"Mayor Yvonne Johnson, along with Guilford County Commission chair Skip Alston, Community Foundation president Walker Sanders, and a representative from the school board, will fly to Washington this week to lobby elected officials for federal money for an education-based redevelopment project at the corner of South Elm and Lee.
The request for $15 million will be made to Senators Burr and Hagan, and to Reps. Coble and Watt.
The group will be flown to DC at no tax-payer expense by developer Roy Carroll, says Johnson."
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The city council will soon be considering whether to adopt downtown design guidelines. Mr. Carroll opposes them strenuously. As a developer, Mr. Carroll is likely to ask the council to hear his future rezoning requests.
Resourceful fellow, Mr. Carroll.
Posted by: DW
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And flying a bunch of elected officials to DC, even for a good cause, has to raise questions about relationships. Which is why it's good that we know about it.
Posted by: Ed Cone
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Questioning the downtown guidelines is great -- something like that shouldn't ever be undertaken without a robust discussion.
But Mr. Carroll isn't discussing them. He has refused to discuss them with the group that put them together (which included other downtown developers).
Now he is ingratiating himself with the public officials who make decisions about the guidelines and his business by paying their way on public business. I think that's highly inappropriate.
If the DC trip is worth doing, it should be done on the city's and county's dime. If it isn't, don't go.
Posted by: DW
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Please let us not hear of Roy Carroll benefiting from this deal by something like getting his hands on the current GCS property or by exercising some option on property neighboring the Elm/Lee project...
Posted by: Wesley Mouch
http://edcone.typepad.com/wordup/2009/06/mayor-johnson-goes-to-washington.html
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Elsewhere at Cone's;
I also wonder when Roy "Tax Break" Carroll became so opposed to outside intervention in development affairs.
Ed
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My question is why Roy Carroll is only now voicing his concerns about the plans. Al Leonard, the vice president of his company The Carroll Companies, sat on the steering committee for the plans.
You would think that Mr. Carroll would've known long before now about plans that he might disagree with. Or perhaps he purposely waited until the last minute so he could put the kibash on the whole thing and just do away with the downtown manual all together.
Posted by: Andrew
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As of this afternoon, Mr. Carroll has not agreed to sit down and discuss modifications, though he's repeatedly been asked to do that.
Andrew, you're right -- Mr. Leonard was closely involved throughout the drafting process, and as far as I know, he kept Mr. Carroll and other downtown property owners up to date on what was being proposed.
Posted by: David Wharton
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I also think it's worth noting that with many downtown projects, taxpayer funds are used. Mr. Carroll received at least $2 million in city and county incentives to revamp the Wachovia project. Lindbrook Development got $100,000 worth of city property for its planned project on South Elm. And those are the only ones I can recall.
So for Mary Skenes, who's Mike Barber's campaign manager by the way, to insinuate that only those who are in the real estate industry or own property downtown should be developing the design manual is disingenuous. If taxpayers are going to incentivize downtown development, which I don't necessarily disagree with, regular citizens should have a say in what their downtown is to become.
Even if this gets approved by the zoning commission, Mr. Carroll will have another opportunity to torpedo the manual through the city council. His political action committee, North Carolinians for Leadership in Government, gave $1000 each to Council members Groat, Matheny, Perkins, Wade, Bellamy-Small, Wells, and Mayor Johnson in 2007
To say development interests rule this city is an understatement.
Posted by: Andrew
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Part of the problem is that a large percentage of existing downtown buildings are owned by a relatively small amount of owners, Milton Kern and the like.
...downtown property owners don't necessarily have the greater community's interest at heart.
...If there is to be any headway made in the next week and a half on the design manual on Carroll's part, it won't involve his attorney, Henry Isaacson.
He's out of the country until "week after next," according to the email he just sent me.
Posted by: Andrew
http://edcone.typepad.com/wordup/2009/06/downtown-guidelines.html
