It ended up not being all that much of a flogging, I'm happy to say.
My good buddy and sometimes MOCO commentator Billie Dickmeyer made me feel welcome right off the bat, which is always nice. I ended up seating myself at a table with fellow KGVAR Member and president Rita Zumwalt. Both Rita and I were interested observers only, we didn't plan on contributing questions of the city manager.
Here are some... well... highlights really isn't the word but I can't think of anything else.
From City Manager Paul Beecher:
Regarding and talks so far with the land owner (Vanderbilt Farms) and the commercial developer (Vestar) on the Kingman Crossing traffic interchange...
- There have been maybe three meetings so far where nothing more than generalities have been discussed.
- Feels that project is extremely important for the growth of Kingman.
- Stated something along the lines that if the city was to pay the entire portion of the cost to build the TI, that ADOT would pay the city back... or reimburse them... since the RW TI is already a planned project. This wouldn't be the case at Kingman Crossing since ADOT does not have the KC project in the works.
- The city manager said that he now has a personal email service and rarely uses the city email account.
- At the beginning of it all he says he was told that the sites had no access and trusted that source at the word. Realizes now that there was access to well sites.
- Says that in his position he will always want more funding for the city. In other words he would take the position that impact fees should be maintained, not lowered -- and wouldn't mind seeing sales tax rates increased. But he also reminded folks that he doesn't set those policies since he is not an elected member to the City Council.
- He prides himself on being a tough negotiator.
- When asked about reducing the impact fee rates for churches and non profits, he says that if that were to happen it would mean increasing the impact fees on a different category of building.
- Also alluded that at the time the impact fees were rolled out, the housing market was already beginning to 'bust'.
- Stated that the property does not have to be 'highest and best use'. He has seen other cities in similar situations give land to use for new schools and such things.
- Said that in the previous two years there was about a 10% increase year over year, but notes that this year is tracking an increase of only 1.3%.
1) He said over and over that "you'd have to understand those issues" when talking about things that happened in either Kansas City or Dover NH.
2) He also said several times that he "doesn't care what the paper/articles say" from his past places of employment. He seemed to imply that the media got it wrong, and one particular critic from Dover also has 'it' wrong in his litany of charges against our current city manager.
Hat's off to the city manager for even agreeing to attend the event. I'm not sure how productive it was for him or for RAID. On the whole, the event never really lived up to the potential... I certainly do not feel I got much out of it.
One of the things that did perk up my ears was when the shows moderator (or lead pontificator more like it) said that the city must pay attention to the 1200 members of RAID that signed the petition for the referendum challenging the city decision to change the general plan. Maybe I'm wrong in how he said that, but the event was videotaped by the local public access channel and someone can correct me.
If I did hear it wrong I have an excuse. I had a hearing examination the other day and I have moderate hearing deficiency and am really thinking about getting some hearing aid devices.
But I hope somebody catches the video production of what the moderator said and can either confirm it, or set me and my poor hearing straight.
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