Council votes to waste time explaining its DDD policy to those it won’t affect

The City Council voted last night to direct staff to schedule an open house to explain its Developer Development District (DDD) policy to what could be an empty room since those who will be affected by the policy do not even live here yet.

Now the city calls it a PID policy, but that’s not what it is. The "I" in PID stands for "improvement" and as council member David Wilson made abundantly clear last night this policy has absolutely nothing to do with improvement and everything to do with development. He also reinforced my opinion that city residents really believe the only function of this city government in general and specifically this policy is to screw the average citizen. Read for yourself what Wilson had to say:

"You have people saying ‘Oh my goodness you are going to put a PID on my neighborhood.’ (There’s that screw-the-citizen sentiment). "Every time that’s come up I felt the need to communicate clearly that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about new development in the future."

See, I’m not saying it. A member of the city council is saying this has absolutely nothing to do with "improvement" and everything to do with new development. It's not about screwing the citizens who are already here, but screwing the citizens moving here and buying homes in the future. And since it’s all about new development, there is no "public" that’s going to be involved in the decision making process so, to be accurate, you have to remove the word "public" from the description of the policy. This is strictly going to be a deal between the city and developers — with all the details of the deal to be worked out between the city and the developers, not the public — to force future occupants of the development to pay additional fees on top of their mortgage payments, property taxes and possible homeowners dues for infrastructure residents who moved here earlier never had to pay. That’s why the proper name for this policy is Developer Development District and not a Public Improvement District, in which the public of a particular district initiates on its own a plan to improve the district where they already live, work and/or play.

And since there is no "public" to be affected, who does the city expect will want to attend this open house? Now I’m sure Ms. Bellows meant well, but no one is thinking all this through to its logical conclusions.

But there is one other thing council member Wilson said that I hope someone reminds him of very soon. He said "I don’t want this to be an issue that people are afraid they are not going to be able to live in a community because they have a flat income stream and maybe are afraid that this is going to be added on top of them. I just want to assure people that is not the case."

I absolutely agree with him on that and now is the time to see if councilman Wilson is truly a man who not only believes what he says but has the courage to back up what he says with actions. If he does want to display that type of leadership he will have absolutely no qualms about introducing an amendment to the city’s proposed policy that would exempt all homeowners over the age of 65 from any and all assessments that may come from this policy.

I sincerely hope councilman Wilson stands behind his words and introduces that amendment. In a mess of wrong things being done, it is the one right thing to do.

Incidentally, he won't have the opportunity to introduce this amendment until July 7 because the council pushed back the first reading of its DDD policy, originally scheduled for next Tuesday, until its first meeting in July to give the staff the opportunity to stage its open (probably empty) house on the subject.