Councilors Starr and Stehly are not buying it though, and questioning investors;
“There will be zero conflicts of interest. They’ve made a commitment since day one and it was part of the request for qualifications that they can’t have any conflicts with city employees,” Ketcham said. “They will not accept any city participation.”
There is also a partnership between Legacy Development and Aaron Hultgren, whose company, Hultgren construction was fined roughly $100,000 by OSHA on Monday for the downtown building collapse, which killed 24-year-old Ethan McMahon, where the new mixed use parking ramp would be built.
Hultgren is an employee at Legacy and the site of the building collapse, which Hultgren Construction, LLC had been working on at the time of the collapse, had been sold to Legacy by Tim Kant, the owner of the Copper Lounge, in 2015.
When asked whether there was any sort of reconsideration about the partnership between the City and Legacy Development as a result of the building collapse in December 2016, or in the past 24 hours as a result the fines imposed by OSHA, Ketcham only said Hultgren Construction wasn’t involved in the project.
Besides the fact that Legacy has financial ties to Hultgren construction and has used them on several projects, somehow they seem to think they can wash their hands of the tie with the new parking ramp because they are using a different construction company.
Hey, I say, use the different construction company, the engineers and architects, but DO NOT allow a development company with such poor judgment to manage the project.
Also, the FINAL judgment and REPORT from OSHA does not get released until June, and that’s when the civil suits could rear their head. Could Legacy be on the hook for damages? We don’t know, and this ‘not knowing’ is a good enough reason for the city to find a different RFQ for this project.