Is everyone nuts at City Hall? Sitting through all that crap last night was exhausting. This city wastes more money dreaming up schemes and trying to figure out how to give away control of our assets instead of doing the job they are paid to do. I don't even want to think what the legal fess have been.
The Selection Committee, all chosen by staff other than Amoroso, met last night for the first meeting where the public could listen but not say a word. As previously mentioned, with Christy Goddeau as city attorney, the Committee, consisting of Andy Amoroso, Juan Ruiz, William Waters, Corinne Elliott and Sherry Schmidt, began meeting in November of last year. There were originally three proposals on the table that were cut to two when Wave House Miami did not respond by January 30 to the committee's private meeting request. During the course of this time, up to the present, there have been many hours of fact finding meetings. The city told the "contenders" what they needed and what they expected and last night it was brought forth to a packed chamber.
Commissioner Amoroso proposed public charettes
to see what we want on our beach?
Mr. Amoroso--we already know what we want on our beach and it already exists. Basically it boils down to public control and no leases and no outsourcing. We went through charettes years ago and told the city then what we wanted. To now engage the public to help you figure out what we don't want is ridiculous. Residents don't want changes to our beach/casino complex and in fact, no one understands why this ITN was issued in the first place...because the city can't mange its way out of a wet paper bag?
Anderson & Carr, the real estate company that had the listing on the vacant upstairs space for several years, never finding a client, as well as Hudson Holdings (we know all about them) sent in their final replies and offers on March 2. Anderson & Carr has not offered enough money per s.f. ($20 and we must have $28 to break-even) and they also wanted exclusive rights to valet service, spaces for their employees and to sell hotdogs at hotdog stands (remember the pushcart idea that Greater Bay wanted?). Whatever Anderson & Carr does it will be self-financing. Amoroso thought the hotdog sales were a cool idea because there are a lot of poor people who go to our beach.
Hudson Holdings wants to get rid of our 50 meter Olympic pool (they say same hours as we have now) and build a Jr. size pool of 25 meters and maybe some other little pools? They have revised their plan about four times now (the committee keeps giving them chances especially Realtor Sherry Schmidt) and now the parking garage would be two stories. Hudson plans on borrowing the money.
Leonard Bryant, Photographer and Commissioner Ryan Maier
Commissioners McVoy and Maier (commissioners who are not kept in the loop) were the only commissioners attending the meeting other than Amoroso who is on the Selection Committee. Vice Mayor Scott Maxwell and Mayor Pam Triolo lived up to their promises--"I will not be there." "I respect the Cone of Silence." I would suppose that they already have all of the information, knowledge on the discussions, and thoroughly understand the offers made by these two firms and therefore they are disinterested in the public outrage.
There was an agreement last night to direct staff to draft an RFQ to do impact and traffic studies as well as an evaluation of our future land use in the BAC zoning. This recommendation will be presented to the commission that will ascertain whether or not to spend perhaps $100,000 to help them as well as future developers with their proposals. William Waters is getting back to me later in the day with the exact wordage that I will post when received.
Neither of the two proposals (Anderson & Carr and Hudson Holdings) were recommended by the Selection Committee but you NEVER know what this "visionary" city commission will do.
7 comments:
Why did Bornstein want to do this? it makes no sense. Can't he just hire the right people and pick up the garbage, water the trees, maintain the building and do the damn job? AZZHOLES.
Unless Hudson Holdings insists on pursuing this and getting hold of our beach no matter how they revise their proposal, they are done. I left before the meeting was over so I will be interested in listening to the last part of it.
The problem in LW is not only the commission but the city manager who doesn't know how to manage and believes that he's not responsible to the electorate of LW, only to the three that he eats and drinks with. He leaves everything up to staff to make him look good. He doesn't recognize that the pool, the way it is, is an amenity to LW. Developers do recognize that.
Somebody stop the craziness! Why spend $100,000 now, just get the right people to understand how to market the beach complex. This is absolutely lame!
Happy to hear that they are not recommending either proposal to the commission. But I disagree with other commenters. They should keep going until they find a way to rent the white elephant upstairs restaurant. Maybe it doesn't need to be a restaurant. Maybe it could bring in the desired revenue being offices or a surf shop.
I heard that many other items that go back to the short-sightedness of the BCE who designed the renovation, like lack of parking, lighting and even the view being blocked upstairs was discussed. Funny how you gloss over those fopas.
The BCE had NOTHING to do with the design--that was REG, highly reputable architect who William Waters worked for before we hired him.
The commission had NOTHING to do with design, being short-sighted or any of your other opinions regarding the view, lighting, etc. This was left up to experts to design per our budget and build per the plans. When you hire highly recommended firms through a bid process to do a job and ultimately recommended by staff, you expect quality work.
To the anonymous person who just attempted to comment here with foul language and really ugly personal remarks towards another resident, please do not come here. Now I noticed that you don't address a weight issue with any elected official. Why are you so discriminatory? Does politics get to you that much? What motivates your ugly disposition? Try love, not hate.
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