By: Diane Benjamin
Mayor Renner has claimed many times downtown development won’t cost taxpayers a cent up front. Monday the consultant gets a check however. See the 3/28/2016 Bills and Payroll http://www.cityblm.org/index.aspx?page=242&parent=9535
It isn’t a cent – it’s $41,625.75
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More Payments:
$25,000 to Chicago Title for the land purchased on Main Street earlier this month:
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Coliseum reports are still not available for the 3rd Quarter (ended 1/31/16).
This is labeled 4th Quarter Operation Expenses.
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More consultants:
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Eating at your expense was down!
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Many departments love to travel to conferences. Browse through the P-Card spending starting on page 96.
I guess the City doesn’t know the private sector uses the Internet now.
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When calculating the money spent on a downtown hotel, don’t forget to add the cost of the original Hotel Feasibility Study which is being used as a reference for the current project. There was a tremendous amount of Staff time, Attorney’s fees and expense for the failed Front & Center project proposal of May 2015.
The cost of the Main Street property is about the same as the cost for the 2 parcels behind the library. So, the City has spent a least $2M for vacant land in the past 18 months.