Northeast News
April 29, 2015

Last week, we witnessed our illustrious Mayor and City Council make a big ta-do about the first completed streetcar platform down on Main Street. The Mayor donned a conductor’s cap, and piloted the cardboard cut-out of a train off the platform and down the street, council in tow as passengers. Seriously, all this excitement for some powder blue coated, steel beams and a tempered glass roof?

All at taxpayer expense, mind you. Never mind the fuzzy math the Mayor and council want you to take as gospel. This Mayor wants you to believe that thanks to a streetcar — that doesn’t even exist yet — close to $1 billion has been invested in the downtown area by private businesses.

Here are some questions for the Mayor: How much of that investment will pay no taxes thanks to the giveaway TIF commission? How can a streetcar that doesn’t even exist yet drive economic development? The Mayor and council want you to believe the fallacy that every single penny of private development downtown that has happened after the much gerrymandered and ballyhooed streetcar vote was actually because of the streetcar vote. In simple doggie terms, you are supposed to believe that if a business decides to open downtown, that its opening is directly tied to the passage of the streetcar initiative. This simply isn’t true and the folks on the 29th floor of City Hall know it.

This crafty lil’ news-pooch ain’t buyin’ the hype. But like P.T. Barnum said, “there’s a sucker born every minute.” This crafty, conservative canine is of a mind that we’re the “suckers” who’ll be left holding the bag on this hot mess while basic neighborhood infrastructure needs continue to be ignored.