Doug Eastwood, CdA Parks Director
Today’s Press had a surprising front page top story about McEuen Plan complaints that were made more than 6 weeks ago at a city council meeting. Here’s the article. What do you think?
September 19, 2011
11 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Who has the motivation to misrepresent the facts on this project? A citizen or the government?
Frank Orzel has nothing to lose one way or the other, right or wrong. The City, on the other hand, has to recover from the egg on its face from the charges Frank exposed. They have insiders who will profit greatly at a parking garage, and property values that will increase because of the park’s re-vitalization. As someone pointed out on the Press site, if the City had these documents on August 2nd, when Mr. Orzel asked his questions, why did it take them until now to produce them?
Not very transparent.
I believe government can be run far, far better here. I also believe it’s not the government’s job to impugn the reputation of a concerned citizen.
Comment by Dan — September 19, 2011 @ 10:55 am
I believe that the timelaps between accusation and producing of the documents are very questionable as well. But you do not REALLY think that the city attorney will look out for the citizens do you?
Comment by concerned citizen — September 19, 2011 @ 12:37 pm
And you really gotta wonder how many of these purported facts are indeed factual instead of just reported latently.
Comment by Wallypog — September 19, 2011 @ 12:40 pm
Exactly. Remember when citizens were asking how much the plan would cost and everyone at City Hall, including Doug Eastwood, said there were no cost analyses done? The Mayor said that Team McEuen had not been “tasked” with estimating costs. Well, according to the contract, costing WAS part of their responsibilities, but we didn’t know it then.
This thing is all mixed up and the end result is a serious lack of trust between the citizens and our local officials.
Comment by mary — September 19, 2011 @ 1:53 pm
Oh, and this just in, Doug Eastwood’s salary is now up to $100,000 per year, plus benefits, but City Attorney Mike Gridley tops everyone by making $125,000 per year. Even more than LCDC’s Tony Berns at $120,000, but I bet Tony’s retirement package is better.
I think these guys really want to keep their jobs, no matter what.
Comment by mary — September 19, 2011 @ 1:57 pm
This isn’t a problem with Eastwood. It isn’t a problem with Orzel. It isn’t a problem with McEuen.
It’s a problem with the CDA City Council.
If we had functioning government here, the Council would provide oversight and ask the questions. Instead, they sit silenced, They nod. They don’t ask questions. And this is the result.
Comment by Dan — September 19, 2011 @ 2:17 pm
Dan, The council is just not engaged. They like the title of Councilman and the thought process stops at that point. I doubt they seriously know what their job is.
Its all about them.
Comment by Ancientemplar — September 19, 2011 @ 4:29 pm
I’m curious how Mr. Orzel feels about the CDA Press findings. Were his Public Records Requests lacking specificity? Was he blind sided by the unknown binder of information that was used to shut him down?
Comment by Gary Ingram — September 19, 2011 @ 9:33 pm
I suspect that the data in these binders did exist but had not been formally delivered. Why? Well, unless the information is all manufactured it could not have been completed in 6 weeks time. What that means is this: The Mayor/Council was advised that the data was done but did not have it in hand when they gleefully pumped their support behind the plan. In other words it was ‘rubber stamped’ for passage without even being line item reviewed. The only reason it was produced was likely because of Mr. Orzel’s investigation. Even at that there are still serious questions about how the financial components were ‘modified’.
Comment by Wallypog — September 20, 2011 @ 4:56 am
I think you nailed it, Wallypog. Again, the problem was a lack of oversight by the council.
Comment by Dan — September 20, 2011 @ 8:34 am
The general practice on “The fix is in” contracts is that the city is not terribly precise, specific, and complete. After all, both the fixer (the City) and the fixee has already agreed on the assured outcome regardless of the timeliness or quality of the deliverable. In other words, the fixer and the fixee have agreed that under no circumstances will the contract be contested. Thus, the contract becomes a mere formality, a piece of paper for the file. A very good example of a sloppily-written, no-one-will-ever-ask-questions contract was the 2009 City-County Election Agreement.
Comment by Bill — September 20, 2011 @ 3:53 pm