[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Wizard,WM: I just forwarded to Mr. McGreevy an e-mail from Erin Armstrong explaining the money situation, but I don't know how to post it to this list.
I believe you are wrong on your 90% federal money figure. It was my understanding that of the $153 million project the state would come up with 95 million. Because MnDot did not have 35W South schedualed/budgeted until 2015 McClaughlin proposed that Hennepinn County tax payers bond $95 million of the project . There is no guarantee if and when MnDot will repay the county tax payers.
WM: What seems like a "backroom deal" solely for the benefit of Abbott and Wells Fargo only seems that way because you did not participate in all the talking that went into the decision to ask our representatives to once again go back to the legislature and get the money so that we could all have access to and from 35W at Lake St. I sat through most, though not all, of those excruciatingly long meetings.
Seems like a good back room deal to me! This project is not about revitalization of South Minneapolis and/or Lake Street. It's about access to Wells Fargo and Allina at the expense of the neighborhoods and small business near 35 W. Let's build!
I'll repeat this information for you: Four neighborhoods (Central, Powderhorn, Corcoran, and Phillips), along with many other players including the Lake St. Council, the business associations at 4th Av., Chicago, Bloomington and 21st St., the three council members and anyone else who wanted to or decided to be there agreed that access to I35W would make it possible to revitalize the whole area between 35 and Hiawatha and between Franklin and 38th. St. We wanted, particularly, to have access for business. This was in 1996 and followed after Powderhorn invested some $200,000+ for yet one more study (making it 7 studies I believe, in the last 20 yrs.) exploring ways to revitalize that section of Lake St. The study, like all the ones before it, identified access to I35W as essential to revitalize this area. It re-asserted, for the 7th time, that access and revitalizing Lake and Chicago, revitalizing Hiawatha to Cedar were also key.
Enter Ray Harris as a developer (a disappointing one, perhaps, but the one chosen) for Sears. There was then a meeting with all the pertinent state and county officials during which I distinctly remember asking Linda Wejcman whether she believed that she, Karen Clark, and Sen Linda Berglin could muster the strength to get the legislature to write the project into the budget. This must have been in late 96 or in 97. The reps agreed to push the issue.
The back room was Spirit of the Lakes Church at 13th and Lake for the most part.
We were very much aware that this would be a boon to both Abbott and Honeywell at the time, but Dick Pitheon (Dick's Carpet), Julie Ingebretson (Ingebretson's), Norwest Bank and the bank at Bloomington and Lake, Chicago Lake Liquors, Sunny's Bar, Robert's Shoes, Urban Ventures, Uncle Hugo's even came once, I think, and a myriad of other businesses and non-profits came to those meetings. Any Young, who must be the Meeting Queen of South Minneapolis, was ever-present, as was Mike Gramling and Paula Gilbertson, Gwen McMahon, and on and on. It was a herd. There are minutes and a storm of paperwork to follow the whole process with, if you're so inclined. I don't have it anymore, my house was becoming a fire hazard, so I tossed about 100 pounds of paper at some point, including all that stuff.
So, when all y'all are calling this a backroom deal, you're also accusing me and a whole lot of ordinary neighbors and neighborhood small businesses of participating in a back room deal. I'm here to tell you that you are wrong and you are wrong by 100%. Not a little wrong, not a smidge, not an iota--100% wrong.
WizardMarks, Central
Tom McGreevy Business owner Lake and 35W
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