Hey, Yupette,
Christmas in October continues this evening at the County Board meeting. Items on the agenda include gifts for the Artisphere, the Washington Golf and Country Club, and an $82 million pot of gold from establishing a special tax district encompassing Crystal City, Pentagon City, and Potomac Yards for the County's Board's pet vanity projects (Fisette's Aquatic Center, Zimmerman's light rail, etc).
Looks to me that any benefits that may accrue to ordinary citizens as the result of this "Christmas in October" session will be purely co-incidental.
Bonnie - Arlington Ridge
15 comments:
County Board has reached the point of total dishonesty. Vote them all out, starting with Zimmerman next week.
I'm voting for Kevin Chisholm. Both major political parties only listen to the REITs, special interests, and developers.
The Aquatic Center and other pet vanity projects in and around Crystal City will be the Artisphere on a much larger scale. Not only were funds stripped from the Rosslyn BID for the Artisphere they were stripped from everywhere else.
Make no mistake, the private pool clubs will own and operate the aquatic center, just as the organized sports and recreation activities own and operate the recreation and so-called "community" centers and, increasingly, public open space.
It will be hard to top Saturday when 3 citizens from 3 different neighborhoods speaking about 3 different issues called the County Board dishonest.
The County Board will award recreation and similar franchises involving use of public space to its pet people and campaign contributors for a token sum or nothing . This already occurred with the shared bicycle franchise. Can you spell C O R R U P T?
Aquatic Center - Artisphere on steroids. You will not believe the corruption that will occur when this project gets going.
County Staff admitted that - while many miles of streets need repaving - much of the NC funds will be used for "beautification".
Sun Gazette ignored the Crystal City - Potomac Yards - Pentagon City - slush fund agenda item to focus on the local squirrel population. Zimmerman's and Fisette's slush fund will be revenue diverted from the general fund and will total between 82 and 112 million dollars by 2017. This is where the money to build the Aquatic Center will come from, along with millions stripped from pay as you go and bond fund accounts.
A sad sack performance by the CB last night, setting up a generation-long slush fund mechanism for the developer class. To add insult to injury the Archstone (a REIT that was taken private in a LBO a few years back) fellow said don't look to us to fund the infrastructure being in put in place for the express purpose of enriching developers. One must ask what we would see if CB had financial disclosure requirements with real teeth?
Anyone still wonder why Mike Brown was fired?
It's a 'special tax district' all right -- take from General Fund tax revenue to pay for Zimmerman's and Fisette's special projects in an around Crystal City.
Worse than Shirlington, where the REITs at least contributed to fund construction of a few public plazas. Looks like tax revenue is going to be stripped from the General Fund to build ALL the public infrastructure in Crystal City when it's redeveloped.
People, if they are pulling these financial stunts a week before the elections what will they be doing 6 months from now?
Someone asked me why Mike Brown was fired. I said - "because he wouldn't go along with their scam agenda." He didn't believe me.
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