It's finally happened. If you want to know why city development policy has
been so flawed, and why today's generation of policymakers shouldn't just be
sheepish, they should be ashamed to have voted for a ridiculous Block E and
Target store subsidy, check out the story on the city forgiving $15 million
to $35 million in loans to Brookfield Development, owners of Gaviidae
Common.
This story has been cooking for a long time. The city invested, stupidly, in
high end retail, and this is what we get: 10 years later, a great big fiscal
bomb in the middle of our finances. You can be appalled at the crappy deal
that the city negotiated (say, was the current mayor on that council?), but
the question you have to ask - and this early story doesn't answer - is what
does it do to our already stressed fiscal projections.
Oh yeah. Brookfield was the early force behind the Block E morass, until,
faced with this looming time bomb, they sloughed off the turkey onto
McCaffrey. But don't worry; we might give them a new loan to fix up City
Center.
Enough for now. Read it and weep at:
http://www.startribune.com/viewers/qview/cgi/qview.cgi?template=metro_a_cach
e&slug=gav27
David Brauer
King Field - Ward 10
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