Thursday, June 11, 2009
40 Jealous Whores / Hannan / Politics Mayor's Office Still in Denial About Convention Center Hotel
Posted by Caleb Hannan on Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 10:00 AM
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Mayor Karl Dean introduced his capital spending plan the other day. And I know you're all thinking C'mon Pith, bore us to tears with all the brain-freeze-inducing details! But no, we're not gonna do that. Because giving you what you want will only make you grow large and blood-thirsty, like the venus fly-trap from Little Shop of Horrors. (Seyyyyyyymour!)
So instead, we're just going to point out that the convention center hotel, that massively expensive project that everyone says will be privately funded but will in no way actually be built with anything but public money, was left off the list. That's some well-aged, vintage denial right there.
Here's the deal. The publicly-funded anchor hotel is like Step 13 in the Bankrupting Your City playbook. Right now we've just finished laminating the cover, so we're nowhere close to the point where rubber actually meets road, meaning Mayor Dean can still make straight-faced claims about the Marriotts and Hyatts of the world being eager to do business with such aw-shucks decent folk as ourselves. But reality begs to differ.
Our nation's capitol admitted last week that they'll need public funds to build their hotel. Becoming the 324th consecutive city to begrudgingly allow that massive corporate welfare just isn't enough to attract the big chains these days; you actually have to pay for the whole damn thing yourself.
Changing the budget requires an amendment, mayor approval and a super-majority of 27 votes in council. So expect that to be our next Issue of Grave Importance in, ohhhh, let's say eight months.
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