Stiltner; White and Noftall Discuss Council's Planned $10 million giveaway (video)
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- Bob Ford is concerned about possible cronyism at Riverwalk Development (video)
- Should some Port Orange Employees get paid more than the Florida Governor? – What do you think?
The LaCour Riverfront Park has been an expensive and rotten deal for the taxpayers of Port Orange, right form the start, with Parker and Mayor Green. We know what the legacy of Mr. Parker is
and this LaCour Riverfront Park will be the legacy of Mayor Green. I have said before, I will not patronize any business establishment instituted in the area by LaCour or his associates. I feel as a citizen of Port Orange, the Riverfront Park is not my park and will not be my park. Citizens are being asked to put more money into this park to make it real pretty for LaCour’s three 17 story condo. Mr. Mayor, you have allowed your long time acquaintance to shaft the people of Port Orange. The rest of the city council people too are responsible for this give away to a developer.
Dianne is so with you on this one Hank. Seems like since we will have ponied up $10 million PLUS for TIF sharing and the other $15 million already down the rat hole of this project, Taxpayers should be eating free at any LaCour establishment. Forever. Or getting other free stuff. Gonna be the most expensive lunch any of us ever bought. Gardner and I will not be patronizing anything down there on principle. They will already have gotten my money by extortion.
Mike Gardner did a little digital comparison of what a 17 story condo looks like relative to a 30 foot tree, you know, a tree the size of a telephone pole. Whew!! A 17 story condo is about 170 feet tall. That is about 5.6 telephone poles tall. 3 condos 170 feet tall on our little waterfront. As someone who worked in construction for a decade, I get that one. We are going to hate the way it looks down there. So avoiding the place will not be a hardship for me. The forest will be gone. All those beautiful trees. Literally giant walls on our waterfront. Wish people would go stand next to those monstrosities in Holly Hill and the one in South Daytona. Give yourself a nice preview of what’s coming Port Orange.
The Riverfront deal is a ripoff. The tax rolls are in and we are up double digits on the tax roles. Just holding this land and selling after a little more appreciation is the simple solution. We have held it long enough and it finally ticks up and we are going to pay 10 million for a developer to take it. It is prime and will sell itself without the help of taxpayer dollars. Let’s put the 10 million in small business assistance and clean up the south end of the Ridgewood corridor. That would create employment opportunities right here at home. If this was put to the taxpayer as a vote it would be Neverwalk. Who does Council really represent anyhow?
Give the developer nothing. Fix up the park at the north end spruce up the areas along Halifax and US1. That’s prime riverfront property. If a developer or developers want to take the gamble and do something there let them pay for it like any other developer. Make them work around our property. We need a no high rise condo zoning ordinance. We come first Why should the taxpayers be in the business of subsidizing developers. We need to get off this pipe dream fantasy of river walk unless we turn the whole area into a park.
I think we should organize as a coalition of concerned citizens and begin meeting once a week for a social, say at somewhere like the deck down under. We can discuss an initiative to show up at each council meeting in droves and exercise our right to get up and express ourselves during the citizen comment section. We could in fact picket city hall protesting the Riverwalk development and calling for a citizen’s referendum. Imagine 500 people showing up at city hall for each council meeting with dozens of people getting up and speaking at the podium during citizen comment time. We can also show up early and picket outside. Lets here some feed back on this idea, and if it sounds good to everyone what do you say we start getting organized? Power to the people!
I am with u on the picket!!! This needs to b up for a vote or the area needs to b an organized family area. No more of our money should b used to increase the mayor’s and La Cour’s bank accounts!!!!! We have enough housing and ppl in our area. Don’t need to bring any more!!! I’m all for revitalization and quality of life. I say NO CONDOS!!!!!