Mayor Bill Foster is having his next "Breakfast with the Mayor" event at Bob Evans restaurant, again. Although this one will be at a different branch of the Ohio-based, billion-dollar, 570 location restaurant chain's stores than Mayor Foster held his Breakfast event at just two months ago. What does it say about the Mayor that less than a week before "Independents Week" he is holding yet another event at a major chain restaurant? In fact, half of Foster's Breakfast events this year have been held at major chain restaurants instead of the dozens of local restaurants that offer breakfast.
Looking back at the last two years, Mayor Foster chose to hold these informal Breakfast events almost exclusively at locally owned restaurants or institutions, so what changed this year? The answer may lie in what kind of effect having the Mayor over for breakfast has on the host restaurant. We talked to a couple of employees at one of the restaurants that hosted a Breakfast with the Mayor a while back, and were told that "all of our regulars stayed away when they heard that the Mayor was going to be here, we were less than half full until after he left, then things returned to normal". Or maybe it has more to do with Mayor Foster's recent revelation at a Lens Pier visioning meeting that he encourages people to shop at large corporate-owned stores instead of locally owned establishments. Either way, it's another slap in the face of the whole "shop local" movement, just a week after he posed for a picture at the proclamation ceremony for Independents Week.
Just a side note while we are on the subject of the Mayor promoting things from outside of the city, can someone tell the person in charge of the City of St. Petersburg's facebook page that the picture taken from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge looking up at the support cables, which is currently set as the main background picture on the city's page, was taken in Hillsborough County, not St. Petersburg? We have enough problems being confused with Tampa, and that doesn't help.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Monday, June 18, 2012
The Foster, The Baker, The Candlestick-maker...
Sorry, we couldn't resist the reference, especially given what Mayor Bill Foster said at the last Lens Pier meeting on Thursday:
"If you want to buy a candle, if you want to buy a t-shirt, you can go anywhere, you can buy that at Target, at Steinmart, Bealls, you can do that."
This was clearly a shot across the bow at Nicolas Weathersbee, one of the people behind VoteOnThePier.com, who also works at the candle shop on the Pier. Nicolas has been an outspoken proponent for allowing people to vote on the Pier's future since the unannounced vote by city council to tear down the inverted pyramid pier almost two years ago. In response to Foster's statement, Nicolas had this to say:
"So our mayor is suggesting that people DON'T BUY LOCAL. BUY CHINESE. Too bad our company has been resisting Chinese manufacturers for 15 years, our products can only be bought in two stores in all of Florida... And by the way, the candles are ONLY made at The Pier, and John's pass. They are unique to St.Pete, and absolutely CANNOT BE BOUGHT ANYWHERE ELSE, AND DEFINITELY NOT TARGET! The candle company at The Pier is proud that they can say "Made in America". They have been hiring artists for 15 years locally, and have never sold out to the Chinese manufacturers, who have been after them for years."
It is ironic, to say the least, that Foster's insistence that people shop at major corporate retail stores instead of locally-owned businesses comes just a couple weeks before Independents Week, an event geared toward getting people to shop more at local independent shops in St. Petersburg. In fact, the proclamation for Independents Week happened at City Hall only hours before Mayor Foster spoke the above quote. Can you say "awkward..."?
So that's the "Foster" and the "Candlestick-maker" parts of the headline(yes, technically he doesn't make "stick" candles, but "round ball" candles), but what about the "Baker" part? Well, that part just fits nicely into everything we've been posting about recently related to former-Mayor Rick Baker and how he is different(better) than our current-Mayor Bill Foster. Here is what Mr. Weathersbee had to say,
"Baker used to come in the front door of the pier and look you in the eye and ask how things are going... Baker was quoted as saying my candle shop was his favorite shop at the pier. That was nice..."
Just one more in the long list of reasons why we miss Mayor Rick Baker.
"If you want to buy a candle, if you want to buy a t-shirt, you can go anywhere, you can buy that at Target, at Steinmart, Bealls, you can do that."
This was clearly a shot across the bow at Nicolas Weathersbee, one of the people behind VoteOnThePier.com, who also works at the candle shop on the Pier. Nicolas has been an outspoken proponent for allowing people to vote on the Pier's future since the unannounced vote by city council to tear down the inverted pyramid pier almost two years ago. In response to Foster's statement, Nicolas had this to say:
"So our mayor is suggesting that people DON'T BUY LOCAL. BUY CHINESE. Too bad our company has been resisting Chinese manufacturers for 15 years, our products can only be bought in two stores in all of Florida... And by the way, the candles are ONLY made at The Pier, and John's pass. They are unique to St.Pete, and absolutely CANNOT BE BOUGHT ANYWHERE ELSE, AND DEFINITELY NOT TARGET! The candle company at The Pier is proud that they can say "Made in America". They have been hiring artists for 15 years locally, and have never sold out to the Chinese manufacturers, who have been after them for years."
It is ironic, to say the least, that Foster's insistence that people shop at major corporate retail stores instead of locally-owned businesses comes just a couple weeks before Independents Week, an event geared toward getting people to shop more at local independent shops in St. Petersburg. In fact, the proclamation for Independents Week happened at City Hall only hours before Mayor Foster spoke the above quote. Can you say "awkward..."?
So that's the "Foster" and the "Candlestick-maker" parts of the headline(yes, technically he doesn't make "stick" candles, but "round ball" candles), but what about the "Baker" part? Well, that part just fits nicely into everything we've been posting about recently related to former-Mayor Rick Baker and how he is different(better) than our current-Mayor Bill Foster. Here is what Mr. Weathersbee had to say,
"Baker used to come in the front door of the pier and look you in the eye and ask how things are going... Baker was quoted as saying my candle shop was his favorite shop at the pier. That was nice..."
Just one more in the long list of reasons why we miss Mayor Rick Baker.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Mayor Bill Foster Using Evolution Arguments For The Lens Pier
We couldn't make this up if we tried, but the arguments Mayor Foster is using in favor of the scaled-back Lens pier design mirror those of the "Foster's rule" of evolutionary biology which states that,
"members of a species get smaller or bigger depending on the resources available in the environment. This is the core of the study of island biogeography. For example, it is known that pygmy mammoths evolved from normal mammoths on small islands. Similar evolutionary paths have been observed in elephants, hippopotamuses, boas, deer, and humans"
Mayor Foster keeps arguing that the current inverted pyramid doesn't have the resources(subsidy) to stay as big as it is and with all of the buildings and some of the parking over water, so it should change(or evolve) to be much smaller and have no buildings or parking over water so it can fit his planned smaller subsidy from the city, the exact same argument as Foster's rule for evolution. The irony of course is that Bill Foster is very much against the idea of evolution(which we've covered before), saying in a letter to the Pinellas School Board that it lead to Nazism and the Columbine massacre, so why is he pushing so hard in favor of evolution for the Pier? Maybe the VoteOnThePier.com folks need to speak the Mayor's language and say that the inverted pyramid is an "Intelligent Design", that might just win the Mayor over.
"members of a species get smaller or bigger depending on the resources available in the environment. This is the core of the study of island biogeography. For example, it is known that pygmy mammoths evolved from normal mammoths on small islands. Similar evolutionary paths have been observed in elephants, hippopotamuses, boas, deer, and humans"
Mayor Foster keeps arguing that the current inverted pyramid doesn't have the resources(subsidy) to stay as big as it is and with all of the buildings and some of the parking over water, so it should change(or evolve) to be much smaller and have no buildings or parking over water so it can fit his planned smaller subsidy from the city, the exact same argument as Foster's rule for evolution. The irony of course is that Bill Foster is very much against the idea of evolution(which we've covered before), saying in a letter to the Pinellas School Board that it lead to Nazism and the Columbine massacre, so why is he pushing so hard in favor of evolution for the Pier? Maybe the VoteOnThePier.com folks need to speak the Mayor's language and say that the inverted pyramid is an "Intelligent Design", that might just win the Mayor over.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Mayor Foster's Staff Issues Sloppy Response To Pier Renovation Estimate, And VOTP Fires Back
Mayor Bill Foster again used his sometimes-weekly Weekly Forecast email last Friday to lob a fourth round of propaganda at the VoteOnThePier.com group, this time in the form of a critique of the Archer Western proposal to remodel the inverted pyramid building and rebuild the pier approach.
Today, VoteOnThePier.com fired back with a well written response to the city's critique of the estimate, which amounted to them trying to educate the city on the details of which elements from the estimate would be included, why they were included, and why the second largest bridge builder in the country doesn't need to be told it isn't charging enough money for concrete.
The response addresses every point of the city's critique, sometimes with stinging critiques of it's own toward the city, which clearly only put out the quickly-written critique to try to cover it's bases as a way to dismiss the Archer Western pier renovation proposal since the opposition to the Lens design only appears to be growing and not diminishing as the city had hoped.
First Public Input Forum
At the first Public Input Session held last week, the city presented the same inaccurate depictions of the Lens pier with all of the optional features that won't be included, like the towers, reef, docent theater and so on. As the majority of people came forward to speak about how they didn't want the Lens design for one reason or another, Council-chair Leslie Curran stated that the Lens design had been decided upon, and that people would only be allowed to speak about the Lens at the next public input meetings. It looks like according to the Mayor's Friday email, only people with "programming ideas about our new Pier" will be welcome at the rest of these "public input" meetings. So when the majority of the public input isn't to the Mayor's liking, just prevent the opposition from attending. Way to be open to public input there Mr. Mayor.
Also in pier referendum news today, several news organizations pointed out that the Mayor's made-up pier petition deadline means nothing because he can't legally set restrictions on petition drives, since those are governed by the state and county only.
Yet again, the Mayor ends up as the loser of this round. At some point you would hope that he and council will eventually get it, and let the people vote.
Today, VoteOnThePier.com fired back with a well written response to the city's critique of the estimate, which amounted to them trying to educate the city on the details of which elements from the estimate would be included, why they were included, and why the second largest bridge builder in the country doesn't need to be told it isn't charging enough money for concrete.
The response addresses every point of the city's critique, sometimes with stinging critiques of it's own toward the city, which clearly only put out the quickly-written critique to try to cover it's bases as a way to dismiss the Archer Western pier renovation proposal since the opposition to the Lens design only appears to be growing and not diminishing as the city had hoped.
First Public Input Forum
At the first Public Input Session held last week, the city presented the same inaccurate depictions of the Lens pier with all of the optional features that won't be included, like the towers, reef, docent theater and so on. As the majority of people came forward to speak about how they didn't want the Lens design for one reason or another, Council-chair Leslie Curran stated that the Lens design had been decided upon, and that people would only be allowed to speak about the Lens at the next public input meetings. It looks like according to the Mayor's Friday email, only people with "programming ideas about our new Pier" will be welcome at the rest of these "public input" meetings. So when the majority of the public input isn't to the Mayor's liking, just prevent the opposition from attending. Way to be open to public input there Mr. Mayor.
Also in pier referendum news today, several news organizations pointed out that the Mayor's made-up pier petition deadline means nothing because he can't legally set restrictions on petition drives, since those are governed by the state and county only.
Yet again, the Mayor ends up as the loser of this round. At some point you would hope that he and council will eventually get it, and let the people vote.
Mayor Bill Foster's Growing "Big Brother Machine"
Last week, Mayor Foster and his staff convinced City Council to approve spending $270,000 on security cameras to be put in place before the RNC party that is scheduled for the end of August at Tropicana Field.
We've covered Foster's aspirations to become the Big Brother of St. Petersburg, as well as his early failures, but now he is spending over a quarter-million dollars on security cameras for a one-day event, without any guarantee of being reimbursed for the expense. How is it that in the fifth year of budget cuts Council-chair Curran was the only one to vote against this waste of money?
Worse still, we don't know where these cameras will be placed, or how many there will be, all in the name of "security".
And in a slap to the face of city council, after the vote Mayor Foster says the cameras will not be moved to neighborhoods(the opposite of what the City Administrator had said), and if council wants neighborhood crime hot spot cameras it is "up to them to figure out a way to pay for them". With that, Mayor Foster showed just how much of a jerk he can be, especially since the funding source for his new cameras isn't guaranteed.
We've covered Foster's aspirations to become the Big Brother of St. Petersburg, as well as his early failures, but now he is spending over a quarter-million dollars on security cameras for a one-day event, without any guarantee of being reimbursed for the expense. How is it that in the fifth year of budget cuts Council-chair Curran was the only one to vote against this waste of money?
Worse still, we don't know where these cameras will be placed, or how many there will be, all in the name of "security".
And in a slap to the face of city council, after the vote Mayor Foster says the cameras will not be moved to neighborhoods(the opposite of what the City Administrator had said), and if council wants neighborhood crime hot spot cameras it is "up to them to figure out a way to pay for them". With that, Mayor Foster showed just how much of a jerk he can be, especially since the funding source for his new cameras isn't guaranteed.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Draft Rick Baker For Mayor In 2013
"On a cloudy, dreary day in St. Petersburg, former mayor Rick Baker was all sunshine as he took a group around downtown."
Even though he has been out of the Mayor's office for over two years, in a lot of ways he hasn't stopped being our ceremonial Mayor, presiding over dozens of conferences, groundbreakings and store openings. If you go to the Saturday Morning Market, you will still see him there talking with the people about the issues of the day(none of us can remember the last time we saw Mayor Foster there).
Just so you know, we don't have rose-colored glasses on about Baker's time as Mayor, we did disagree with some of the things he did: the back-room deals, his poor record on LGBT issues, and his willingness to bend the rules to get a development project going. Those were all things that we really didn't like about him at the time. But now that we have two years of Mayor Foster to compare Baker's time in office to, we really miss Baker's optimism, his ability to talk to anyone and really listen to them without a sarcastic glance or tone to his voice, as well as how he would tell you where he stands on an issue without having to needle it out of him, and in spite of Baker himself being a lawyer, he never got bogged down in lawsuit-phobia like Mayor Foster does in just about every situation.
So what about Baker for Mayor in 2013? He could do it, the only restriction in the city charter about the Mayor being reelected is two consecutive terms, not total time in office. As for the question of "would he?", he is more of an acquaintance of Bill Foster's, not a friend or ally, and we have covered the differences between them as well as how they tend to back different candidates in Republican elections. The article above even mentions that Baker likes the current Pier better than the Lens pier plan that Foster has been pushing. Baker hasn't ruled out running for Mayor next year, and if he did choose to run, you would see all sorts of Foster supporters jumping ship to get on the Baker boat.
We have been asked many times if Bill Foster Watch is just some kind of political precursor to someone's race for Mayor in 2013, and the answer is a definite NO. Our primary goal with this blog is to expose what Mayor Bill Foster is doing, we have no political affiliation with anyone who would be running for Mayor next year, and just about the only thing we really want is for someone, anyone, to come forward and be a serious challenger to Foster in 2013. Whether that is Rick Baker, or Rick Kriseman, it doesn't matter to us, we think either of those guys would be a big improvement over what we have now.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
EXCLUSIVE! Mayor-Elect Foster Suggested "Pier Referendum"
We would like to thank the people behind voteonthepier.com for giving us the exclusive on this story. Through their research they have contacted a former reporter from the St. Petersburg Times from back in 2009. Cristina Silva covered St Petersburg politics for the Times back then, and when she was told about Mayor Foster's current push to demolish the Pier and not hold a referendum, and how that conflicts with this article that she wrote during the 2009 race for Mayor, she had the following to say:
"I remember Bill(Foster) getting all upset because Scott Wagman said he was going to bulldoze the Pier during that mayoral election", but she added that, "I will note that in my article... I clearly said that Bill thought the Pier would have to go".
The passage she is referring to is one that we have quoted before as well:
"Foster said he will give voters final say on the Pier's future. But his preference is to repair the existing Pier and give it an "extreme makeover" or build a new Pier closer to the shore."
As if this first-person account of Candidate-for-Mayor Foster being upset at the thought of the inverted pyramid being demolished wasn't big enough news, Cristina Silva then pointed to a different news report from another news organization one month after Bill Foster won the election for Mayor of St. Petersburg. In this article, Mayor-elect Bill Foster states that:
"it's likely voters will have the final say on the Pier through a referendum."
That's right, he said it, after he was elected, the "R"-word... REFERENDUM!
Mayor-elect Bill Foster was suggesting a voter referendum on the pier. It is clear now that Mayor Foster can no longer deny that he was once in favor of letting the voters decide on the fate of the Pier. So what happened between December 2009 and less than a year later when he was pushing city council for a vote to demolish the pier without a referendum? We may never know, but we're sure if it comes out it will make a great story.
"I remember Bill(Foster) getting all upset because Scott Wagman said he was going to bulldoze the Pier during that mayoral election", but she added that, "I will note that in my article... I clearly said that Bill thought the Pier would have to go".
The passage she is referring to is one that we have quoted before as well:
"Foster said he will give voters final say on the Pier's future. But his preference is to repair the existing Pier and give it an "extreme makeover" or build a new Pier closer to the shore."
As if this first-person account of Candidate-for-Mayor Foster being upset at the thought of the inverted pyramid being demolished wasn't big enough news, Cristina Silva then pointed to a different news report from another news organization one month after Bill Foster won the election for Mayor of St. Petersburg. In this article, Mayor-elect Bill Foster states that:
"it's likely voters will have the final say on the Pier through a referendum."
That's right, he said it, after he was elected, the "R"-word... REFERENDUM!
Mayor-elect Bill Foster was suggesting a voter referendum on the pier. It is clear now that Mayor Foster can no longer deny that he was once in favor of letting the voters decide on the fate of the Pier. So what happened between December 2009 and less than a year later when he was pushing city council for a vote to demolish the pier without a referendum? We may never know, but we're sure if it comes out it will make a great story.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Mayor Foster's Pier Propaganda, Round 3
Today the City of St. Petersburg awkwardly launched a fancy new website dedicated to the new Lens Pier design, and wouldn't you know it, a few of Foster's misleading "pier facts" and some new revisionist history appears(and then was deleted) on the new website too. We say "awkwardly launched" because they didn't check to see that the new website was working before announcing it, so for the first couple of hours, people that went to the new website only saw these two words "Under Development", and they even managed to send everyone five copies of the City's weekly email newsletter today which also announced the website, just another PR stumble for the Mayor we guess. Also, it looks like they removed the link from the city's website to the original pier competition page, so we've included that link for you here so you can go look at the critique and analysis of how their Lens Phase 1 proposal was over budget and inadequate in several ways. Also, if you haven't already read our other postings on Mayor Foster and the Pier, here is a list of all of those articles so you can catch up if you haven't been following along:
Now on to our analysis of the new Lens Pier website:
The website is really just a series of pages that you follow straight through, starting with "The Current Pier"(We find it funny that the page titled "A History of Pier Traditions" is actually named "save_the_old_pier"). The first two pages go over the history of old St. Petersburg piers and what is wrong with the existing pier structure, everything that has already been covered in our last two articles, and really nothing that anyone is arguing about. But on the third page we see some Foster "facts" that we have problems with:
"Due to its unusual layout, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors of the inverted pyramid are virtually unusable and have limited potential to generate revenue"
We covered this thoroughly in our last pier article, it is ridiculous to consider the first three floors of the Pier by themselves, just like it would be ridiculous to consider the Mahaffey Theater concession stand by itself. Neither operate by themselves, and neither can cover the costs of their subsidy or infrastructure requirements of the whole structure. It makes no sense, and shows how much Foster is grasping at straws to try to make his argument.
"Renovating the Pier does not solve design inefficiencies that cost approximately $1.5 million in tax subsidies per year."
This is what the Mayor really cares about, reducing the subsidy. Eliminating over-water buildings and drastically reducing the square footage over the water will do this, in effect, shrinking the pier and moving all retail to land. This also has the effect of reducing the amount of time that people spend on the pier, reducing the number of people that go to the pier and drastically reducing the economic impact of the pier on downtown over the long term.
"Restaurant space is the only retail use that currently works at The Pier – but it would work more efficiently on the uplands leading to The Pier."
Again, Mayor Foster ignores the other successful retail operations on the pier, and the fact that the Pier is 100% leased, even now when it is less than one year from demolition.
"The logistic complexity of reconstructing a new ground floor below the overhang of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th floors would make renovation and new construction cost prohibitive."
The Mayor provides no numbers for this, and the fact is that the Archer Western renovation proposal does not include rebuilding the current first floor retail building under the overhang at all. In fact, we have not seen anyone seriously propose rebuilding it, so we don't know why he even bothers to bring this up.
The next section of the new website is titled simply "The Lens", with the first page being about "The Hub", an undefined generic "retail village... which can grow over time", they say that because there is not much money for it in the budget, and at only 6000 sq ft, it won't have much room at all compared to the 52,000 sq ft of retail space on the current pier. It is also a long way from the 30,000 to 40,000 sq ft of retail that the pier task force recommended(which this website conveniently does not mention). There are a few more pages with loose descriptions of each section of the Lens pier and what possible additional enhancements could be added if we had the money to add them. Also mentioned is the "spectacular light show" feature which is marked as optional and is not included in the basic budget. If we end up paying for that one we wonder if it would soon meet the same fate as the current Pier's old laser light show.
The last section is "Public Input", which covers the hastily announced public comment meetings that will be happening over the next 2 weeks only(the first one is at the Coliseum on Thursday). Why the city only gave 2 weeks notice for these meetings and did not spread out the public input sessions out over a longer time period is unknown, especially in light of their supposed desire for public input.
The pictures on the website showing the Lens pier by itself are a slight improvement over the previously released pictures because they have removed all of the non-Phase-1 development, but they are still highly misleading because the following optional(or impossible) items that will not be included are still shown and should be removed from the pictures on this website if they do not want to be misleading:
- the Reef
- the Intertidal Path
- the Docent Theater
- the Bike Path
- the Tower structures
- the Wood-like decking on the bridges(will actually be bare concrete)
- the Bridges' steel railings(which will actually be a solid "concrete curb")
- the additional 6000SF of Promatory space
- the Lighting package(showing the Lens Pier glowing at night as well as underwater lighting)
In addition to what is shown that should not be there, there are dozens of boat navigation markers and signs around and within the Lens that will be required and are not shown in the renderings or budgeting because, "Existing pier support piles that are not removed during demolition and remain exposed above the sea bottom present a navigation hazard and will likely require navigation markers or signs" - MOFFATT & NICHOL
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this website is what was removed from it earlier today. There was a section referring to the demolition and replacement of the Pier being planned back in 2004(it wasn't slated for demolition until Mayor Foster pushed for a council vote on demolition in 2010), and there was a section referring to how much the Lens plan conforms to the pier task-force recommendations, these recommendations had been "revised" to make them more Lens-friendly, and most of the real task-force recommendations were left out entirely. Now what you notice as you go through this website is that there are some sections that seem not to flow as well, or some pages without much text content at all, it seems that it was hastily removed earlier today in response to a number of comments on the city's facebook page. We only wish we had taken pictures of these pages before they removed all of this text.
So round 3 of Foster's Lens Pier Propaganda assault is over, and we must say it was a rather poorly planned and stumbling effort by the Mayor's team that left them looking worse than if they had done nothing at all.
- More "Foster's Pier Facts" Are Released
- Fact-Checking Mayor Bill Foster's "Pier Facts"
- A Tale Of Two St Petersburgs, Mayor Bill Foster Style
- Mayor Bill Foster Attacks Pier Initiative Group
- The New "Lens" Pier: Foster's Folly
- Mayor Bill Foster Backpedals on Pier Closing Date
Now on to our analysis of the new Lens Pier website:
The website is really just a series of pages that you follow straight through, starting with "The Current Pier"(We find it funny that the page titled "A History of Pier Traditions" is actually named "save_the_old_pier"). The first two pages go over the history of old St. Petersburg piers and what is wrong with the existing pier structure, everything that has already been covered in our last two articles, and really nothing that anyone is arguing about. But on the third page we see some Foster "facts" that we have problems with:
"Due to its unusual layout, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors of the inverted pyramid are virtually unusable and have limited potential to generate revenue"
We covered this thoroughly in our last pier article, it is ridiculous to consider the first three floors of the Pier by themselves, just like it would be ridiculous to consider the Mahaffey Theater concession stand by itself. Neither operate by themselves, and neither can cover the costs of their subsidy or infrastructure requirements of the whole structure. It makes no sense, and shows how much Foster is grasping at straws to try to make his argument.
"Renovating the Pier does not solve design inefficiencies that cost approximately $1.5 million in tax subsidies per year."
This is what the Mayor really cares about, reducing the subsidy. Eliminating over-water buildings and drastically reducing the square footage over the water will do this, in effect, shrinking the pier and moving all retail to land. This also has the effect of reducing the amount of time that people spend on the pier, reducing the number of people that go to the pier and drastically reducing the economic impact of the pier on downtown over the long term.
"Restaurant space is the only retail use that currently works at The Pier – but it would work more efficiently on the uplands leading to The Pier."
Again, Mayor Foster ignores the other successful retail operations on the pier, and the fact that the Pier is 100% leased, even now when it is less than one year from demolition.
"The logistic complexity of reconstructing a new ground floor below the overhang of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th floors would make renovation and new construction cost prohibitive."
The Mayor provides no numbers for this, and the fact is that the Archer Western renovation proposal does not include rebuilding the current first floor retail building under the overhang at all. In fact, we have not seen anyone seriously propose rebuilding it, so we don't know why he even bothers to bring this up.
The next section of the new website is titled simply "The Lens", with the first page being about "The Hub", an undefined generic "retail village... which can grow over time", they say that because there is not much money for it in the budget, and at only 6000 sq ft, it won't have much room at all compared to the 52,000 sq ft of retail space on the current pier. It is also a long way from the 30,000 to 40,000 sq ft of retail that the pier task force recommended(which this website conveniently does not mention). There are a few more pages with loose descriptions of each section of the Lens pier and what possible additional enhancements could be added if we had the money to add them. Also mentioned is the "spectacular light show" feature which is marked as optional and is not included in the basic budget. If we end up paying for that one we wonder if it would soon meet the same fate as the current Pier's old laser light show.
The last section is "Public Input", which covers the hastily announced public comment meetings that will be happening over the next 2 weeks only(the first one is at the Coliseum on Thursday). Why the city only gave 2 weeks notice for these meetings and did not spread out the public input sessions out over a longer time period is unknown, especially in light of their supposed desire for public input.
The pictures on the website showing the Lens pier by itself are a slight improvement over the previously released pictures because they have removed all of the non-Phase-1 development, but they are still highly misleading because the following optional(or impossible) items that will not be included are still shown and should be removed from the pictures on this website if they do not want to be misleading:
- the Reef
- the Intertidal Path
- the Docent Theater
- the Bike Path
- the Tower structures
- the Wood-like decking on the bridges(will actually be bare concrete)
- the Bridges' steel railings(which will actually be a solid "concrete curb")
- the additional 6000SF of Promatory space
- the Lighting package(showing the Lens Pier glowing at night as well as underwater lighting)
In addition to what is shown that should not be there, there are dozens of boat navigation markers and signs around and within the Lens that will be required and are not shown in the renderings or budgeting because, "Existing pier support piles that are not removed during demolition and remain exposed above the sea bottom present a navigation hazard and will likely require navigation markers or signs" - MOFFATT & NICHOL
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this website is what was removed from it earlier today. There was a section referring to the demolition and replacement of the Pier being planned back in 2004(it wasn't slated for demolition until Mayor Foster pushed for a council vote on demolition in 2010), and there was a section referring to how much the Lens plan conforms to the pier task-force recommendations, these recommendations had been "revised" to make them more Lens-friendly, and most of the real task-force recommendations were left out entirely. Now what you notice as you go through this website is that there are some sections that seem not to flow as well, or some pages without much text content at all, it seems that it was hastily removed earlier today in response to a number of comments on the city's facebook page. We only wish we had taken pictures of these pages before they removed all of this text.
So round 3 of Foster's Lens Pier Propaganda assault is over, and we must say it was a rather poorly planned and stumbling effort by the Mayor's team that left them looking worse than if they had done nothing at all.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Mayor Bill Foster Begs For Audit
A frustrated Mayor Foster at the last city council meeting said that he was tired of the talk about the need for an audit of the development impact fees over the last several years, begging the council members to "Audit Something, please!"(click to read the full Patch article).
Now, we've covered this issue a few times before, and for some reason Mayor Foster just can't understand why the council would question his trust in his city employees. Well, we don't know, maybe it is because he has refused to fire or even discipline a city employee that lied to city council on purpose, or maybe it is because of the mis-appraisal of properties the city was buying(again with no disciplinary action), or it might just be that the council was mislead as to how thorough the previous unofficial investigation into the impact fees was. No matter what it was, the majority of council members we able to see past Foster's blind faith in his staff and voted to proceed with the external audits.
We again want to thank all of the council members that voted for this audit, especially Steve Kornell, who spearheaded this request for an audit, did his homework and showed that he cares about the people of this city, and what we think about out city government.
We also have to mention our favorite quote from this council meeting, it is in reference to the Lens pier plan, and the concept of attracting manatees to the artificial reef(which we have covered before as not being able to function as designed), Councilman Karl Nurse said "you know, we try NOT to kill manatees." We couldn't agree more councilman, and we are working on yet another Pier/Foster posting since the Mayor seems to be putting his foot in his mouth again.
Now, we've covered this issue a few times before, and for some reason Mayor Foster just can't understand why the council would question his trust in his city employees. Well, we don't know, maybe it is because he has refused to fire or even discipline a city employee that lied to city council on purpose, or maybe it is because of the mis-appraisal of properties the city was buying(again with no disciplinary action), or it might just be that the council was mislead as to how thorough the previous unofficial investigation into the impact fees was. No matter what it was, the majority of council members we able to see past Foster's blind faith in his staff and voted to proceed with the external audits.
We again want to thank all of the council members that voted for this audit, especially Steve Kornell, who spearheaded this request for an audit, did his homework and showed that he cares about the people of this city, and what we think about out city government.
We also have to mention our favorite quote from this council meeting, it is in reference to the Lens pier plan, and the concept of attracting manatees to the artificial reef(which we have covered before as not being able to function as designed), Councilman Karl Nurse said "you know, we try NOT to kill manatees." We couldn't agree more councilman, and we are working on yet another Pier/Foster posting since the Mayor seems to be putting his foot in his mouth again.
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