Wizard, you certainly have described well the demise of Nicollet from the time that the city was gutted to build 35W to when they closed Nicollet for K-mart. And somehow, you want me to believe that making 35W even bigger with cement ramps pouring into my neighborhood and a giant Lake Street is going to make things better for me and those small mom and pop businesses? Ever been to Houston? Seen University Avenue lately? How about Broadway?
It certainly is your right to support the project and I respect that. However, 60 or better people in my neighborhood attended a series of meetings and decided NO THANK YOU! And I suspect a whole lot more people outside my neighborhood aren't happy about it either. Not that it really matters.
When the 35W people realized they had a boat anchor hanging around their necks they decided to attach themselves to the sailing ship. The re-opening of Nicollet and the Sherman project. In my opinion (and this is only my opinion) when Sherman tried to stay out of the 35W debate because there was nothing to gain by getting into it, the head cheerleader of the expansionaires offered to help them close their financing gap as long as someone from Sherman would show up at these meetings and help sell this losing project. Further evidence of these "backroom" offers was to the Ventura Village PAC rep. when they offered to build a big fat landbridge on Franklin so housing could be built on top of it. Of course, none of these offers were made in the light of public and certainly not in writing. I don't know what your definition of scullduggery is, but the above scenario fits pretty closely to mine.
So..now I hear 35W is a "done deal". I have been told Tim Pawlenty is on board (boy, he didn't waste time), all the County Commissioners, and R.T. So, the expansion of 35W is on the tracks. Oooops! They forgot the train. Oh ya, I was also told they didn't care what the City Council thought and they sure don't care what we think. Ya see, we have these liberal fringe city council people representing us in these inner-city neighborhoods so we are really easy to marginalize and discount. Did you read the comments made about Robert Lilligren in the strib today?
Ya know, I would have accepted this whole thing and had a lot more respect for the powers to be had they been honest from the beginning. "Hey folks, we are going to expand 35W whether you like it or not. We will throw you a bone with a couple nice exit ramps and we will try to make the bridges and walls look pretty. But, don't make us lie to you and make you think you really have a choice here because you don't. We are going to ram this down your throats just like we did when it was built 40 some years ago." That message I could have accepted and whether I liked it or not at least respected their honesty.
And while your all complaining about your property tax hikes, try to calculate what percentage of it is going to pay for the $150M freeway expansion. Hmmmm....
Barb Lickness/Whittier (probably in big trouble now!)
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed,
it's the only thing that ever has." -- Margaret Mead
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