D&C on Ren Square: go open or go home
Someone has their Wheaties this morning over at the D&C. Either that or Moderate Man is on vacation. Their editorial this morning on Ren Square hits all the right notes:
Assembly Democrats are justifiably nervous about making good on $18 million earmarked for the Renaissance Square project. Four years after Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks unveiled plans for the biggest construction project in the county’s history, it remains too much of a mystery.
Assembly Democrats, a growing number of business leaders and vocal residents, as well as this page, are losing confidence in the project’s promise as a catalyst for the economic revival of downtown. There are too many questions and not enough answers.
We’ll say it again: Brooks must provide the public with a detailed explanation of the project’s status or pull out of it altogether.
I’m not sure what “again” means here, since I don’t think they’ve said it before, but I’ll let that go because I like the piece otherwise.
The bottom line with Ren Square is that after the Fast Ferry and High Falls fiascoes, there’s no way anyone in this area should support any large scale project without knowing all the details. It really is that simple.
Even many of those who support Ren Square in principle believe that the project doesn’t make sense without the performing arts component — I’m thinking here of Mayor Duffy and Joe Morrelle — and that is the part that is most shrouded in Kremlin-like secrecy (the rest of the project is merely shrouded in Cheney-like secrecy).
but they balanced it with a bad piece about not paying prevailing wages.
Check that one out its a real doozie.
A crappy editorial in the D&C is dog bites man. A good one is man bites dog.
This Brooks Administration reminds me of those game shows on tv where you have the host all smiling plasticly for the cameras, plying you, “the winner,” with all sorts of things you didn’t really need and otherwise could not have afforded. (”Now get all excited when the light turns green, stare right there into the camera.” Um, never mind the taxes you have to pay on those prizes…)
Rochester, the big game show. Thanks Maggie.
[...] written, numerous times about the lack of transparency and oversight-here and here and here (the list goes [...]