While most of us are planning for the holidays and trying to finance toys for the kids, urban renewal agencies from around the state are plotting legislation that will give them unbridled control of spending public funds for projects that belong under city voter control--like sewers, transportation, and public buildings.
Their plan to get the state law revised comes at a time when citizen challenges to the authority of these agencies--which are without oversight of any elected body-- or voters are being tried in the courts at bothersome and increasingly meddlesome rates. It is just a matter of time before their unchecked spending and tax collection gets stopped by the courts. Their latest effort and possible answer is to launch a legislative solution called the IDAHO URBAN REINVESTMENT ACT.
The CALDWELL GUARDIAN obtained an "Executive Summary Bullet Point" document of a closed door meeting held recently by the powerful Capitol City Development Corporation of Boise and other interested Idaho urban renewal agency representatives. THE CALDWELL GUARDIAN formally asked to attend the meeting, but CCDC officials politely claimed the meeting was not an "official board meeting" and therefore the public was not welcome to see and hear their strategy session.
If it was a meeting where they made decisions and took action as a board, then it was a board meeting. An illegal one. That tells you all about their motives.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we should make them a sign that they can hang on the door when they have such closed meetings. It would just have a middle finger on it.