The City Council and the city manager’s decision to spend a lot of taxpayer money to prepare a development agreement for Mill Site without first getting the courts to compel compliance by the railway to abide by state and local laws was ill conceived from the start. Now after tens of thousands have been wasted on planning consultants, the Railway and City are back where they were a year ago.
Second, it is your type of thinking that is the problem. You are encouraging the City to ignore federal law. An earlier City Council started an ill-conceived lawsuit, and now you're encouraging them to perpetuate it even though they've essentially lost following the STB ruling.
Third, the City and Railroad are working out a plan that is based on what the Community laid out in 2017-21. The value of this work is that we appear to be in agreement in the direction of the millsite. If we can resolve our legal differences, we may just achieve the much needed project for our community.
Being an owner/investor in an excursion train that doesn’t earn enough passenger or freight revenue to even maintain its tracks in operating condition, would drive anyone to make hysterical comments.
But for the record Chris, in regard to your false claims about a mythical plan the “community laid out” for developing the headlands, there has never been agreement in the Fort Bragg community about a plan for development. Various city council members over the past two decades have made lots of proposals for the headlands, but none of them have been put to the community for a vote. So who appointed you to decide what the community wants?
Frankly, once the public finds out the proposed Master Development Agreement is designed to burden city taxpayers with millions in new taxes in order to increase the value of railway owned property on the headlands, I suspect they will toss out any city council member that supports such an effort. The reality is, if city taxpayers refuse to shoulder the burden of extending sewer and water service to the headlands, economically speaking, the land becomes impossible to profitably develop.
The plain truth’s are, as you note in your third point, this is a plan the railroad worked out. It’s the railroad’s plan to save its owners/investors from the consequences of foolish investment decisions. But its not the community’s responsibility to bail the railroad out for bad corporate decisions. The plan hasn’t been approved by the city council. And it certainly isn’t a plan the community developed.
So I note that you ignore the cost of the City's litigation, which I believe is well past $500k (and even more for my company). More importantly, you ignore the legal futility of the City's action. Why?
But let's focus on what you chose to comment.
1) Most of our track is in fine shape. The biggest problem is a very expensive tunnel collapse caused by a third party. While we have operational funds to cover our annual maintenance, we did not have the millions to address this expensive fix.
2) what is false about my representation about the 30+ community meetings that have taken place during the past decade? Maybe you disagree with them since I don't recall your participation, but the community expressed a desire for signature hotel, event space, commercial extension, good paying light or industrial jobs, and housing while maintaining a significant amount of open space. Those are our guidelines and that is what we presented. Just because you're late to the party, doesn't mean you can cast aside a decade of work.
3) I wrote, "agreement in the direction of the millsite". I did not say the plans were finalized. Everything we have presented is a draft. Numerous more public workshops are planned to further develop the plans.
4) You seem to have a very simplistic view of how development happens. You think the City is planning to lose money on this project? I doubt the City would agree with your assessment.
Peter, rather than speaking with me on how we might improve our project, you fixate on attacking. It seems that you and your allies seem to have little interest in planning anything for the former millsite or what the community expressed was needed. Sounds like NIMBYism since you no longer have a need for employment, housing, or economic development.
The City Council and the city manager’s decision to spend a lot of taxpayer money to prepare a development agreement for Mill Site without first getting the courts to compel compliance by the railway to abide by state and local laws was ill conceived from the start. Now after tens of thousands have been wasted on planning consultants, the Railway and City are back where they were a year ago.
First, it has been $100,000s, not $10,000s.
Second, it is your type of thinking that is the problem. You are encouraging the City to ignore federal law. An earlier City Council started an ill-conceived lawsuit, and now you're encouraging them to perpetuate it even though they've essentially lost following the STB ruling.
Third, the City and Railroad are working out a plan that is based on what the Community laid out in 2017-21. The value of this work is that we appear to be in agreement in the direction of the millsite. If we can resolve our legal differences, we may just achieve the much needed project for our community.
Being an owner/investor in an excursion train that doesn’t earn enough passenger or freight revenue to even maintain its tracks in operating condition, would drive anyone to make hysterical comments.
But for the record Chris, in regard to your false claims about a mythical plan the “community laid out” for developing the headlands, there has never been agreement in the Fort Bragg community about a plan for development. Various city council members over the past two decades have made lots of proposals for the headlands, but none of them have been put to the community for a vote. So who appointed you to decide what the community wants?
Frankly, once the public finds out the proposed Master Development Agreement is designed to burden city taxpayers with millions in new taxes in order to increase the value of railway owned property on the headlands, I suspect they will toss out any city council member that supports such an effort. The reality is, if city taxpayers refuse to shoulder the burden of extending sewer and water service to the headlands, economically speaking, the land becomes impossible to profitably develop.
The plain truth’s are, as you note in your third point, this is a plan the railroad worked out. It’s the railroad’s plan to save its owners/investors from the consequences of foolish investment decisions. But its not the community’s responsibility to bail the railroad out for bad corporate decisions. The plan hasn’t been approved by the city council. And it certainly isn’t a plan the community developed.
So I note that you ignore the cost of the City's litigation, which I believe is well past $500k (and even more for my company). More importantly, you ignore the legal futility of the City's action. Why?
But let's focus on what you chose to comment.
1) Most of our track is in fine shape. The biggest problem is a very expensive tunnel collapse caused by a third party. While we have operational funds to cover our annual maintenance, we did not have the millions to address this expensive fix.
2) what is false about my representation about the 30+ community meetings that have taken place during the past decade? Maybe you disagree with them since I don't recall your participation, but the community expressed a desire for signature hotel, event space, commercial extension, good paying light or industrial jobs, and housing while maintaining a significant amount of open space. Those are our guidelines and that is what we presented. Just because you're late to the party, doesn't mean you can cast aside a decade of work.
3) I wrote, "agreement in the direction of the millsite". I did not say the plans were finalized. Everything we have presented is a draft. Numerous more public workshops are planned to further develop the plans.
4) You seem to have a very simplistic view of how development happens. You think the City is planning to lose money on this project? I doubt the City would agree with your assessment.
Peter, rather than speaking with me on how we might improve our project, you fixate on attacking. It seems that you and your allies seem to have little interest in planning anything for the former millsite or what the community expressed was needed. Sounds like NIMBYism since you no longer have a need for employment, housing, or economic development.