The development committee decided to punt the vote on the resolution that would allow NRI to pay less than the prevailing wage during construction of Grandview Yard. They will meet before the issue is taken up by the full city council next Monday.

The discussion of the resolution was filled with legal questions (many needing to be answered by the city's lawyer, who gave a lot of his interpretation). The issue is clouded by the actions that the Governor has taken on prevailing wage. Strickland took the position that the state laws had always required prevailing wage for all parts of state funded construction, even if it was partial funding, and he was going to enforce the law. NRI says that they are working under the assumption that the rules as they were interpreted in the past should be the rules that govern future construction. Probably the final outcome will be decided by packs of highly paid guys in suits.

Of note – no council member stood up for workers, and said that prevailing wage should be paid, no matter what NRI though the rules should be.

A second piece of legislation is a preliminary terms of agreement on the funding for G.Y. It has a lot of general wording that doesn't answer important questions, like what the terms for the TIF will be. The cost of public funding is listed at $162 Million (in comparison the Arena District cost 53 M in public funds).

Beyond the question of where all that money will come from, the question was asked by council member Gladman “given the economic problems we have right now, when can we expect the construction to start?” Mayor DeGraw said “maybe 2010 or 2011”. And he is the guy who is cheerleader for the city and can be expected to be over optimistic. The conversation then shifted into putting the city in a position to be on the cutting edge of the new development after the recession is over.

The reality is that retail must sign on the dotted line before G.Y. can proceed. That's not happening now. Crystal ball experts needed.

Issue 50 will be on the ballot this November, a charter amendment for the city that has no controversy and should pass without problems. It does propose one change that was brought up by the Headapohl affair, a controversy started by his resignation that had no clear solution under the old rules.

Dan Headapohl was the council president from January to October 2006, but a new job with the city of Columbus left him with a difficult choice. He was clear during his interviews for the job that he he was a Grandview council member, and no mention was made of a problem. After months on the job someone in the HR department found out that a rule said a city council member could not hold his position. He might have asked for Columbus to give him special dispensation, but would have to spend months without pay while the wheels turned. He decided to resign the council seat.

Unfortunately the city charter had not foreseen this contingency, it only said that the president would be elected in January, and didn't specify when a new president would be elected in case of a resignation. It also didn't specify when the replacement council member would be appointed, before or after the election of the new president. In this case, the council simply decided to hold the election for president immediately, and Steve Reynolds was elected.

I speculated in a post about the possible outcome if the rivalry in the council had been at a higher level (read some meeting notes from back during the Sexton years for some angry meetings). It was clear that vice president Von Jasinski would assume the presidency after Headapohl's resignation, but things could have gone much differently. VJ could have used his new position to declare that the correct action was to defer any election for the president until after the new council member had been appointed (in the hopes of appointing a friendly new member to promote VJ permanently to the presidency). Angry council members could have accused him of stealing the presidency, lawsuits and fists could have flown.

Well, maybe. It would have been an exciting night in the council chambers.

The Oct. 1 TVN reported in the police beat that officers were called to a boy scout meeting because a foul-mouthed boy had been swearing. Investigation by the police found that the kid had just been giving a report on world war one airplanes, and had not researched the correct pronunciation of “Fokker Aircraft”.

Two banks were robbed last week on West Fifth Avenue. Although the police don't think they were connected, it completes a trifecta after the Fifth Third band robbery earlier this year. The robber at the Chase Bank was thwarted by the old dye-pack exploding, suggesting that even the simplest rule for robbers (check for the dye-packs) was not done. With this level of stupidity in the Columbus crime syndicate, I think more desperadoes will be striking the banks. A reward for info on the criminals has been offered. Maybe I can have a second job just patrolling the local banks and watching where the dopes go after the hits.

I have been trying to get info on the development at the corner of Grandview and 33. The story in the Sept. 23 TWG was interesting but short on details. “Plans include demolition of a vacant Chinese restaurant to make way for the new development on a 1.1-acre site at 1080 Grandview Ave.”, to be developed by the Metropolitan Partners. Eyeballing the property I'm guessing that drive-in restaurant would be using the old Chinese restaurant land alone, and not include the hotel land currently being cleared.

Why is Metropolitan using the name “Grandview Station”, the name that the Bear Creek developers used for their much larger failed development? An older article in the dispatch quoted Metropolitan's Bill Dargusch on the Kaplin tract “It's got a lot of hair on it.” If Metropolitan doesn't intend to use Kaplin, and is still talking with the owner of the hotel land, why steal the name of a development that had a completely different plan?

The online information for Metropolitan Partners is confusing. Is the Columbus company part of the Seattle, WA based company? Why does www.metropolitan-partners.com redirect to Continental Retail Development?

There was lots of tree damage beyond the power outages, caused by the Sept. 14th 08 tail of hurricane Ike.  I shot just a few examples on a bike ride around the city. Makes you wonder if this will be the start of a change in the enforcement of tree trimming in the city.

Sure those big old trees are pretty, but if this storm happened in the winter and the power outages prevented furnaces from working, it would have been real bad. As in “evacuate the city” bad, for however many days the power took to get back on. And the property damage beyond the power outage was big - what if someone was killed by a tree (like Randy Shaffer was)? Look for the city to get more picky on trimming your trees, to prevent a repeat of this damage.

Governor Strickland was at Marshall's and was giving pledges to help the city. I didn't see him when the news cameras were rolling, but this might have happened when he came back later -

“I have toured your city and have seen the destruction first hand. I will be asking Washington to help with a package of federal assistance in order to get this city on the mend. I know that the residents of Grandview are resilient, and will ...”

The two guys at the bar sat up and clicked their beers together at the mention of Grandview. The rest of the bar continued to ignore him. A blogger stepped up with a camera.

“Sure you can take my picture. Want your picture taken with the Gov?”

The Gov walked over to the fish pond and looked down. “Hey, Fred, come look at this. The fish have a tunnel that they can swim up to go into the next room. Huh. Hey fish, do you need disaster relief?”

The fish had no comment.

(According to this article, Marshall's had about $10K loss from the outage).

After a couple of emails asking the school treasurer for the numbers on the “pickup on the pickup”, I did get some figures. I also got some reasoning from O'Reilly for the board's action.

The numbers are the usual boring stuff, I break out the cost after the jump.

As for the rationalizations – wow, isn't it weird that when the super looks at the “facts”, the best choice is always to give the administrators big raises and benefit boosts?

The school board has approved another tax abatement plan, this time for Exxcel Project Management. These sort of tax gifts are different than the TIF plan for the Grandview Yard, that plan redirects the taxes. An abatement is a pure gift to the business.

This is possible because most of Marble Cliff has been declared a Community Reinvestment Area. Right, that's what I think when I picture M.C. in my mind, a blighted wasteland that needs a CRA to attract businesses to the dangerous and bleak properties.

I went to great lengths to post my objections to tax abatements in the past, might as well link back to that one. When the government “picks the winners” by granting abatements, it is practicing a form of socialism. I guess businesses don't see it that way, when they have their hands out for money it becomes capitalism, through some republican mind warp.

The worst part of this - the same businesses who want abatements from paying taxes to school are complaining about the education of the workforce.

Here is my proposal. Before the school board approves another tax abatement, make a requirement for receiving the tax cut. Tell them they are required to have a sign posted prominently in the front of their offices. The sign will have a dunce cap for a graphic. Under that it will say, “This business has proudly contributed to the stupidification of this community by requesting tax abatements from the schools.”

If the hat fits ...

Sometimes when I am following the school board, I get the feeling I am dealing with some kids who think that they are getting away with stealing cookies. You know the scenario – kids sneak some snacks, get found afterwards with chocolate smeared on their faces and crumbs on their shirts, and then say “What cookies? I don't know about any cookies. Oh, those cookies I took, yea, Dad said I could take those cookies”.

The board had a special meeting at 7:30 AM on July 14^th, attended by only the board and the super. No parents or press attended. Why was this special meeting needed – it's not like the board has been too busy to do their work in a regular meetings. The June meeting lasted exactly 38 minutes, gavel to gavel.

It turns out that the board wanted to do their annual raises and benefit increases for the administrators in the dark, in the hopes that no one would notice. And this year was a big ca-ching! for those lucky admins. We are talking about 10% here, from first reports.

I'm still working at getting the full numbers from the school. Like the kids with the hands in the jar, they are still trying to obfuscate and delay giving me the answers.

No doubt when the story hits the papers they will have all sorts of compelling reasons for the big benefit giveaway. “We have to be competitive, other schools will Shanghai our admins!”. Right. Like admins didn't know before they took the job that a small school would offer smaller pay?

Something to ask the board members when you run into them – if it was such a good idea to give this big benefit boost right now, how come the board didn't make public their intention to do it? How come the vote was done at 7:30 AM with no parents or press in attendance?

(For more 7:30 AM board meeting fun, read about the SRO program. Skip down to the school board section)