Board of Aldermen 12-11-2018 Page 25
McCarthy was trying to tell me, and it wasn’t really until | saw the estimate for the architect and started
comparing it to other projects of similar scope and | realize “Oh so that’s the problem”.
| am encouraged that we are moving forward in the public phase of this now because while we are
going to attract a lot more confusion and concern that we might be doing the wrong thing or not the
perfect thing, at least the public is much more involved. And | think that is necessary and | think the
arguments that I’ve been making all along is that the public has always been involved because we are
talking about their money. Each one of us represents a district, a part of the City, tax payers that are
contributing to the money that we are ultimately custodians of. So the tax payers have been always
been involved, transparency is very important and making sure that the public is aware that progress is
being made is key because this wouldn't be as difficult a decision if the public had been following all
along a successful project and was fully in favor of it. They couldn’t because we didn’t have all the
pieces together we still needed the planning and organization and | understand that as the awkward
part of this kind of process.
This is a new kind of partnership where it has the transparency of local government, but it needs the
investment of private donors and likewise the donations and the support for it are going to come from a
different mechanism than we typically see. We are not going to see the rich that have tons of money
just drop money in so they can put their name on the building. We are seeing a lot of very discerning
donors wanting to see a plan and wanting to understand the nuances of the project. To do that we are
also going to have to use different tools such as the New Market Tax Credit and other resources.
So | am in favor of this because we already are invested in this; we already bought the building. The
reasoning behind it has still not been challenged. I’m even concerned that with the economy doing
really well right now, historically it sort of goes the other way when it gets too good. | think trying to
weather a rough economy without an economic anchor downtown to replace Alecs is going to be a
problem for people downtown, for people working and for our City trying to attract what people it can to
support our economy.
So there are many reasons that | am in favor of this; there is many reasons | was concerned about it
but | just want to end with my most compelling point. Fred is not against it so we should be considering
it and | also want to point out that former Alderman Clemmons who came up and made comments
decided to position this as this is the position that you are in but he also was part of this, because he
was the one who voted for it and got us into this mess.
Alderman Klee
| want to kind of almost echo the same thing that Alderman Melizzi-Golja and Alderman Lopez has
already said. | had a very lengthy impassioned speech that | wanted to give but the truth is that the
bottom is that we cannot delay this. We have to go forward. | have read and re-read this over and over
again and | think that we did rush and we didn’t put the design plan in there. But! think the intent was
that we would not put hammer to nail as far as the Performing Arts Center and | think that stays there,
you know. We are not saying we are going to release the $15 million dollars, etc., it basically says that
we need this in order to get the $4 million dollars. We can’t get there without it. | think someone had
earlier said you can’t make money without spending money. This just seems natural to it. And I’d also
like to echo Alderman Lopez if ex Alderman Teeboom is on board it has got to be good. So thank you.
Alderman Dowd
I'll be very brief. This was one of Brian’s most important projects and | know for a fact in talking to him
that he would have fully supported this amendment.
Alderman Jette
| guess | am a voice crying in the wilderness, even Fred has been won over.
