Wednesday, April 27, 2005
State Historic Preservation Office Notice to Town Manager
Click the Title to view a letter which was sent to Barry Feldman recently in order to let him know that the State and potentially the Federal government will be reviewing the town campus as a historic area. This is great news!
Statements made by government officials akin this to "another ploy by the same people." This is not a ploy, this is real action by residents of the town to keep the sitting council from ruining our municipal campus for their own gain.
Thanks,
West Hartford RAC
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Sent to the West Hartford News ...FYI
Dear Editor,
I have been doing some research and have come up with some interesting revelations regarding Blue Back Square, based on articles that appeared in the annals of this very paper, the West Hartford News. West Hartford residents have been played like a bunch of chumps. This "conceptualization of potential development in the Raymond and Isham Road area" was in the works since it was first mentioned in a May 20, 2001 article. When the GA-16 Superior courthouse on Raymond Road closed, it was reported on Jan 4, 2002 that "Administration officials are...seeking to make the best of a large-scale development opportunity", which had all the description of the current Blue Back model. Those administration officials were Business Development Officer, Rob Rowlson and Town Manager, Barry Feldman. In a March 4, 2002 article, Rob Rowlson was quoted as saying "We appear to have a deal" when speaking about the Carpenter and Co., Raymond Road development.
Although the Street-Works and Carpenter and Co. project are touted to be separate, a hotel and Whole Foods market pretty much always accompany "lifestyle" center development plans (as written up in many new urban development journals) so it is no surprise that they were in the mix. Nobody much minded the Williams Ford land development because no public money or public land was involved. Street-Works was publicly mentioned as the developer of the Grody site as early as Oct. 25, 2002. Rob Rowlson even said, "We've got hooks in mouths, but haven't got the fish onto the boat". All Rowlson and Feldman had to do was to convince everyone to go along with the plan for this "public/private" no-bid partnership. The public hearings and public input were just formalities along the way because as the articles indicated, it really was already a done deal between the town officials and the developer. Town officials and Board of Education members gave their blessing to this project early on, and in fact Jack Darcey was quoted on March 27, 2003 as saying "The Board of Education and the rest of the town's school administrators would support the project that Street-Works has proposed". They were among the same people that ran for office in November 2003, who claimed to know nothing about the project. They did not wish to comment on any aspect of development "until a plan was put before them for approval". Hogwash! They knew all about the plan and did not want to talk to you about it! They wanted to keep you as uninformed as possible. So you see, this project was going to be sold to us and crammed down our throats. Town Management put it together and sold it to the Town elected officials who in turn endorsed it for lack of any better ideas. They lobbied civic groups by making deals with them and then embarked on a townwide propaganda campaign. It is pretty interesting to see that instead of the Town Council or Planning Commission calling the shots and telling Mr. Feldman what to do, they seem to be in the mode of taking orders from him. It is also pretty interesting that two former Town Council members, Liz Gillette and Al Turco, now work for the developer.
Did you know that a project was proposed for Bishop's corner in Nov, 2002 which would have included new retail and a "lifestyle gym"? That was left to wither in the wind. There were many developers that came to West Hartford and I wonder what happened to them. In fact, on Oct 25, 2002, Rob Rowlson was quoted as saying,"West Hartford Center's value has attracted developers from across the country." I'll bet they did not all demand eminent domain and tax abatements, and what if they did? Why is giving away town land and subsidizing G.O. Bonds for Street-Works any different? As an interesting aside, it was reported in a Mar 19, 2003 article that " The project would be built almost exclusively with private financing. And the developers are not seeking state help, local property tax abatement or other incentives". So how did we end up giving them land, buildings and bond money? I suppose Mr. Heapes will be refusing State and Federal money for brownfield cleanup and road construction (wink, wink, nod, nod).
How come in the public hearings we kept hearing that there were no other developers interested in West Hartford Center except Street-Works and Richard Heapes? and that we'd better grab this opportunity or get stuck with nothing. It was because the deal was already struck and they had to make you believe that we'd get stuck with a Wal-Mart or some other horrible project, or heaven forbid we'd be dealing with eminent domain issues. Our Town officials sat through 50 hours of public hearing with their minds already made up and words of indignation if you were to suggest otherwise! For goodness sake, they built the Memorial Road Extension in early 2003 for the sole reason of creating access to Blue Back Square. Now that the 18 Raymond Road building has been destroyed by fire of unknown origin, it is plain to see that the whole area will be slated for more development. You see, the plan is most likely for the developer to gain everything from Farmington Avenue to Trout Brook and the whole of Raymond Road. It's not that it might be good or bad, it's just that we are not being told straight up what the overall end result is supposed to be.
Whether you want this project or not, I would really like to consider the political deception that took place. We were made to believe that this was our decision. Street-Works' slick ads before the vote last fall made the brainwashing complete. This entire process was flawed and we were manipulated all in the name of private gain. Our Town officials were seduced by offers of capital improvements, and goodness knows what else. Any opposition to the project was blamed on those evil mall owners, the Taubmans. If you were against the project, then you had to somehow be on their payroll. And I guess that to some that isn't as reprehensible as being on Blue Back Square's payroll. Perhaps it is somehow better to have some guy in Belgium control and profit from this town than allow the suits in Michigan to have a say. Too bad people forget that Westfarms is one of the 5 top taxpayers in this town, and they too have a major stake in what happens here. If our taxes go up, so do theirs. I wouldn't blame them if they closed down business in the West Hartford side of the mall and turned it into tax exempt property.
Wake up West Hartford, you were played like cheap violins and along the way our politicians were making a name for themselves. The newspaper articles are testament to all of this. Now our Town leaders wish to make continual changes to the Master Agreement to hurry along construction and insert clauses at the behest of the developer, and we are supposed to go along with it all. If we do this, then just remember that what you get is not what you think you voted for in the beginning. I just wonder when Blue Back developers will start to cry poverty and blame it on energy costs and construction delays, but I suppose that will coincide with the next time the Master Agreement will be changed to help them out.
Pay careful attention, because this will cost us in the end. There isn't even a concrete plan for the design and cost of the Town Hall/Education building. Do we even know what the entire 48 million bond will be spent on? Right now the bond serves as an open checkbook. As for Blue Back Square itself, I will wager that half of the project doesn't get built the way it was originally presented, and folks like me will be blamed for it - despite the fact that the developer never planned to build the whole thing as it was originally presented. Case in point, you can all kiss that park goodbye.. speculation is that the land there is contaminated from Williams Ford runoff ... and Street-Works never wanted anything to do with it in the first place.
There was opposition in other communities that Street-Works has been involved with, so please.. let's all remember these two quotes from other researched sources:
"A downtown revitalization plan should not be used as a vehicle for a public land-grab or a consolidation of property ownership. A single corporate owner of downtown Falls Church (or insert West Hartford) would have undue influence on the city council possibly resulting in corruption. Multiple owners diffuse this power so that the only influence is regarding legitimate business concerns that would benefit the community. " (Tony Dziepak December 2002 An Alternative to the Street Works Plan for Falls Church)
and
"(the proposal) certainly doesn't say why some city officials are so eager to mire the taxpayers even deeper into a 'public/private partnership' in which the public pays the bills, the private calls the shots, and every time the partners shake hands, the taxpayers count their fingers to make sure they got them all back." (Robin Branch, Sun Sentinel as quoted by Mike Arnold, 1995 Boca Raton)
Judy Aron
40 North Quaker Lane
860-523-7257
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