Chamber later reports, TIF, Hotels, Bruer and other miscellaneous stuff . . .
CHAMBER, DID THEY REALLY KNOW?
A friend of mine sent me this about the Isthmus article on late Chamber of Commerce conduit contributions, so I can’t take credit for the research:
Thought you might be interested in this for your blog:
So, the chamber claims not to know they need to file the reports of late disbursements for local candidates, but they complied with the rule (not just once, but twice) in 2007.
They may have simply forgotten to file the reports, but Delora is full of shit when she says they didn’t know they needed to complete the reports for local candidates. Might want to note that Jim Imhoff is the signer of the reports back in 2007 and is still (according to their website) their political committee chair so it’s not as if no one who knew about the reports then is around now.
DON’T BOTHER FILING CAMPAIGN FINANCE REPORTS
I have to say, I wasn’t surprised by the Isthmus article about the campaign contributions and lack of filing and the Chamber of Commerce’s political bullshit. But I was more concerned and kinda shocked by Blanchard’s response.
“This office does not have nearly the resources to pursue intentional violations of the law regularly referred here by police, and so we certainly lack resources to pursue accidental or inadvertent violations.”
First, his office is slammed with more important issues and that is a problem and I don’t want to ignore that. But to this point, he basically just told people not to bother filing their reports cuz he doesn’t care and won’t do anything about it. So, its a free for all! Expect the shenanigans to increase.
IS MARK OLINGER NO LONGER DIRECTOR OF PLANNING AND ECONOMIC AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT?
I’ve long had issues with Mr. Olinger’s dual role of working for the CDA and being the city’s DCPECD Director. But his recent vacation response on his email kinda surprised me, has he completely given up on being the director of the DCPECD and only works for the CDA?
Sorry I missed your message. I am currently out of the office, returning Monday, August 3, 2009.
If you have questions re: Allied Redevelopment, please contact Percy Brown at pbrown@cityofmadison.com
If you have questions re: The Villager, please contact Don Marx at dmarx@cityofmadison.com
If you have questions re: Truax Park, please contact Augie Olvera at aolvera@cityofmadison.com
If you need immediate assistance, please contact my assistant Nancy Prusaitis at nprusaitis@cityofmadison.com.
Hmmmm . .. . three CDA projects (Allied, Villager, Truax) and no mention of anything about the planning diivision, or community development, or economic development. I’d love to see the break down of how he spends his time vs. how he gets paid (City vs. CDA). I think there is something just a tad bit off here.
NO TIF APPLICATIONS HERE
So, all this talk about eliminating the “but for” and financial analysis about if a company really needs TIF money and after taking a look at the lobbying reports, I decided to dive in and look at the TIF applications on the table. At the moment, I hear that the following entities are looking for TIF from the city: Edgewater, Danisco, Oscar Mayer, Pelliteri, Apex, Marcus Hotel and at one point Fiore was looking for TIF. So, I really wanted to see what they wanted and what they said they needed it for.
Well, guess what? Of all the above, the only ones to actually fill out the application for TIF were Danisco and Oscar Mayer. How is it that I’m hearing the Edgewater TIF is settled at $5.4M (for them and another $10M or so for “public improvements”) before they even put in an application? Hmmmm . . . .
DO THEY REALLY NEED TIF?
So, rumors are flying all around about the Oscar Mayer and Danisco applications for TIF, I’ve heard this story from multiple people. Apparently, neither one of them need TIF. Oscar Mayer can get the money from the state and Danisco made a profit of $30+M last year, even in this economy. Plus, they are asking for some rather small amounts of money. Does anyone really believe that these huge companies can’t come up with $300,000 or $400,000? So what’s really going on here?
A FIFTH HOTEL?
My favorite rumor I heard recently . . . Kenton Peters also has a hotel plan. This is just getting ridiculous. All these proposals can’t be serious can they? Has this just become some kind of ego battle between the big boy developers? Are people just tossing their hats in the ring to be players?
BRUER UPDATE
After about 5 too many beers with Bruer and much talking, he agrees to try harder. He better, cuz I’ll be watching.
I have the day off, might want to check back this afternoon for more . . .
