Election day thoughts

Some "where we are" reflections for election day, assembled from my rag bag of clues and incomplete info. Conclusion first: I don't think the election affects the ARTWORKS redevelopment.

(1) HHG won conditional redevelopment rights over ARTWORKS. They won the right to submit a redevelopment plan to the City Council for approval by July.

(2) The Council is unlikely to look at it until new members are seated. Current feeling is already neutral to negative. As TAWA noted "several Council members have already expressed concern about this project." So I have heard elsewhere as well.

(3) Councilman John Ungrady has said publicly that the deal is dead because of stipulations on the City's title. Whether this line of thinking originated with the mayor's staff or not, whether it can stand a legal test or not, I tend to think that this is "the word" circulating among Council members. It represents a legalistic rationale for tabling redevelopment.

(4) There is no blood in the water to attract bigger, hungrier developers. Ungrady's rationale for tabling the ARTWORKS deal applies to all comers (except possibly another arts organization).

(5) The question is now is how HHG wraps up this adventure: true to themselves, as gentlemen, publicly declining to proceed further in this matter; or as another desperate small business, hoping to score a sale up to the very last "no."

The Hatch and Henderson I knew were gentlemen.