A Letter to the City Council by Judith Kaluzny
UPDATE: A version of this item is back on the agenda for tonight’s council meeting. Council denied the $69,997 expenditure last year. Now the Redevelopment Agency has broken the project into smaller increments, hoping that it can slither its’ way through in 2010.
A POST UPDATE FROM A FRIEND:
This item failed on a split vote last night. Keller and Quirk against, Jones and Nelson in favor, with Bankhead absent.
I read the state laws regarding business improvement districts. The process is that business people sign a petition to the city council. It is not the job of redevelopment to gin up a petition to give the appearance of support for this new taxing agency.
Cameron Irons did a survey February 2008 and got about 10 responses regarding a BID, mostly negative.
Sharon Quirk as councilmember said in 2007 that people should pay for the privilege of doing business downtown.
Maybe you want the money for city improvement, but it is not RDA’s place to create a demand for a taxing agency business people rejected in a private survey–the appropriate kind for a BID–last year.
Please do not waste money on this ill-advised venture. Vote no on Item 17 on May 19.
Yours truly,
A downtown business person,
Judith A. Kaluzny, Mediator and Lawyer
149 West Whiting Avenue
Fullerton, California 92832
This item failed on a split vote last night. Keller and Quirk against, Jones and Nelson in favor, with Bankhead absent.
Looks like Kaluzny did her homework and saved us some money. Sorry guys, you’ll have to form your own coalition of volunteers rather than forcing new taxes on unwilling businesses.
Quirk was right, the staff needs to reach out to the community early in the process. Don’t let the redevelopment spending be driven by a few business owners.
Cool.
Interesting that Dr. Penny Pincher didn’t seem to mind the idea of spending $ 70,000.00 to help the restaurants figure out a way to make other businesses pay for the mess they make.
Justin, boy that sounds familiar.
This one ain’t over. When Bankhead comes back from where ever he was he’ll ressurect it. Hopefully by then Nelson will realize what an f-up he made and vote the right way. Geez, he sure needs to have his hand held a lot.
Chicken is, unfortunately, correct. It’s not over ’til staff says it’s over, and staff clearly wanted (and wants) to pimp this thing. Zur Schmiede is clearly out of control. His staff is double or triple the size of Chaplupsky’s and is just looking for things to do (screw-up).
One more reason to oppose Redevelopment expansion!
When it comes to government…..don’t open the door an inch, the second you do, it will get kicked in. It’s how government operates, it’s the incremental approach.
Incremental changes are gradual improvements as opposed to revolutionary, paradigm-breaking changes – i.e. whereas the invention of inner tube tires was only an incremental change to wheels, the invention of the combustion engine was a revolutionary change over animal-drawn vehicles.
Pete – next time your back in Califas, be sure to look us up, you are your crew are always welcome in Fullerton.