Saundra McDavid

It’s with a sense of accomplishment that I view the Eagle Chamber of Commerce’s Downtown Feasibility Committee’s statements that we need to take a step back and look at the big picture of downtown Eagle. I repeatedly stated this during my campaign for Mayor. In fact I was alarmed that we were giving out a “free for all” in eliminating some of our building restrictions for a year to anyone who wanted to develop downtown when we didn’t have an overall plan of what we wanted our downtown to be. A one year window seemed very odd; an opportunity which would allow a select group of people to profit. To me it appeared as if someone who owned property, or knew of property that would soon be up for sale, talked the city council and the mayor (Bastian, Bandy, Guerber and Merrill) into relaxing its restrictions for his benefit.

Surely it was simply coincidence then that the then Chairman of the Urban Renewal Agency (who is also the current President of the Eagle Chamber of Commerce and the developer of Winding Creek on State Street – you know that development with the small office buildings with their BACKS to State Street):

* convinced Eagle to relax its restrictions;

* purchased property in the Urban Renewal District;

* resigned her position as Chairman of the Urban Renewal Agency due to a “conflict of interest;”

* had an architect design a building and parking garage (the likes of which Eagle has never seen) on that property she purchased in the Urban Renewal District;

* took advantage of all of the relief concessions she convinced the city to create in its year long “free for all” which benefited only those who purchased property within a certain window of time; and

* asked for even more concessions from city council in the form of building height exceptions, and had those approved over the objection of many of the residents of Eagle, prior to the installment of the new City Council members?

That probably was the way things worked in Eagle up to now. But not anymore. I have to admit I was relieved when I read that the deal fell through over contract negotiations with the seller. A parking garage towering over Eagle and State Street wasn’t what I had envisioned for my downtown.

I sat in on the big “reveal” of the Urban Renewal Agency’s draft of their plan last October, eagerly awaiting the visionary concept of our future city. Unfortunately, the agency hadn’t created that. Instead the agency created an Urban Renewal District without a plan for renewal, in the hopes of cashing in on the ever increasing property taxes in our City. Instead of a plan for our downtown area, they created a panic among the residents living in the District because they included an alarming eminent domain clause which allows the City to take a resident’s property and give it to a developer. For free. I know this because those residents came to me during the campaign asking if the City was going to take their homes away from them.

The Agency also caused a lawsuit to be filed against it by the Meridian School District, which relies on those increased property taxes to support its schools which are overcrowded because we have no plans to manage our growth. So I don’t view the Urban Renewal Agency as a success. And during the campaign I stated my concern about giving the developers a blank slate on which to build whatever was the most lucrative project for them at the time. Let’s plan the city we want, and ask the developers to build it. Not the other way around.

So, when I read about the desire to now PLAN out our downtown, I felt a glimmer of hope that perhaps someday we will create that pedestrian friendly retail area that our city so desperately needs. The issues I thought were important during the Mayoral race are being addressed. That makes everyone a winner.

Want More? Subscribe via e-mail:

Or via RSS
Subscribe in a reader

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.