According to the agenda for the for the June 13th Oshkosh Common Council meeting, there will be a "Five Rivers Update" under "Whatever Else Is Pertinent Or For The Good Of The City." Having the update during that part of the meeting provides citizens with no opportunity to comment on it.
The Five Rivers Update belongs in the Report of the City Manager. Placing the update there would allow citizens the opportunity to comment on it. Five Rivers is a major project which will make use of huge public subsidies, yet the public has had little formal opportunity for comment.
If the Council will not move the Five Rivers Update to the Report of the City Manager section of the meeting, they should at least allow citizens the opportunity to make comments after the Update is delivered during the "Whatever Else Is Pertinent . . ." section.
Contact the Council and ask them to move to revise the agenda so that the Five Rivers Update is placed in the Report of the City Manager. Tell them that if the Five Rivers Update remains in the "Whatever Else Is Pertinent . . ." section, then citizens should be given an opportunity to comment after the Update is delivered.
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3 comments:
Tony, I couldn't agree with you more. I have already contacted our city council members as well.
We have been told that Five Rivers is a public-private partnership. But I would be willing to bet that none of us has ever been involved in such an unbalanced, unfair partnership as this (save for the Leach Amphitheater). Partnerships are supposed to involve input from all partners, not just some (unless they're silent partners). We have been made silent partners by developer Tom Doig and our own city administration from day one of this project, and subsequently shut down at every turn since then.
It is high time we have an opportunity to speak on this and get some answers, etc. If Mr. Doig and the city want our money, they beetter be willing to give us some answers and listen to what we have to say.
I don't believe Mr. Doig has ever spoken publicly about this project and he did not want to come on Eye on Oshkosh to answer questions until the deal was essentially "signed, sealed and delivered." We were not going to be used as a public relations vehicle for him, so thanked him but told him once it's a done deal, there really is no benefit to us or the public in his coming on the show.
Again, if we're good enough to pay a large portion of the bill, we ought to be good enough to discuss the project we're partnering with someone on in the initial and planning stages. Otherwise, Mr. Doig, since you say it is such a wonderful deal, do it on your own and leave us out of it. Because the only ones it seems to be a wonderful deal for at this point are you, your business partners and C.D. Smith Construction (as well as the other contractors working on the project).
Councilwoman Meredith Scheuermann has replied via email to say that the request to move the agenda item or allow citizens to speak during the currently planned portion of the meeting is reasonable. She says that while she will not be able to attend the meeting she will encourage staff beforehand to honor the request.
Tony-
Mayor Castle has agreed with my request to move "Whatever Else is Pertinent or for the Good of the City," which will be an update on Five Rivers, to before "Citizen Statements" so that citizens will have an opportunity to speak on the issue and comment on the update. He will announce this at the beginning of tomorrow's meeting.
-Bryan
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