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March 5, 2006EditorialCommissioners failed their due diligence testTraverse City commissioners who last week voted to spend up to $16 million in taxpayer money for a west side parking deck have a lot of explaining to do.Until city residents get answers, the many questions about this deal aren't going away, no matter how much huffing and puffing they do. By refusing to ask tough questions, demand basic documentation from developers and pursue the best deal, commissioners failed to perform the due diligence their offices demand. If taxpayers were hoping their city government would negotiate wisely, weigh the facts carefully and act in their best interests, they were sorely disappointed. Instead, commissioners approved a parking deck they can't pay for. They don't know how big it will be or how much it will cost. They don't know how much they'll pay per parking space. And they still don't know if the developer can do what he says he can do. The list of failures and shortcomings goes on and on. Commissioners voted 6-1 (commissioner Deni Scrudato voted no) for the deck after the city manager told them in a public meeting that the city couldn't afford to pay off $16 million in bonds. They still don't know where they'll get the money. They voted yes even though developer Federated Properties has not, to this day, turned over basic financial documents the city demanded months ago. After finding out over the weekend that state Sen. Jason Allen - by his own admission - helped quash a potentially less expensive alternate proposal from a local developer, commissioners asked a couple rudimentary questions and dropped the subject. Not interested. If they had bothered to ask, they would have found out that while the proposal from developer Gerald Snowden didn't have any drawings, it did have something much more substantial: a per-parking space price of $15,000 to $16,000, compared to Federated's moving target of $20,000 to $22,000. That's a minimum difference of $2 million. But no one asked. Incredibly, commissioners also didn't ask Downtown Development Authority executive director Bryan Crough or City Manager Richard Lewis how Allen knew about the Snowden plan the day after Snowden dropped it off with the DDA, why Allen intervened and on whose authority. Not the least little bit of curiosity about why a state senator knew their business - and disposed of it - before they did, or why the city manager and the DDA didn't tell them a second offer existed. Allen, Lewis and Crough haven't given anyone else any answers, either, even though all three, the last we checked, worked for taxpayers, not the developer. Commissioners expressed no interest in Record-Eagle reports that Louis P. Ferris, Jr., CEO of Federated Properties, donated $20,000 to Allen in 2005 even though Ferris had zero connections to Allen's up-north district. Commissioners didn't care that associates of Federated Properties co-founder Michael Uzelac donated an additional $12,000 to Allen. They apparently didn't see - or didn't want to see - the possibility of a quid pro quo in Allen's intervention to eliminate a competing plan after receiving $32,000 in campaign contributions from the Uzelac camp. It is painfully obvious that commissioners heard and saw what they wanted to see and hear, and nothing else. "I can't see why you could ever turn this down," commissioner Ralph Soffredine said. Redevelopment of the west end of Front Street will be a watershed moment for Traverse City. Rehabilitating the former Grand Traverse Auto site and the south side of the street will bring jobs, taxes and growth. But it cannot come at any price. Commissioners, as the people's elected representatives, must dot every I and cross every T to ensure this is the best deal possible for the city. They have not done that. They have been dictated to and, as always, gone along to get along. On Monday, commissioner Scott Hardy "apologized" to Allen for the Record-Eagle's Sunday story and accompanying editorial on Allen's intervention and his links to Federated Properties - none of which, by the way, Allen has denied. Apologies from Hardy are in order, all right, but they should be made to city residents, not Sen. Allen.
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