Fishy Tower Deal

Just when you thought matters could not get any worse, this new deal with Katz and the new office tower adds some major stink factors.

When the last council lead by Mayor Mandel was (cough) negotiating the arena deal, one of the items Mr. Katzlington had on the bargaining table was "and you will move all the city employees into my new office building" (paraphrased).

Naturally, the public went into an uproar and council members quickly "came to the rescue" (coughs) and publically told Katz to take a hike. "Sure showed him" was the concept presented as many on city council proudly thumped their chests.

And now guess who "won" the (coughs) public competition to build a new tower for most of the city employees. Yup, out of about 14 bidders, Katz was chosen.

The City jumps up and down swearing the process was fair, and some independent folks were watching over to make sure of it. And with that, I'd suggest this was all just a marketing ploy. And you have fallen for it.

One can easily speculate that design and "wants and needs" were conveyed to Katz during many of the secret and/or private meetings or phone calls that Mandel had with him. Perhaps the ploy all along was to have this catered to, and the demand as part of the arena deal was to just create a puff of smoke.

I recall various newspaper articles that appeared immediately after the fact the City had in camera (private) meetings about this. Other developers seemed to indicate they never really had a chance anyway.

So if the City is saying that Katz came up with "nine out of 10 points" (for value, I guess) while the next closest was a six out of ten....

There was certainly ample time to carefully craft this "slight of hand", as many call it.

If it smells like a fish...

I'm betting it would have cost taxpayers less, to have the City build our own building...

(Note: References to Katz imply assorted associations with Katz, the Katz Group, WAM, and potential others.)