Board of Aldermen 2-12-2020 Page 15
Alderman Dowd
First of all, | will not support any additional amendments, | think that puts us at risk. We went round and
round and round with numerous different types of amendments and it got to the point of we weren’t getting
anywhere. Alderman Wilshire made an amendment to do what is on the this blue copy, everybody agreed
to it unanimously and | think that we ought to vote on this, get it passed and move forward.
Alderman Lopez
Thanks for answering my question. So | am sympathetic as to what Alderman Jette is proposing because
we have the opportunity to review, in the fall the New Market Tax Credits. It’s not like this came out of
nowhere. In 2018 we all met and we all talked about this, we talked to Betsy McNamara. | definitely
remember bringing up the fact that there were not two full years and the amount that was being raised was
already looking different and | believe it has been confirmed since then that we don’t need the endowment
so we need a far smaller number. These were issues that | believe were known and then in the ensuing
several months, all we got was “this needs to be a quiet phase, this needs to be something that isn’t
publicized”. This is the loudest quiet phase I’ve ever heard of in my life. This whole process of “we are not
going to announce what our numbers are or who our donors”. | can understand the donors, but we haven't,
as a Board, been getting any updates as to how much money was being raised by the private fundraising
committee and we weren’t scaling that against what they actually needed to fundraise, versus what we
imagined that they needed to fundraise at the beginning.
So all of that was in the play these last two years. There was much discussion on this Board about, you
know, what’s going with the New Market Tax Credit. How come we haven’t seen a report from Director
Cummings lately? | thought the estimate was that we would have numbers in August and all of this back
and forth but we didn’t meet to talk about this and make any decisions about the amendment. So | can
understand where Alderman Jette would say maybe we should wait 18 months is because what is likely to
happen is no conversation until 17 7% months and then we will have “It is expiring tomorrow and we need to
do something right away”. So | am not against figuring out a way forward so that we don’t lose everything
that’s been invested but do think it is important to include some kind of inception part. As it is written right
now, the blue amendment gives the Mayor the ability to say, “We did it, we reached our goal. | am now
announcing that we will move forward with the bond”. But it doesn’t have anything built in to clarify that the
Aldermen intend to actually review the situation. And we have a track record of not having done this over
the past year.
Alderman Clemons
Maybe you misunderstand what is here but it says that “nothing can be done until we’ve raised $4 million
dollars in private funds, including New Market Tax Credits’. So the Mayor can’t just arbitrarily decide to
move forward with the project unless there is $4 million dollars to show for it. So you know, | don’t
understand where you are coming from but what you said is not what it reads. What it reads is that $4
million dollars has to be raised in order for this to move forward.
Alderman Lopez
So | didn’t say they Mayor could arbitrarily do anything, | specifically said that the Mayor could declare that
we had actually gotten the money. | was not inferring the Mayor would lie, that’s the only cut off point. So |
get that the Mayor can say there’s victory, but there’s nothing built into this that says we will agree to
actually review it and see if there’s anything. The second point | raised is $4 million dollars is about to
become a dinosaur, there is $4 million dollars that we need to raise, but as a private fundraising vehicle, we
could focus on just the amount that they have to raise for the endowment and say, if I’m remembering it’s
like $1.2 or something along those lines, in that range. Why not focus on just that part and then as
Aldermen look at the rest of the cost. Because we are going to have to anyway. If we get the New Market
Tax Credit we may still have a shortfall.
