Unfortunately, the real issue of a large overall city debt accumulated through several decades of Waterfront Redevelopment Authority, mayoral and former common council mismanagement, which the current common council has successfully begun to correct, is being ignored with the false flag distraction being hyped with the grain elevator and the Sturgeon Bay Historical Society. TID financing failure is the real problem and not the granary, or the private gift of over a million dollars.
The granary is being used to distract from, using one example, city taxpayers subsidizing the Bay Lofts LLC construction loan, as stated in the TID development agreement with the city, to the tune of over a million dollars. Yes, over a million dollars of your money is directly paying for a private developer’s construction loan.
Even when the Bay Lofts LLC fell short of their contractual obligation to deliver a minimum of $5M in assessed property valuation, David Ward as city Finance chair argued to give Bay Lofts a free pass after not meeting their contractual terms. The city could have demanded $160K over that contractual breach, but David Ward argued against that.
Mr Ward’s supporters are saying what a good listener he will be, but Mr Ward’s own published comments state he wants to limit participation from non-city residents at common council meetings. Does he envision that hundreds of people shopping or regularly doing business in the city might not have something to say about issues like the attempted illegal transfer of public land to a hotel developer or the PRAT tax?
Mr Ward’s 2005 economic plan for the DCEDC has defined economic “stakeholders.” Nowhere are blue collar workers, teachers, health care workers or government employees ever included as stakeholders in economic development planning. Workers apparently don’t count except as profit centers for big business. Living wages are not mentioned as part of local economic planning.
CEOs, white collar managers, corporate boards, and theoretical elitist academia would appear to be the crowd that Mr Ward is most familiar with, by his own reckoning and mayoral self-promotion. While Mr Ward emphasizes his credentials and a lengthy list of professional organizational memberships, how many of those numerous connections could just as easily be distractions, detriments or conflicts or are even needed to be a successful city mayor? Who likely has Mr Ward’s ear?
Please consider electing Shawn Fairchild as your mayor. He has a proven public interest track record, and indisputably understands normal working class people, smaller business owners and city economic issues. He’s been there and lives there. Regular people first are what define Shawn’s attitude and intentions for the city. Putting the public good before corporate welfare demands your vote.
