Loyal Friends, on June 16th the city council again demonstrated why the process behind selecting the boundaries of the proposed expansion area are almost completely arbitrary. The council voted 3-1 to remove 7 selected properties from the area.
The criteria employed in the deselection are these:
- the properties are on boundaries,
- they are not necessary
- and the owners simply ask to be removed.
Now some cynical folks might surmise that these exclusions were just done to shut people up, including former Congressman Bill Dannemeyer, in fact we have already suggested that very same thought.
What is inescapable is the conclusion that if these 7 properties are not necessary than they never should have been included in the first place. How many haphazard lines drawn on a consultant draft table include non-blighted properties? The statistics presented by the lone dissenting vote, Shawn Nelson suggest very many indeed.
We suspect the city staff and their consultant are pursuing an age old strategy: grab all you can, get, and then hang on to as much of it as you can.
