Yesterday, Wednesday, the Courthouse Area Design Review Committee met for their regular session and discussed the CentrePointe application for re-approval. The local new covered it well and so did several bloggers/tweeters. Tom Eblen also wrote about it on his well read blog and I commented, mostly in response to another comment.
I do not understand why some people have to continually call for eminent domain to be used on this property when it is clearly a misuse of the law to take from a private citizen and give to another or believe that the block is the city's to take back from one to whom it was never given.
Nor do I understand why the newspaper and Eblen in particular have been so against this project, even from before it was announced.
What I do know is that this is not just followed in Lexington, but from around the world, thanks to the World Wide Web. Someone in Germany is following the reporting via the blogs and as I read, Mr Webb is in Europe dealing with the investors family. Mr Webb has said that he dosen't put much stock in what bloggers have to say about his business, but I imagine that he does keep up with what they say.
Shortly after I made my comment and approximately 1:30 in the morning, my blog received a visitor from what Site Meter identified as an unknown site. I get a few of these a month and think nothing of it, until today. My other site stats counter Go Stats gave me the location as being in Germany and, given the time difference, it would be just about breakfast time there.
So tell me, who would be searching for information about CentrePointe from Germany? A European country with a good number of wealthy investors, some complicated inheritance laws and an ethical sense of family history and respect for an elders wishes. Was this a visit by someone in the Webb party or just a side shot from Eblen's post?
I may never know, but I don't believe in coincidence.
I do not understand why some people have to continually call for eminent domain to be used on this property when it is clearly a misuse of the law to take from a private citizen and give to another or believe that the block is the city's to take back from one to whom it was never given.
Nor do I understand why the newspaper and Eblen in particular have been so against this project, even from before it was announced.
What I do know is that this is not just followed in Lexington, but from around the world, thanks to the World Wide Web. Someone in Germany is following the reporting via the blogs and as I read, Mr Webb is in Europe dealing with the investors family. Mr Webb has said that he dosen't put much stock in what bloggers have to say about his business, but I imagine that he does keep up with what they say.
Shortly after I made my comment and approximately 1:30 in the morning, my blog received a visitor from what Site Meter identified as an unknown site. I get a few of these a month and think nothing of it, until today. My other site stats counter Go Stats gave me the location as being in Germany and, given the time difference, it would be just about breakfast time there.
So tell me, who would be searching for information about CentrePointe from Germany? A European country with a good number of wealthy investors, some complicated inheritance laws and an ethical sense of family history and respect for an elders wishes. Was this a visit by someone in the Webb party or just a side shot from Eblen's post?
I may never know, but I don't believe in coincidence.
2 comments:
Wow, I'm almost speechless. If you don't understand why Eblen and so many other Lexingtonians are upset about CP, you either haven't been paying enough attention, or you have little regard for a community's right to expect honesty and transparency from private developers. I agree with you 100% that eminent domain takes things to the opposite extreme (i.e., way too much govt control vs what CP and the Webbs represents, which is way too much private control).
However, the way the Webbs and the city have handled this matter should make any Lexingtonian ashamed about our utter lack of common sense processes to handle such matters. I refer you to the following analysis of the entire CP debacle to get a sense of just how shameful it is - http://lowells.typepad.com/lowells/2009/06/tangled-webb.html
"Nor do I understand why the newspaper and Eblen in particular have been so against this project, even from before it was announced."
I don't know about Eblem, but I wasn't against Centre Pointe "before it was announced". In fact, I hadn't heard about it, maybe because it hadn't been announced.
When it was announced, it was obvious that their proposal didn't make any sense. From the size of it, to the prices they were asking. The subsequent events, from the mysterious backer dying without a will, to the absurd claims of all these million dollar plus condos being "spoken for" as if that meant anything, Then there are the endless claims that construction will start very soon and on and on. You really can't believe anything these people say.
On top of that there is the building itself. The initial designs which included a tax-payer funded jumbo-tron, pedways, and a parking lot that took space away from a public park were atrocious and made a complete mockery of the Downtown Development Authorities master plan for downtown. They rolled out those plans with zero public input, then tried to ram it down everyone's throat by using the Equestrian Games to try and make the whole thing a fait accompli.
What's with the paranoid nature of this post by the way? Are you suggesting that those of us that don't like Centre Pointe should all shut up so that we don't jinx a new deal with some new mysterious German backer? That seems to be what you are implying.
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