An unabashed supporter of eminent domain, Larson drove taxpaying businesses and homeowners off of their property. Incompetence prevailed every step of the way, and the unrealistically rosy development and financial projections fell woefully short. The harsh reality is that the project, as well as the promised more than doubling of the city property tax base, never materialized and any significant development of this bulldozed land isn't expected for at least 15 years, according to the Collier study commissioned by the City Council.
Larson played a leading role in the NWQ disaster, operating as failed real-estate speculator using our tax dollars. As the person primarily responsible for gambling on this fiasco, Larson has clearly shown he is incapable and cannot be trusted to rescue citizens from the costliest blunder in New Brighton's history. He should not be re-elected Mayor.
Here are just some of the blunders that Larson and his associates at City Hall should have foreseen, most, if not all of which were predicted at the time by critics of the project:
- Counting on a $200 million addition to the tax base and 700+ housing units by 2009 from land in close proximity to two noisy freeways with no direct access to them. It was the height of arrogance and incompetence to not even have a contingency plan in the event of the failure of the housing project, which ultimately did happen.
- Committing to build houses on what turned out to be structurally unsuitable soil (described as "muck") that would require considerable extra expense to correct even before the additional environmental cleanup costs are fully known.
- Installing streets, lighting, curbing, sewers, etc. suitable only for the intended residential use with no legal guarantee or financial obligation by the housing developer to go through with the planned development. When the developer walked away the city was stuck with the infrastructure which may have to be demolished at city expense if the land is ever used for anything but the original intent, which has been proven not to be economically viable.
- Buying land at a price far above market value in addition to expensive eminent domain litigation without even the due diligence of invasive testing for pollutants. This resulted in the prospect of at least $20 million in immediate cleanup costs before anything useful can be done with the land as well as possibly an unlimited future cleanup liability.
- Demolishing a perfectly adequate post office that was locked into a long term very favorable lease situation at a cost of $4.5 million under the unwarranted optimism that the land would generate more tax revenue.
Voters have the opportunity to elect Dave Jacobsen and his nearly 40 years of business and managerial experience as the next Mayor of New Brighton. Hopefully this will be the case as Mayor Larson has proven that he is not up to the job.
"On the Right"
New Brighton Resident
