Marie Hauser's message was a real hoot! First, she does us the service of
telling us how truth is going to be the first casualty in the rest of her
message. I couldn't have described it better myself.
She goes on to inform us how she is personally going to let us all know what
the "true facts" are -- as opposed to the "false facts" I suppose.
As Barry Clegg clearly describes in his response to Hauser's message, the
facts are quite a bit different than what Hauser would have us believe.
Perhaps of interest is that there are a bunch of smart lawyers who pretty much
agree with Clegg's description of the 1983 Agreement. There's only one
lawyer, working for DeLaSalle, who appears to agree with Hauser's unusual
interpretation -- and even his assessment is cagey, carefully staying within
very limited boundaries.
Hauser seems awfully concerned about questionable obligations in the 1983
Agreement between the MCDA and the Park Board, and yet completely unconcerned
about the legal agreements the Park Board has with the resident leaseholders
and with the MCDA as to land usage. That seems like a hypocritical position
to take.
She also claims her vote protects the city from a lawsuit. One has to wonder
about how genuine the interest a private school has in the public good if they
are threatening to file a lawsuit. On the other hand, voting the way Hauser
has may well open the city to lawsuits from a variety of other parties for
lack of appropriate process and biased, back-room decision making. It's a
pretty safe bet that as soon as the ink is dry on a reciprocal agreement with
DeLaSalle that Crown Hydro will be drafting its demands under threat of a
lawsuit. Shall we just give each private entity what it wants of our park
land, just in case they might file a lawsuit? I don't think that's any way to
run the Park Board.
Hauser has proposed 350 hours of Park Board usage of DeLaSalle's stadium built
on Park Board property. That's less than 7 hours on every Sunday for a year.
That hardly seems like just compensation for giving DeLaSalle almost
exclusive use of several additional acres of park land, existing exclusive use
of a quarter acre of park land already under the regulation football field,
and a chunk of land of unknown size in front of the building owned by the the
Park Board but used for parking by DeLaSalle for years. It seems the public
has been very generous with DeLaSalle over the years, already. Have they
grown a misplaced sense of entitlement?
This vote really has nothing to do with the 1983 Agreement. It's all about
cronyism between the Majority Five Park Board commissioners, and other
politically connected or influential people in the city tied to DeLaSalle.
Lastly, Hauser tries to assuage by saying the reciprocal agreement does not
sell, lease, rent or give away park land. That sounds so confidence
inspiring. How about Hauser sign a reciprocal use agreement with me for her
own personal real estate with similar terms? She gets to use it for her
purposes for 350 hours a year, and the rest of the year I get to use it for my
own purposes and some occasional activities I'll claim indirectly benefit her
family. Sound like a fair deal? It's the same deal Hauser wants to foist on
the taxpayers.
Chris Johnson
Fulton
--
http://www.MplsParkWatch.org/
http://www.ParkBoardReform.org/
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