Saundra McDavid

I was recently sent an e-mail informing me that there are a couple of developers that are EXTREMELY unhappy with the election of our two new councilman, Al Shoushtarian and Mike Huffaker, and these developers are worried that their projects will be stopped. A tactic they plan to use to push their development through the process is to attempt to trap Councilman Shoushtarian and Huffaker in ex-parte communication and force them to recuse themselves from these projects.

It was also alleged in the e-mail that it is widely known that Eagle has not enforced ex-parte communication in the past and the previous administrations have been one of the biggest offenders in the state; and that the developers have benefited from this in the past as they have been given promises in such communication. This is a disturbing allegation; especially after one of the M3 developers was seen giving former Mayor Nancy Merrill a “high five” after the development agreement was approved at a city council meeting last December.

If these allegations are true, this shows how some entrenched developers who are comfortable with the status quo will do anything to make a buck. These people have no desire to build the city we want, they are only interested in lining their own pockets. Wasn’t it the wife of Ted Martinez (developer of Bella Terra on Linder Road and Director of the Building Contractors Association) who was quoted in the Statesman saying something along the lines of “I don’t care about the traffic from the new developments - it’s how we make our living?”

We need to send a message to everyone that the status quo has changed and that we no longer will approve developments that don’t fit within our vision of Eagle, or that don’t pay their way. This is the only way to protect our quality of life and our investments in this community.