Yesterday’s Oak Ridger carried a front page story headlined Mayor ‘committed’ to $65M retail center. The article reports on an interview in which Mayor David Bradshaw said that he believes in the Crespointe project and is concerned about the City’s need to draft a contractual agreement with the developer that will protect the city’s interests.
However, the first sentence of the article said: “David Bradshaw says he is committed to the Crestpointe retail development — with or without a referendum election.” It seems that some residents read that as saying that the City will provide $10.5 million in funding for the center, with or without a bond issue.
I don’t read the article that way, but I can definitely see how a person might reach that conclusion from the first sentence.
Let’s look at the situation logically: Without the proposed bond issue, the City lacks the resources to give $10.5 million to a developer. David Bradshaw understands that (probably better than most of us). I cannot imagine that he expects City Council to agree to a contract committing that sum of money to this development without knowing where the money is coming from.
I can’t pretend to know exactly what the City Council will do on March 19 if petitioners collect enough signatures by March 13 to force a referendum. However, I predict that a successful petition will cause them to delay action on a formal deal with the developer. They are likely to approve a proposed contract in principle, but they should not authorize an actual financial commitment to the developer until they know that the necessary bonds can be issued.
The article doesn’t actually say what the City would do if petitioners force a referendum, but it does clearly indicate that a successful petition drive would make a difference in the City’s actions:
The mayor said city officials and GBT executives are discussing the petition drive’s potential impact on the proposed shopping center.
GBT executives say they are facing an April deadline to close a deal with SuperTarget.
But a referendum election, if called for, would probably not be held until June 5, the same day as the Oak Ridge municipal election. The election would allow citizens to vote on whether Oak Ridge should borrow up to $6 million to help finance the 60-acre Crestpointe project.
Bradshaw said city officials will honor the outcome of the petition drive calling for the election. Organizers need to collect about 2,000 signatures from registered Oak Ridge voters before March 13 in order to put the issue on a ballot.
“If they have 2,000 signatures, we’re going to respect that,†Bradshaw said.
I believe that when the mayor spoke of “commitment” he meant that he believes strongly in the proposal, not that he is determined to do this project even if there’s no way to pay for it.
