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Weatherwax banking
Regarding Weatherwax establishment as a “mitigation bank and habitat preserve,” City Council on Monday night approved this: “In an effort to move forward in a timely and cost effective way, the Mayor is assuming direct oversight and is establishing a project development team who will report directly to the Mayor.” It authorized up to $20,000 for this (not from the General Fund). The team: Neil Eldridge, Marlene Penry and Jerry Mergler. (Full agenda bill at osgov.com)
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on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 12:06 pm and is filed under North Coast News.
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I personally am sick to death of hearing about Weatherwax. Get rid of it. It’s not even a fun piece of property to walk on. It attracts cougars and if the breeze is aimed correctly you get the odor from the road kill cafe going on behind the city shop. I’m all about preserving natural habitat if it doesn’t cause more problems than it is worth. I think this town was lied to when the property was purchased and now it seems to fall under some shield that prevents it from being sold and used, and thus generating some revenue for the city. I wonder how long this misguided trust with our city “leaders” will go on before someone demands that something be done. We’re letting a few people determine the fate of our city and they are doing an entirely poor job of it. And they don’t listen to what the people of OS really want.
Fixed-income: the fund source was verbally identified. There was nothing in writing on this as far as I can determine, but I believe it was the Capital Improvement fund.
“It authorized up to $20,000 for this (not from the General Fund)”
Isn’t this typical. They tell where it isn’t from rather than where it IS from. It’s not just the General Fund that needs worrying about, but the overall picture of the city’s finances.
Speaking of “other” funds. Why is there so much surplus in the water fund? It says to me that we are paying way too much for water/sewer. What am I missing? The water purification project?
I thought we had a grant for that. Oh, that’s right. Our “grants” always end up costing us more money.
How about pay toilets at the convention center and city hall?
CitizensAgainsCrime is suggesting that the Library charge non-property owners to use the library. How about we charge an admittance fee for walking the trail in Weatherwax?
That ought to save our city budget. (If you believe the CBG’s propaganda about how it brought so many people to town.)
When the city purchased Weatherwax, citizens were told that it was an INVESTMENT property to be resold. Then the spineless city council kowtowed to the Citizens for Balanced Growth and put it to a NONBINDING vote with the most asinine ballot ever put together. There were actually three options, but only two ways to vote: keep it all or sell all/part. How can you possibly make your wishes known when the option you want is not available? I wanted to sell part but didn’t have that choice because it was bundled in with sell all. I’m sure there were many like myself. Today, if the same vote was held (hopefully with a better ballot), I believe most would say sell at least part – the city can’t afford to keep valuable property lying around in non-use (at least as far as the city is concerned) while lying off police, fire, and city employees. (Yes, I know we wouldn’t get as much money for it.)
“CitizensAgainstCrime” claims that: “it could generate” more money than what we paid. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. The fact is, we’re in dire straits, Mark Knoffler is not going to save us, and we’re spending money on something that was supposed to be resold. Are the CitizensAgaintCrime ready to throw yet another officer out the door just to keep Weatherwax?
If the some of the citizens wish to keep the property, then get together and buy it. Or how about CBG starts having bake sales or whatever and pays the $20,000. Maybe we can keep the library open a little while longer or another officer on the payroll. The city should not spend any money on Weatherwax – we shouldn’t even own it.
Wetland Banking will generate more money on an asset that we get to keep. In fact, it could generate more than we owe on it. So, it is an investment in both open space and a revenue generating asset. No other asset the city has generates real revenue. People say the EMS service generates revenue. It does charge a fee, but it costs us more than it generates. Sort of like “losing on every one but making it up in volume”. The library could generate more if they charged non-property owning visitors to check out materials. It would both reduce pressure on the facility and generate some revenue. Both are positives.
Great. Just great. We can’t afford to keep the library open, but now we’re going to spend $20,000 on a piece of property that was originally purchased as an investment to be resold. I swear, this town just gets weirder and weirder by the minute. Someone please buy my house.