08/08/2006

Voters get their say on parking deck

BY VANESSA MCCRAY

vmccray@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — To bond or not to bond: That's the question city voters decide today.

Traverse City citizens will decide on a bond issue of up to $16 million to pay primarily for a public parking deck on West Front Street, part of an eight-story, mixed-use development by Federated Properties.

Project supporters and opponents offered a number of reasons — beyond the bond — for residents to check "yes" or "no" to city proposal 1.

Residents could vote "yes" because they hope the project will encourage downtown density. Or, they could mark "no" because they don't like how city officials handled the approval process. Maybe, some voters don't want a 100-foot-tall building. Others, perhaps, view it as a good fit with the city's master plan.

"Anytime you are out there asking your citizens... (there are a) whole lot of factors," said City Manager Richard Lewis.

He cannot predict how the votes will stack up.

"Everybody I've talked to, yea or nay, says it is going to be close," Lewis said.

A spokesman for Citizens for Sensible Spending, a group urging a "no" vote on the bond issue referendum, noted issues "across the board" that could sway residents its way. The group focused its campaign on the public funding but also highlighted the size of the project and questioned the need for another parking deck.

Group spokesman Jim Carruthers is confident about today's results.

"I think we are going to win this, too many voters are questioning what is going on," he said. "People have to realize this and say, 'Hey, enough is enough.'"

The group planned to continue its get-out-the-vote drive Monday with phone calls to city residents.

Bond issue supporters from the Citizens for Traverse City group spread a campaign message through the weekend, handing out green balloons to children downtown on Friday. Saturday, they offered pony rides at the site of the proposed deck.

"I think it is going to be really close. I think it is just going to depend on who gets out to vote," said Kate Greene, a spokeswoman for the pro-deck group.

She said project foes suggested numerous reasons to reject the bond issue, but "no one reason sticks out." Greene said one of the project's biggest benefits is how it will strengthen the downtown.

"I really, really hope that it passes," she said. "It would be such a great thing for our city."

Last-minute politicking continued through a Monday night city commission meeting, during which more than a dozen people remarked on the deck proposal during a public comment period that lasted longer than an hour.

Michael Uzelac of Federated Properties said his company's proposal was offered in response to city plans for a public deck on the west end.

"It's a project we didn't think of, but we're glad we found," he said.

City resident Geraldine Greene countered that the project "doesn't meet the smell test."

Absentee voters returned 1,110 ballots so far.