08-08-11 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING AUGUST 8, 2011 should be place to want build it. She stated that she is in favor of this bill and appreciates the way the bill was brought forward and feels that this bill will allow for the next step in the very important process of planning. Councilmember Oliver Davis stated that as a Social Worker and more importantly as a father who has taken his daughter Star down to Riley’s Children’s Hospital several times over the last two years. He stated that if you have ever had to take a child to Riley, it is a humbling experience when you enter the hospital for the first time. When you arrive in Indianapolis, here is this enormous hospital just for kids. All the parents who are there are terrified when you child is sitting there and you are trying keep up a front, because your child is looking at you for support and strength. He stated that with all due respect to the comment that was made for spending money for just a few people that day at Riley made him feel that he was just a few people. It’s a totally different story when you are just one of those few people. He stated that our tax money should be used for just a few people and it should be used to take care of all of people, because we are all a part of South Bend. It’s different ballgame when you are a parent and we have to look out for all of our kids. He stated that he is definitely going to be voting for the feasibility study. $200,000 is a lot of money, however, he understands the nature of a feasibility study, a lot of other organizations have had them done and that money goes toward that. He stated that yes, the project could have been presented in a different way, but the fact that the administration has backed off and are going to only do this part of it answers the questions that have been raised. This gives the Council and the administration where the best location is, what part of South Bend, is there an existing park that could be used. He stated that they have to lead this City forward and continue to be an All America City. Councilmember White stated that she supports Miracle Park. She stated that she has never said that she doesn’t support Miracle Park, but she thinks that it is very important that the public realizes that there is a process and when they talk about stakeholders, the Council is a very important stakeholder as well. She stated that she wanted it on the record that when they became aware or she became aware of Miracle Park was the latter part of the Spring Semester, so she doesn’t want the public to think that there have been years that the stakeholders have been involved in conversations and collaboration. She reiterated that the Council must be part of those discussions, to come to a meeting today and to discover that the bill that is before us has been reduced to $200,000 and have a short amount of time to articulate or ask questions is not the best use of their skills, but also if the public, if she would get a call tomorrow and she were to be asked that $200,000 for a feasibility study, what does that mean. How much is going to different parts of the feasibility study, will that be bid out, she thinks that there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered. She reiterated that she supports Miracle Park, but does not support the process, she does not support the lack of transparency from the Council level and she wants the public to know that. She stated that she does believe that it they were to ask the administration to come back and look at that $200,000 and at least give them some sense of how those dollars would be allocated. She stated that she thinks that there would be 100% support. She stated that again it is not that she doesn’t support Miracle Park, but that she has some difficulties with the lack of transparency, the lack of involvement from the Council and the Council is a very critical stakeholder. She stated that she did ask the administration during the Committee Meeting to really come back to the Council in terms of giving more detail outlining how those $200,000 dollars will be allocating in terms of the feasibility study. She stated that she thinks that is the least that this Council should be asking and that they have to be good care takers of the tax payer’s dollars and be in a position to be able to respond to the constituents of the city and she stated that she does not have that particular information at this time. Councilmember Varner stated that while some may have been involved in discussions on this project for many years. He stated that the real text of this project has come to the Council within the last three or four months. He stated that some of us are scratching our heads is because when it was originally described and presented at one point in time that there would $800,000 to acquire land and that land that was talked about was outside the corporate city limits. And those of us that were scratching our heads said why we would pay $800,000 dollars for land when the city has a lot of land within the corporate city limits. Why would we consider building something like this outside the corporate city 14