Larry the Cable Guy Development

To no one's surprise, the City Council last night approved the "transfer" of the Waterfront project from Akcess to Oshkosh River Development. At the one "public forum" held after Akcess backed out, lots of sharp questions were raised about the development. No serious alternatives to office buildings were presented or even allowed to be discussed in a meaningful way, and the response to all dissent has been that we simply need to "get something done." Apparently we need to get something done because prior councils and administrations managed to get us in a $6 million hole that will start to come due in 2010 or thereabouts. The hole could reach $10 million.

When I ran for office I said that a problem around here is our "faith based" model of economic development. That is, for example, we can get into a $6 million hole on the assumption (i.e. faith) that developers not only will gleefully propose projects to help us fill that hole, but that the public will also like and/or have use for what they propose. Even when the public makes it clear that they don't want river office space, have no use for river office space, would prefer to see a strategy for filling the swath of empty office space we already have, and want more citizen supported development on the river--we (i.e. the Council and administration) continue to insist that office space is what they DO want.

Mr. Rohloff has been quite clear in explaining this phenomenon. Even though the public might not clearly want or have a need for a project, we need to "get something done." Apparently that is what people are telling him. This is in huge contrast to what I hear in town; people want to know how we got $6 million--potentially $10 million-- in the hole and yet no one has been held accountable.

All I've asked for is a genuine, honest attempt to find out what the public will support and get excited about as regards waterfront development. Even the LDR consultants from earlier this decade argued that redevelopment projects can only succeed if the public is engaged and brought on board at the beginning of projects.

So what we're left with is the Larry the Cable Guy model of development. It doesn't really matter if projects are supported, and we have no responsibity to investigate alternatives. Rather, we just need to "Git er done!!!" We CAN do better than this, and it DOESN'T have to be this way.