Brian Mahern Comments On Disaster Bonds for No-So/City Way

Today's paper had a letter to the editor from none other than Council Vice President, Brian Mahern.  In it he takes the Ballard administration to task for using disaster relief bonds for the North of South (aka City Way) project instead of for, well, disaster relief.  Here is part of what he had to say:

The City Way complex consists of a luxury hotel, high-end apartments and swanky retail shops. Its developers benefitted from two forms of disaster aid, which were created in response to extensive Midwest storm damage in 2008, despite no logical reason to do so. 

Both $70 million in low-cost disaster relief bonds and a $6 million disaster relief grant were used to fund the private City Way development at a site untouched by storm damage. Meanwhile, affordable apartments like Falcon Pointe on the Far Eastside are still being slowly repaired from tornado damage four years later without so much as a penny of disaster aid. 

Mayor Greg Ballard’s effort to funnel precious public disaster aid to a fancy Downtown development while ignoring the legitimate recovery needs in outlying neighborhoods is inexplicable and unconscionable. One can only hope that the next round of aid for the more recent tornado victims in Southern Indiana is used solely for their benefit.