RM 12-04-81 - Laserfiche WebLink

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South Bend qedevelopment Commission Regular Mee ing — December 4, 1981 5. COMMUNISATIONS (continued) Mr. Bra4emas: There is no abatement on that building? Mr. McM hon: There is an abatement on that building as there i in every building in the R -66 area that comes up for onstruction or substantial improvement, includ- ing the Odd Fellows. Mr. Nim z: Mr. Wiggins, I see you here. Do you want to spea as to your competency as a former President of the iommission? Mr. Wiggins: I recognize'Tom Brademas here, and Tom has.beeri one of the leading people in this country, I think, in planning and in taking advantage of the whole b siness of redevelopment. He has been a con- sultant to many communities, set up redevelopment de- partments, established a firm that was in this business and successfully sold the firm to somebody else, and I am surprised that Tom hasn't responded to the remarks that Mrs. Brookins just made. Because what she has said here is the complete opposite of what redevelop- ment was intended to be. What she is saying is that we should let this thing go until every building is completely torn down and fallen in of its own accord and then it will rebuild, and I think that possibly would h ppen. But the whole idea of this was that communities could not afford to have this process take place. qow there is some loss involved in some ways of thinkin , but the loss that's involved is certainly less to the community as a whole, and it does regenerate, and that is what it's all about. The history of the Odd Fellows Building has been rather varied, but the thing hits been kind of a white elephant for a great many years and there is a very good possibility that it stil will be. I would like to suggest to the Commiss on, if it is appropriate, that should you elect to grant the 90 days and go ahead with this, that all of the -nformation involved in this, the finance plan, all the rest of it, including the subsidy by the City be made a matter of public record and make sure that everybody knows because we have a position here where very many people who are not privy to the real gust of what's happening, are trying to make decisions or influence de- cisions and the scripture Ephisians tells us that if the blind leads the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. I'm afraid that's the very area that we're getting into here. It also gets down to that business when we were kids, if you didn't like the way something came out, you tried iz again, you know, best 2 out of 3, 3 out of 5, 5 out o .7, it goes on forever. At some point a deci- sion ha to be made. 17