 Hi, I'm Sandy Barrett. I'm here with John Franco. I'm here on behalf of the Vermont Institute of Community and International Involvement. I'm bringing you an update about many important issues that are facing our nation and even our city. I'm going to Vermont, which might not seem to have international reach, but of course, it does and it does in a lot of ways. And with me today is John Franco, who has been going to, has been an attorney for a long time, and he's here to give us an update about all the legal ramifications of the lawsuits involving the developer of the downtown mall, which has turned into a big hole, as we all know, and he has been a lawyer for a bunch of plaintiffs who are suing the city about that, and also he's going to talk about the recent lawsuit which involves the city suing the developer. So, when you talk about two lawsuits that are going on at the mall, could you explain that to our community? Let me, before I do that, let's go back, let's go back in time to a time a long, long time ago, the 1950s. The part of Burlington where this development now sits, this hole in the ground now sits, was once upon a time in the Italian neighborhood of Burlington. The Italian neighborhood of Burlington was torn down, and all the residents were forced to leave their homes as part of the urban renewal program that was in the 1950s and 1960s. I think the demolition of that part of Burlington occurred actually in the early to mid 1960s, like 1963, 64, 65-ish. Then after that, through a lot of fits and starts and a lot of times when there were open lots in land that was not developed for a long time, finally what was then known as Burlington Square Mall was put in. That was put in in the mid-1970s, which included a first parking garage downtown. Then eventually in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a department store was brought in. It was originally called Portious. Then it became Filene's, then it became Macy's. In that whole development in the city, the old urban renewal area was finally built out, completely built out, only in 2003, with the construction of the Hotel Ramona. Think about that. That part of the city went from the demolition of the 1960s to 2003 before it was built out. There was times, decades where there were huge areas of lots where people used to live with the areas torn down and it wasn't built on them. That's kind of been the history of this whole urban renewal project. That's really what we're still dealing with. One of the things the urban renewal project tried to do is it tried to reorient Commerce and Burlington to run on an east-west direction from Church Street down to Battery Street. That's how the old mall was oriented as opposed to the historical configuration of Commerce going up and down Church Street on the north-east of Macy's. So this was an effort to change that in the renewal of downtown. Wait a minute. So what about the streets that I'm talking about? The streets? Okay, that's a good point. The Champlain Street in St. Paul's Street originally ran as part of the grid in downtown Marley, but it was originally the village of Marley and they ran through what is now currently the whole within the mall right to and parts of those streets were discontinued as part of this urban renewal area in order to create more developable area and to have this east-west connection so that there would be drawing shopping from Church Street down the corridor along Bank Street and along Cherry Street. And that design, if you remember it, it was an indoor mall which was the very much day rigor particularly in the 1970s. A lot of cities in northern climates like Montreal and Minneapolis had indoor downtown malls so that people could shop and walk for blocks without having to go outside in the elements. And so that was the whole theory of that development. Wasn't Minneapolis the largest mall in the world? That's a different mall. That's not the downtown mall. I'm talking about the malls that connected particularly in Montreal that connected a lot of the downtown areas and also with the metro so you could go in the metro, you could go to an area you could walk in a place without having to go out in the pool. That was the whole theory of this thing. In fact, I think one of the original owners of the developer is something called London. There was a whole sort of looking for a whole host of developers that had come and gone in the urban renewal area that various times all the shopping mall, the parking lot type of thing. There's always, you know, they're always asking for more, more city, there's always this kind of tension or jaw-boning that was going on about what was going to happen down with the development. So for example, the old parking garage, which was torn down in 2018, was originally built on land that was owned by the city of Wellington and then the city leased the land so that the developer would then build the actual structure. So it was really kind of a hybrid relationship. And part of that lease was all these conditions about having to serve the public, having to be open at certain periods of time, having to be open to what's called transient parking. That's the term for people that just come in on an occasional basis and use the facility. So that was the whole model and that was the whole urban renewal thinking. Let's then fast forward to about 20, oh gosh, 20, 12, 2014. I think it was in that period of time that Don Senex, this company called BTC Mall Associates and Devlin Wood, a developer, bought the mall property. And then in the mall, as it existed, then if people remember the day when you have these temporary shops in there, you still had Macy's. We still, he didn't know Macy's, but it was connected to Macy's. We had everything from, oh gosh, I'm trying to think of some of the stores. You're going to tell me so they can hear it. I'm trying to hear cutting places, two nail places. There was, I don't know what I'm going to like, but there was Chico's, there was Pottery Barn, that's what I was thinking. Most of them were, most of these were, most of these were, you know, chain, natural chain, retail outlets, you know, some local businesses, you had the local business assistant that there was a food court downstairs. I think that's still there. That's part of the ball that hasn't been worked out. Maybe not, but it's been a long time since I went in there. But Don Senex, his company's bought the business property. I have a question. Does Don sign on town, his whole company, is that not? I don't know those details. Growington Town Center, LLC was a business entity that he had an ownership interest, whether he owned all of it or some of it. I don't know those details. The Brookfield was not involved at that point. So he bought, or his company's bought this property, but you should have to keep in mind, it also included the property that wasn't torn down, the part of the mall that exists from what is supposed to be the extension of St. Paul Street to Church Street, and also the building that LL Bean is in, and there's some offices in there. That's also part of the property that wasn't torn down, but part of the property. So he bought this around 2012, 2013, and then announced in 2014 he was going to do this major redevelopment of this project, and it was this grand thing that was 14 stories it was going to have, originally it was going to have theaters and movie houses and supermarkets and daycare centers and art centers and housing and retail and one of the hospital offices that we're going to have an office system. So it was all this great, great project, it was going to be a 14 story project that they were going to do. It's supposedly going to be a quarter of a billion dollar investment, good or 50 million dollars. And they got the city, it was going to be two very important roles to the city. They needed to get what's called tiff by dancing, and I'll talk about that. They also needed to get the zoning ordinance changed so they could go up to 14 stories. The zoning ordinance that had just been adopted in the city plan, I think was limited to 10 or 11 or 12 stories, so they were they weren't going to go above that. So the long and the short of it is they got a they got an amendment to the zoning ordinance was called the overlays zone proposed and it was submitted to the voters during the 2016 presidential election. It was approved. So it gave them the ability to go to increase the height. The other part of it was the they wanted the city wanted to reestablish the old Pine Street, old St. Paul Street and Pine Street and to connect them from Bank to Cherry and to do some other public amenities and those were going to cost 22 million dollars. And this is a really important point. The way that it was going to be paid for was through something called tax income and financing. The way tax income and financing works is that the property tax revenues that are generated by the project, rather than being paid to the education fund and the city general fund, at least for their short term, are paid to pay off the public improvements for the development. So the idea is the property taxes will pay for the public improvements. And they had to go to the legislature and they had to get an amendment to the tax increment financing district for Burlington. It was actually an extension of the waterfront district. It has some pretty strict limitations on it. It only allowed the tip financing the property tax increment to come from the buildings that were being built on that development. It couldn't include any of the other waterfront properties. I mean it also had to be built within a certain time period and I think the last payment on it had to be made no later than June 30th, 2021. So to make the tip financing work to pay off the $22 million, that was one of the reasons they said it had to be this big project, this big 14 story project with all these things. Now probably the big objection by the various members of the community was that the thing was oversized. It was too big for downtown Burlington. It was out of scale. And many of us felt that it just wasn't going to be financially viable of any way. Can I interrupt? In our audience is Barbara McGrew and both Jack Daggett who were plaintiffs, I believe, in the case, in the original case, right? That was not work. They are still because the case is ongoing but I just did want to mention and thank them for being here. And maybe after John wishes or now if you have any questions you'll be great if you could ask those questions, okay? But anyway, go ahead, Jack. So what happened was the, it was a great segue actually. This group of people, there was a group of petitioners, Barbara and a couple of other individuals brought various, you were one of the petitioners, brought various legal challenges to this project. The Development Review Board in Burlington gave it a zoning permit. That was appealed to the Environmental Division. There was a challenge that was brought to the TIF financing. There was a claim that they didn't comply with various procedures that were required for legal TIF finance. Barbara brought a claim that this also in addition needed an active 50 permit. And there was also a demand that the feasibility study that was done for the project be fully disclosed to the public. It wasn't fully disclosed to the public. It was fully shared with the city council but the whole thing was never a public. Key among the things that was never disclosed was part of the feasibility study that talked about the cost of the project with the estimated construction cost of the project. But that's very important because what ended up happening was that, well let me hold that for you, it ended up not being viable. To try to back financially viable. All those cases were settled in a global settlement that we reached with the developer in July 2017. After that, the developer then got a development agreement with the city of Burlington to iron out what the responsibilities were regarding the TIF financing and the re-establishment of these streets and the public improvement. That agreement was entered into October 2017 and then shortly thereafter the city went ahead and gave the developer permission to begin the demolition of the part of the old ball and the old parking block. As it turned out, the developer didn't have all the things it was supposed to have in the development agreement, no not true, to begin the demolition. Okay, I'll come back to that later. There are certain things in the development agreement that they were supposed to have that they didn't have but the mayor let him go ahead and begin the demolition. The demolition started in, it was either November or December 2017. The demolition was completed in about I think July of 2018. But then everything came of screeching halt and then when we were told there wasn't any money left. Now I've got a backtrack about what happened. The development agreement provided that the developers were supposed to, and this is where Devin Wood is, not Devin Wood associates, but Brookfield associates came in through a subsidiary and they were partnering with Don Senex's company and they were putting in about $55 million in equity financing and then the balance was supposed to be obtained from bank financing. And the development agreement that was signed with Burlington in October 2017 said developers would put up this $56 million and they would make an effort to get equity financing by March of 2018. Well the first mistake was on both farms, the development parts and the city's part, is they allowed the demolition to start before they had bank financing. Well then kind of to find out, they were having problems getting bank financing because this thing was actually basically, as I said, it took the bankers to tell these guys what the hippies were telling them. This thing was too big, it was over promised that it wasn't going to work. Wait a minute, so the bank told that? Yeah, they couldn't get financing, the bank said we can't see how this is going to work. And they were shopping all over, they finally ended up with a bank called the Bank of the Ozarks which was supposed to be their best shot at getting financing but they ultimately couldn't get financing from them. One of the problems was that the company that had the mortgage on the existing mall was an insurance company out of Indianapolis decided to call the note and let me tell you about why they called the note. They had the mortgage that allowed Don Sacks to acquire these properties whatever it was in 2012. The properties that were being demolished was the security for the mortgage. The income from the rents on those stores that they closed were security for the mortgage. The land was security for the mortgage so when they started doing the demolition they were demolishing the security and the collateral on their existing mortgage which was excuse me, about 23 million bucks. So 56 million is the number, they had some pre-development costs, they spent about 20, 25 million dollars on the demolition. It was four thought life insurance company out of Indianapolis called the note and they had to come up with 23 million dollars cash to pay the note off. The note was paid off in July of 2018 which is the time Don Senex and I mean in the Brookfield. So all of a sudden in June the cupboards fared, there's no more equity capital and they don't have financing. So then they went to the city and they tried to get some amendments to the agreement and they said if you give us these amendments we'll start work on the ground floor that never materialized. And then finally about a year ago in November of 2019, Brookfield sent a detailed letter to the mayor and I think it's also the best secret which was the state agency that was dealing with the TIF financing saying that we can't get financing. They were then talking about downsizing the project at that time but they said the downsizing of the project will not generate enough property taxes in order to finance the TIF to do these public improvements. So then so okay so this is sort of the cash gain of things falling apart. One of the things they did and one of the reasons we were in court in our encode in order to try to make this project more viable the developer in the city unilaterally amended our settlement agreement that we had entered into an environmental division which we had required them to put in a certain level of parking and do some other things. They got it a major portion of the parking requirement. They never told us about it. They did it behind our back and told us it was an administrative amendment and we tried to challenge that federal court weren't successful doing that. We ended up losing them and they were doing other things like adding certain amenities that were going to put a gymnasium to some health facility on the roof and put in a couple of swimming pools. So they were trying to reduce the cost increase I think the marketability or the attractiveness to developers about how much money this was going to raise. That occurred during the 2018 mayoral race. Sort of like the mayoral race is going on over here and it's a diversion and they quietly do this administrative amendment through and don't tell anybody about it. I forget how much they cut the parking but it was like 40% or something like that. So we screamed bloody murder about that but that wasn't good enough. It still couldn't get the financing from the bank of the Ozarks or anybody else. And so then finally in November of last year they sent a letter to the city saying this thing just isn't viable. The original plan isn't going to be viable and we've got to downsize the thing. Then Brookfield went around with a reduced plan for I think 11 stories. They're calling it 10 but actually mechanical 11. It was housing much no originally no offices in the new proposal and what was supposed to be offices I think they didn't they proposed to put in a hotel. That idea was called a couple of times they had a special city council meeting last fall where they proposed that then they had another presentation to the neighbors from neighbors in. There's late February's right before the pandemic broke out where they were talking about this but a lot of people were getting the sense that Brookfield's heart wasn't really in it and the city wanted to negotiate a new development agreement and they weren't getting responses and so forth and so on. So anyway what happened and then fast forward to this month in September finally Cinex announced that Brookfield was getting out they were selling out their interest and that at least the way Cinex put it they have now completely abandoned the project that was permitted by the development or review board by the development by the environmental division in 2017. They're completely abandoned that. That's a big hole. So that's what they've been saying now then we can so well we've had the big hole so then that brings us to the mayor's last. Anybody have any questions or thoughts thus far? I do. So there's a project being completely abandoned by the developers? The project has approved in 2017 has been abandoned by the developers. Is there any new proposals? There was a call it a demi proposal of what I talked about which was a lower not as high project. They also cut the parking it's more and they put in a hotel but that never they never filed any permits they never filed for any permits and then that's even that's now been pulled so they everything's off the table and they what they're saying at least in these letters at least up to the mayor right before Labor Day is that they're going to start from scratch and they've got who's going to start from scratch that Cinex and he's got some new partners which are local developers somebody from SDI and Farrington or something but is that still even being considered? Well they don't have a particular proposal because what the mayor said is the mayor was claiming that he did not want Cinex involved in this project he was going to sue to keep Cinex out and he was going to try to enforce the book and be able to stay in it okay and he accused him of fraud and all these other things. That's part of his now lawsuit correct? Well I was going to get to that. So the lawsuit they filed, they filed this in Chittin's period, the day after Labor Day. 117 pages, so 117 page lawsuit. It doesn't really say we're trying to- And what is it? It's a suit by- I'm going to try to explain that to Sandy. Can I ask you a question? It's not, it's not an effort to, doesn't say that Devin Wood has to stay in but they're trying to claim is that because the developers began construction by demolishing the old law they have to build the public improvements no matter what even if they couldn't get financing they have to build them. On their own. Even if the project isn't viable they have to build it and now they're claiming in addition they're going to have to do it even without any public subsidy from the city. So this is their as we call it in the legal business their theory of the case and it goes something like this and I think this is really amazing. The old project which was 14 stories tall involved $250 million and required a $22 million public subsidy wasn't feasible. Now the city is going to go in and ask a superior court judge to order a developer who can only build a smaller project and who hasn't been able to get financing to nevertheless go forward to build these public improvements without any public public financing on its own dime and somehow that's going to make this project viable. That's his theory. Now I can I don't know if I want to bore the audience with the glory details about why I think that that whole theory is to say the least a stretch. Don't don't they think that Brookfield has enough money to do it on their own if they that wasn't what the agreement said. What the agreement said is they had to make an effort and they had a sort of show that they had $56 million worth of equity financing which they had and I think they spent after you get that paying off for thought the life insurance I think they in doing the demolition they had more than that in it so I think they could probably show that they fulfilled that and they made a good faith effort to get financing doesn't they just couldn't get it and so the question is what and this is right in there it talks about in the in the in the agreement about what the development agreement what the time frame completion time frame talks about things that ran before the city and the developers well the inability to get financing was not in there before and it again it only required the developers to show that they had the equity financing and make an effort to get the the bank financing but it didn't say if you can't get it you still got to go forward anyway this idea that Devinwood is a big not Devinwood the Brookfield is a big deep pocket and a court can order Brookfield to come back and do this out of its own funds above and beyond the $56 million I just honestly don't see it remotely ordering that kind of thing. So then what well what's the purpose of the lawsuit then that's the $64 question I really I I don't know if if the city is thinking that somehow they can just wait these guys out or hold these guys up and the Don Sinek's will throw in the towel and leave the project I originally that was was near said his objection was he did not want to deal with Don he wanted to keep Brookfield in this but the other thing is that a couple things this is this is private property this is a private investment I can't see how a city can tell a partner in a partnership where they can't sell out their interest and they've got to come back and they've got to finance a project out of their own pocket even though they can't be financed I don't see that as being one. And so the question is what they're up to I just really don't know the city is up to I just don't know what the end with the end result is you know Cisco I mean some some people in some of the commentators around saying it's maybe just a negotiation employee but I mean Brookfield's out and I had the sense that Brookfield was just going to cut their losses and get out and frankly a year ago there were a number of people in Burlington that originally developed in a community were saying the same thing they were predicting they said I think in a year Brookfield's going to be out me that doesn't work it's going to be out we're just going to cut their losses this is like a this is like a bottomless pit they don't want to throw good money after that they're just going to get out they probably I mean I don't know what I'm going to guess if they promise to put that on the loss they probably put the loss of this thing but they're investing. They sold their interest I think what happens is this thing's going to break apart. No they're not on the hook because it's they're not on the grade. What did they buy? What could they buy then? I think they I think they I think they're contributors to a new partnership because they've got a new partnership there's a name for it that's now going to be the new developer but the idea that the idea that and the other thing is I think is the idea that the city is going to force Don Sinek's out I mean look and I'm in litigation I don't care what you're going to do I'm going to prevent Don from doing this and I'm going to force Brookfield back in I mean look at I've seen crazier things come out of the courts but I don't see certainly don't see the Vermont Supreme Court ordering I don't see the Vermont Superior Court ordering. Jack's got a question. The three partners are all contractors and I've seen cities that they recover some of the money that's owed to them. Ode to them? Yeah I don't think so but I think they've all been paid they wouldn't go near this they wouldn't I don't think any of anybody would get in all business like that are I'm sure that before this happened all the people that borrowed money those those things were all settled this is what we saw. What are they doing? Because I think they can make money on it they think they can put in a project that it's going to work right a further downsized project we're talking about primarily housing a little bit of retail that's what they're talking about they're not they're hotel the pandemic bye-bye with the hotels I mean look what's happening the hotel and airline industry look what's happening to the tourism industry I mean that's I think they're also in a partnership with that as well that and they said this is actual partnership this is not a proposed partnership this happened in the finest day Farrington in Ireland this is your guy from so I only knew Ireland in Farrington yeah so the the you know the pundits are just wondering what the upshot of this hundred and seventy-eight losses would be other than just a lot of work and getting this thing done on cynics and Brookfield Brookfield's advice was to sit on this thing for five years to see how things were going to shake out they weren't they weren't comfortable investing in anything in much of anywhere but particularly here I guess they just didn't know the economics of that time really you know what's going to work is going to be housing isn't going to be built but what's going to happen Sean I think our people are going to continue to work for both what's the market and what's the space going to be those are real everything's been thrown up in the air I mean as I say to people it's sort of like arguing in 1945 the issues that were on the table in 1939 except that you had a world war in the middle and it used to be Britain and France where the two world powers they came out of that excuse me Britain and France and Japan were world powers they came out of that war it was in the United States and the Soviet Union by the way we're dragged in on involuntary so the whole world or something like that and that was that was allegedly Brookfield's thinking but I think you can pretty much tell them that's what they were that's what was going on this is mean for the city of Wellington what does it even mean politically I mean it's coming in Mayors raised mark yeah that's a good question that's a good because every time I go downtown I talk to businessmen you say that Berlin is a serious is that correct and is that in this this part of it well without tourism well I mean let me put it this way imagine if my kiss was fair he managed to gut the commercial heart of downtown Berlin including the ball the parking garage and mason's Ernie Parmo would be putting the gallows up in front of City Hall for the hanging this is what's happening for them so what political yeah they're getting more attention on the Black Lives Matter so the status of our city and how relevant is it now how what how relevant is it now oh it's very relevant I mean look at I think it's now going to take a backseat to this I think they're going to be focusing their attention on the suit of the city like I mean I think their suit against us is just ridiculous eventually we should get the things brought out but it's that's you know we're in a discovery process and I'm explaining to them to do depositions to people to show that there wasn't any violation of the agreement I just don't know what I mean I have been very good about not criticizing any of that because that's the agreement that we saw they have violated every single provision of it and then have referred to accuse us of violating that's the way it goes oh well you and Marot Weinberger now have something in common to say about Don Sinek's is that he doesn't honor his agreements yeah I mean I'm I'm ashamed that I ever signed that well I mean we went into a good faith the only there's only one thing they ever did what I lost to this about by the way is one of the things they agreed to do is to pay $500,000 to make a charitable contribution and settlement of this thing and uh originally it was supposed to be with one of our organization but for a variety of reasons I wasn't working out so then we decided that we wanted it was supposed to be an installation which is two parts $200,000 initially and then the other $300,000 for the project was completed and we then decided we wanted the $200,000 to go to the Caroline Fund which is the charity that has been founded in honor of Sandy's daughter and they said no they weren't going to do it they've come up with all these cocky old reasons why they can't contribute the money I suspect the next argument they're going to make is going to make the same argument to us that they made to Don Senex is we've abandoned the project we don't have any more contractual obligations that's the next thing they're going to throw out excuse me but our agreement is we're going to say you gotta get behind it's like who owns a stock in general motors it doesn't matter it's not the stock motors it's general motors general motors is the entity okay these are these developer btc model a devon would associate those are the entities or the developers the people that might be the partners in those things may come and go devon wood was a partner in one of those eddies but they came and went they sold out the rentals it wasn't like I mean not devon wood brookfield wasn't that brookfield was a developer wasn't like brookfield was the one that had the permit it wasn't that brookfield was the one that had the contract with this city it wasn't that brookfield was the one that had the contract with us then it's not the way it worked maro's trying to claim that oh well you can look behind the curtain and go after the people that are the owners I don't believe that I believe that for the day okay so why do we do this I think it's covered his ass for having to screw up he's trying to look bold and assertive and why when I heard of this thing I said we're all white murder it's the other side of co-conservators and the reason for that is he allowed them to begin demolition of the project in december of 2017 what they needed to have is not only 55 million dollars in equity which I think they showed them they needed to have contracts written contracts in place for environmental work site work and foundation and they were going to go forward with demolition right well keep in mind yes right actually they were only obligated to be you didn't say you had to have the money which by the way was really stupid you should have said you gotta have the money that was really that was also a very big but so that's why even based upon the agreement they had maro did the forces and now he's complaining about oh they went ahead and demolished them you let them do it you had the ability to keep in mind they began to work less than a month after the development agreement this so the ink wasn't do you think they screwed us the ink was a drawing development agreement that began there began the developer began the city's rationale is that it would be better to have a demolished place to deal with than that old stuff I bet you the developers right now wish they had a still functioning 567 space parking garage that may be required a rehab but not a complete reconstruction and that would completely change the economics of what they have to do in this area total total I can tell you firsthand that that all might have been underperforming that was not fair which means right it's going to stay there were three dozen stores in there that were working systematically forced them and the wrench from those things where the security for the mortgage and for forethought life insurance of Indianapolis Indiana hat and that is the I was I've been trying to get the media to cover that story for I have a theory about why they couldn't get financing that I'm going to actually repeat publicly but I think and I think the key of why this thing went down is that want to know why this thing failed was that there was a twenty three million dollar mortgage for the existing law nobody counted and that sucked up half the equity investment so then have once they got the demolition done they had no money to go I have another question John what is the great thing about how do you think it's going to cost even I look at it it's going to cost even more than they said it was going to cost they've lived with it for the past 20 years or so 20 what is 20 20 six seven 1965 well it was in plan btd I gotta tell you I am in the minority I think that was very bad this transit center so what you get is another block of street that is in a line and so I you know I'm a traffic warning I don't believe that that's going to be a problem and then the probe the one on pine street in order to make that one they've got to go under the brook and free press building underneath and then go up and I gotta tell you to anybody it's not in a very attractive looking thing and it doesn't look very safe particularly if you're a pedestrian or if you're a female pedestrian oh is it safe for the brook and free press yeah I don't think that's an issue it's just that it's just what you have to do going under that building you have to go down and under and it's it's just it's just it's ugly and it's I just don't think it's very it's a very good idea but I'm not certain about the time we have left but any other thoughts or what I mean I just I mean is it as much of a message I don't I mean I guess I basically came to talk about the city I just don't know I don't know what the real game is I mean I there's no way I can see well it said that they can do it they can effort to get financing they didn't say that they they had to continue with the project and it part of the put in 55 million and it didn't work and I don't see how anybody can order a developer to do something that's not economically feasible which goes back to our Public Records Act request the people that were opposing the TIF project in 2017 wanted all the details of the viability of this project and the one piece of that that they completely redacted and we went we we litigated the case finally the coalition for livable city was the last remaining plaintiff they continued the lawsuit and we went to the Supreme Court the Supreme Court said no you don't get to see that it's exempted under the Public Records Act as a business trade secret and so there was no disclosure of the of the construction costs and that's what the irony is is that they wanted the voters to spend 22 million dollars sight unseen on on this project without knowing what the construction costs were and that was what ended up killing the project cost the construction so there you have it so um some people suggested that it's the bad karma theory of what's happened is that it's there the part the pennants they're paying for having eliminated the italian neighborhood in the 1950s and 60s pennants it's or karma it's just sort of like when they built the airport in denver over the indian burial grounds they started having all these problems you know i say it's a problem for not listening to the community okay listen they just accused us of everything right that's the other irony oh my god we were accused we were accused of holding this thing up because heaven forbid we brought an appeal to the environmental division we settled that case in 90 days we had a comprehensive settlement in 90 days and then when we sought to enforce our agreement we were accused of holding up the development look who's doing it now who's actually holding up the development okay so any concluding thoughts there's a mayor's race in march and many city councils also so i guess we'll see what happens right if we're not in civil war over the trunk alert i know that but i can't do it but the community should organize and figure out what they want done with that space what is their vision that's what we count on you forever get the community okay i will say that the developers have offered the city of rowing to the property they have yes they've offered them the property for the roads and they've they want the whole thing they've offered them the whole thing i didn't say that so so synax says he does know that they've offered it to the city of rowing in other words they said if you were on it pay us buy us pay us for it right i mean they'd have to do that if they condemned it under any minute they'll make this don't have to pay a fair amount of it's also as we say it puts predict it's really nervy for them to say yeah i don't know i mean if the city the city would could buy it and get a different developer in there i mean that's how urban renewal happened they condemned the property the city owned it and then they sold it off to private developers that's how that was the urban renewal model so there's nothing terribly new about that i they just said you don't even have to go through the but does the city have the money to do it of course though right well how many how many you want to go through the litany of unfinished projects in brooken southern connector memorial auditorium moran plant did i go on no because we are out of time but we appreciate it so thank you all for coming and thank you for your questions and let's thanks the st john's club for letting us here in public and for using their land to do this wonderful program with john franco so we might see you in a couple weeks with another program and thank you for best and lou for filming this thanks a lot