I know what you are thinking, “Man, Detroit, you have really lost your marbles when it comes to this conspiracy theory.”
Now bear with me.
I won’t go into detail about what happened tonight, let’s just assume you watched the city council meeting and you saw the council defer the golf contract to next week so they could discuss a possible one year extension to Dakota Golf Management.
The major discussion tonight surrounded the secrecy around RFP’s and how they have been handled poorly. I couldn’t help to ponder if the 6 councilors who approved the parking ramp deal two weeks ago have been doing a lot of soul searching over the past 24 hours once they found out Hultgren, one of the guarantors of the deal, is being criminally investigated.
I get the feeling that a majority of the 6, if not all of them didn’t see this coming and depended on the information they had to make a decision. I think they don’t like all the mud on their faces now, and they weren’t going to let this happen again to them tonight.
So what do I think will happen? I think the council will extend another year with DGM, and I wouldn’t doubt they decide to put the parking ramp on hold until the investigation is complete. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Or else, when upper middle income and affluent folks get upset, then the City decides to listen.
It’s funny how government works sometimes or most of the times, huh? Look at the federal level, no wall, no repeal, but they most likely got the tax cuts for the wealthy, didn’t they?
#WeGotPriorities
#DontMessWithMyGolf
🎶 It’s beginning to look a lot like 🎶 defer everything until we replace Huether.
EC has a valid point.
But giving DGM a one-year extension seemed the right thing to do from the very beginning. It was bad timing to do the arbitrary RFP coming off 3+ years of reconstruction at Elmwood (which DGM endured with a smile on its face and in full cooperation with the city).
The one who comes out looking bad in this is the Parks Director, Don Kearney. I hope he has his resume updated because I don’t see him with a job in the next administration (regardless who is elected mayor).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sf3xSKNkuo
I was screaming through my TV to open skip the RFP process and ask to see all of the contracts before the defer meeting.
The RFP is a scam in order to conceal contract shenanigans. The selection committee needs to recommend the council on the best contract but give them all of the proposed contracts.
It was an interesting watch. Theresa was the first to grab the bull by the horns. Pat Starr then spoke up and had good questions. Then Greg Neitzert chimed in. Sellberg, as I found out only last night, was on the sooper dooper top secret rep group and tried in vain to slow down the Avalanche that this meeting turned into. erpinback, and erickkson finally jumped on board when they could see the writing on the wall with the groundswell of public sentiment for Jansa. kiley and rolfing contributed nothing at all during the entire process until they realized their cause was lost, and it was time to raise the white flag.
My question? How the hell did this get to that point?
@Warren – I agree, I was really impressed with Pat Starr’s questioning and comments starting around 3:40 of the meeting video. And subsequent comments from Neitzert regarding how they felt the city/council should really be deciding on the major policy shift of either keeping with professional mgmt vs changing to a lease model. I thought many councilors seemed off-put that they had no say in that choice, and basically had to accept the advisory board’s recommendation.
I still feel a lease option is best for the city in terms of minimized financial risk and also not having to outlay capital to buy assets. At least that’s my assumption since no one is going to ever get to see the actual RFPs.
erickson as usual tried to play to both sides. was a bit surprised by erpenbach because she always sides with the administration and their decisions. maybe the hultgren situation played into that with her.
i suspect huether has kiley, rolfing and selberg in the bag on this one so he can override, if he chooses to, any decision the council makes. selberg got played by the rigged process tom walsh very clearly pointed out.
I thought Walsh came in and gave some good input, certainly didn’t seem like it was sour grapes/sore loser and genuinely wants the dollars to stay SD if GreatLife can’t have it.
Did Selberg actually speak? I couldn’t believe it! He usually just sits there staring off into space and going with the majority