RM 02-20-76 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

4. COMMUNICATIONS (Cont'd Ms. Derbeck referred to the prior statement made by Commissioner Wiggins, in regard to the City cash money that has not yet been paid to Redevelopment and that is one of the issues. Mr. Brownell said it's a fact the City hasn't paid some overruns in public improvements, and that they haven't paid some matching funds. Commissioner Wiggins said these are the matching funds that the City Council ignored, he believed, as they haven't come up with the funds and this has to be a part of any kind of final settle- ment. Mr. John V. L-indstaedt, Fair Tax Association, asked, "Do you be- lieve, Sir, that it is realistic at this time to think the Down- town area at this point in time has a retail center rather than a service - oriented center in the community as there are develop- ments of malls in other areas of the City?- I see a reluctance on the part of retailers to move into this area due to the fact of parking and a good many other minus's, etc., that kind of things that come into the area in shopping centers in the malls. Com- missioner Wiggins answered that is a good question, and "actually, this is kind of up for grabs sort of thing. It's true that the trend, for a long period of time now has been to create shopping areas in the outer fringes of the community where land is cheap and where they can put it all together in a' package without a great deal of effort. It takes a lot more effort to make space available in a downtown built -up section than it is out in the corn- field somewhere in the edge of town. However, there have been some moves in this other direction, and I would venture to say that this energy situation is going to change this picture; it isn't going to change it right away, but it will change it, because the energy crisis is real. This thing has gotten involved in a lot of politics and a lot of emotions, but if you sort it all out, it's factual and given 10 years period of time, there's going to be a tremendous amount of incentive for people to use public transportation which gives you back the idea of building a city in the first place- -where you concentrate things in the center. Now, the things that aren't going to go away from downtown are all of the service /commercial kinds of things that are here already- -the legal community; banking com- munity; many of the professional services that are concentrated down- town. The whole purpose of this thing and what made it tick in the first place was that the downtown was central to everything. Now, when transportation and the use of energy becomes a real problem, then these things come back into focus, so I think that time runs in our direction. That is one reason that I said this is not going to happen overnight, but I think that it will happen; and I think we ought to be aware of these things, and that we ought to be working toward this end because it seems logical and sensible." Mr. Lindstaedt further added that the transportation situation was one point he was trying to make and that the transportation situa- tion is very important- -the availability to the community and not only the service /oriented. One of the big problems to bring people in is transportation. As far as the labor market- -the labor climate- - we have everything, except one thing, and that is airline connections. �:i!