Board of Aldermen 10-13-2020 Page 23
Alderman Lopez
Yeah, thanks for your attention.
President Wilshire
Alderman Cleaver.
Alderman Cleaver
Yes, Alderman Lopez brings out all the points and the reasons why these two should be separated. The
Performing Arts Center should go ahead; | am strongly in support of it. | think most of my constituents are
strongly in support of it. The School Street has a lot of issues not associated with Bronstein that need to be
discussed. They are separate issues and they should separately addressed. Thank you.
Alderman Klee
Thank you, Madam President. | am not going to repeat what Alderman Lopez said, well maybe a little bit of
what he said. But the truth is he made all the valid points about Bronstein so | will leave it at that. The
points that | want to make are about the parking garage and the need for that. As Alderman Lopez had
commented, when the abutters had found out that they were going to be losing that parking lot, they were
quite upset by it. The truth of the matter is, you know, they were told well you can use the High Street
Parking Garage but we all knew that some of those spaces would be leased out to this housing project. So
the long and the short of it was that they were angry, they were upset, they went to City Hall. They made a
lot of phone calls; | Know | received phone calls and | am sure many of the other Aldermen did.
| think City Hall reached out, they worked out an arrangement. They worked out an arrangement with the
abutters. They worked out an arrangement with those that were doing the project. And everybody kind of
put everything on the table. They came up with the parking garage and then we would basically lease or
sell the airspace above the parking garage. The City would still maintain that, it would not be used by those
that live within the apartment and it would still be City revenue, it would still be used by those people that
are the abutters. So it became a win/win/win situation. The PAC, the additional cost for the PAC actually
got bundled into this | believe just because of the TIF. This developer had decided that yes he was there
because he knew what we were going to be doing with the Performing Arts Center. And so as not to create
another bond that would be a tax burden, they created this TIF. So this was revenue that although is not
realized from the taxes, it was going to be used specifically and dedicated for the payment off of the bonds,
of both of those bonds.
So to me, it all does go together. To separate it, to take the chance that we would delay the acceptance of
the — you know to be able to do our closing, because we can’t do our closing without having a bond for this.
So that would mean, | think as Attorney Bolton said, it would mean having to have public hearings. It would
also mean having to now create a funding source for the Performing Arts Center when this entire package
does that. It’s a one stop shop, it helped the abutters, it helped with revenue that has not yet been realized.
It kept everybody kind of happy without putting undo burden on the taxpayers. | think it’s a win/win situation
and | think we’d be making a mistake if we tried to separate it. And while | truly respect everything that
Alderman Cleaver said, | really can’t support that. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Anyone else on the motion to split? Alderman Tencza.
Alderwoman Kelly
| had my hand up too.
