar refrain.. the city of Caldwell is just too difficult to work with. "We do not want to be the retail pioneer in the city of Caldwell" were the parting words of the developer as he moved to Nampa to do his projects.
Monday, August 17, 2009
What Happened to Voting on TVCC Project. Caldwell Coninues As City Very Difficult To Work With, Economic Development Bypasses Caldwell Again
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I would like to comment on the Canyon County Fair "pulling up Stakers and leaving Caldwell". I am not sure where the comment from someone close to the Fair Board came from, but it is far from correct. Mayor Nancolas has been a tremendous supporter of the Fair from cooking in our Celebrity Cooking Show to singing the National Anthem to allowing City departments to help make the Fair a success in any way possible. The Caldwell Police and Fire departments are on site during the Fair to ensure safety of the patrons, Parks and Rec. loans items such as picnic tables and a generator, which the Fair Board would normally have to rent and the Street Department helps with clean up, traffic control, etc. It was never the intent of the Fair Board to leave Caldwell, however when looking into purchasing land that would remain the home of the Fair for many years to come there were a lot of criterias which had to be met. For example, SPACE, we would not want to spend money that has taken years to save on a "quick" fix. The new Fair site needed to be large enough to accomodate future growth, freeway access was important, availability of City services, good highways for easy access, etc. This decision was not made lightly. There was a site that was looked at which would have been in Caldwell City limits, however it was decided that there would not be enough room for future growth and we may end up in the same situation in several years. The Fair Board feels that the new location best fits our criteria. The site sits in a very central location to Caldwell, Nampa and Middleton which are the City's within the County with the largest population base. We feel that we can service the citizens of the County very well from such a location. The intent of the the Fair Board is for the Fair to become a self-sustaining entity and require no tax dollars for day to day operation in the future. That is a challenge which is impossible at the current site, with one dirt floor building. We hope to bring many more events to the County which will in turn bring a much larger economic impact to our cities. As reported in the Idaho Statesman, at this point it will be years before the new site is in place and once the move is made, we see no reason to abandon the current site. There are several interim events which are currently hosted at the old site that would more than likely remain at the old site.
ReplyDeleteRosalie Cope - Fair Administrator