What did I tell yah?

Another back door deal, luckily it fell through;

The negotiations had been a closely guarded secret, and some city councilors were unaware of them. As late as Monday night, administration officials were declining to talk about the issue. But on Tuesday, Mayor Dave Munson confirmed that talks had ended.

“They looked at what they felt they could do,” Munson said. “It just wasn’t close to where we were at, so we dropped it.”

What I can’t figure out is why ‘some’ councilors were let in on the secret and some were not? Does the mayor view some councilors more important then others? He sure does. According to this article, at least one person knew about it.

“I know that there really wasn’t an appetite for us to spend money,” Councilor Greg Jamison said. “It was supposed to be on the cheap. I told them that it was the only way I could support this.”

I can bet that Knudson was probably also let in on the secret. Government works best when it is out in the open, transparent and has checks and balances. Why were there only a couple of councilors serving as those checks and balances? This stinks, but is no surprise. Here is an example of the partisianship that exists;

Rumor has it few weeks back the city councilors and mayor received an email from a event center task force member accusing one of the councilors in participating in class warfare, and organizing the effort to kill the Events Center recommendation. I know this councilor very well, first off I won’t even respond to the class warfare comment since that is the typical talking point rich people drag out every time the little guy mentions they don’t want to pay for their playgrounds (and this guy is rich, trust me) but as for organizing the effort, I can say this, I know this councilor very well and at no time did he ever mention to me or Cheryl Rath that we should attend EC task force meetings. In fact, Cheryl is the one who encouraged that same councilor, myself and the media to show up to the meetings because the shit was going down. I haven’t seen the email yet, but I’m crossing my fingers that it will surface in the media and reveal once and for all some of the bullies that sat on the Task Force ramming their flawed plan down taxpayer’s throats.

But back to the original topic. I have often felt that the city should have refurbished the coliseum for a performance hall and converted the old Washington High in joint offices for the county and city and left Carnegie as a museum. But it is still not too late. The city owns the Pavilion and has dumped over $20 million into it’s maintenance and upgrades since it opened over 10 years ago. I have suggested all along they close the Science Center (except the Cinedome) and make the space into offices for the city. It wouldn’t cost us a penny.